matt-neilsen

[matt-neilsen]

A Mile Wide or a Mile Deep?

One of my mentors recently related how his early success in school set him up for failure later in life. An over-achiever myself, I must confess that I didn’t understand what he meant at first. How could being good at something be a bad thing? However, after he explained the concept I was floored at how accurately it described my own life. I’ll share my own story to illustrate the point:

I was always very successful in school. The field of academics is naturally suited to my personality, and I always found school to be nearly effortless. I would study for a test the night before (okay you got me, it was the morning of) and get an A. I would do a project at the last minute, and I would get an A. I would do a research paper the night before, and I would get an A. I was one of those kids who graduated from high school with a GPA above 4.0 (my fellow over-achievers will get that). The world of ideas and philosophy always came naturally to me, and I was rewarded for my behavior with A’s. While so many kids around me struggled through classes, I breezed through them. The fact is, I rarely had to apply myself. I was rewarded for my mediocre effort with good grades, which affirmed my behavior to do the minimum required.

Some of you reading this may be thinking, “Gee, what a tough life, cry me a river.” However, let me ask you a question: is it worth it to have an easy couple of years early in life, but be set up for failure when you hit the real world? Said another way, is it better to struggle early on and reap the rewards for life, or to coast early on and then spend the rest of your life never really getting it?

Ironically, my early success in school reaffirmed habits and patterns of thought that were detrimental to experiencing success when I left the classroom. Here are some examples:

I never learned how to fail

As a perfectionist, I always had to have all of the answers. Unfortunately, my natural ability to remember information and correlate ideas affirmed that tendency, and so my goal in school was always to be the guy who had the answer. I always wanted to maintain the façade that I understood everything and that I “got it”. I didn’t know what it felt like to fail at something over and over. I didn’t learn the process of struggle. I was like a tree that was planted in a pot indoors. I looked great, but I never developed the deep roots that come from facing the storms of life. Contrast that to a lone tree that has survived on a rocky crag and is fully exposed to the elements. You can picture it, right? The tree is gnarled and scarred and battle-worn, but its enormous root system has transformed it into an immoveable object. It weathers every storm because of the strength that it developed over years of struggle and persistence.

Failure is simply feedback. It tells you where you are weak or where you are mistaken in your thinking, and then it gives you an opportunity to learn and grow. Working through failure teaches you to persist, and that process of struggle is what instills lasting character. I do not say this to glorify failure, for there are many people in life who are broken by failure and never recover. But when failure is viewed as an opportunity to learn, then it can become a powerful tool in your life. My aversion to looking “bad” in front of others (aka not having all the answers) taught me to avoid doing things that might cause me to fail. After all, I didn’t want to mar my image! Isn’t it sad how our insecurities cultivate negative habits? I avoided failure, yes, but I missed out on a treasure of infinitely greater worth: character forged through adversity.

     2. I never learned humility

Part of the failure process is that it also teaches humility. When you get a result that you weren’t expecting – also known as failure – you must come to grips with the fact that you don’t know everything. However, you never learn that lesson if things always come easily to you. I always felt superior to my classmates because I barely had to apply myself to get good grades – and after all, good grades mean you are a smart person, right? (I hope you feel the sarcasm in that) I felt like I “had it all together” simply because I could get A’s on my report cards without trying hard.

What arrogance! I am blessed with a personality that does very well with intellectual and academic challenges, but it’s ridiculous to take that and use it as a form of superiority over others. It would be like a wide receiver making fun of the quarterback because he can’t run as fast, or a linebacker making fun of a wide receiver because he can’t block as well. It’s absurd! We are each given a unique set of talents and abilities, and I believe one of our responsibilities in life is to cultivate our natural skills that we may complement and balance those around us. Instead of lording my strengths over my classmates, I should have come alongside them to help and contribute, and in the process they would have been able to balance my own weaknesses (such as my lack of emotional intelligence!).

     3. I learned to value knowledge instead of wisdom

Reading has always been a passion and a strength of mine. Whenever we had reading contests in school, you would be certain to see my name at the top of the list, whether it was for most books read, most pages read, or most time spent reading. That talent served me well throughout my school career because it allowed me to move very quickly through the information we were given.

Unfortunately, I developed the habit of learning information simply to regurgitate it onto a test. There was no attempt to actually master the material; after all, you didn’t have to actually understand the material to get an A on the test, you only had to remember it for the sixty minutes it took to take the exam! The lesson that was instilled into me in school was this: it’s better to approach learning a mile wide and an inch deep rather than go only an inch wide but a mile deep. This was not the fault of the educators, but my own weakness as a “good” student. After all, I was rewarded for my ability to remember dates, names, numbers, and formulas regardless if I understood them.

In life, however, the amount of information that you know quickly experiences diminishing returns. When I entered the workforce, my employers did not care that I knew there were fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence, but they did care whether I exercised my liberty of industriousness and perseverance. My employers did not care if I could list off how many pages were in the Employee Handbook, but they did care how deeply I mastered my communication skills with my co-workers and my customers. My employers never once asked me what Avogadro’s Constant was or what Planck’s Constant meant, but they were very interested in my ability to come up with solutions that increased customer traffic or increased sales closing ratios.

For so many years I lived under the assumption that simply having knowledge was enough because that’s what made me a “good student”. It was a subtle script that I followed for most of my life because it was rewarded during my years in school. This same attitude crept in even after I began incorporating leadership and personal development material. I assumed that if I read enough books, listened to enough audio programs, attended enough seminars, and subscribed to enough industry articles that I would be successful. Those things are all great, but they are worthless without one extra step...

                                               ...application.

The real world is far more concerned with how you apply the information you have than with how much you know. For example, imagine you were going on a trip and you got to pick your pilot for the flight. Which pilot would you choose: the one who got 100% on his written examinations in school but has no experience in a cockpit, or the pilot who got 50% on his written examinations in school but has 15,000 hours of flight time with no incidences? I believe most of us would pick the pilot with the 15,000 hours of experience, because results speak for themselves. I don’t care if my pilot doesn’t know about everything in the world – I only care that he has mastered his craft.

  All of us have habits that limit us from achieving more. For me, ironically, many of those habits were built through my early success in school as a child and young man. I know that many of my fellow over-achievers will find these same habits in their own lives. However, those habits don’t have to define you. There is no shame in admitting them; on the contrary, there is incredible freedom in admitting where you’ve fallen short. Acknowledge them, work through them, and then use them as stepping stones to propel yourself forward.

What did school teach YOU about life?

[matt-neilsen]

The Power of Thought

“Words have meaning.”

On his first day of college, a friend of mine’s professor opened the class with that statement. “Words have meaning”. The phrase is so simple that its significance was probably lost on most of the class, but my friend still vividly recounts the impact those words had on his life. For my friend, it was a sudden realization of the enormous power that his words contained. He discovered that he could control his destiny simply through the power of his speech.

  I smile every time he relates that story because I still remember the first time I was struck with the same realization. I was listening to an audio program by Earl Nightingale called “The Strangest Secret” when he uttered six little words that changed my life:

“We become what we think about.”

We become what we think about. The truth of those words has been expressed all throughout human history, from Socrates to Emerson, from Jesus of Nazareth to the Dalai Lama. I had probably heard the concept a thousand times before I listened to Earl Nightingale’s program, but it was at that moment that I truly began to understand the power of our thoughts.

  What I find most remarkable about our ability to think is that it is the only thing in life that we can control. No matter what the circumstance, we always have the ability to choose how we will react to it. For example, a while back I injured my shoulder while weightlifting. That injury took me out of the gym for several months, and it healed at a frustratingly slow pace. However, I can honestly say that it was a great experience. I learned to ask myself the question, “What benefit can I take from this injury?” I discovered a lot of things that needed to change: I needed to warm up more thoroughly; my form needed improvement; my approach to my goals in the gym needed an overhaul; and my appreciation for good health and endurance increased. My injury may be a simple example, but life’s made up of those simple examples, isn’t it? Contrary to popular belief, it’s not the newest sexiest plan that will change your life – it’s simply mastering the mundane that will radically transform your life.

  It’s been said that the quality of your life is in direct proportion to the quality of your questions. I’ve certainly found that to be true in my own life. Every one of us has our own inner dialogue (aka we talk to ourselves). Anytime we experience something, we ask ourselves questions in order to interpret the event and ascribe the appropriate meaning. For example, if you get stuck in traffic you might ask yourself, “Why does this always happen to me?” However, you could also ask yourself, “Is there a faster way to get where I’m going?” Now you’ve moved from a problem-orientation to a solution-orientation. Changing our internal questions changes the way we interpret events, which means we can directly shape our own reality. That’s the power of thinking in action. Here are some questions that I ask myself throughout the day:

What is the best use of my time right now?

How engaged am I being in this conversation?

What can I do, right now, that would move me closer to one of my goals?

What questions do you ask yourself throughout the day? For the next ten minutes, mentally observe what questions you ask yourself as you react to situations. Then, see if you can find a way to ask a question that is solution-centered instead of problem-centered. You’ll be surprised with the results. After all, we become what we think about.

[matt-neilsen]

Book Review - Game the Plan

This week's Book Review is for Game the Plan by Chris Cabrera.

http://www.amazon.com/Game-Plan-Every-Sales-Nightmare/dp/1938416546

Game the Plan delves into the worlds of incentive compensation, sales performance management, and motivation. As always, you can click on the Amazon link to read the summary, so let me share some of my takeaways from the book.

If I were to boil the book down to one topic, I believe the essence of the book is about motivation. Sales performance management and incentives are simply tools whose ultimate purpose are to inspire performance (aka motivate) for the attainment of specific goals. The trick, then, is to understand how people are motivated, and then use that knowledge to design effective tools that result in specific behaviors.

I found Chris' perspective refreshing because he said out loud what every sales rep, sales manager, and compensation plan designer already knows: employees WILL game the system! It's not a matter of if, but of how much. In Chris' words, "People are motivated by self-interest. You'll never get a rep to put the interests of your company ahead of his own." Why should we run away from that truth? There's nothing wrong with people looking out for themselves, and instead of viewing it as "selfish and wrong", we ought to use the knowledge to our benefit. In the case of incentive compensation that knowledge can be utilized to develop a plan where reps can game the living daylights out of it but still profit the company. Motivational drives are neither good nor bad - they simply "are". It's how we express those drives that determines their impact on ourselves and others...so why not harness our desire for gain and turn it into a benefit for our employees AND for the company's goals?

I enjoyed Chris' section on the psychology of motivating different generational mindsets (i.e. Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y/Millenials). Different approaches need to be taken to properly incentivize each generation. For example, does the employee value security or opportunity? The one who values security might be motivated with a higher base salary, whereas the opportunistic employee might value stock options. Understanding what makes a person tick allows you to effectively incentivize and persuade them because they will feel like you "get them" - you're speaking their language.

There is a lot of excellent material throughout the book about the evolution of incentives and how it is rapidly changing in today's technological world. Chris summarized it well by saying, "In today's knowledge economy, the meaning of work outweighs the efficiency of work." Today's sales rep don't want to simply survive. They want to succeed. However, success doesn't just mean financial compensation anymore. Today's generation desires a job that meets both their financial AND psychological expectations. Despite that, there are 5 core elements of motivation that Chris identifies:

Meaning

Recognition

Autonomy/Choice

Competence

Growth/Increased Responsibility

Motivation is ultimately an internal decision. No matter how fancy and dazzling the external forces may be, a person will only be motivated if they choose to be. However, we can help "prepare the soil", so to speak, by cultivating an environment that meets the core drives and desires of the human heart. Encouraging things like novelty, challenge, creative expression, and human connection unlocks the dormant potential within those around us and allows maximal performance to thrive. I'll give the final words to Chris in summary:

"When everyone at a company is working at their peak and toward a common goal, when they feel professionally and creatively connected and have respect for each other's opinions, that's true incentive."

[matt-neilsen]

Experts Academy

I attended Brendon Burchard's Experts Academy 2014 in Santa Clara, CA. Experts Academy, as described on Brendon's website is "the world’s most comprehensive marketing training for authors, speakers, coaches, and online thought leaders." You can learn more at http://expertsacademy.com/

How would I describe Experts Academy?

In a word: fantastic.

The seminar is four days long and absolutely packed with energy and content. The thing that I appreciate most about Brendon is his focus on delivering massive value. Every minute of the seminar is structured to deliver enormous value - you will not find fluffy "fillers" that waste your time. 

The structure of the seminar is broken down into four big topics that Brendon uses as a framework for teaching Experts Academy: Positioning, Packaging, Promoting, and Partnering. Each of these topics is founded upon the cornerstone, which is Purpose.

If you've ever felt like you have a message that you want to share with the world (whether you want to reach 1 person or 100,000 people), then I can't recommend this seminar highly enough. I walked out of the weekend with every tool I needed to take action and begin implementing immediately. We live in an exciting time because technology has made it so easy for us to share our voices with the world.

I believe one of the greatest benefits of attending Experts Academy, however, is the people that you'll meet. The seminar is designed so that throughout the day there are several times where you break into small groups in order to share ideas and get feedback. The connections that you make with your fellow attendees is priceless. When I attended Experts Academy there were about 750 people, and almost half of them were from a country outside of the US. There is an amazing power in having so many viewpoints, perspectives, and worldviews gathered in one room! I made friends at Experts Academy that I keep in touch with regularly - some live near me, others live in different states/countries. You never know when you will meet a person who will change your life forever, nor do you know when YOU might be that person for someone else. The community aspect of attending Experts Academy is incredible and well worth the entire price of attending.

I hope you have the opportunity to attend this event. As Brendon would say, "It's your time!".