Successful Blog

Does Your Credibility Show in What You Do?

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about credibility and what we do.

Not long ago, while we were listening to a talk show, a friend made a remark about a woman caller who argued a passionate opinion. She talked a bit longer than was acceptable for the the show in question. What he said was, “Anyone who can’t stop long enough to let someone else talk isn’t worth listening to.”

Have you met the pot that called the kettle black? With that sentence his credibility was shot.

This friend loves to argue science, politics, and how things work — he uses the same arguments more than once. His style is exactly that. He makes his voice such a strong force that no one has the energy to argue his point. It’s fine tactic for winning, but not one for reaching the truth. It’s also, as he himself said, not a way to win people who want to listen to you.

I’ve been thinking about that dissonance ever since. What struck me is how often we dislike in others what is our own habit or fault. We hold up our values when we call someone out for misbehaving, but we lose our credibility when the misbehavior is something we do too.

I’m going to be a little slower to talk. I’m going to check for my own version of someone’s bad behavior before I point theirs out. I don’t want to be the pot that calls the kettle black.

Credibility is hard to renew.

Credibility means believability. How believable can we be if we knock a behavior we do ourselves? .

Does your credibility show in what you do?

Be credible.
Be irresistible.
Be the best version of you.

Liz's Signature

Make It Happen

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Susan Bulkeley Butler

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CEO of Me, Inc.

Early in my career at Accenture, I didn’t get promoted when I thought I should have. I didn’t have the necessary skills to perform as a consulting manager. This prompted me — with the help of my mentor — to realize the following: I needed to undertake the responsibilities of the position I wanted before I could be promoted to it. I had to take responsibility for myself … I needed to figure out who I wanted to be and how to make it happen. Ultimately, I became the CEO of Me, Inc. This professional epiphany opened the door to a promotion as Senior Executive, the Office Managing Partner of Accenture’s Philadelphia office and the Managing Partner of the Office of the CEO at Accenture.

Changing roles in the workplace isn’t always easy, but I facilitated my new roles through my Make-it-Happen (MIH) Model, which consists of four easy-to-follow steps:

1. Set a clear vision

Just like the CEO of a corporation has a vision for their company, you need to have a vision for your company (You, Inc.). Take a moment to think about your future. What are you doing in five years? For example: “I am a partner at Accenture, in the Government Services practice, and my team just won a contract with the Department of Defense to implement a new human resources system.” Send an e-mail to someone, describing what you wish to be doing, and date it five years from today. By doing this, you’re talking with others about your aspirations and you’re committing to make it happen.

2. Build a team that supports you

You know what they say: two heads are better than one. Your team will serve as the Board of Directors of You, Inc. They will help you gather the necessary resources for you to achieve your vision. Your team should include people who: you admire, will open doors for you, and will recommend you for the opportunities you need to gain valuable experience. These people can be experts, mentors, advocates, executive coaches, stakeholders, etc. When I was at Accenture, my team included my peers, my clients, people I admired, and people who were in positions that I aspired to have (in addition to others in senior positions).

3. Develop a detailed plan

What do you need to do to obtain the promotion you want and how will you do it? What kinds of skills, experience, and knowledge are required to achieve your vision? Think of your plan as a roadmap or a GPS. You’d never leave for a long road trip without one of these, right? Developing a detailed plan will get you from where you are to where you want to be. Be clear, be concise, and set goals with dates. This way, you’ll always know where you are and what you need to do next.

4. Navigate the journey

Once you have your vision, your team, and your plan set in place, it’s time to put You, Inc. into motion. Be aware of your product and its packaging. You should also be aware of how you’re presenting and marketing You, Inc. As you navigate through your journey, monitor what’s going on around you. Which parts of your plan are successful? How about the parts that didn’t work out quite as you planned? Learn from any possible mistakes and move on. Look back at your original plan and make adjustments as needed. I proactively change my plan every 3-5 years. My end goal is to make myself indispensable. As the strategy of your organization changes, you need to change to be indispensable.

Ultimately, to make change happen, you must embrace these four steps and proactively seek opportunities for yourself. As I always say: make things happen for you, don’t just let them happen to you. Take responsibility for yourself. If you do this, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your goals and becoming the CEO of You, Inc.

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Author’s Bio: Susan Bulkeley Butler is the founder and CEO of the Susan Bulkeley Butler Institute for the Development of Women Leaders. Susan is also author of “Become the CEO of You, Inc.: A Pioneering Executive Shares Her Secrets for Career Success” (the Revised and Expanded Second Edition was published in May 2012) and “Women Count: A Guide to Changing the World” (). You can find her on Twitter at @SusanBButler.

Thank you for adding to the conversation!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

How to Find a Mentor for Free

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In my life, it seems as though I’m pretty “successful.” I’ve interviewed 50 millionaires; I’ve been on CNN, Yahoo, MSN Money and more. Plus I’ve been in Success Magazine so I suppose that I must be a success right?

But the truth is I’m just Jaime, a gal from a town of about 2,000 people in Maine. I only consider myself “successful” because of the amazing people that have helped me get here along the way.

How did I find these amazing people and who are they?

They are Kurk, Nathan, Pat and Chris. I consider all of them like mentors to me, and they have spent hours of time to help me without me paying them anything.

How did I ask these amazing people to help me–AND get them to say Yes?

How to Find a Mentor

Don’t just pick someone and then ask them to be your mentor. That usually doesn’t work and it often comes across as weird.

You want to form a relationship with them that makes them think, “Wow, this person really has a ton of potential.” Successful people like to help others, as long as you don’t waste their time.

When I started coaching, I was green. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to email my “competition” and say Hi. Kurk was a business coach with tons of experience, who had also sold a million-dollar business. When I met Kurk, he said that he could see I was eager and willing to learn, and hours later he emailed me asking for another meeting to discuss working together more.
I ended up helping him with all of his computer tasks and networking, and worked for free a few hours a week while he taught me everything he knew. He pushed me to my limits. We formed an amazing relationship and he helps me to this day. I consider him my business godfather. 🙂

When I decided to bring my coaching practice online three years ago, I found two amazing online entrepreneurs, Nathan and Pat. With them, I offered up my expertise as a trade for theirs. I had a lot of valuable skills, and leveraged them to learn their set of skills. I now consider both of them good friends.

Chris is a millionaire and serial entrepreneur. We started chatting shortly after I interviewed him. He has been so helpful, and has asked nothing in return. Chris is like the trusted adviser. I’m not sure why he decided to help, as I didn’t offer any expertise, but I am eager and want to help him in any way that I can.

1. Form a relationship. It all started with forming a relationship. If you have a meeting and feel the synergy between you and the other person, just start to feel out how you could work together more.

2. Ask if you can help them. Ask if you can help them in their business, or save them time by doing something for them. Tell them you really respect their expertise and would love to learn about what they know.

3. Keep helping and gradually ask for their input. If you have been an asset to them, they will start to open up and become an asset to you as well.

How to Find a Role Model or Advisor

Instead of finding someone who will officially mentor you, you could also find a role model. This can be simple, like an email with a question every few months that gets a response.

Derek Sivers, a millionaire I interviewed and founder of CD Baby, was able to get an open channel with Seth Godin, and through that they became friends.

Derek suggested this:

“You’d be surprised how effective a simple, quick-pointed three-sentence email can be.
I’ve sent emails off to my favorite authors and they have no idea who I am and I don’t include my website. They’ve never heard of CD Baby and I’ve been amazed how well the three-sentence email can get a reply.

Just a one-sentence qualification like, ‘I’m a huge fan of your books’ or, ‘This one changed the way I think.’ Sentence two is a simple direct question. Follow with ‘Any reply appreciated. Thank you.’

I think if you send somebody a simple direct question, not trying to dump the weight of your life on them or anything, sometimes you can go back and forth like that a few times. Then if you include a URL in your signature, they can go there, explore your company and possibly see interesting posts or your philosophies, which it may lead to more interaction.”

Action Item:

Look for people who have the skills you want to have, and start a relationship with them. Email a potential role model like Derek suggests, or take a local business person out to coffee.

Commit to one action this week that will help you find a mentor. It could drastically improve your business.

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Author’s Bio:
Jaime interviews self-made millionaires and talks business and life at EventualMillionaire.com. You can find her on Twitter as @eventualmillion

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

4 Steps to Discovering How to Live on Purpose

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A Guest Post by Veronica Drake

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I am Veronica Drake…. mother, ex-wife, wife, victim, friend, arch enemy and survivor. I will show you how I came to realize there are really only four steps to finding your purpose. It only took me 18 plus years to figure it out. Most likely it will take you all of three minutes to decide if it means anything to you.

One cold November morning in 1996 I screamed at God and tried to give Him back His faulty product. I even had the balls to challenged Him to a standoff: “If you have any use for me, show up now or I’m outta here.”

I was sick and tired of living the life I was given. I was blaming the Creator. I had no idea if there even was a God. I figured what did I have to lose. As I was careening my car toward the abutment I came face to face with the details of the life I had created: friends I’d made, loves I’d lost, bridges I’d burned, battles I’d created, and mistakes I’d lived to regret. I realized all this in a split second. And, yes, like in the movies, something happened. It was as if something literally was taking my foot off the gas and applying it to the break. I truly had no control over what was happening. I remember feeling very warm and safe. Something very familiar had me.

t wasn’t long after that experience I got all Holy Rollerish. It didn’t take me long to realize that Holy Roller stuff wasn’t me. But, it did make me question WHO I WAS and WHY I WAS SPARED that day?

I decided to dive in and explore what was really going on with me. What I know about me is I have charisma, I’m very out-of-the-box, I am quick witted and people are drawn to me. Ummm, what was it the Creator wanted me to do with all of that; what Purpose could I possibly fill. There it was right in front of my face the entire time. I would be who I was naturally created to be. Still struggling to identify Purpose, I simply continued to live my life, a life I could be proud of, a life that served others no matter what title I wore.

Ironically, just as I settled into living, it became crystal clear to me. I am a teacher of Purpose. I was given the gift of connecting people to Purpose. Wow, that was powerful. Lil’ ole me using the gifts I was given to be naturally who I am.

It was an 18-year journey for me but luckily for you I condensed it all down to 4 easy steps!

My Four Steps for Finding a Purposeful Existence:

  1. Clarity. Be clear about who you are. Take an honest inventory of what you are bringing to life. List your successes and your natural abilities. Take the time to write it out and revisit it daily. Begin knowing that we are all inherently good and we were all created with natural gifts. If you are struggling to get started, remember our Creator put default settings in us and all we have to do is simply return to what we know; the Golden Rule, do unto others.
  2. Passion. Passion IS energy. It shows up mentally, physically, and spirituality. Embracing the passion and learning to focus it is really the core of finding Purpose. Passion pushes us to look for ways to continually improve what we do and how we do it. Be passionate about who you naturally are. Marrying passion with Purpose is the ultimate fulfillment in life.
  3. Acceptance. A big part of living on Purpose is acceptance. To live a simplified Purposeful life all you need to do is surrender to what is. When you have expectations you will always find yourself in chaos. Bring acceptance into your life and you will find how easy life really is. Acceptance isn’t about living with what is forever it merely means you allow it to be until it no longer is.
  4. Deciding. Nothing happens until YOU DECIDE. The law of inertia states that “A body in motion tends to remain in motion, a body at rest tends to remain at rest.” Will you stay stagnate or will you move? I have DECIDED to be a Spiritual Life Coach who empowers people to live life on Purpose. You?

Living life on purpose is living up to the reason that we’re here, making the most of our gifts.

Have you discovered how to live life on purpose yet?

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Veronica Drake js an International Spiritual Life Coach who inspires clients to explore their spiritual self. Her site is Spiritual Coach Veronica Drake and she writes for people heeding the call of their inner guidance systems and who look to reconnect to their heart on her blog. Her Twitter name is RonnieDrake.

Thank you, Ronnie, for sharing the story of your passion, your purpose, and your life!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Punished for being too smart

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by Patty Azzarello

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Being the smartest one in the room is not easy

Really smart people who get to the answer before everyone else get frustrated because:

  • No one wants to listen to you
  • No one gets why you are right
  • Everyone seems to WANT to go slower (and it is infuriating)
  • You resent having to make the effort of “bringing people along”

Good guy or bad guy?

I have met and mentored many talented and genuinely kind people throughout my career that want to do positive things for the business in an unselfish way — but they get stuck because they are so smart that they piss people off.

If you are one of these people, or you have one of these people working for you – here is the trick.

You can either be Smart or you can be Effective

You can’t do everything alone.

You need other people — either to help or to get out of the way.

So if you can’t influence them, you will face road blocks and fail to get others working on your agenda. You will not be effective.

If you want to be effective, you have to suck it up and bring people along with you, even though it seems like a waste of time.

Here are some ideas…

First, slow down even though it goes against every grain of your being.

Include people: Don’t just announce the answer, go through the step of setting context and getting input.

Listen: In meetings, give others time to talk, and listen instead of arguing or shutting them down. You may feel like you are wasting time, but you will win favor by listening.  It will pay-off later when you need to get their support.

Don’t be mean. I know it doesn’t feel like you’re  being mean. You are not trying to be mean.  You are trying to be straightforward, practical, share the answer, and make progress. In fact, one of the things that is so annoying about these people is that they accuse you of being mean when you are not.

But they have the right to their perception. What they see may be your dismissing their inputs, ignoring them, or picking fights publicly. Say less. Be more gracious. Be more patient. Use more steps in your logic. Get smaller agreements along the way. Say thank you.

Make an effort to learn what their strengths are: You may be pleasantly surprised. Or not. But if you can get someone talking about what they are good at, and show some appreciation of that, they will be your friend, and you can get their support for your agenda.

Give them the benefit of the doubt: Keep in mind that these people might be brilliant in ways that you don’t see. In ways that you are not.

What if someone in the room is really gifted at networking and connecting and getting others to get on board? Even if they never understand your project, if you can win over that one person they can bring you all the others.

What if the numbers guy who is just not getting the big picture, has a relationship with the CFO that will get your idea funded if you can win him over?

Set your sights on effectiveness

OK. Even if you are truly in a room full of stupid people who can’t keep up, you have a choice to make. Jump to the answer alone and face roadblocks, or make the effort to bring them along, so you can get the job done.

It’s a choice you have. It may be frustrating in the moment, but the upside is that you will be getting things done – maybe not as fast as you want to go, but better than not at all.

What do you think?

Have you had this issue or helped others through it? What has worked for you? Please share your thoughts in the comment box below!
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Patty Azzarello is an executive, author, speaker and CEO-advior. She works with executives where leadership and business challenges meet. Patty has held leadership roles in General Management, Marketing, Software Product Development and Sales, and has been successful in running large and small businesses. She writes at Patty Azzarello’s Business Leadership Blog. You’ll find her on Twitter as @PattyAzzarello, and on Facebook. Also, check out her new book Rise…

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The Story Behind the Story….of SOBCon

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Today’s guest post is from Terry Starbucker

Terry Starbucker is a service company executive and a founder of SOBCon who writes about leadership, personal development, and social media in his blog, Ramblings From a Glass Half Full. He also shares his love of music and learning on Twitter as @starbucker

Let me tell you a story…

In May 2007, there was a gathering at a Chicago hotel.

75 people hung out together for a weekend, and talked about their craft, their passions, and their lives.

It turned out to be magical. Trust was high. Candor was abundant. Egos were checked at the door. There was a depth to the dialogue that prompted many to declare how “life changing” it was.

There were no barriers to learning. And it was good.

One year later, it happened again. The magic returned, this time for over 100 people in a downtown place that welcomed them with hospitality and great food. More lives were changed for the better.

Could it happen a third time? Yes. In May of 2009, 125 people felt it too.

The magic.

Where did this come from? Who was capable of conjuring up the ingredients of this potent mixture of trust, humility, and candor?

It had to be someone who lives and breathes these qualities. Who deeply believes in the basic generosity of the human spirit.

That’s where the magic comes from—that belief.

When that person entered the room at those three gatherings in Chicago, something wonderful happened. This person was the catalyst of a powerful enabling force that unlocked that same generous spirit from everyone there.

That’s really the “story behind the story” of this gathering we call SOBCon—the person who made it happen.

That person is Liz Strauss.

Without her these gatherings would not have taken place. No magic, no learning, and no life-altering experiences.

Liz Strauss IS SOBCon.

And she will once again be in a downtown Chicago room (yep, the one with the great food) with 150 people from April 30-May 2, 2010, nurturing and enabling this “think tank with a heart.”

The theme: “Virtual meets the concrete.” 2½ days of strategies and tactics focused on merging your online and offline worlds into a successful business.

Will you be there? Are you willing to learn from 150 “fearless sharers,” and will you share your experiences and wisdom as well?

Are you ready for the magic??

If you are, go to our registration site right now, and get in the room. (Don’t miss the video in the Event Details)

If you are not, and perhaps need a bit more information, or convincing, or both, check out the links I shared up above, and read as many of the recaps as you can. Or, just read Liz’s recap of SOBCon09, or my thoughts on why SOBCon matters to me.

Oh, and as a little added incentive, we’ll knock off $200 from the registration cost if you sign up before December 16.

C’mon, be a part of these ongoing stories, and join us in Chicago for SOBCon2010!

Thanks.

(And get well partner—much love to the magic maker!)