مارک سنبورن(Mark Sanborn) یکی از سخنرانان انگیزشی در ایالات متحده آمریکاست که در موضوعات مختلفی مانند مدیریت زمان و بهره وری فردی صحبت می کند. این مجموعه که به صورت محتوای متنی به همراه محتوای چند رسانه ای(Multimedia) تهیه شده است، شامل فایلهای صوتی از توصیه‌ها و تکنیک های ارایه شده توسط مارک سنبورن درباره مدیریت زمان، مدیریت انرژی و روابط فردی و بین فردی می باشد که به همراه ترانسکریپت(Transcript) یا آوانوشته تک تک فایلهای صوتی به زبان انگلیسی به علاقه مندان تقدیم می گردد.
این دوره آموزشی برای دو دسته از افراد مفید است؛ اول، کلیه مدیران، کارشناسان و کلیه افرادی که می خواهند از ارزشمندترین منبع در اختیار بشر ـ یعنی زمان ـ به شکل بهتری اسفاده نمایند و در عین حال روابط فردی و بین فردی خود را بهبود بخشند؛ و دسته دوم، افرادی که می خواهند زبان انگلیسی حرفه‌ای را یاد گیرند تا بتوانند در محیط کسب و کار و یا سایر محیطهای حرفه ای، فعالیت نموده و به زبان انگلیسی به طور مؤثر با طرفهای خارجی تعامل بر قرار نمایند.
Have you ever felt as if there are too many demands on your time? Are you a victim of your own procrastination? Having trouble with decision making or communicating effectively with the people in your workplace? Or perhaps you are like the most of us and you never have quite enough time to get all the things done that you would like to.
If you’ve ever wanted to surpass yourself or accomplish more than you have in the past, then keep listening as Career Track presents a special two tape series from author and presenter Mark Sanborn on how to manage your time, energy, and relationships.
Mark is known as the high content speaker who motivates. He presents speeches and seminars on leadership, teamwork, customer service, and mastering change. The author of Team Built, making teamwork work. And publisher of The Leading Edge, a quarterly newsletter, Mark’s expertise and common sense approach is sure to give new insight that will make you more effective in handling your time, energy, and relationships.
Now, let’s join Mark as he helps to answer 15 questions about assessing your skills.
Time is money. How often have you said or heard that? It isn’t true. Time isn’t money. It’s worth much much more. You can enjoy time without money, but you can’t enjoy money without time. That’s what Benjamin Disraeli said, “He who gains time, gains everything.” Time is precious, more valuable than money. But it seems that the only thing that typical American has less of than disposable income, is disposable time. Several years ago USA Today asked readers to write their past year. 47% said their lives had become busier. 41% said their lives were about the same. Only 12% said that their lives had become less busy and I don’t know any of them.
Today, 62% of employees feel they are always or frequently rushed and 26% haven’t gone away on a vacation in the past 12 months. And how do people spend their free time? Their time outside of work?
The average American spends 53 minutes a day on grooming, 2-hours and 26 minutes watching TV, and 30 minutes waiting or standing in line for a total of 5 years of waiting over the course of a lifetime. An executive recently asked me: “How do you balance the various components of your day to achieve the right allocation of time?” His, this May was obvious as he went on to detail the many demands of his time, work, family, sleep, education, exercise, recreation, meals, and a myriad of other activities.
He said that most of the senior managers that he knew allocated theirs as follows; work: 16 hours, family: one-and-a-half hours, meals: one-and-a-half hours, sleep: 5 hours, exercise, education, and enjoyment: zero. Twenty-four hours spent, with according to this individual little satisfaction. As Irene Peter observed, life is entirely too time-consuming. It seems that there’s a common ailment facing business people today. It feels like we’re working more but accomplishing less. Burnout could well become the national disease.
Do a quick assessment. On a scale of 1 to 10 answer the following question. Keep in mind that 10 is perfect, you’ve got no room for improvement in that 1 is abysmal. You’re not even trying. Here’s the question: “How productive are you during your working hours?” If you scored a perfect 10 please contact me and share your secrets. But if you scored anything less and the typical score is somewhere around 6 or 7, listen further. Would you like to get more results from the time you spend at work each day?
Do you want to leverage your career success? Do you desire to have more time to do the things you really want to do, not just the things you need to do? That’s what these tapes are about. I’ll show you how to improve your productivity without necessarily working harder to do it. I can’t tell you how to add more time to your day. It’s quite impossible. We all have the same number of hours, minutes, and seconds each day. The key is to better use the time we have. You can’t put more time into your life but you can put more life into your time.
Do you remember this old poem? There was a very cautious man who never laughed or played. He never risked, he never tried, he never sang or prayed. And when he one day passed away, his insurance was denied for sense he really never lived. They claim he never died. It would be tragic to squander our lives because we filled our time with empty activities.
I believe the way we spend our working hours is critical for two reasons. First work can and should be a source of fulfilment. I don’t believe any of us wants to spend 8 to 12 hours each day something that we don’t believe is important. I’ve observed that the better work goes the better the rest of our lives goes as well.
Secondly, our success at work determines to a large degree how much time and money we have to spend with those people who are most important to us, family and friends. Doing those things that really give us pleasure. Although the primary focus of these tapes is to help you improve your professional results I believe these ideas will benefit you in your personal life as well.
Here’s your challenge: to work smarter, better, and faster without sacrificing the quality of the results you’re producing. To find out how well you’re doing, take this 15 question quiz. You’ll learn or be reminded of 15 important concepts for managing your time, energy, and relationships.
You’ve probably listened to a tape series before that told you to turn off your tape player and write down the answers. If you’re like me, you don’t have time to turn off the player. You may even be driving or exercising as you listen. So, just answer yes or no to each of the following 15 questions.
In the mid-1940s, a 15-year-old boy sat down to make out a list of his life’s goals. He wrote down 127 goals. Among the more, he wanted to explore the Congo, Nile, and Amazon rivers. He wanted to read the complete works of Shakespeare, Aristotle, and Socrates. He decided that he would climb Mt. Everest and Mt. Kilimanjaro. He wanted to take off from and land on the deck of an aircraft carrier. And his final goal was to walk on the moon.
۴۰ years later, John Goddard had accomplished 108 of those 127 goals and he was still going. He knew that the key to a fulfilling and successful life was a sense of purpose and clearly identified goals. When life would finally end, he would have accomplished those things that he deemed to be most valuable and most important.
Most of us never take time to do what Goddard did as a 15-year-old. We don’t have a sense of what we’re trying to accomplish on a daily, weekly, or yearly basis. We lack long term perspective and that hinders our efforts to create gratifying short term results. The first step in getting more done and producing results in our personal and professional lives is committing to a long-range plan of action that details what we want to accomplish.
The daily plan is probably one of the most practiced time management technics. But does it really work? The answer not as well as it could. The daily plan it needs to be part of a weekly plan and both plans need to be committed to in writing. Even the best memories fail at consistently tracking important tasks in projects. Why a weekly plan? Let’s say that you have 43 things to do next week ranging from the somewhat minor to the really major. When do you plan to do them? First thing Monday morning you’ll make a list of all 43 to do that day. You don’t really expect to get them all done on Monday, but you figure you’ll accomplish the lion’s share. When the dust has settled at the end of the day, your list this actually grown to 47!
Not only have you not accomplished most of what you tried to do but some things have come up that you had to add to your list. Tuesday morning you start full-speed to accomplish the list that had grown to 47 on Monday and by noon on Tuesday you’re so frustrated by how many items are still on the list that you wad it up and throw it out the window.
Planning one week at a time gives a greater sense of control by taking advantage of the concept of pacing. It allows us to focus not on a 24-hour period, but on a longer period of time that’s more manageable. An important key to getting more done is having both a daily and weekly plan that allows you to distribute your activities and workload rationally.
Have you noticed that if you have a list of things to do today and by the end of the day you’ve accomplished all but one thing, that one thing you have yet to do is the most important item on the list. That’s because of reverse prioritization. We do it unintentionally most of the time. Here’s how it happens. The easy things can be done quickly and by checking off a lot of them we feel a sense of accomplishment. We of course keep putting off the biggest and most difficult tasks until we’re out of time. That’s why you need to prioritize every item on your daily plan. As famed author Stephen Covey says: “You need to do first things first.” But what are those first things? I’ll explain an effective privatization system later on these tapes.
Early in my business career, I admit to having used at least 5 different systems. I used some that were commercially available. I used one system that I created myself. And even tried one that a friend had devised. Here is my conclusion. The system that you use is less important than the fact that you use a single system and that you use it consistently. I’m sure there are some fine selling points for each and every time management system on the market today. But I recommend that you carefully select a system you’re willing to commit to for at least the next year.
When choosing your system, remember these things. First, price is not an accurate predictor of usefulness. Usually price is related to the attractiveness of the system not your ability to use it easily. Put substance above style when choosing your system.
Secondly, keep it as simple as possible. You don’t want a system that requires and unwieldy number of forms and cross-referencing. The system should free up time for you not consume it. Thirdly, don’t get too technical. Understand that I fancy myself a bit of a turkey. I own several computers including a laptop. I surf the information highway in all the rest. But my basic time management system goes in a ringed binder and is full of pencil marks and erasers. If you have to log onto your computer to use your time management system you may not use it as much as you should.
An architect is one who designs the future. A firefighter responds to crisis. One is in control, the other feels controlled. It is easy to end up living life reactively rather than proactively. Although we can’t control everything that occurs each day, most people can control much more than they do. It is easy to blame other people for a lack of control. Would you like me like to have a sign above your office door that says “A lack of planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on my part.”
Many of us become victims of other people who lacking the system and the skills create those crises which impact us. But there are things that we can do and I’ll discuss them to manage our interactions with others even those who don’t plan. A primary difference between an architect and a firefighter is that an architect schedules time to think, plan, and create. Firefighters are so busy reacting that they don’t have time for pro-acting.
When Jeff Salzman, co-founder of Career Track, first met Scott Peck best-selling author of The Road Less Traveled, he was surprised to learn that Peck spends one hour each day doing nothing but thinking. And yet, Peck is a prolific writer and speaker. It is fascinating that truly productive people aren’t always as busy as we think they might be. Firefighters create lots of action, but accomplish few significant results. Architects create lots of well-thought-out results with a minimum of unnecessary action.
I used to be a card-carrying perfectionist. I was proud of the fact that I had extremely high standards. But I didn’t realize that there was a difference between having the high standards of excellence and being a perfectionist. A clinical psychologist once defined a perfectionist as someone who pays neurotic attention to details, usually stemming from their insecurity. For perfectionists nothing is ever good enough. Not because they are committed to success but because they are afraid of inadequacy.
Excellence is something entirely different. Excellence is a commitment to high standards that means additional time or energy invested in a task or product makes it noticeably better to the end user. Time or energy that doesn’t create value is wasted. I’m like Thomas Edison who once said: “I don’t want to invent anything that nobody wants to buy.” I never want to be guilty of spending time on a project or product or even a service if it doesn’t create more value for the end user.
I’m a big believer that we need to involve the customer in defining quality whether that customer is a coworker, our manager, or another employee. Sometimes our definition of value doesn’t match the definition of those we serve. That’s why the end user helps define true value. It’s easy to place blame for these perfectionistic tendencies that many of us have developed.
I could blame my parents. When I was growing up they used to say that everything worth doing was worth doing well. Mum and Dad had good intentions, but they were telling the half-truth. You see some things are worth doing and getting done. Some things are worth doing well, and other things are worth doing very very well. Perfectionism is the inability to know the difference.
Discipline is doing what needs to be done rather than what is easy to do. It is the ability to delay immediate gratification in order to obtain long-term gratification. We often know what needs to be done, and it’s not that we lack the ability to do it. It’s that we lack the discipline, the drive, or the follow-through to get it done.
It was Will Rogers who said: “Plans will get you into things, but you’ve got to work your way out.” Sometimes discipline can be accomplished by removing temptation. One of the primary differences between men and women is that men really can watch 500 channels simultaneously. I’m that way. An addicted channel surfer. When I bought my first home I had cable TV installed. I found myself turning on the TV late at night in channel surfing for hours. I wasn’t disciplined enough to turn it off. I finally became disciplined enough to drop my cable service with only three or 4 channels, 2 of which coming really fuzzy, I have no problem avoiding channel surfing.
What time wasters in your life could you eliminate? Are there any temptations that you need to remove? How well do you use downtime? I mentioned earlier that the average person spends 30 minutes each day waiting and that figure doesn’t include time in your car commuting. I recommend that you convert downtime to development time.
Carry a small notepad or get one that sticks to your windshield so that you can jot down ideas. Keep a good book, magazine or other reading material in your briefcase. And don’t forget to keep educational audio cassettes in your car so you can learn while you drive. Discipline yourself to make the most of downtime.
Ask the average American what the scarcest resource in their life is. And they will usually tell you that it’s money. But I don’t really believe that money is a true resource. I believe money is a by-product of how we invest the only three real resources we have. Our time, our energy, and the time and energy of those we work with. Here’s a motivational number: 29220. Write on a post-it note and put it in front of you on your desk. 29220 is the number of days that you will have lived if you reach the age of 80. Wouldn’t you think you’d get at least a quarter of a million days? Not so, you get less than thirty thousand.
If you’re 40 years of age or older, you have less than fifteen thousand days left. Time is a scarce resource even for those who live a long life. The second scarcest resource is energy. Work too many hours or get too stressed by your job and you won’t have the drive to be productive or the energy to enjoy your family in free time.
Neglect your health and you won’t have any fun either. As I was working on this script I came down with some kind of nasty virus. Plugged sinuses, headache, and no energy. It seemed like each day was doubly difficult I was reminded “time without the energy to accomplish and enjoy is hard labor.”
We need to judiciously guard our health if we want to enjoy happiness. But there is a third critical resource and that is the time and energy of other people. If you’re only good at managing your own time and energy you are running on two out of three cylinders. You must develop the ability to get results with people, those you work with, and or those that you manage. In management, there has been an ongoing debate between task orientation and people orientation.
In actuality, effective managers must have both. They must be able to balance the relationship needs they have with others, against the organizational need to produce results. You cannot separate the two.
Your skill in getting results, depends on how highly developed your people skills have become, and your ability to manage your interactions with others. Even if you don’t formally manage people, your success in life is predicated and how well you get along with others. Lacking any formal power over people, the only way you’ll gain their cooperation is through your ability to create enjoyable and rewarding relationships. And that brings me to question number nine.
Right now underneath your business attire are you wearing a Lycra Spandex suit with a big ass on the chest? Do you believe that, hey, if it’s going to get done right and get done on time, I’m the one that has to do it?
As a matter of fact, I know all this stuff that he’s talking about in his tapes series. The only reason I’m listening is to get this information and take it back to the people who really need it. We can’t do it all ourselves. We need to be able to get commitment from others, to live up to the high standards that we ourselves are committed to. Trying to do it all yourself will severely limit how much you can accomplish both personally and organizationally.
Most people would enter by saying, well, let me think about that for a while, and I’ll get back to you with an answer later. We all tend to postpone what needs to be done at this moment and do something we’d rather do instead. In these tapes I’ll tell you exactly what procrastination is, why we do it, and most importantly, how to overcome it.
The fear of failing prevents many people from ever trying. When a successful entrepreneur hired a national vice president of sales for his company, he shared his philosophy about failure. He said I want you to feel free to try things and make mistakes. If you make the same mistake twice, that’s fine. I’ll just figure you came up with a different way to try it. If, however, you make the same mistake 3 times I’ll fire you. He very clearly defined what failure was, a means of learning and growth.
He said that it was O.K. to make the same mistake as long as you are trying something new. However, he went on to explain there should be a reasonable limit to how many mistakes you can make the same time before the cost of the lesson becomes too high. if you make the same mistake three times, you’re obviously not learning from past experience.
The author Elbert Hubbard said to avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. I have observed that the people who win big are those who are also willing to fail big. Try and you may not succeed but never try and you’ll never succeed. Like the old adage says “If you throw enough stuff up against the wall, something is bound to stick.” Likewise, if we overcome our fear to try things because we might fail, some of those things we try or bound to succeed.
Psychologists have found that as crippling as a fear of failure might be, so is a fear of success. Some people fear the increased expectations that they have to live up to when they’re successful. So they sometimes short circuit themselves in their attempt to get things done. The tough thing about being successful is that people expect you to keep being successful. Again the wisdom of the ages is true. It is better to be a husband than I never was. A fear of failure or a fear of success can be a very real barrier in your attempt to get things done. Except that failure and success are not mutually exclusive.
Most of us could honestly answer yes to that question. The key is to be more selective in the meetings that you go to. When invited to attend a meeting, ask yourself a simple question: “Do I need to be there?” If you can identify tangible benefits either for you or those in attendance, you don’t need to attend.
What if you are expected to attend? It would be prudent to explain to the people who expect you to be there, why it would not be in your or their best interest to do so. There are also alternatives to your physical attendance. You could appoint a delegate who would either benefit or better contribute by their attendance. Don’t just pass the buck. A particularly helpful technique is to offer your input in advance so that you don’t need to attend the actual meaning. You can also draft a memo or email to forward to attendees. But don’t invest time attending meetings that don’t pay interest on your investment. Be an architect not a firefighter.
An interruption is an intrusion by an outside force into your planned existence. Sometimes life can drop a big stone on your head when you least expect it. But more often than that, it isn’t the size of the interruption that keeps you from being productive. It is the frequency and duration.
There are at least four kinds of interruptions. The first is an interruption that we actually pay for each month. As a matter of fact, we keep it on our desk within an arm’s length. That interruption is the telephone. I should clarify, since I do work with a number of telecommunications companies around the United States, they’ve asked me to explain that it’s not really the phone that interrupts, but rather, the caller. The telephone is only a tool. But that tool becomes a mechanism by which we can be interrupted 110 times a day. We’ve got to learn how to control the telephone if we’re going to get control of interruptions.
My suggestion, after you’ve exchanged pleasantries with the caller, asked the question: “What can I do for you?” Quickly identify the reason for the call in the appropriate response that you should take. The second interruption is paperwork. We can’t control the inflow of mail, email, memos, and faxes that reaches our desk each day, but we can control our response to them.
Think of the acronym task TASK. It represents the only four responses to correspondence in the order of importance. The T stands for Toss. When in doubt throw it out. If it turns out to be more important than you originally thought, I copy undoubtedly exists somewhere. The A is for Act. Take Immediate Action or schedule the appropriate response for later. Now, if you can’t toss or act, the S stands for Send. Could someone else benefit from the information? And finally, your last option is the K which stands for Keep.
Make sure you have a well-organized filing system for those documents which you need to save. The third kind of interruption is self-originated. You know how this works. You come into the office first thing in the morning and you say, boy, I’ve got a lot to do today, but first, I need to get a cup of coffee. You go down the hall to get a cup of coffee and of course you run into a friend or coworker and you spend the next 10 or 15 minutes talking about what you did the evening before. On your way back to your office you realize you probably should stop by the restroom so you won’t be interrupted later. And while you are in the restroom you happen to see your boss and they give you two or three things that you need to do for them before the end of the day. As you leave to head back for your office you run into your assistant who tells you that the phone has run three times and that you should return those calls as soon as possible. You sit down at your desk to return those phone calls and you realize that your pencils aren’t sharpened. Nobody wants to work with the dull pencil. So you sharpen your pencils. Before you know, it’s 9:45 in the morning and you haven’t accomplished a thing.
We tend to blame other people for interrupting us but very few of us take the responsibility for creating our own self-originated interruptions. Develop an orientation for tackling tasks rather than preparing for them.
And finally, the fourth and my favorite kind of interruption is called a monkey interruption. That’s what happens when you delegate unsuccessfully. You give somebody something to do and within a matter of minutes they’re back in your office asking you how to do it. Before you know it you’ve gotten the monkey you gave them back on your desk. If you’re not careful, you might get a male and female monkey in your office on the same day and before you know it, you’re caring for an entire zoo. Don’t let people give monkeys back. Support them, coach them, and encourage them, but don’t suffer from the illusion that it would be quicker to do it yourself. If you don’t learn to control the interruptions that occur each day, the interruptions will control you.
The average manager spends 16% of each day in front of a copying machine. No wonder there’s little time left over for dealing with really important issues. When I was in college I had a roommate named Steve who today has a PhD from Stanford. He’s a very successful economist travelling all over the world. Steve had a sign above his desk that I’ve seen many times since. But it’s still a great advice. The sign read: “What is the best use of my time right now?”
Sometimes goofing off is a pretty good use of time if you think about your alternatives and consciously choose to goof off. The problem is a lot of us are living our lives and autopilot. We are not consciously choosing how to spend each moment of each day. I’m not suggesting that we should become robots; That we should become so driven that we don’t have a leisure moment in the course of a day. But we need to consciously choose how to best use our time.
Lou Holtz, one of the greatest living football coaches and head coach of the fighting Irish of Notre Dame uses the acronym WIN which stands for What’s Important Now. If we’re able to identify the best use of our time, what’s important now, we’ll find our time invested rather than simply spent. And finally question number 15 in this mini self-quiz.
I really believe that if I did half of what I already knew I should be doing, I probably be on a yacht right now in the Bahamas sipping rum punch. The problem is not a lack of information; the problem is a lack of application. I believe that the distance between excellence and mediocrity is the distance between what you know and what you do with what you know. It’s the difference between common knowledge and consistent application.
I’m an amateur rock climber and as I watch professional rock climbers it continually amazes me how they are able to climb up the side of a sheer cliff with only a very tiny foothold or finger hold. That’s what I’d like to challenge you to look for in the course of this tape series. Those little tiny ideas that don’t take a great deal of effort to learn but which when used will give you a competitive edge that makes professional rock climbers so good at what they do.
This tape series is designed to show you how to surpass yourself. How to accomplish more than you’ve accomplished in the past. By managing your time, energy, and relationships. Technics are important, but it is also helpful to have a mental model for accomplishing more. What makes really productive and successful people tick, I’ve learned a great deal from observing and studying the habits of very successful people. Although no two are exactly alike; There are similarities among them that can be synthesized into a working model we can use. My observations have led me to believe that the ingredients of a productive lifestyle are the 5 Ps, Picture, Purpose, Principles, Plan, and Practice.
The beginning point is to have a picture of what we want our lives to be. My friend Dan Boris, author of Technotrans, has coined the term “Future View”. He believes that our view of the future determines what we do each day. In addition to being focused on the present, we must know what we want our future to look like if we’re going to make good decisions that will move us closer to that picture. We need a picture.
We know from the world of sports that there is a difference between playing to win and playing not to lose. It isn’t enough to know what you’re trying to avoid in life. You must be clear about what you’re trying to achieve. Have you taken some serious thinking time recently to determine if you’re living your life by design or default?
Having a picture of what you want your life to be is about living with sixty sixty vision. My friend Brian O’Malley is an extremely interesting guy. Today he is a speaker who shares his experiences as a world traveler, mountain climber, and adventurer. Prior to that, he spent 8 years in emergency medicine. It’s so boring to learn that he’s been with over 250 people in the final minute of their lives. The important insight Brian says is that none of those people’s last words were “I wish I had spent more time in the office.” The last 60 seconds of life is a time of stunningly clear perspective.
Roger Mellott is a therapist and professional speaker who authored an excellent career track tape entitled “The Courage To See Clearly.” He explains that when his father was given 60 days to live because of a serious illness, his dad’s perspective changed dramatically. He stopped doing those things he didn’t enjoy or feel were important and instead focused on making the most of what he thought were his final days. When it be helpful Roger suggests if we could gain the same window on the world as someone with only 60 days left to live, wouldn’t that enable us to live fuller, richer, and more honest lives?
These examples are helpful, not more. If we understand the lessons within and the lessons aren’t about dying, about living, combining these two concepts results in what I call sixty sixty vision. Using the clarity of the last 60 seconds of your life as well as the last 60 days to determine what is really important.
In the final moments of your life will you have regrets or will you celebrate the fact that while you were alive you really lived? When it comes down to a few accomplishments that bring ultimate life significance, what will those accomplishments be for you? If you lived life with sixty sixty vision, would your communication with others be more honest? How would you approach your work? Who would you spend more time with? Who would you decide to spend less time with or no time at all? What would you stop worrying about? What would you strive to be remembered for? What would you do each day to maximize your enjoyment? And what contributions would you strive to make? Then why not live your life that way right now? Why wait for the final countdown? You and I may never get to know when we’re living our final 60 days or seconds and even if we do find out, it will be too late to change very much. The only time is the present. Develop the picture of your life with 6060 vision.
The second ingredient is purpose or a sense of mission. I’ve asked hundreds of audiences across the United States in my speeches and seminars this question. Why do you get out of bed in the morning? The number one response I get is, well, I have to. They never really explain why, but they feel there’s a vague compulsion or obligation to get up. The number two answer I get, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.” Most people are more motivated by their bladder than by their beliefs.
The reality is that few of you listening really have to get out of bed in the morning. If you lay there long enough, somebody would come and take care of you. So, why get up? The answer to that question holds deep significance. Washington Irving once wrote “Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.”
What is your mission? Your compelling purpose in life? In my opinion, that is the most important question you will ever answer. Without a purpose, there is no why for what we do. A picture without a purpose, is like undeveloped film.
The next ingredients are principles. Principles are the rules we use for managing our lives. The code we live by determines the character we develop and the consequences we enjoy or regret. There are many principles by which we live, both consciously and unconsciously. It is important that we identify those principles which will create the success we desire and consistently practice them.
There are two principles that can pay off for you immediately in your efforts to manage your time, energy, and relationships. The first is the principle of positive thinking. There are those who criticize this concept as being naive. Yet, we now have conclusive research that positive thinking makes an important difference.
Dr. Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania has concluded that our explanatory style or mental outlook determines to a very large degree our success in life. Seligman found that an explanatory style at the age of 25 was a good predictor of a person’s health at the age of 65. In his research in the insurance industry he found that insurance sales people with a positive outlook, a positive explanatory Style, sold 38% more life insurance than those who had a negative explanatory style.
How does this work? One explanation is that positive thinkers frame a situation in its best perspective. This allows them to see opportunities that negativists often miss. In my work as a professional speaker, I travel an average of 180 days each year. I am often asked if I enjoy the travel. The truth is that I often don’t. Airlines, hotels, taxis and restaurants lose their excitement when you travel as much as I do. But I work hard and not complaining.
It became clear to me that I only really have two choices: quit travelling, and that’s not an option since I love my work, or quit complaining about it. It was easier to do the latter and it has made travelling much easier for me. How much of your energy is spent complaining or regretting circumstances in your life that you either can’t change or wouldn’t change even if you could. The second principal is self-responsibility. I believe we must either control the circumstances in our lives or control how we respond to them. Planning and skill allow us to take some control but we need to recognize that sometimes things happen that are beyond our control. There is a tendency to place blame on circumstances rather than accepting the responsibility for how to respond. Hence, the term victim of circumstance. The principle of self-responsibility means accepting responsibility for one’s own life. For creating the circumstances one desires or for responding appropriately to those one cannot control.
Bishop Fulton Sheen was scheduled to speak at the town hall in Philadelphia. On his way he got lost and asked some neighborhood boys for directions. “What are you going to do there?” they ask him. He told them that he was going to give a lecture. They ask him what the topic was. He said “I’m going to explain how to get to heaven. Would you like to come along?” “Are you kidding?” they said. You don’t even know how to get to town hall. It isn’t enough to know where you’re going if you don’t know how to get there. That’s why having a plan is important.
I was conducting a seminar in Pittsburgh on productivity and at the morning break a man approached me. I had talked about how important it was to have a written long range plan. He said “Do you have a written long range plan?” I said “Yes, sir, I do.” He said “Can I see it?” He wanted to see if I actually practiced what I preached. I said “Well, I’ve left it at home. I don’t carry it with me when I’m on the road.” He said “You really should. Would you like to see my long-range goals?”
I had a feeling I really didn’t have a choice and I was right. He reached into his wallet and it took out an index card that had been cut down to size. On the index card, were three goals. Goal number one: Retire at age 65 financially independent. Goal number two: Maintain excellent physical condition in health. Goal number three: Travel extensively throughout the United States and abroad.
three very simple goals on a very worn and teared up index card that he kept in his wallet. He then asked me “How old do you think I am?” Now, admittedly, I’m not a great judge of age but he looked to me to be in his late 40s early 50s. He informed me he was 2 years away from retirement. 63 years of age. And I could tell just from looking at him that he was in exceptional physical condition in health.
Then he went on to say, you know, when I retire I won’t be outrageously wealthy. but I have enough money saved up that I don’t have to depend on anyone to support me. If the Social Security System fails, I’ll be ok. He was indeed financially independent. He then said that he had visited most of the 50 states so far and several foreign countries. After he retired, he planned to spend 3 to 6 months each year travelling abroad. He had obviously gone a long way in accomplishing those three life goals that he’d written on that index card.
He asked me “Do you know how I’ve been able to accomplish all this?” You can hear about an idea in a seminar. You can read about it in a book. But when you meet the idea in action, it has a profound impact on you. He said when I wake up each morning, I take out this card as I put together my daily to-do list and I ask myself is what I’m doing today moving me closer to one of these three long-range goals. If it isn’t, I don’t priorities it and very often I don’t do it. He had learned that having a plan helped him evaluate what he was doing each day to determine if it will help him achieve the picture he held for his life, his future view.
David Campbell a very clever book called “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up somewhere else.” He’s right. Your plan should include important goals. The picture we hold of our lives is the ultimate destination. The purpose is what propels us towards that destination. Priorities help us decide what’s important. The plan is a roadmap for getting there and goals are the mile markers along the way, a tracking system for success.
This concludes side one of “Career Track, How to Manage Your Time, Energy, and Relationships.” Please turn the tape over to continue with side two.
کارشناس ارشد مدیریت بازرگانی
مسلط به زبان انگلیسی و IT
سابقه مدیریت در شرکتهای خصوصی و دولتی
