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Lighting the Fire of Success

September 8th, 2009
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You get the best results from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within.” - Bob Nelson

I want to ask you a simple question today. What drives you?

What really gets you going? What makes you so excited you can’t sleep? What makes you so angry you would run through walls to stop it? What do you care enough about that you would sacrifice for it? Where is your fire?

Don’t say money. Money can be a score card. Money can be tool to be used to stoke your fire. Money can be something that opens opportunities, provides influence, or invests in a cause you care deeply about. But, what is that “cause?”

What is your “Cause?” What is your “purpose?” Everyone has a purpose just like everyone has a heart. What’s yours?

This may surprise you, but I hire a personal coach every year to help me grow personally and professionally just like all my clients hire me, and my coach turned me on to a powerful story of a man named Ralph Metcalf (bottom on Right). Read about him on Wikipedia or in the history books, but something you won’t read is that Ralph Metcalf had a stated purpose statement for his life. For Ralph it was “to honor and serve his country.” That is why he ran in the 1936 Olympics against Hitler’s German squad, this is why he volunteered to fight in World War 2, and this is why he ran for congress at a time in our country when it was obviously difficult for a black man to gain a seat in politics. Bottom line… his purpose statement was his “Fire within.”

What’s yours? Find it. Breathe it. Live it. Or, call someone who will help you dig it up and get to really living on “purpose.” After all, if you want a fire you have to fuel it and you have to light it, before you ever feel the heat.

Make the next stage of your life a magnificent obsession, rather than a meaningless odyssey.

Enjoy Life and LIVE today!

3519wJon Bohm

Goals, Inspiration/Values, Leadership, Motivation

Be the Luckiest person Around

July 12th, 2009
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I am a lucky, lucky person. - Evel Knievelevel-knievel-edit1

 

Are you a lucky person?  Or are you unlucky?  

Have you ever noticed that how much luck someone has is directly proportionate to how much risk they are willing to take?  

Why do some people have the midas touch?  

While the touch of so many others seems to turn things into ashes?  Have you ever noticed that some people just seem to be luckier than others?

 Take scenario one:  you become a “dare devil” and jump out of a perfectly good airplane with no plan, without the knowledge, and without the hard work in preparing for your jump. If you survive, well than, you are lucky, maybe even miraculous to some degree. 

However, take scenario 2:  if you plan and bring a parachute, than you learn how to use your parachute, and you work hard to prepare for your jump on the ground or in a wind tunnel than your odds of being lucky  and surviving are dramatically better than the first scenario.

In both situations you jump from the same plane.  In both situations your risk is the same.  But in scenario number 2, your chances of getting lucky are very high.  Because, you planned your risk with meticulous work like a stuntman who strategically thinks his stunt through, not a daredevil who just jumps.

So, what about business and getting lucky?

The entrepreneur that takes a gamble and opens a widely successful business in the worst recession our country has seen since the great depression, lucky?

The investor who fires his financial planner and takes matters into his own hands, and turns a profit of 40 k a week instead of losing it when everyone around him told him to “Buy and hold.”  What do you think, lucky?

The stay at home mom who opens her own on-line store, only to get so many orders she can’t keep up.  Lucky?

My answer is….Yes, very lucky.  

However, my definition of luck has an equation.  Luck doesn’t happen to everyone.  Why do some people seem to be luckier than others?
 
Over the years of working with many people, in many industries, I have found what I believe to be the equation to how lucky an organization or person may become.  I trust it so much, that I consider it to be a fortune telling equation on how lucky someone will be.
 
Stop and think.  What is a new adventure or thing you may want to try?  Ok, got one in mind?
 
Using a scale of 1-10.  1 being poor and 10 being excellent.  Rate your future idea in each of the following categories:
 
  • 1-10 - How much risk is involved?
  • 1-10 - How strategic have I been?  And how many resources have I put into my plan for success?
  • 1-10 - How hard have I worked toward my success?
After honestly rating your new venture in each of the above categories, you have a possible 30 points available.  Simply add up your total score and divide it by 30 and that is the percentage I give you on getting “lucky” and succeeding.

It is a law of the universe.  The more you risk, the better you plan, and the harder you work… the “luckier” you will be.  Is it possible to get “lucky” with a 10% chance?  You bet.  But, you can increase your adds of getting lucky in every situation with some hard work, high tolerance for risk, and a great strategic mind.

So, how lucky are you?  I guess it depends on how bad you want to be lucky.  And how much effort you put into increasing your odds. 

It seems to me… that the harder I work, the better I plan, and the more risk involved, the luckier I am.

May you become one of the “luckiest” people around, and when all the unlucky people watch your life, they just won’t be able to understand why YOU are sooo lucky.

Enjoy Life! 

Jon Bohm 

Inspiration/Values, Knowledge, Leadership, Motivation

Just Jump already! What are you waiting for?

June 8th, 2009
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4498_106647939026_522449026_2770042_1976358_s-1“Leadership is doing what everyone else says they will do.”

What have you said you “will do?” Climb a peak, sky dive, forgive, love, settle down, build a company, chase a dream, travel the world, or something else?

Let me ask you, what are you waiting for? More money? More time? More courage?

Whatever it is, it’s probably just an excuse to put your real living off for another day, another year, or another lifetime.

Every year I take a group, of anyone who wants to go, Skydiving. My trip was this past Saturday (National Cancer Survivor’s Day). We had a great group and a great jump. It can be a life changing experience and everyone who goes loves it. Especially once they get to the ground.

But, if I went Skydiving with everyone who told me “I would love to do that!” “I’ve always wanted to go!” A thousand people would have jumped by now. My question to them is “what are you waiting for?”

What is your I’ve always wanted to ____________.?

  • Take my dream vacation?
  • Start my own business?
  • Forgive that family member?
  • Write a book?
  • Get engaged?
  • Learn to play the guitar, ride a motorcycle, etc?
  • Go Skydiving?

What are you waiting for? Whatever it is, it’s very likely a poor reason to put your dreams on hold. It doesn’t matter if you are 23 or 73, you really don’t know how long you have to drink up every drop of life you can. Waiting is rarely a good idea. Waiting is the same thing as making the decision not to do it. Either way, you’re not doing it.

As a cancer survivor I’ve realized life is too short to be waiting for a better time. Your life…my life is now. Take that dream vacation every year. Put a plan in place to start that business, write that book, go skydiving. We only get one time around - one shot at this life- What are you doing with yours?

Enjoy Life now,

Jon Bohm

Goals, Inspiration/Values, Leadership, Motivation, Uncategorized

Find Your Passion for Productivity

March 30th, 2009
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Tom Landry, the coach of the Dallas Cowboys, once said something that may be true of nearly any motivator: “I have a job to do that is not very complicated, but it is difficult: to get a group of men to do what they don’t want to do so they can achieve the one thing they have wanted all of their lives.”

Did you know that more points are scored in the last 2 minutes of the 4th quarter of a football game then in the other 3 quarters put together? This is often used to prove the point that all of us work better with a deadline. Which is a fact.

However, I think it is more than that. Have you ever felt like you had the time to accomplish something, but you didn’t have the energy? You lacked the physical energy, emotional energy, spiritual energy, mental energy, the motivation?

Energy in life is a resource that is often more valuable than time itself. You see, time is made of not only hours and minutes, but energy. So, whether you are playing football or working in your office you know you have to last a certain period of time mentally, physically, and emotionally.

A runner knows that if they only have to run 100 meters they can run 10 times faster than if they have to run 10 miles. The final 2 minutes of a game represent the last 100 meters. The time when you leave it all on the field. When you quit saving energy and let it all go. When results are all that matters and conserving energy doesn’t.

I have found it easier to be more productive, and turn out better quality work from a team by giving them short deadlines followed by a break. For example, if you are an author, try to write fast and focused for 5 minutes, then stop and break, before coming back for another 5 minute session.

I know a lady friend of mine who consistently runs under a 4 hour marathon by running for 5 minutes and walking for 2 minutes. I have seen this applied to concrete companies and insurance agents alike. If you pay people by the hour, it encourages them to work slower and longer. If you pay people based off productivity, it encourages them to work smarter and faster. Which is an asset to any team or organization.

I am convinced that hourly employees can work half the time and accomplish the same amount of work. Often higher quality work, if they are given a shorter deadline with twice the pay.

Still not convinced? Try this, tell your team one day that they can go home at lunch time and get paid for a full day if they complete the full day’s work by noon. See what happens. I would love to hear how it works out.

Of course, if you are a retail shop, a fast food restaurant, or any place where you have store hours, then sending them home at noon is not an option. But, what if they were rewarded with a break after taking so many orders, ringing up a certain number of customers, folding so many boxes or clothing, then would productivity increase? You bet it would.

It is time for our world to quit thinking hours and start thinking productivity. After all:

“You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour.”– Jim Rohn (American Business Philosopher, Author, and Speaker)

Article by Jon Bohm

Goals, Innovation, Leadership, Motivation

Are you Visionary?

March 23rd, 2009
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  • “To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do.” - Kahil Gibran (1883-1931)

So, let me ask you? Do you know where you want to be in 3 years? 5 years? 10 years?

That can be a very challenging question in today’s ever changing environment. As seen in Did You Know 2008. A world like this requires Visionary people and Visionary Leadership.

If you have ever worked at an organization that was lead by reactionary leaders who were always deciding their next move based of the past instead of where they want to be in the future, then you understand how detrimental it is.

But, let’s look at this on a personal level for a moment.

  • What do you want your life to look like in 5 years?
  • In 3 years?
  • In 18 months to a year?

Sadly, it’s a fact that more people spend time planning a 2 week vacation than they do their life or their business. This is sad because that means life is simply just happening to a majority of people instead of them taking ownership and definitive action towards the life, love, friendships, and successes they really want.

So, what do you want? Where would you like to travel? What would you like to see? Who would you like to become? What would you like to accomplish? What type of friend, spouse, sibling, spiritual person would you like to be. The first step is dreaming about these questions.

Build a list of at least 50 (a hundred would be better) and write them down. For some it is much more difficult then it sounds, but everyone enjoys it.

I encourage all my clients to have an on-going dream list that they can add to, and see accomplished. A simple exercise with often huge results.

Take this study from Yale for example:

There is a famous study involving graduates of Yale University from the class of 1953. The students involved in this study were asked if they had a clear, specific set of goals for their future, and if they were written down with a plan for achieving them. Only three percent of those interviewed said that they did.

Twenty years later the researchers went back and interviewed the surviving members of that class. They discovered that the 3 percent with specific written goals had achieved more in financial terms than the entire other 97 percent put together. They also seemed to be happier and more “together” in every way.

Pretty amazing right? After you build a dream list and write it down you may realize it’s not as amazing as you once thought. Do you know where your going? Do you know WHO you want to become? Is it written down?

It is far less productive in life to focus on where you have been than it is to focus on where you are going. As you discover your future aspirations, you may even discover something about your own heart and passions.

Enjoy the journey!

-Jon Bohm

Goals, Leadership, Motivation

Responsibility = Power

March 20th, 2009
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“With GREAT power comes GREAT responsibility.” - Uncle Ben in Spider-Man

What a great quote.  This is one of the great life changing “Laws of the Universe.”  
It is true just like gravity is real.

Although, I think a truer statement would be that with “GREAT responsibility comes GREAT power.”

It is true in any organization I have worked with, the person who takes on the most responsibility is also the person with the greatest influence in the company.  This does not necessarily mean that it is the person with the greatest position or authority.  It means the person with the most influence is always the person who takes the greatest responsibility.

It is a fact of life.  Test it for yourself.  Think of an organization you really know well.  Not one you read about in Fortune Magazine, but one you really know the players in.  
 
  • Who owned the least amount of responsibility?
  • Who owned the most responsibility?
  • Who had the most overall influence and power?
  • Who had the least influence and power?
I hope I made my case.  But, just in case, let’s test it again.  

Everyday in life, we have the option to either be a Victim or to take responsibility for our lives, for our actions, for our families, for our organization, for our country.

The more we move toward the Victim mentality the more power and influence we lose.  The more we move towards responsibility the more influence and power we gain.

Application:

Scenario:  You are at work and you are getting chewed out because your department dropped the ball somewhere.  You have a choice to take ownership of that error or “pass the buck” and throw your team “under the bus.”  It is a simple equation, if you take responsibility you will gain influence, if you pass the buck you will lose influence.  If you “pass the buck,” it becomes clear that you are no longer the person your boss needs to talk with to get better results in the future, because you demonstrate it is “out of your hands.”  Therefore, you lose the influence to make things better.  

When all the employees in an organization understand this, then everyone is fighting to take ownership and responsibility, the “buck” is no longer passed, and everyone works together to find solutions and take ownership of the success of the organization.  This is a powerful organization.

You can apply this same situation to your life, your family, or our political climate in America.  If we play the victim, we lose power and influence and transfer responsibility and therefore, influence to someone else.

So which one will you be?  You have a choice take ownership, or give up your influence and power.  It’s that simple.  So Uncle Ben is correct, but maybe he should have said  ”If you want POWER than take RESPONSIBILITY.” 

- Jon Bohm

 

Inspiration/Values, Knowledge, Leadership, Uncategorized

Leaders Grow Leaders

January 8th, 2009
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“You’ve got to have great athletes to win,  I don’t care who the coach is.  You can’t win without good athletes but you can lose with them.  This is where coaching makes the difference.” - Lou Holtz

The longer I work with great leaders the easier it is to spot them.  You know who great leaders are because they are surrounded by great subordinates.
When you walk into a business, a team, an organization of any kind and see highly motivated well operating systems and people you know a great leader or leaders is near.
Being a leader means more than just having authority it means having influence, the power to motivate, the power to build high performance teams.  Great leaders pick influence over authority any day.  They understand that the person who brings the most clarity and emotion to the challenge becomes the leader, and at that moment who has the position of authority means very little.  Great leaders have always know how to rally people to their cause, to invoke and spread excitement, emotion, and passion to others.
Great leaders:
  • Attract great people
  • Recruit great people
  • And build great people
When you are looking to be a part of a new job, new organization, new relationship of any kind.  Test the climate of the group.  Are you surrounded by high performance people or does it feel more like the “dysfunction junction.”
Excitement is probably the most transferable human emotion on the planet.  It is hard to be in the presence of someone who is excited and not feel it or react to it in some way.  Great leaders transfer emotion and passion to others.
A mentor of mind once told me before I was about to speak to a large crowd that if I wanted to transfer excitement and emotion than I would have to feel it 10 times greater than I wanted them to get it.  In other words if I want the audience to “bleed”  I would have to “hemorrhage.”
Do you “hemorrhage” an excitement that motivates?  Inspires?  Attracts? Recruits? Builds high performing people in your life, family, or business?  Do people pick up what you are laying down in your sales job?  Do people feel your passion for life?
If not.  Then I encourage you to look into at least one of these 2 areas:
  1. Do you have something, anything, that one thing that gets you out of bed in the morning?  I mean really gets you jazzed? If not, then find something that does and learn to make money at it.
  2. If yes, then let it out!  Express it!  Be you!  Do you feel shy about expressing a new idea- your products- your business- life in general because others don’t share your joy yet?  Well…thats the point.  That is why you have to help them feel it.  That is why you are in a position to lead. Everyone doesn’t “get it” yet, that is exactly why the world needs you to help them.
Great leaders reach out to optimize not only their own skills but the skills of all they run into.  Spot great leaders by the team they develop- become a great leader by being contagious with your passions.

Inspiration/Values, Leadership, Motivation

What do your actions say about you?

August 12th, 2008
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“Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.” ~Aristotle

Research tells us that more than 55% of face to face communication is body language. 15% is tone of voice, and the other 30% is words that are actually said. But, the often not mentioned statistic is that your actions override your words, your tone, and your body language 100% of the time.

If you want to know who someone really is, than you have to watch what they really do.

I really enjoy mountain biking. And one story I will never forget is when I met a guy, let’s call him “Biker Bob,” at a bike shop.   And as we talked, he told me about all his gear, his amazing skills, his experience in the swiss alps on the race tour, etc.  Later that day I went biking down a ski mountain with Biker Bob. Biker Bob was passed by everyone, including me and at least 3 other guys that had no idea what they were doing. We all finished the trail and waited a good 10 minutes for Biker Bob to come stumbling out of the woods.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. Biker Bob had a lot of gear, a lot of talk, and a lot of confidence. But Biker Bob did not have the skills, the action, or the results to match it up.

You can look the part, talk the part, and have the confidence of the part. But your actions and your results override talk and confidence any day.

Dave Barry (a great humor columnist) once said that if you go out to dinner with a “nice person,” and they do not treat the waiter nicely, than that person is not a nice person.

I couldn’t agree more Dave.

3 Question Reality Check
1. Do people you encounter know what you believe by what they see you do?
2. Are your actions saying good things or bad things about you?
3. Have you thought about how that could impact your business results?

Simple I know. But, a profound reminder to work on your actions and who you really rather then all the work on image and words that is so easy to focus on.

Inspiration/Values, Leadership

Who I am Today.

July 30th, 2008
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Some things have to be believed to be seen.

Have you ever stopped just to think about how you became who you are? Not simply what you do, or how many kids you have (we all know how that happens), but how you came to view the world like you do, how you came to think like you do, how your personality and self image came to be?

I have read so many self improvement books, tapes, speakers, and surrounded myself with successful people just to realize that none of that can make me become who I need to become to achieve what I would like to achieve. They are valuable, they are inspirational, they are helpful, but they are simply knowledge and virtually useless unless I can apply it to me and use it to change something about who I am becoming.

The type of change that truly changes people and gets results is never theory, or simply reading, it comes from experiencing and from doing. From living out who you are becoming.

This is why so many people can go to a conference, or a training, and hear a great speaker who is successful beyond imagination in your industry, and still leave virtually the same as when you went in. The wildly successful speaker tells you what they did and how you can do it in your business too, so why can’t you do it too? The answer is often simply that you are not him. You are you.

His processes of thought and action may not work for you, and that speaker has developed themselves to succeed and then lived it. You can hear it, you can know it, you can think it, breathe it, and eat it for lunch, but until you develop your understanding of you and take action to apply nothing changes.

People will often ask me “how do I make more money,” and the answer is you have to become worth more. That involves more than reading a book or going to a conference. More than knowledge and understanding. It means action, it means living it, it means taking the sometimess hard steps to change and become worth more.

It means more than knowledge it means:

  • Character
  • Courage
  • Action
  • Endurance
  • Knowing yourself and knowing others
  • Dreaming and Vision
  • Excellence
  • Balance
  • Belief in what you haven’t seen yet
  • Living through the storm long enough to see the sun come out
  • It means listening and having an open and creative mind
  • etc.
It means you have to develop the intangibles, the things that you know about you - that nobody else knows, it means facing the demons, and developing who you really are, not simply what you do.
Are you developing the intangibles, the stuff that makes you who you are today and who you will become tomorrow?
To put it simply - To have, you must first become.
- Jon Bohm

Inspiration/Values, Knowledge, Leadership, Motivation

Self Evident Truth?

July 29th, 2008
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This is how humans are: we question all our beliefs, except for the ones we really believe, and those we never think to question. ~Orson Scott Card

Today I had a great conversation with a client and friend about what things are truly self evident. The thought was posed that if something is a common truth to all humans, then as an organization you really shouldn’t have to write it down, and if you did write it down, well, that speaks negatively of your organization.

A couple extreme examples might be:

  • If you have to put, “Do not murder fellow employees” as part of your values. Well, then you have a very scary place to work considering you actually have to list that on your values.
  • Or, if you are ever watching the news when they uncover a case of child neglect, and they find a witness or passer-by to give their thoughts on the situation and the passer-by responds with “I take care of my kids!” loudly and proudly as if they should win some kind of reward.  And all of us watching at home are thinking, well of course you take care of your kids, right? I mean what parent has to proclaim that kind of obvious value?
So, if an organization puts honesty as a Core Value, is that the same thing? I mean, isn’t that obvious? We don’t have to write that down… do we?

I would argue that very few things, if anything, is so self evident that we can avoid to communicate it as a truth.

As an organization your Core Values are things that are non-negotiable, the very moral compass all decisions are measured by.  Which means that if honesty is a core value, and the CEO tells the secretary, to tell a caller, that he is not there, then the board would have to fire their CEO.

Values are things you hold onto, whether they are a strategic advantage or disadvantage for you to do so. You hire and fire based off of them. When an organization views values for what they are, as non-negotiable, then honesty usually falls right off the list.

So, are values really that self-evident that we can avoid writing them down and assume they are commonly known? Unfortunately, a resounding “No” is my response. It is not merely enough to have them, but they must be clearly and regularly communicated, no matter how common they may seem.

One of the greatest examples I have found of Core Values is in our Declaration of Independence as it states; “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” and what followed became the very basis for what America is.  Those values are stated to be “self-evident” by their very authors. Yet, they had the forsight to write them down and clearly communicate them.  May we learn from their example, both in our organizations and personal lives.

-Jon Bohm

Inspiration/Values, Knowledge, Leadership