Successful Blog

Do You Know the Six Stages of a Dysfunctional Project?

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Sometimes it’s nice to do work things on the weekend–to use the free time you have to get a jump on the next week.

Some projects raise the bar to meet our ability to put in extra time. Don’t give up your life to make your work go faster. You could find yourself living less and less and working more and more instead. And in the end, you might end up a wreck rather than feeling like you’ve done something worth accomplishing.

Project problems can seem like one-of-a-kind things — certainly they’re only related to this awful project, this difficult client, this inexperienced team member. But if every project has it’s problems, then something dysfunctional is happening.

The Six Stages of a Dysfunctional Project
1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the Guilty
5. Punishment to the Innocent
6. Praise and Glory to the Non-Participants.

How do you spot a dysfunctional project on the horizon?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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Beach Notes: The Power of Mother Nature

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by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

The Power of Mother Nature

There is awesome power in the raging storms

The wild waves and the churning seas

The sideways rain and relentless winds

That have lashed the coast these past few days

We venture out to peek at what

Mother Nature has left in her path

We see magic in the sun rising

Over the white still churning, sea

Then we see the fallen trees,

The debris the storm has left behind

The once sandy beaches now covered in foam.

Flotsam and jetsam.

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

What Can Authenticity Create?

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This week as we recorded our first podcast (it airs Monday morning), Lorelle asked about authenticity. I answered that it’s who we are when no one is looking, when we’re being naturally and infinitely true to our humanity. Authenticity isn’t something we teach. It’s something we can see when it’s there and something we sense when it’s missing.

Authenticity is a bright harbor morning anticipating the sailboats arriving in their own time. It’s not proud, noisy, or meant to make us larger. Authenticity offers respect and shines on all things within its reach.

Authenticity is golden. It can’t be faked, borrowed, or stolen.

When our hearts are connected and other directed, we shine like that sun on the water. We show the promise of who we are and who we could be.

Nothing is more authentic than a decent human being. Authenticity creates joy, trust, and energy. It’s is our gift to each other wrapped in respect for all things living.

Share your promise this weekend. Create an authentic memory.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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From Out of Ideas to New Energy Everywhere

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I've been thinking . . .

about being out of ideas.

Oh yeah, billions of us log on to the web everyday, but I only know a few and the few I know are a lot like me. If I’m not careful I find that everywhere I go I hear people saying the same things. Funny, it’s easy when everything is too the same to start comparing things. That’s also when I start to feel out … out of gas, out of sync, out of ideas.

Yet, I think the problem may be that I’m in — not out enough.

A person, a product or a business has to stand out to perform.

When I’m tired of feeling out of gas, out of sync, out of ideas. I get out of that routine, out of my way, out the group and scene I’ve been and suddenly I discover I’m into all sorts of outstanding new things.

Sometimes the fastest way to move my mind is to move my feet off the usual path away from the usual group I’m in.

Then new energy, new ideas, and a new view surrounds me everywhere I am.

Know what I mean?

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Showcasing the Professional You Are to Land that Job

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Jobseeker, Freelancer, or Entrepreneur

We all need meaningful work to pay the bills and feel good about who we are.

In the past six months, I’ve had the experience of interviewing candidates for positions with my conference and a new roles for a company that’s starting up. What I’m finding explains a lot. Most of us don’t know how to talk about ourselves, our personal vision, and our successes. Few of us have a real strategy..

To bring it down to it’s most basic form, most people only think they are actively looking for work. They are waiting to be hired. That makes their role to react to a “job offer.” In hopes of getting more they open their net broad and wide, and then wider, and wider to take more and more potential customers in.

Unfortunately, most people who are hiring aren’t looking for anyone who do anything. We want someone unique who’s passionate about working for us.

Showcase the Professional You Are to Land that Job

We start by defining you and who you love to serve — the ideal employer, client, customer. I’ll ask questions that get to the heart of who you are — your successes and your passions. It won’t take long — maybe an hour. We’ll pull out the relationships and patterns to define what talk most about and where you excel. We’ll discuss the kind of problems you enjoy solving and identify the passion at the heart of your business.

The Complete Story

We’ll get to a business profile of you that includes
1. What your professional strengths are and what you want to be known for.

  • What problem do you solve?
  • What is your unique value?

2. What you can promise and will deliver — this usually is bringing people or customers to the table, getting people to buy, act, move,

3. The a partnership you offer — that you hear them and will be there, that you can think as they think, what you bring to any work situation that no other person will, what work situations you thrive in and what sort of people you want to work with.

4. A “do” line — the brief answer to “What do you do? With a tagline that describes you that’s easy to remember because it expresses the authentic you.

We’re all attracted to people who know who they are and where they’re going. We know people like that get things done and moving. They have time for ideas and action.

Don’t fit yourself into a job, find the job that fits you.

Yes, you can afford this. It’s a special offer for 15 readers of my blog. Email me lizsun2@gmail.com . . . It’s fun. Really. It’s what I’m good at. If you like that, we can keep going and make a longer plan for your business.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Australian Coffee and Australian Wine … What Dream Have You Left Waiting?

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Every week Suzie and Des send the most amazing thoughts and photographs from the beaches of OZ. The small missives they send may be just slightly more meaningful because of a dream I carry to return to the beaches I walked there 8 years ago.

Time for a 7-year-old Dream Now?

I started writing this in 2005. This dream was four years old then. I still think about it more often than I might. It waits until more important things hit zero balance. That could take a few more minutes … Usually I don’t talk about it.

I don’t need vacations. At least I don’t lack for places to visit. I don’t spend lots of time thinking about things that aren’t on the schedule to be happening yet. But maybe it’s time that I start doing so.

If I did, I’d be planning to go to Australia. I’d see friends that I miss. We’d reminisce of times passed. We’d plan new times to come. We’d drink Australian coffee and have Australian wine.

I’d choose the coffee shop across the street from Bondi Beach — a table by the window where I could watch the people. I’d have my laptop on the table and fine Australian coffee with those narrow packs of sugar. What a writer I would feel like. What a writer I would be.

My friends would visit me there.

We would drink Australian coffee. I do like Australian coffee.

We’d road trip up the cliff with Australian wine and cheese, to watch the boats in the harbor and talk of Captain Cook — new memories to hold me over until the next time.

And we would drink Australian wine. I do like Australian wine.

A night walk by the Sydney Harbor bridge. I can’t resist the lights on the water. I’d be thinking wishes that could hug a moment into stillness.

Mostly, though I’d be with my Australian friends. The ones I knew before I came online and the ones that I’ve met since. It’s not right always hoping folks will come to me.

Five tiny diamond chips like tiny stars are mine. Two yellow, two pink, one white. They hold a promise I’ll return to see mu Australian friends. Five stars inside a tiny boomerang. I wear it on a chain since before my last visit in 2001.

I don’t need vacations. I need safe harbor with my friends.

Maybe it’s time I dust off that dream and find good reason to be tasting some Australian coffee and Australia wine.

What dream have you to left waiting? How will you know when it’s time?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.