I'm terrible at being quiet and listening. That is why I was so pleased when Jeff Brainard, from Catch Your Limit Consulting, asked if I'd be willing to do a Freak Factor CODcast interview.
Catch Your Limit is a great example of how the freak factor can be applied to organizations. They are the world's only consulting firm that specializes in "management, marketing and fish cleaning services" and their CODcast, not podcast, stands for Creativity on Demand. I'm hoping to share Jeff's story with you all soon.
We talked for about an hour and discussed a little bit of everything, including: scissors, baseball, marriage, Hardees Thickburgers, parenting, Lance Armstrong, school, careers, outsourcing, interviews, management and the outrageous rewards for being the best.
Below are some specific questions the interview might help to answer.
- How can fixing your weaknesses actually damage your strengths?
- Why should you go farther in the direction that people tell you not to go in?
- What do the people that like you the best, like the least about you?
- How can you get a head start on success?
- Why is Shaquille O'Neal so bad at free throws and why doesn't it matter?
- Why was Michael Jordan bad at baseball?
- Why won't Lance Armstrong ever win a marathon?
- Why do you have to be willing to be the worst in order to be the best?
- What can Hardees Thickburgers teach us about our career?
- Why should you let your kids do poorly in school?
- How can the Freak Factor improve your marriage?
- How should you respond to the interview question about your biggest weakness?
- Why should you outsource tasks that you don't like to do?
- Why bother trying to be the best?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did you notice the new tabs at the top of the blog?
I've added links to my Facebook page, Linked-In profile and these Free Resources:
Just four days left until the Escape from Cubicle Nation workshop in Charlotte, NC on Thursday, 8/13. If you can't make it, check out Pam's website for a list of workshops near you.
If you read yesterday's post, Lesson Three: Stop, you discovered how to find more time. However, you are probably still wondering how you will ever find the energy to fill that time productively. You are already exhausted and drained, especially because your current job is sucking the life out of you.
Fortunately, Pam also thought of this and has some excellent tips for improving your energy management.
Lesson Four: Rediscover Your Passion
Before we can rediscover our passion, we have to realize how we lost it. Pam shares this gut-wrenching email from one of her readers.
"I describe my office job and cubicle as toxic to my spirit. Before I graduated, I was ambitious, excited and had big dreams. My work sucks all the creativity and fun . . . and is starting to sap my spirit too. It has dampened my will and motivation and has just made me stop caring. I'm . . . no longer excited about projects or making a difference. I"m just going through the motions . . . it's hard to keep the lethargic work energy from spilling over to other aspects of my life."
Another reader explained it this way. "I felt as if the blood was being siphoned out of my body. Not enough to put me out of my misery, just enough to take away my will to live!" When our jobs don't fit our goals, values, skills and/or personality, they rob us of our energy. We've already touched on many of these themes but it is worth taking a closer look.
Lions in the zoo are lethargic but lions in the wild are powerful and active. Pam explains that being trapped in the wrong job can lead to:
None of these states are conducive to effective entrepreneurship. The obvious solution is to leave the toxic situation and it is important not to wait too long. "If you continually repress your natural desires, you will find yourself in a permanent 'living dead' state, so used to choking down your emotions that you can no longer access them."
Robert Quinn, author of Deep Change, uses similar terms. He refers to this as slow death and argues that deep change is the only antidote. In this case, deep change involves knowing yourself, doing what you love and developing a solid plan.
Know Thyself
The first step to regaining your energy is to know yourself. "When you truly know yourself, you tend to design a business that matches your strengths. Because you are the one in charge, you care more." However, you can't find the right match if you don't know what your strengths, interests and quirks are. Pam suggests the DISC profile as one helpful tool for enhancing your self-knowledge. You can use this link to take the DISC assessment.
Do What You Love
Yesterday we talked about avoiding tasks that you hate. The obvious parallel is to choose activities that you love. Once you have learned more about your unique strengths, weaknesses, interests and skills, you can create a business that fits like a glove. When you do this, you will feel your energy return.
"What many people don't realize is that when you force yourself to do something you don't want to do, you have to deplete the energy from your body to do it. When you make it through a week where you have forced yourself to do work you don't enjoy, you will feel exhausted, drained, and in need of martinis, industrial-strength aspirin, and/or face-planted-in-pillow rest."
"When you do things you love, your body generates energy naturally. You may work an equal number of hours, or more, than when doing work you don't enjoy, but the difference is you will feel spent, not depleted."
"As hard as you try, you cannot manufacture passion. Choose a business that allows you to express your best skills, talents and interests. This enthusiasm will permeate your brand and draw customers to you. You want to make sure that you will enjoy your business as you are growing it, not just when you get to a certain level of financial success."
Not only should you do what you love, you should do it with people that you love. Find peers and mentors that inspire and challenge you. Their encouragement will keep you going, even when times get tough.
If you want to learn more about energy management, I highly recommend The Power of Full Engagement by Loehr and Schwartz. They have trained world-class athletes and corporate executives how to maintain the energy and focus that it takes to succeed at the highest levels. As they explain, the time available to each of us limited but the quality and quantity of energy is not.
Create a Plan
Although doing what you love is important, "intense passion for something and a viable business model to turn this passion into a living are two totally different things. Doing what you love isn't enough. Because of this, we'll spend the next couple days exploring the importance of integrating your business plan with your life goals and learning how to differentiate your business from the competition.
The key lesson for Day Four is that you can increase your energy by doing what you love. Don't choose a business idea that requires you to fix your weaknesses or become someone that you are not.
Do you like what you're reading? Do you want more? Get a free sample chapter from Pam's book. [No registration is required. The link opens directly into a PDF document.]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hungry for more Freak Factor?
Get the free e-book at www.changethis.com/45.02.freakfactor
Just five days left until the Escape from Cubicle Nation workshop in Charlotte, NC on Thursday, 8/13. If you can't make it, check out Pam's website for a list of workshops near you.
If you read yesterday's post, Lesson Two: Start Now, you are excited about getting started but are probably wondering how you could ever find the time to begin working on your business. You have a job, a spouse, kids and a seemingly endless list of tasks and appointments. You can't start now. . . or can you?
Pam anticipated your time management concerns and has some great suggestions for carving out the hours that you'll need to achieve your dreams.
Lesson Three: Stop
You are half-right when you say that you don't have the time to start your business. You won't be able to add the responsibilities of an entrepreneur on top of all your current activities. And you don't have to. You need to take a look at your current schedule and start eliminating the activities that don't contribute to the success of your new company.
Pam is on solid footing with this advice. Peter Drucker calls it "organized abandonment." Jim Collins says that you don't need a to-do list. You need a "stop-doing list." Tom Peters recommends that you go a step further and get a "stop counselor" to help you eliminate unnecessary or distracting tasks. I discuss these perspectives in more detail in my post, Godin and Collins Want You to Stop.
1. Be Ruthless
Pam starts with some tough talk. "Stop watching f*ing episodes of Lost! Despite feeling like there is no extra time in the day, many people waste time on pursuits like cheesy television shows and meaningless Twitter conversations. If you want to make your business happen, you will have to be ruthless with your time."
In his post, Is Effort a Myth?, Seth Godin reinforces Pam's suggestion to reduce your time spent watching TV and surfing social networking sites, and adds newspapers, commuting and meetings to the list of time wasters.
2. Do Less
It is possible to do less and achieve more. Sometimes our schedules are full and we aren't wasting time on worthless activities. However, we aren't necessarily aligning our daily actions with our business goals. The fact that we are busy often convinces us that we are doing all that we can to be successful. But it isn't true.
Busyness often disguises other problems, like a lack of planning or discipline. To emphasize this point, Pam quotes Timothy Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Workweek. He argues that "being busy is a form of laziness--lazy thinking and indiscriminate action."
But laziness isn't always a bad thing. As Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone, explains, "elegance is putting in the least amount of energy for the greatest return." Many people are suspicious of a work smarter not harder philosophy. However, the fact is that some activities simply have more value and will provide a greater return on your investment than others. Stephen Covey calls these Quadrant II activities. They are important but they aren't urgent, so they often go undone. Here are a few activities that have a guaranteed payoff:
If you are still not convinced, I recommend Seth Godin's Do Less manifesto at ChangeThis.com
3. Procrastinate More
Pam cites wine guru and speaker, Gary Vaynerchuk, who exhorts his viewers to "stop doing what you hate!" Similarly, Marcus Buckingham argues that the most important thing to know about personal success is, “if you don’t like it, stop doing it.” I call this permanent procrastination and we'll discuss it more in tomorrow's post on energy management.
One way to stop doing the activities that you don't enjoy is to outsource them. Hire people with the skills, experience and interest in doing the things that you dislike. In doing so, you'll have more time and more energy for the work that you do best.
"I am a big fan of outsourcing anything in your life that is not a core strength or a joy to do. As long as you focus your freed-up time to generate more revenue or opportunities, it is a good trade."
For a very humorous discussion of outsourcing personal and business tasks, read AJ Jacobs' article, Outsourcing Life. He outsourced his worries to an assistant in India but did he go too far when he asked his virtual assistant to apologize to his wife for him?
In summary, Pam says, "I am convinced that truly successful people, those who enjoy every part of their life and have financial stability, are very picky about where they spend their time and energy. So prune relentlessly." I love this metaphor and recently suggested seven questions that will help you decide which activities need to be pruned.
The key lesson for Day Three is that you have the time to start your own business. You just need to eliminate activities that distract you or detract from your progress. Now that you have the time you need, on Day Four, we'll look at strategies for getting the energy that it takes to be an entrepreneur.
Do you like what you're reading? Do you want more? Get a free sample chapter from Pam's book. [No registration is required. The link opens directly into a PDF document.]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hungry for more Freak Factor?
Get the free e-book at www.changethis.com/45.02.freakfactor
I'm an author, speaker, professor, marathon runner, father and husband.
Recent Comments