Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful

Successful leaders are consistent in their focus and behaviours, and that’s what gives their people the confidence to follow them. However, too consistent can also be too predictable, so leaders often create surprises that add emotional power at key moments when their people could really benefit from them.

Go to original Source

Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful

The ability to create the right solution in business is directly related to understanding the problem you are solving. With many business issues, there are a series of related problems, and only by picking the right one, do you create a solution that makes the biggest difference for your customer.

Go to original Source

The Obvious?

I just tweeted about the odd feeling of cramming ideas into my head as fast as I can when eventually my head will no longer exist. This wasn’t necessarily as gloomy a thought as some may have assumed.

I have often thought that writing a blog post is like lobbing a pebble into a pond. You are not sure where the ripples will end up but you aspire to getting better at lobbing them and making bigger ripples.

A while back I was chatting with a friend about recent discoveries in neuroscience and got on to the way significant or repeated thoughts have a physical and persistent effect on our synapses. We reckoned that one way to achieve physical immortality would be to make sufficiently significant and replicable dents in enough people’s heads – literally!

As we parted he said that my pebbles were rippling in his pond. I reckon this is as much as we can hope for …

View Rainmakers Bio »
Go to Source »

Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful

A great life is not defined by what we get in life, but by how much a difference we make to the lives of others. Success is not about ourselves, it is about something larger than ourselves, and that something larger drives us to use our potential in ways that makes the biggest difference to others.

Go to original Source

The Obvious?

Rob Paterson blogged recently about feeling scared and lost. I made an off the cuff comment about the time when you are not scared and lost being the time you really have to worry.

Today in a Twitter DM Thomas Power said “Values and beliefs are tested everyday online”.

I never underestimate what I am asking people to do when I advocate saying what they think on a blog. Especially in the world of business this takes real courage. Not everyone will agree with you, some may think you are mad, and sometimes you will regret saying what you did. Sometime the response you get will shake your confidence and make you challenge your assumptions.

Someone remarked to me the other day how brave they thought I was saying what I do in public. I don’t feel brave, I feel scared a lot of the time, I feel scared posting this blog post. Publishing my book may be the scariest thing I have ever done.

But if your not scared  maybe you are  not pushing yourself hard enough …?

View Rainmakers Bio »
Go to Source »

Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful

The higher we climb in our career, the more we have people who are acting on our behalf (both within our profession and in our private lives). The right people to act on our behalf are those who share the sames values and principles as we do. Shared values & principles are the foundation for many things in life.

Go to original Source

The Obvious?

“he who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions.”  - Emerson

This quote is taken from an excellent article on leadership and solitude by William Deresiewicz. The article was particularly  interesting to me as it referenced my favourite book Heart Of Darkness extensively. I agreed with much in the article but the reason I wanted to write about it here is the way Deresiewicz criticises social tools as being mere distractions from real relationships.

I agree that we need to hear Emerson’s warning about drowning in other people’s opinions but I get really frustrated by an increasingly common victim mentality to tools. In fact I just gave up on reading Is This All There Is by Julia Neuberger because of her knee jerk “young folks nowadays” attitude to the web and modern culture. It is almost fashionable to make yourself appear more serious and worthy of attention by claiming to be above the noise on the web.

These folks need to get over themselves. Twitter and Facebook are just tools. If we allow them to be shallow distractions they can be. If we want them to enrich our lives and help us understand the human condition better they can do that too – it is up to us!

View Rainmakers Bio »
Go to Source »

Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful

Successful leaders get their people to carry an expectation. These leaders have defined both what results and behaviours they expect so clearly that these expectations stay in their people’s minds every day (they carry them with them in whatever they do).

Go to original Source

Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful

Having a strong direction in life is about keeping the future in our minds while taking action now. Some people go through life both thinking and living in the present. The successful focus on thinking about the future (the direction) and delivering today (preparing the future).

Go to original Source

Mark’s Daily Thought – Ideas from Mark Fritz to help you Get Ahead, Stay Ahead and Be Successful

Success comes faster when we surround ourselves with the right people and make the tough choices to focus our energy on just a few key goals. The right people around us is key, as success is a team sport. Do you have the right people around you?

Go to original Source