The 50 New Rules of Work

The global economy is in a state of acute disruption. Competition has never been more fierce. Consumers have never been so well-informed and loudly demanding. And what worked yesterday just might be obsolete today.

But this time is also a great time, for the astonishing few who are ready to show leadership. Leaders are at their absolute best during messy cycles versus during the easy ones. And messy cycles bring with them gorgeous opportunities.

Here are 50 powerful rules to amp up your game so this business cycle is one of your best business cycles yet.

The 50 New Rules of Work

1. You are not just paid to work. You are paid to be uncomfortable – and to pursue projects that scare you.
2. Take care of your relationships and the money will take care of itself.
3. Lead you first. You can’t help others reach for their highest potential until you’re in the process of reaching for yours.
4. To double your income, triple your rate of learning.
5. While victims condemn change, leaders grow inspired by change.
6. Small daily improvements over time create stunning results.
7. Surround yourself with people courageous enough to speak truthfully about what’s best for your organization and the customers you serve.
8. Don’t fall in love with your press releases.
9. Every moment in front of a customer is a moment of truth (to either show you live by the values you profess – or you don’t).
10. Copying what your competition is doing just leads to being second best.
11. Become obsessed with the user experience such that every touchpoint of doing business with you leaves people speechless. No, breathless.
12. If you’re in business, you’re in show business. The moment you get to work, you’re on stage. Give us the performance of your life.
13. Be a Master of Your Craft. And practice + practice + practice.
14. Get fit like Madonna.
15. Read magazines you don’t usually read. Talk to people who you don’t usually speak to. Go to places you don’t commonly visit. Disrupt your thinking so it stays fresh + hungry + brilliant.
16. Remember that what makes a great business – in part – are the seemingly insignificant details. Obsess over them.
17. Good enough just isn’t good enough.
18. Brilliant things happen when you go the extra mile for every single customer.
19. An addiction to distraction is the death of creative production. Enough said.
20. If you’re not failing regularly, you’re definitely not making much progress.
21. Lift your teammates up versus tear your teammates down. Anyone can be a critic. What takes guts is to see the best in people.
22. Remember that a critic is a dreamer gone scared.
23. Leadership’s no longer about position. Now, it’s about passion. And having an impact through the genius-level work that you do.
24. The bigger the dream, the more important the team.
25. If you’re not thinking for yourself, you’re following – not leading.
26. Work hard. But build an exceptional family life. What’s the point of reaching the mountaintop but getting there alone.
27. The job of the leader is to develop more leaders.
28. The antidote to deep change is daily learning. Investing in your professional and personal development is the smartest investment you can make. Period.
29. Smile. It makes a difference.
30. Say “please” and “thank you”. It makes a difference.
31. Shift from doing mindless toil to doing valuable work.
32. Remember that a job is only just a job if all you see it as is a job.
33. Don’t do your best work for the applause it generates but for the personal pride it delivers.
34. The only standard worth reaching for is BIW (Best in World).
35. In the new world of business, everyone works in Human Resources.
36. In the new world of business, everyone’s part of the leadership team.
37. Words can inspire. And words can destroy. Choose yours well.
38. You become your excuses.
39. You’ll get your game-changing ideas away from the office versus in the middle of work. Make time for solitude. Creativity needs the space to present itself.
40. The people who gossip about others when they are not around are the people who will gossip about you when you’re not around.
41. It could take you 30 years to build a great reputation and 30 seconds of bad judgment to lose it.
42. The client is always watching.
43. The way you do one thing defines the way you’ll do everything. Every act matters.
44. To be radically optimistic isn’t soft. It’s hard. Crankiness is easy.
45. People want to be inspired to pursue a vision. It’s your job to give it to them.
46. Every visionary was initially called crazy.
47. The purpose of work is to help people. The other rewards are inevitable by-products of this singular focus.
48. Remember that the things that get scheduled are the things that get done.
49. Keep promises and be impeccable with your word. People buy more than just your products and services. They invest in your credibility.
50. Lead Without a Title.

I encourage you to share + discuss + debate these with your team and throughout your organization. Within a quick period of time, you’ll see some fantastic results.

By Robin Sharma

You Are Worthy

Have you ever tried to pay someone a compliment and seen them embarrassed, confused, or even somewhat irked at your offering of kindness, love, and admiration? Or maybe, you have been on the receiving end and found yourself uncomfortable and unable to respond with gratitude and grace. This everyday example of the difficulties that can arise when we are offered a gift reveals one of the important principles of learning how to receive the abundance that the Universe holds for us. In order to manifest, to take part in the process of co-creating your life and attracting to yourself the objects of your heart’s desires, you must know that you are worthy of receiving. Manifesting involves using the power of your inner world to craft a fuller relationship with life. You can remind yourself all day long that the same power that brought anything into the physical world also brought you, but if you do not feel worthy, you will disrupt the natural flow of energy into your life and create a blockage that makes manifestation impossible. Remember that you are worthy of abundance. Feeling worthy of any blessings or desires is a feature of your inner life. Here are the major perceptions of those who know they are worthy and deserving of all of God’s blessings:

• My self-esteem comes from myself. (As a child of God, my worthiness is a given.)
• I accept myself without complaint and without conditions.
• I take full responsibility for my life and what it is and is not. (I blame no one.)
• I do not choose to accept guilt into my life. (I live in the present moment.)
• I understand the importance of having harmony between my thoughts, my feelings, and my behavior. (This harmony translates into peace and contentment.)

There is nothing your highest self wants more than peace. This peace makes you feel worthy of all of the richest blessings of the Universe, and when you radiate this out into the world, it is returned to you without fail.

Do not question the search

Sri Ramakrisna tells the story of a man who was about the cross a river, when master Bibhishana came over, wrote a name on a leaf, tied it to the man’s back, and said:

- Don’t be afraid. Your faith will help you walk on the waters. But the minute you lose faith, you will drown.

The man trusted Bibhishana, and began to walk on the waters, without any difficulty. At a certain point, he had an overwhelming desire to know what his master had written on the leaf tied to his back.

He took it and read what was written:

“Oh god Rama, help this man to cross the river.”

“Is that all?” thought the man. “And who is this god Rama, anyway?”

The moment this doubt became lodged in his mind, he was submerged and drowned in the strong current.

http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2011/03/26/do-not-question-the-search/

The secret of hapiness

A merchant sent his son to learn the Secret of Happiness from the wisest of men. The young man wandered through the desert for forty days until he reached a beautiful castle at the top of a mountain. There lived the sage that the young man was looking for.

However, instead of finding a holy man, our hero entered a room and saw a great deal of activity; merchants coming and going, people chatting in the corners, a small orchestra playing sweet melodies, and there was a table laden with the most delectable dishes of that part of the world.

The wise man talked to everybody, and the young man had to wait for two hours until it was time for his audience.

With considerable patience, the Sage listened attentively to the reason for the boy’s visit, but told him that at that moment he did not have the time to explain to him the Secret of Happiness.

He suggested that the young man take a stroll around his palace and come back in two hours’ time.

“However, I want to ask you a favor,” he added, handling the boy a teaspoon, in which he poured two drops of oil. “While you walk, carry this spoon and don’t let the oil spill.”

The young man began to climb up and down the palace staircases, always keeping his eyes fixed on the spoon. At the end of two hours he returned to the presence of the wise man.

“So,” asked the sage, “did you see the Persian tapestries hanging in my dining room? Did you see the garden that the Master of Gardeners took ten years to create? Did you notice the beautiful parchments in my library?”

Embarrassed, the young man confessed that he had seen nothing. His only concern was not to spill the drops of oil that the wise man had entrusted to him.

“So, go back and see the wonders of my world,” said the wise man. “You can’t trust a man if you don’t know his house.”

Now more at ease, the young man took the spoon and strolled again through the palace, this time paying attention to all the works of art that hung from the ceiling and walls. He saw the gardens, the mountains all around the palace, the delicacy of the flowers, the taste with which each work of art was placed in its niche. Returning to the sage, he reported in detail all that he had seen.

“But where are the two drops of oil that I entrusted to you?” asked the sage.

Looking down at the spoon, the young man realized that he had spilled the oil.

“Well, that is the only advice I have to give you,” said the sage of sages. “The Secret of Happiness lies in looking at all the wonders of the world and never forgetting the two drops of oil in the spoon.”

from the book “The Alchemist”

Self Image and Self Reflection in Selling

By Brian Tracy

Why Your Self-Image is a Key Part of Your Personality

Your self-image is the way you see yourself and think about yourself. It is often called your “inner mirror.” You look into this mirror in every situation to see how you should perform on the outside. You always behave on the outside in a manner consistent with the picture you have of yourself on the inside.

How Do You See YourselfFor example, if you see yourself, as calm, confident and competent in any aspect of selling, when you are engaged in that activity, you will feel calm, confident and competent. You will be positive and happy. You will perform well and get excellent results. If, for any reason, it doesn’t go well at that time, you will throw it off and dismiss it as a temporary situation. Your self-image is clear. In your mind’s eye you see yourself as good and capable in that area, and nothing can interfere with your mental picture.

Change Your Self-ImageThe most rapid improvements in sales results come from changing your self-image. The moment that you see yourself differently, you behave differently as well. And because you are behaving differently, you get different results.

My Own StorySome years ago, when I was selling club memberships from office to office, I would end my presentation by giving the prospect a booklet outlining the membership benefits and encourage him to “think about it.” My self-image was such that I could not bring myself to ask the prospect to make a buying decision. All day long, I would go from office to office giving my presentation and leaving a little book with descriptions to read. And as you might imagine, I was not making any sales. When I called people back after they had time to think about it, they would invariably say that they were not interested.

The Turning Point
I was getting desperate. I was living from hand to mouth at the time. Although I was seeing lots of prospects, I was making very few sales. Then I had a revelation which changed my career at the time. I realized that it was my fear of asking for the order that was causing all my problems. It was not my prospects. It was me. I needed to change my self-image and thereby change my behavior if I wanted results to improve.

Make A DecisionThe very next morning, I made the decision that I would not call back on a prospect. The size of the purchase was small and, when I had completed my presentation, the prospect would know everything that he needed to know to make a decision. There was no benefit or advantage of leaving material behind or giving the prospect several days to think about it. At my very first call, and I still remember it, when I had finished my presentation, the prospect said, “Let me think it over.” I smiled and told him that I did not make call backs because I was too busy, and then I said, “You know everything you need to know to make a decision right now. Why don’t you just take it?” I remember him shrugging his shoulders and saying, “OK. I’ll take it. How would you like to be paid?”

Double Your Earnings
I walked out of that office on a cloud. That very day I tripled my sales. That week, I sold more than anyone else in the company. By the end of the month, they had made me the sales manager with 42 people under me. I went from making one or two sales per week to making ten or fifteen sales per week. I went from worrying about money to a large salary with an override on the activities of all my salespeople. My sales life took off and, with few exceptions, it never stopped. And the turning point was that conscious choice to modify my self-image and make it more consistent with the results I wanted rather than the results that I was getting.

Action Exercises
Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, begin to see yourself the way you want to be. See yourself as strong, confident, competent and professional in every way. The person you see is the person you will be.

Second, identify an area of selling where your own ideas about yourself and the situation are holding you back. You always perform on the outside the way you see yourself on the inside

The mouse and the books

When I was interned in Dr. Eiras Hospital, I began to have panic crises.
One day, I decided to consult the psychiatrist in charge of my case:

“Doctor, I am overcome by fear; it takes from me the joy of living”.

“Here in my office there is a mouse that eats my books”, said the doctor.
“If I get desperate about this mouse, he will hide from me and I will do nothing else in life but hunt him.
“Therefore, I put the most important books in a safe place and let him gnaw some others.

“In this way, he is still a mouse and does not become a monster.

“Be afraid of some things and concentrate all your fear on them – so that you have courage in the rest.”

http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2011/03/22/the-mouse-and-the-books/

12 ways to have a great relationship with your mentor

Your ability to choose your mentors, in written form, on audio and video, and live at seminars, or even better, in person, can be the most important thing you do with your life.  Here’s some advice on how to build better and more successful mentor-mentee relationships.

Number One
Set clear goals for yourself in every area of your life.  You must know exactly what it is you want to accomplish before you start thinking of the type of people who can help you to accomplish it.

Number Two 
Determine the things you have to do to achieve your goals, the obstacles you will have to overcome, and roadblocks you will have to go through.

Number Three 
Identify the areas of knowledge, skill and expertise you will have to acquire in order to overcome the obstacles between yourself and your goals.  You can’t seek out mentors unless you know what sort of mentor relationship you require.

Number Four 
Look around you and select the most successful people in the areas where you will need the most help. 

Number Five 
Join the clubs, organizations and business associations that these kinds of people belong to.  You can find out this information if you ask.

Number Six 
Once you have joined or gotten involved in the type of organizations where the type of people who you want as mentors attend, volunteer for responsibilities and become actively involved in their activities.  This will bring you to the attention of the kind of people that you want to meet faster than anything else.

Number Seven 
Work, study and practice continually to get better and better at what you do.  The very best mentors are only interested in helping you if they feel that it is going to be of value.  There is nothing that will attract people to you faster than by your developing a reputation for being an up and coming person in your field.

Number Eight 
When you find a potential mentor, don’t tackle the person or make a nuisance of yourself.  Instead, ask for ten minutes of his or her time, in person, in private, to ask for his or her advice.  Invite the person for a cup of coffee.  Nothing more.  Remember, that most mentors are also people who are the very busiest in their own lives and they are very sensitive to someone trying to take up a lot of their time.  It’s not personal.

Number Nine 
When you do meet with a person, tell him or her clearly that you are very eager to be more successful in your field, and you would very much appreciate a little guidance and advice from him that would help you to move ahead.  Ask for a specific answer to a question, or a specific book or audio tape recommendation, or a specific idea that he or she feels has been helpful to him or her in the past.

Number Ten 
After the initial meeting, send a thank you note to the person and express your gratitude and appreciation for taking their time to give you the guidance.  Mention that you hope that you can call them again if you have another question.

Number Eleven 
Each month, drop your mentor a short note telling him or her about your progress and about what you are doing.  If he or she has recommended a book or an audio tape program, be sure that you get it and read it or listen to it.  If he or she has recommended that you take a particular course, be sure that you sign up for the course and begin taking it.  Report this back to him or her.  There is nothing that makes a potential mentor more open to helping you than your making it clear that the help is doing some good.

Number Twelve 
Arrange to meet with your mentor again, perhaps on a monthly basis, or even more often if you work closely together. 

Over the course of your life and career, you will have sequential mentor-mentee relationships.  As you grow and develop, you will, hand over hand, move on to mentors who can give you more, different and better advice for where you are now.

Finally, be willing to be a mentor to others who are younger and less experienced than you.  The more open you are to helping others up the ladder of success, the more open others will be to helping you.  In the finally analysis, the mentors you chose should be people that you respect, admire and want to be like.  The advice that you take should be both guidance with regard to your character and personality and specific ideas on how you can do your job better and faster.  Remember, you can’t figure it all out for yourself.  You have to have the help of others.  You have to find men and women who will guide you and advise you on the road of life, or you will take a long, long time getting anywhere.

The most wonderful thing about the mentor-mentee relationship, and all its possibilities, is that successful people are very open to helping other people who want to be successful.  The key word is “Ask!”  Don’t be afraid to ask people for their input and advice.  Ask them for their guidance and ideas.  Ask them for their opinions.  If you can’t ask them personally, read their books and articles, listen to their audio tapes and attend their seminars.  The very fastest way for you to succeed is by piggy-backing on the good advice and counsel of men and women who have spent years learning how to succeed ahead of you.  When you do this on a regular and systematic basis, you will open up doors of opportunity and possibilities for you that today you cannot even imagine. Your future will become unlimited.

Lead You First

Greatness Is An Inner Event

“To be a Great Leader, First Become a Great Person. Lead yourself, Blake. Only then will you be able to lead others and influence those around you by the powerful example that you set.

Begin within, in a society that celebrates externals. Remember that greatness is an inner event with outer consequences. Once you awaken your inner leader, worldly success is the guaranteed result.

Teaching

During one of Bankei’s classes, a pupil was caught stealing.
All the disciples demanded he be expelled, but Bankei did nothing.
The following week, the pupil stole again. The others, irritated, demanded that the thief be punished.

“How wise you all are,” said Bankei. “You know what is right and wrong, and you can study anywhere you like. But this poor brother – who does not know what is right or wrong – has only me to teach him. And I shall go on doing that.”

A flood of tears purified the thief’s face; the desire to steal had disappeared.

http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2010/09/29/10-sec-read-teaching-eng-port-espa/

True skill

The yogi Raman was a true master of the art of archery. One morning, he invited his favourite disciple to watch a display of his skill. The disciple had seen this more than a hundred times before, but he nevertheless obeyed his teacher. They went into the wood beside the monastery and when they reached a magnificent oak tree, Raman took a flower which he had tucked in his collar and placed it on one of the branches.

He then opened his bag and took out three objects: his splendid bow made of precious wood, an arrow and a white handkerchief embroidered with lilacs.

The yogi positioned himself one hundred paces from the spot where he had placed the flower. Facing his target, he asked his disciple to blindfold him with the embroidered handkerchief.

The disciple did as his teacher requested.

‘How often have you seen me practise the noble and ancient sport of archery?’ Raman asked him.

‘Every day,’ replied his disciple. ‘And you have always managed to hit the rose from three hundred paces away.’

With his eyes covered by the handkerchief, the yogi Raman placed his feet firmly on the ground, drew back the bowstring with all his might – aiming at the rose placed on one of the branches of the oak tree – and then released the arrow.

The arrow whistled through the air, but it did not even hit the tree, missing the target by an embarrassingly wide margin.

‘Did I hit it?’ said Raman, removing the handkerchief from his eyes.

‘No, you missed completely,’ replied the disciple. ‘I thought you were going to demonstrate to me the power of thought and your ability to perform magic.’

‘I have just taught you the most important lesson about the power of thought,’ replied Raman. ‘When you want something, concentrate only on that: no one will ever hit a target they cannot see.’

http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2010/03/24/true-skill-2/