How to Make Your Mark

Yesterday I had the chance to watch the Augusta Masters Championship with my wife and son. It was a very cold day outside and my wife and I decided to play scrabble while we watched the championship. Our 14-month old son was right in the mix as he ran around the room with his little Tykes golf kit. The final day of the championship was a roller-coaster. The lead changed a lot of times and several players were atop of the leaderboard with a chance of breaking away and winning it all. However, this was Zach Johnson’s day, an unlikely champion out of Iowa. For the first time in 51 years, the Masters was won by the highest-scoring margin. How did Zach Johnson win and what lessons can we learn from him?

Lessons from Augusta

1. Inch by Inch it’s a Cinch

Zach would not have won this tournament had he not played consistently right from the beginning. Every hole he played counted as he advanced towards the last hole of the championship. Every inch of the course had to be played. In order to win in life you must realize that there are no short-cuts to winning. Every little effort you put into the quest for success counts. Keep plugging away.

2. Play your own game

I was astounded when it came to the last two or three holes of the last round. Zach did not play aggressively. Instead of driving the ball down the fairway towards the green, he simply laid it up halfway down the green for his second shot. That was wisdom. You’ve got to play your own game. Don’t drive the ball down the fairway just because everyone else is doing that. The key to winning is to develop your own goals and timelines. This is your game, not someone else’s.

3. Don’t be intimidated

As Zach approached the 16th hole, a huge roar was heard from the 13th green. Tiger Woods had just spectacularly eagled the 13th hole and was beginning his attack. In past tournaments, many players have been intimidated by Tiger’s attacks and ended up blowing up their game. Zach did not. He stayed focused. If you are going to win, you must choose to stay focused on your personal path and realize that you have every chance at winning as the other players. Winning is not a birth-right for a select few. You have to continously believe in yourself, which leads me to:

4. Believe in your dreams

Zach had always believed that he could win the Masters. He has admitted to not having been the best player on his High School golf team but he believed in himself. Prior to his win, Zach had been cut so many other times from Major championships, but he continued believing in himself. You must believe in yourself and your abilities. It doesn’t matter what may have happened to you in the past. What matters is what you believe right now. You can do it. As Norman Vincent Peale used to say, “You can if you think you can”.

5. Give yourself the best chance

A lot of people sabotage themselves by not putting themselves in the best position to win. Zach, like everyone else, struggled in the front nine. But when he got to the back nine, he upped his game and scored 2-under. You have to up your game in the crucial moments of life. That’s how you give yourself the best chance to win.

Go for it! Keep working on your game. You can do it!

This morning I was challenged to realize that every word that comes out of my mouth has impact. There are no random words. Even the small chatter we tend to engage in every now and then is important. Words have the power to shape destiny. Every time we speak we are making a presentation. Our speaking should therefore be empowering to those around us.

A few days ago I decided to visit a local job fair for networking purposes. I met and chatted with a lady who, in the process of our chatting, shared with me information that has enabled me to connect with a great organization. We should never take for granted the chatter that takes place at the water cooler. Every talk is an opportunity to either share information or empower others with knowledge that can greatly improve their lives. 

I have been pondering the idea of orgnizational growth and whether bigger is always better. Most, if not all, organizations want to expand and grow. But is bigger always better? Are services and/or products better when the company is bigger? I really don’t think so. There may be some economies of scale that come with size but a lot of disadvantages come too. I believe that most large organizations fail to reach their true potential. Smaller organizations realize their potential much easier and faster than big organizations. Big organizations have to fight through a lot of bureacracy and red tape before new initiatives are implemented.

With all the hoopla over the past few months about The Secret DVD, there has been massive interest in personal development. This blog is about going beyond personal development to personal empowerment. Personal development is great. It enables you to acquire information that brings about growth in your life. Personal empowerment on the other hand is awesome because it enables you to utilize your skills to make an impact and a difference in society. The focus of personal development is on self - how you can be a better you. The focus of personal empowerment is on others - how you can use your talents to enable them to thrive in their lives.

The key to personal empowerment is engaging in personal growth with a view towards equipping others. Personal empowerment goes beyond self-actualization to people development. You have to be comfortable with getting out of your comfort zone. Most people are comfortable with developing themselves and growing for their personal ends. Few go beyond self-growth to people-growth. The truth is that true empowerment in life comes when you shift the focus from your own person to the development of others. That’s the hallmark of great leadership. Followers are great at personal development. Leaders are awesome at personal empowerment. Why? Because great leaders understand that their legacy is in developing others.

Let me provide a brief example that I hope will illustrate this better. In 2001 I was a leadership intern at the Honor Academy in Garden Valley, Texas. I arrived in Texas with a passion for personal development. I was an avid student of leadership. This resulted in my being asked to spearhead a new organization at the campus, Terra Nova, whose goal was to identify new initiatives, enhance community and cultivate a focus on the future of the Honor Academy. My responsibility as President of Terra Nova included developing my leadership council. My position gave me a title and authority but no relationship with my team. I had to build a relationship. This came through developing them as better leaders. As I focused on developing them, I became personally empowered in my leadership of the team. The quality of my personal growth was elevated since my goal wasn’t to become the best me but to enable others to become the best them. That’s personal empowerment.  

Early this week, France’s famous high-speed train, the TGV, showcased it’s high velocity in front of thousands of it’s own citizens and millions of TV watchers worldwide. Clocking up to 357 mph, the train created sparks on the rails as it blew dust on onlookers and astounded a captive global audience. Train driver Eric Pieczac said later on, “I’m delighted. It’s a mixed feeling of honor and pride to have been able to reach this speed.” His delight is understandable. We have come a long way from the 16th Century wagons that were drawn by single horses on wooden rails. We now have double-decker, powerful engines totalling up to 25,000 horse-power speeding across huge countries in short time! That’s major progress compared to the wagonways, tramways and steam engines that shaped the early days of locomotion. 

However, before we start celebrating the “savior-faire” of French achievement and start wearing T-shirts with the words ”French Excellence” printed on the back, I want us to consider the implications of this. Society today is consumed with the idea of speed. All we want is the next fastest thing. We want “instant” information, “high-speed” internet, “fast” food, “rapid” results, “immediate” action, “accelerated” education, “expedited” mail, “supersonic” jets, “swift” change, even “quick” sex. What happened to slowness? The leisurely, sluggish and unhurried are branded names while the fast and quick is celebrated.

Melting Glaciers and the Future of Slow 

Along with the Maglev of Japan, the world’s fastest train, which doesn’t even run on tracks but floats over a guideway in a magnetic field without touching the tracks, the TGV is a landmark of man’s progress. In this quest for faster and better, is there any future for slowness? What price are we paying in our quest for speed? It is reflected all over our society - on college campuses where students are running from class to class then to workplaces, in the corporate world where everyone’s favorite book is Business @ The Speed of Thought and in homes where fast-paced living has become the norm. 

Slow should become the new fast. I was born and brought up in Africa where slow is the norm. No one has mastered the art of living slow like the people in my rural village on the shores of Lake Victoria in Western Kenya. Life is luxury for them. Their motto is “Hurry, hurry, has no blessing”. When I came to the United States in August 2001, I was astounded at the pace of life. I remember going to a grocery store during my first week when I was not yet familiar with the currency. I had a ton of coins and bills which I pulled out of my pocket and started counting slowly in front of the clerk. His look, and that of the customers behind me, could have melted a glacier! But the truth is that our fast-paced life is melting glaciers in real life. The industrial revolution, in it’s quest for better and faster, has hastened the melting of glaciers immensely (global warming is a real threat).

Embrace Your Inner Snail

Given all this, what is the future of mankind? We have a choice for high velocity or slowness. My position is that slow is cool. We all need to apply the brakes. Stress levels are rising because of the speed at which we drive our lives. Human contact has become fleeting, at best. We don’t connect any more because we are rushing for the next event. It’s time to embrace our “inner snail”. The inner snail’s motto is this: “slow and steady wins the race”. Let’s send more letters than emails, ride more bikes than drive cars, use the crock-pot rather than the microwave, visit friends and chat instead of sending text messages and make love with the person that we have chosen to take the time to slowly get to know instead of have rapid quickies.

After experiencing the fast pace of life in the US, I went back home (where the people have mastered the art of slow living) to visit in 2005. I had an opportunity to embrace my inner snail when I went to a local internet-cafe to check my email. It took me longer to open the internet and load the pages than it would have taken me to open a letter and read it. While this may be an indication of backwardness of Kenyan technology, for me it is a celebration of slowness. I had to learn the wisdom of taking a newspaper with me to the cyber-cafe and reading it as I waited for the pages to load. Oh the beauty of slow living! Slow should become the new fast. Have a slow day! (and really enjoy the slowness!).

After many years of research being done and business books being written, the jury is out on the idea of organizational vision: companies must have a vision. Over the past two or three decades many companies have done a lot in terms of developing their vision/mission statements along with core values that guide them towards that vision. Go to any company website and nine out of ten times you will find some form of a mission statement, vision statement, guiding philosophy or core values.

While it is commendable that many organizations have a vision to justify their existence, it is worth noting that most of these visions are short-range in nature. The vision enables them to get on track with their plans but it is not sufficient enough to take them into the future. Let me use the analogy of a train going through a tunnel. Physical vision (along with the train’s lights) enables the train operator or engine driver to see as he goes through the tunnel. An experienced driver, however, has the mental vision that enables him to see beyond the tunnel. I would also venture to use an example from the nation of South Africa. Nelson Mandela had the vision to take the people out of apartheid. Thabo Mbeki had the vision to take the country into reconciliation and a future of mutual existence. Actually, Mandela did initiate the reconciliation but it took Mbeki’s leadership to sustain it beyond the euphoria of excitement.

Here are some thoughts on how long-range vision can transform your business:

1. Provides a focus beyond “tomorrow”

Vision is great because it provides you with a general strategy for handling tomorrow. Beyond tomorrow though, you need to be able to handle “the future”. Tomorrow belongs to those organizations that have a vision of what is coming ahead. The future belongs to those organizations that can shape what is coming. We see what’s ahead through vision; but we shape what’s coming through long-range perspective.  

2. Ensures the continuity of the group or organization

Vision gives power to an organization’s mission. Long-range vision, on the other hand, breathes life into the organization’s mission. Any organization can make it a couple of years but it takes long-range thinking to survive a future that threatens the very life of organizations. Vision can sometimes guide an organization to it’s level of incompetence. The Swiss watch making companies for example, were overtaken by Japanese digital watch companies because they did not have long-range vision. They had vision, yes, but that alone could not take them into the future.  

3. Envisions potential pitfalls and their solutions 

Henry Ford is noted for saying that the masses could have any car they wanted so long as it was black in color. Ford had great vision for the automobile industry but he could not see beyond the tunnel. He could clearly see the light at the end of the tunnel but little did he know that it was the headlight of an on-coming train. Now, he had experience and should have been able to see beyond the tunnel. However, he didn’t. If organizations are going to make it into the future, they must have long-range vision, rather than just “a vision of tomorrow”. They must be on the cutting-edge of shaping the direction in which society is going rather than putting themselves in a place where they will have to play catch-up.

How’s your organization doing? Do you have a long-range vision? At the Better Life Company, we have started aiding businesses in developing training programs that empower it’s employees in working with leadership to develop long-range vision. It takes more than observing trends. It takes more than a “visionary” person climbing to the top of the mountain and declaring the vision to the team. Are you ready to maximize your organization’s future and ensure it’s continuity?

This morning I had the privilege of speaking to kids at a local middle school. I volunteer as a character coach and visit local schools once a week to empower kids with ideas that can make them better citizens and winners in life. For the most part, the kids usually do very well, except for a few who normally seem to be in their own world.

While it’s easy to pass judgement on kids for not listening, it’s also true that adults do the same thing. This can easily be seen in many of our corporations, families and places of public gathering. Listening is perhaps one of the most basic social skills but few people take the time to master the process of listening. One wag once joked that ‘we are given two ears and one mouth so that we can listen more and talk less’. Today, I’d like to look at the art of listening by way of an acrostic of the word LISTEN. 

How to Increase Your Listen-Ability Skills

One of the most painful things for a speaker is the realization no one is listening until when the speaker makes a mistake. The joy of conversation (or public speaking) is usually crucified by the luxury of half-listeners. Regaining the art of listening necessiates an ability to LISTEN. Here’s how:

Look at the speaker and focus on her words - This might seem as a very simple and easy thing to do but it’s among the top, most challenging skills for many people. Last week I was talking to a friend at the Global Center in downtown Cincinnati and she told me that she has always had a hard time looking at people during conversation. This is someone who works at a place where she rubs shoulders with dignitaries from all over the world! Some people choose to look over the speaker’s head. Eye-contact is essential to communicate a listening attitude.  

Indicate understanding by nodding affirmatively - I once mentored a teenager who had a huge problem with accepting my ideas. This was a really nice young man who had been brought up on the north side of Omaha in Nebraska. What I noticed with him was that, as adults approached him to speak with him, he would immediately go into a mode in which he would shake his head from side to side and look down at his feet. After lots of coaching sessions, he began nodding positively and that created a lot of room for him to start accepting my feedback.

Spot any distracters and put them out of your mind - We live in a society in which so much demands our attention. I’ve been in meetings where, all of a sudden, I’ve noticed my mind drifting away to other things that I’d rather be doing (well, some of the time the content - or was it the speaker? - may have been boring.) But really, that’s no reason to zone-out a speaker and go to lala land (lala is a Swahili word for sleep). When this happens we must consciously choose to put any distracting thoughts completely out of our minds. That’s the key to concentration, the glue of listening. 

Try not to think of what you are going to say next - My wife has a great illustration she normally uses when coaching people on their listening skills. She talks about this funny commercial in which there’s a lady being spoken to. During the entire time she is eating Doritos and has zoned out the speaker. This has been a huge area of personal growth for me in my marriage. I thought I had learnt all I needed about it from my mom only to find that I was still raw on this habit after I got married. Nowadays I have learnt to gain power over my thoughts and focus on the speaker, thanks to the two most important women in my my life.  

Engage actively by participating on your turn - The art of listening goes hand in hand with demonstrating an understanding of the spoken word. Active engagement might mean responding in a concise manner or taking notes that enhance your grasp of the content. Listening is not a one-sided activity. It’s dialogue. As you engage in dialogue, you need to be able to monitor your internal conversations. Internal conversation should be focused on the speaker, not on what you are going to say next. Healthy listening skills come from being able to enage with the speaker. It’s about connectedness that comes from each party’s ability to play their roles effectively.

Note key points and make it a point to remember them - Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, talks about an “Indian talking stick” that was given to him by Indian chiefs. According to Indian culture, listeners were not permitted to say anything until the speaker passed the talking stick to them. The talking stick was never passed around until the speaker felt completely understood. What a beautiful way to communicate the sacredness of listening! Actually, here’s a link to the video where Stephen Cover talks about the Indian Talking Stick. It’s a great concept worth grasping fully.

Let’s regain the art of listening. Better listening not only enhances your knowledge of the topic but also communicates respect to the speaker. The key to being a great listener is to LISTEN. As my mother used to say, “Listening is one thing; hearing is another”. Let’s listen to hear.

Blogging has quickly become an international pastime. It has crossed across country borders, races, gender, occupations and age groups. An example of how blog-happy people have become can be seen in the very room where you are seated, reading this blog. With the explosion of this medium of delivering information, we are beginning to see bloggers emanate from all corners of the planet. While most bloggers have produced content that is making a huge difference in the world, a few have used blogging as a means to tear down others, vent about issues that they perceive to be wrong or engage in gossip. Stories abound in blogosphere of how unprincipled blogging has ruined lives. Many blogs have become avenues of opinionated thinking and closed discussion, where unwanted posts and comments are quietly deleted.

Great blogging is centered around good principles that govern human relationships. Blogging is nothing more than an extension of life to an online medium accessible to a wider audience. In my experience of reading and writing blogs, I find that people tend to lean more towards blogs that seem to be founded on correct principles. People want information that will make them successful at work, at home and in every other area of their lives. (O.k., there’s that group of  readers who care about nothing more than ”the latest scoop from hollywood”).

If we are going to unleash the fulness of our potential and experience the best that life has to offer we will need to engage in blogging that is centered on culturally accepted principles. Blogging is about information dissemination. Any information that is transmitted from one human being to another ought to be geared towards empowering that other person with knowledge or skills. The challenge of blogging is to add value, not to subtract value. And when it comes to adding value, I think we are just beginning to tap into a medium that offers great potential if done right.  

Great wit have they who succeed at pranking others,
They not only plan it with hindsight, foresight and insight;
But also with great vision and a sense of mission.

They jealously guard the prank and keep it a secret,
Knowing that the prank’s end is to liven up a life,
And the means to the end is the joke on the subject.

In being playful and malicious, the average pranker is mean,
By being practical and meaningful, the good pranker is caring, 
For being purposeful and masterful, the great pranker is wise.

Therefore prank away ye April Fools Day zealots,
Let your antics inspire happiness to the mundane,
May this day provide lots of glee to those who fall for the pranks. 

A poem by Herman J. Najoli. Created on April 1, 2007. May not be reprinted or used in any manner whatsoever without express permission from the poet.