Geoff Steck’s
THANK GOODNESS IT’S MONDAY  #209

SUMMER SUCCESS BOOSTER:
TRY THIS MINDSET RESET

Nobody can win ‘em all. Now that July Fourth celebrations are behind us, do you have the guilty feeling that the “summer slump” is officially underway?

Don’t fret. It’s probably OK. No one can be at his or her best every moment of every day of the year. Perhaps a mini-vacation from a hard-driving, give-your-all-all-the-time mindset is your due. Maybe it’s even a necessity.  Just try this –

Summertime 2009 attitude adjustment. Don’t expect the ideal outcome all the time. Expecting too much can be discouraging.

The thinking process goes like this: Since failure to achieve one’s best will be frowned on, why reveal one’s best? Set the bar lower. Pretend the best you’ve got is something less.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: Push for greater effort, not greater success.

Why? And what’s the difference?

Let’s get down to basics. When “success” is the standard, consider the psychology of the pieceworker who reasons, “If we knock ourselves out, they’ll just raise the standard and we’ll have to keep it up week after week after week.” So they hold back.

Another example: Ever work as part of a sales team? Then how did you feel about contests and such efforts to motivate higher performance?

OK, maybe you were the exception. But even if you were, you must have been aware that a considerable part (the majority?) of the salesforce, in their private time, concluded (or is it colluded), “If we sell more, management will start to expect us to keep it up all the time.”

A bit of an exaggeration – maybe. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. Effective managers know that even a highly dedicated staff feels burdened by the pressure to excel continuously.

You, too. When people push themselves or are pushed to give “110%” (a human performance impossibility, by the way) their jobs cease to be fun and rewarding. Having to live up to one’s best day after day creates tension and resentment, especially in times like these when the business dynamic changes as rapidly as it does.

TGIM Takeaway: Never-ending success is possible only when one’s sights are set low. It’s just not human nature to perform all out, all the time. People are not machines. They have good days and bad days; peaks and valleys.

Added complication: When some try to live up to their best all the time, they become disproportionately disheartened when they inevitably fail to achieve that perfection.

Only mediocrity can be maintained without letup. This summer recognize that and adjust your attitude and behavior accordingly. Continuous success at one’s peak is impossible. So if you push yourself – or worse, others – you actually make it harder to excel or improve.

TGIM IDEA IN ACTION: Stimulate excellence – your own and/or others – by encouraging effort more than success. Create rewards for making an effort. Expect occasional failures or bad days and be understanding when they occur.

Let’s return to the sales contest example. Chart the number calls that are made, rather than tallying up only sales. When salespeople are rewarded for effort – whether or not that effort bears fruit – they are much more able to put forth effort continuously without getting discouraged or resentful.

Success should not be overly stressed – because people cannot win all the time. But they can put forth effort all the time. And that is the thing that produces the highest degree of success over the long haul.

The bulb lights up. We’ve all heard the highly simplified story of Thomas Edison failing a thousand times to produce a working light bulb. Inspiring, right? And we nod knowingly without considering fully the significance. Inasmuch as it contains a grain of historic reality, what’s the lesson in it?

Continuous effort produces ultimate success. The world’s most successful people gain their satisfaction from trying, not just from winning. Edison didn’t consider or treat the many attempts he and his team made as failures. He wasn’t the kind of boss who frowned on each attempt that didn’t work. He gave himself the right to fail and was willing to keep trying until he eventually succeeded.

Summertime 2009 strategy: Don’t let the “heat” get to you. Trust your human nature. Set a standard and pace for yourself that recognizes the constraints of the day. Make an effort, no doubt. But expect bad days and failures and accept them as necessary to moving one step closer to success.

Making the most of the season.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S. “I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.” Thomas Alva Edison (1847 – 1931) said that.

IMHO: Although Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,093 U.S. patents in his name, we often ignore what may be his greatest “invention.” Local knowledge: Although Edison wasn’t born in my home state, I still like to think of him as a “Jersey Boy” since much of what he’s famous for was realized here, starting in Newark, moving to Menlo Park (remember your schoolbook history; he was called “The Wizard of Menlo Park”) which is now part of Edison NJ and facilities in Harrison NJ. These led ultimately to the epitome-of-inventiveness multi-building research and manufacturing complex near his final home in West Orange NJ. Thus he was one of the first to apply the principles of mass production to the process of invention, creating the first industrial research laboratory at Menlo Park and fully realized in the West Orange complex (now a National Historic Site) that eventually covered more than twenty acres and employed 10,000 people at its peak.

P.P.S. Edison had very little formal education as a child, attending school only for a few months. He was taught reading, writing, and arithmetic by his mother, but was always very curious and taught himself much more by reading on his own. This belief in self-improvement remained throughout his life. So perhaps he would have been interested in the secrets and strategies Eric and I (Jersey boys ourselves) share in the Best Year Ever Program. To learn more, click through HERE.

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