Today I thought I would share the advice below about being better at your job.

Make it a great day.

Jake

How do you get better at your job?  By Harvey Mackay

When I am hired to speak to a company or association, I typically talk ahead of time to six to eight people who will be in the audience to get a better sense of the group. I ask them a series of questions about creative selling, teamwork, negotiations, how they get close to their customers and so on. Then I surprise them and ask what they do to get better at their jobs?

Over the years some of the typical answers I’ve received include: going back to school to learn new skills or get another degree, joining trade organizations and attending events, networking, listening to speakers, reading everything they can get their hands on, being more available, working harder and smarter, improving people skills and many more.         

These are all great ideas, but I’d like to add to the list and share some of my ideas on what you can do to get better at your job.

1. Improve your time management. Most people fail because they let time manage them rather than managing their time. Time becomes a crook. Often it’s the people who make the worst use of their time who complain there is never enough of it.

2.

3. 1.Get organized. This will not only improve your productivity, but it will streamline your life, lower your stress and save you money. The Wall Street Journal reported that the average U.S. executive wastes six weeks per year retrieving misplaced information from messy desks and files. (I’m still working on this.)

4.

5. 2. Stay positive. Positive thinking is more than just a tagline; it changes the way we behave. And I firmly believe that when I’m positive, it not only makes me better, but it also makes those around me better. Positive thinking turns obstacles into opportunities.

6.

7. 3. Write down your goals. Goals not only give you more than a reason to get up in the morning; they are an incentive to keep you going all day. Goals tend to tap the deeper resources and draw the best out of life. Achieving goals produces significant accomplishments.

8.

9.

10. 4. Learn to compromise. When you observe the politics in Washington, compromise appears to be a lost art. Maybe that’s because it often is looked upon as weakness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Business involves constant compromise – negotiating contracts, hiring, closing sales and so on. Compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that each party thinks they got the biggest piece.

11.

12.

13. 5. Exercise your mind and body. Taking care of business starts with taking care of yourself. Exercise makes me feel better and gives me energy to work more productively. My philosophy is exercise doesn’t take time; it makes time.

14.

15. 6. Develop your confidence. Confidence doesn’t come naturally to most people. Even the most successful people have struggled with it in their careers. The good news is that you can develop confidence just like any muscle or character trait. Some tips: improve your skills, keep track of your success, practice being assertive and step out of your comfort zone.

16.

17. 7. Improve your relationship with your boss. A good relationship with your boss is the foundation of a successful career. Your boss is the person most likely to recognize your contributions and achievements and potentially recommend you for promotions. Strive for a positive work environment.

18.

19. 8. Surround yourself with mentors and coaches. You can’t do it all by yourself. Seek out the very best help you can find to take your game to the next level. On the flip side, don’t shy away from mentoring younger workers because business is a team sport.

20.

21. 9. Practice public speaking. Most people dread public speaking but there are few skills more important. Public speaking improves your confidence and communication skills and helps you think better on your feet. How you say things can be as important as what you say. Join Toastmasters International, one of the best-kept secrets in the world. (I did.)

22.

23. 10. Learn to love feedback. You can learn from anyone if you are open to accepting feedback from not only your manager but from colleagues and customers. If you really believe in yourself, you’ll be open to criticism, learn from it and improve your performance.

The main thing is that you keep working on you. Life is like riding a bicycle. You don’t fall off unless you stop pedaling.

If you are unwilling to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. – Jim Rohn

Ordinary. Normal. Everybody else is doing it.

We have all wished for or strived for these things at one point or another. Whether it be to fit in or to feel loved or to relieve some of our own insecurities and anxieties; we purposefully looked for and strived for normal and ordinary.

One of the great tragedies of life is coming to the end of it having not lived all of it. Having not been the most truest version of you possible.

The scary part is that the awesomest version of you is NOT normal. Not even close.

In fact, I would venture to say that the potential of our inherent abilities is so overwhelmingly different that we get a little scared. A little scared to live out the life uniquely set before us.

We must be willing to risk unusual or settle for ordinary.

We choose. Life doesn’t choose for us.

What’s your choice?

Make it a great and unusual day.

Jake ​

What do I have?

What am I going to do with it?

I was listening to a podcast the other day and the speaker asked some versions of these two questions.

What a powerful and positive way to look at your life.

We all have some resources available to us.

We all have talents, relationships, and knowledge we can use in our pursuit of happiness.

We just need to leverage them. To use them as a tool to do more than we could otherwise do.

I encourage you today to think through these two questions. Maybe even write them out.

And then take action. Take a positive step forward today.

Make it a great day.

Jake ​

In "The Best Question Ever" Andy Stanley addresses time and how we spend it as he helps the readers work through asking the best question ever.

He summarizes time and how we spend it in 4 points:

1. There is a cumulative value to investing small amounts of time in certain activities over a long period.
2. There are rarely any immediate consequences for neglecting single installments of time in any arena of life.
3. Neglect has a cumulative effect.
4. There is no cumulative value to the urgent things that we allow to interfere with the important things.

Are you struggling with time?

Too busy to get to the important stuff in your life?

Too busy to get to the important people in your life?

Andy’s best question ever might just help. Andy contends that the best question ever is: "What is the wise thing to do?"

The way to apply this to your time is simply to ask "What is the wise way to spend my time?"

Another way to look at it would be to analyze your current use of time. "Am I spending my time wisely?" or "If a wise person were to see how I spend my time, would they suggest any changes?"

Make it a great day.

Jake

PS – A little trick when it comes to time. Track your time for a week. Write down everything and how long you spend doing it. At the end of the week review the results. I am guessing you will see at least one possibility for a positive change to make. ​

http://youtu.be/_WamkRSDeD8

Maybe its just that we have a little boy at home, but this song gets me every time it pops up on my Pandora station.

It reminds me of one of my all time favorite movie scenes:

http://youtu.be/MPnudujlBZI

The best part of this scene: he is talking to his own son.

And a great message for all of us.

If you want something, go get it.

Make it a great Friday.

Jake ​

Every day is a new life to a wise man.

Another email in the "seize the day" category.

Each day we have the opportunity to begin anew.

To begin anew while leveraging the lessons of the past.

To begin anew while seeing a clearer picture of our future.

Treat today as a new life. One full of opportunity, abundance and possibility.

And make it a great day.

Jake ​

Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness. – Jim Rohn

Yesterday was the first of two training sessions here at Mavidea.

The core concept: the words we choose matter.

Replacing negative words with positive words will change the outcome of the conversations we are having.

It was easy to see how this can help us and our customers here at Mavidea.

And I hope that everyone also picked up on something else: it can drastically

improve the rest of your life as well.

In one of his seminars Jim Rohn talks about how sometimes a person’s positive vocabulary is so small that they end up in prison cell to match it.

That’s how small their view on the world is and how much of a difference words can make.

Let’s use this reminder to work on vocabulary and the words we choose. Let’s feed our minds more positive words and create a more positive light for us and others to see.

Make it a great day.

Jake

Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves – to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterday by our today. – Stewart Johnson

I thought this quote was a great follow up to yesterday’s email about making the most of your todays

When we look at our todays and how they are spent, comparing to others is not the benchmark.

Our benchmark should be the inherent possibilities and opportunities that lie within ourselves.

One of my favorite things about sports was the process of finding out that I was actually capable of more than I thought.

I could always run faster or play better than I thought I was capable of.

I’m sure there were points in time where I thought this was because I was so special and talented, but a little maturity and age has cured me of that.

We ALL are capable of so much more than we can imagine.

Make it a great day.

Jake

​

Salutation to the Dawn

Look to this day!

For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:

The bliss of growth;

The glory of action;

The splendor of achievement;

For yesterday is but a dream,

And tomorrow is only a vision;

But today, well lived, makes every yesterday

a dream of happiness,

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Reading "How To Stop Worrying" by Dale Carnegie and the first section is about not letting the regrets of the past or the worries about tomorrow ruin your todays.

This short poem really summarized it all very well.

Today is the place where everything happens.

All of your opportunity lies in today.

String together a bunch of great todays and before you know you will have lived a great life.

Let’s get started.

Make it a great today.

Jake ​