3 Things I learned last week 9/21-27/2015

Keep doing what you are doing:  In my line of work you sometimes don’t know what kind of impact you are making.  Sure, I can go into a company and measure sales results before and after training.  I can work with a coaching client and see that they made a lot of progress on their goals during the time I worked with them.  But what I don’t know and what excites me, is the impact I am having that I will never even know I had.  That is what keeps me doing what I am doing.  If you are passionate about what you do keep doing it.  You are making a difference and sometimes you will know you are and most of the time you wont. But keep doing it.

I hate to say it, but it is reality. I had the unique opportunity to celebrate a major milestone this past week with a good friend of mine.  This celebration was about them and their life and their achievements.  Have you ever been around people who chose to make it about them and not the person who it should be about.  I have watched this in leadership so many times throughout my career.  Here is what I have observed and have witnessed in leadership and I will put it in the context of how some leaders feel about success and achievements of others:

• Congratulations, but don’t think you are ahead of me.
• Congratulations, this isn’t that significant really.
• Congratulations, I am glad I was so impactful in you achieving this accomplishment.
• Congratulations, don’t forget that I was apart of this.

The reason this stands out for me this week is I am around a lot of leaders all of the time. Some leaders I know are really good at allowing all the credit go to others.  Some want to be sure they are included.  And others, well, they want to give themselves the credit either blatantly or indirectly. And if they don’t get recognized for their part in it, well, they will try their hardest to remind others if they can.  Here is what I think real leadership is.  Congratulations, great job, well deserved.  A great leader doesn’t ask for anything or say anything, they just do what they do and stay behind the scenes when it is time for others to shine.

Some books are better listened to than read, and some books are better read than listened to.  I am always reading one book in paper form and listening to a book at the same time.  That is just what I do. These last two weeks,  I am on a bad run.  The last two out of three book purchases I made on audible haven’t been very good to listen to.  I guess I could make the argument that they may not be good in general.  But I learned a few lessons this week with regards to my book purchases.  If the book has a lot of chapters in it, meaning the chapters are short but there are a lot of them, I should purchase the book and read it. The reason I say this, it is the only way I can remember the information in the book.  That is the lesson.  Now that I made this mental note I will keep that in mind for my next purchase, which I am doing now.

What did you learn last week?

To your success and your future.