Hard Time Getting Started On Monday? Try This.

Whenever I have a dip in energy or productivity, I watch 30 to 60 seconds of this video. It works.

Smart Things People Do At Work - Acknowledgement.

The number one reason why people enjoy and stay at their jobs is not money. Of course you do work FOR the money, but when employees are asked about what motivates them about work - acknowledgement tops the list every time. Quick question: Do you regularly and specifically acknowledge your direct reports?

Regularly: Not once a year - a more frequent basis would suffice. Specifically: Not a generalized statement: "You're doing a great job!" But a more specific one: "The way you handled the meeting today - you've come a long way. I'm so proud of you!".

When it comes to acknowledgement, do these four things:

1. Gratitude: Show real gratitude and insert it into your acknowledgement.
2. Honesty: Be sincere. No joking. Don't be flippant.
3. Focused: Get them alone, or catch them off-guard — "I need to speak to you . . . "
4. Enthusiastic: Don't make it sound like they are being fired. Smile. Make them feel the energy!

And don't go around the table or office and acknowledge everyone at the same time — that defeats the purpose.

If you regularly and specifically acknowledge your direct reports, you'll find that you will have a more energized and determined team. And how much does it cost? NOTHING. Start doing it today.

I Haven't Been Sick In 6 Months.

Sounds crazy, but it's true. Let me be candid — I can't get sick. I have 25 clients that need me everyday, I do workshops all over the country, and I am in the middle of writing a new book. Combine that with running a full-tilt business — financials, taxes, marketing, miscellaneous — and you have a recipe for disaster — if I fall ill.

That's when I met Susan Nisinzweig. She turned me onto nutritional supplements that have revved up my immune system that rivals my health when I was 20 years old. I've always taken vitamins and I try to eat well - salads, grains, fruits, vegetables, etc. But she introduced a vitamin pack that makes me feel indestructable (like Superman) when I am out and about meeting people. It's a bit expensive, but weigh that against 1-5 days down with the flu. I choose my Optimal Support Packets EVERYTIME.

Look, I shake a lot of hands, meet a lot of people, I have children (who are flu petri dishes all their own) - so I frequently got sick. Now that I take her Optimal Support Packets - I don't. It's that easy.

Here's the kicker - when you take a vitamins on a daily basis - you expel them when you urinate. When I used GNC Mega Men vitamins, my pee looked like Prestone anti-freeze. Not with Mannatech vitamins - I know my body is absorbing all the nutrients.

I know this sounds like a commercial - SORRY - but it is. When I run into something that WORKS - I want to scream it from the rooftops.

So check it out, you'll thank me.

Stupid Things People Do At The Office – You Speak & Don't Listen.

This is a fast one - so keep up with me . . . Most bosses speak more than they listen. They think they know everything. They push their views onto their staff any chance they get. And that's STUPID.

1. Shut up.
2. If you must speak, ask questions.
3. Then LISTEN.
4. Ask more questions. LISTEN.
5. Then ask your people, "What do you think you should do?"
6. That's it. They don't want to hear your stories. They don't want you to tell them what to do.
7. They want you to guide them.
8. That means that you ask questions (to get them to think about the options), LISTEN (to give them time to weigh the options verbally), and then ask them what they should do (giving them the ability to guide their own work and empowering them).

When you do this - you are actually motivating your team - allowing them to take charge of their work. This also allows you to be part of the process - to gently guide them when they might go off course or pick them up when they fall down.

So next time you have an opportunity to pontificate - Shut Up, Ask Questions, and LISTEN. You'll thank me.

Stupid Things People Do At The Office - You Micromanage Your Staff.

Everyone hates micromanagers. Then why do we keep running into them? Why are they our bosses? It's like a bad stomach virus. If you are a manager, odds are that you micromanage someone, or some project, or some group. Why do you do that?

One word: INSECURITY.

You are probably insecure about something, someone, or some process that is either uncomfortable or out of your knowledge zone. And because it is, you spend more time than you need on it. Much more time.

How do you let go of that bicycle seat and let that person, project, or team ride off into the sunset? It's easy - you need to feel comfortable, not them. So do this:

• If it's a Person - there is probably something about them that you don't trust (because micromanagement comes from not trusting someone). Once you figure that out - let's say it's their attention to detail - work with them on this. Bring it to the forefront and discuss it with them. Give them more and more difficult  tasks that stretch their abilities. If they succeed, you can pull back. If they fail, you're there to pick them up (get that? let them fall!).
• If it's a Team - there is probably something about you that you don't trust. You need to see a coach and figure that out. Candidly, I've coached a lot of upper management types and when they suffer from micromanaging their team (feedback from a 360 assessment), they usually have deep trust issues (from being severely burnt in the past) and have to slowly reliquish control.

But that's easy. Start with your stars and give up control slowly. You'll see that you will have more time for the more complex parts of your job.

Enjoy the journey!

Stupid Things People Do At The Office - You're Always Late.

I know you're busy. We all are. Does it seem that you never get ahead of the curve? That you are always late for almost every meeting, appointment and even getting to work?

Let's look at why it happens in the first place:

1. You think you're special. You're not. You are just like everyone else. Start treating people with respect.
2. You're on a long-term ego trip. Even CEO's show up on time to meetings with the lowest employees on the corporate totem pole.
3. You want to look important. It doesn't make you look like "executive material" (i.e., no time for the peons). It makes you look like an ass.
4. You forget about the time. Sorry, that's not an option. You are an adult — start acting like one.

Get it through your head — you hate it when people are late for  you — don't do it to them. Being on time or early shows respect. AND - it allows the meeting to possibly end early.

Here are some quick tips to stop that from happening:

1. Set all clocks that you monitor 5-10 minutes ahead. I know that it's stupid - but it works.
2. Buffer time around meetings. If you bump one up against another, you won't have time to get to it. And you will then have time to hit the bathroom.
3. If you're too busy, try to cut out some lower priority meetings. See this post.
4. Get up earlier if you are always late to work. You miss the later traffic AND you get more work done before normal work hours begin.

Being late isn't a personality defect, most of the time, you just don't care. Start caring.

Stupid Things People Do At The Office – Work Overtime.

Statistics show that 75-80% of the corporate workforce works late 1-3 nights a week. Don't get me wrong here bucko — there are times during the year when you do need to work late — emergencies or a deadline deliverable to a client. Most of the time — working late is due to one of three reasons:

1. Poor Planning - On your part or your bosses. Remember the phrase: "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine?"
2. Time Management and/or Procrastination - You spend work time on unimportant activities and push the more important stuff to later in the day.
3. Showoff - The need to portray to management, the board, your clients, your peers, your staff, or even your family that you are a "hard worker".

Which one are you? Are you a composite of two or even three of these? I was. And it took me YEARS to realize this.

If you can't fit your position into a 40-50 hour window (that's working from 7 AM to 5 PM each day), you need to change a few things. So here goes (in no special order):

• You need to SDR - Streamline, Delegate, or Retire - You probably do too much. Leverage your staff and others to pick up the simple stuff. (check out my post)
• You go to too many meetings (see this post from last week on meetings).
• You haven't set specific boundaries with your boss. You need to train them just like a dog. I'm not kidding - if they try to catch you at 5:30 for an 'important talk' every night, you need to let them know that they can talk to you in the morning.
• Stop goofing around at work. No surfing, no personal phone calls, no wandering the office for casual conversation. Do your work! Check this out.
• Stop procrastinating. Work on the hard stuff first. Break it up into manageable chunks and get it done. Check this out.
• Leave at a reasonable hour. 5 or 6 PM is fine. I know people will notice. But at the end of the day, leaving work to get home for more important activities is critical to your long-term happiness. Work is important — but life springs eternal!

Stupid Things People Do At The Office – Take Work Home Over The Weekend.

Friday just flew by. And now you packed up your briefcase with folders and ran out the door at 7 PM. You're planning to do some work this weekend to catch up before Monday rolls around and you're behind the eight ball. First — Do you really need to bring the work home? Or do you need to be 'superhumanly' productive to succeed at work? Do you find that you ALWAYS bring work home? Make the hard choice - what would happen if you left those folders at work? Try it - you'll like it. Bottom line - you don't HAVE to bring them home EVERY weekend.

Second — Can you attack the work first thing Saturday morning? Get up at 6 AM and work until 9 AM - a three full hours. Then you have the rest of the weekend to relax and enjoy yourself. If you are like most people, you bring the work home and let it sit until Sunday evening and worry about it all weekend. Don't do that - attack it first thing and then have fun.

Third — Can you streamline your work down to a manageable hour? Instead of just diving into your work and watching the hours tick by - what is the most important thing that needs to be done and can it be finished within one hour? When we have an unspecified amount of time to work, we tend to meander and waste a lot of time. Give yourself a set amount of time (1-2 hours) and see how much you really can get done under a strict deadline.

Stupid Things People Do At The Office – Meetings.

What's the worst thing that could happen to you at work other than being fired? That's right going to MEETINGS. Just think of sitting today (on a Friday) cooped up in a windowless conference room at 3:30 PM for another hour. Lights dimmed, watching slide #65 with 15 bullet points? Droning voice? Closed door - really hot - the person next to you getting ripe? Is that what you dreamed about when you graduated from college?

Meetings. They suck the lifeblood right out of your body. Here's a little tip — don't go.

That's right. Flee . . . run away. You have better things to do with your time.

If you are an attendee to a meeting:

• Try to decline. You probably don't need to attend 25-50% of the meetings you go to. Why? Because most meetings are either superfluous or your attendance will not add any value to the discussion.
• Arrive late — Leave early. Don't just do this, it's impolite. Let the organizer and some key people know that you will be doing this. Then you still get the gist of the proceedings AND cut your meeting time by 25-50%.
• See if you can change the meeting into a short one-to-one discussion. 75% of meetings are too formal, go on much too long, and allow the more mentally challenged executives to run their mouth for hours. Edit it down. If all else fails:
• Keep the meeting on point. If the meeting organizer is not organized, you take the lead and keep people on point. They will love you for it.

If you are running the meeting:

• Cancel it. Do you really need to have this meeting? Can it just be a short conversation between 2-3 people?
• Shorten it. My experience in corporate (20 years) tells me that most if not all meetings are always too long. If you've scheduled an hour, make it 20 minutes. 30 minutes? Make it 15. Any more than an hour, shame on you!
• Get rid of the chairs. Make everyone stand around a whiteboard. Act like a sports coach - ask questions - make decisions. With no chairs, people will want to get out of there ASAP.

Smart executives regularly turn down at least 50% of the meetings they are invited to. That's how they have time to do all the cool things they want to do AND get their work done.

Love to hear your thoughts – comment below or email me anytime! – Rich

Gratitude Should Be YOUR Attitude.

Most executives believe that their hard work — and only their hard work — got them to the position that they now sit. All the hours, all the meetings, the handshaking, the brainstorming, the late-night dinners brought them to the exact spot that they are in at this moment. Sorry to burst your bubble. But there's more.

Your colleagues. Many people that have worked under you, the peers beside you, and yes, the many bosses above you that helped you get to the spot you're presently in.

Time to begin thanking them. Take the next 30 days and each day, reach out to one of them with a 5 minute phone call and let them know how important they are to you. That's leadership.

5 minutes - it will make someone's day.

$14.27 Can Change Your Career. Guaranteed.

Every so often, a person comes along, writes a book, and changes the way people act. Napoleon Hill did it with"Think and Grow Rich". Dale Carnegie — "How To Win Friends and Influence People". Peters and Waterman — "In Search of Excellence". Stephen Covey — "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People". And Keith Ferrazzi — "Never Eat Alone".

Seth Godin has been writing books, speaking, and blogging for over 10 years. I first was introduced to him with his first book, "Permission Marketing". I then drifted off from Seth after reading a few of his other books but have been following him lately with his blog.

Michael Hyatt turned me onto his latest read, "Linchpin — Are You Indispensable?". I bought it yesterday on my Amazon Kindle and proceeded to stay up most of the night finishing it. This book is going to change the way people think, act, and work.

Everyone knows there is something wrong with business today. Seth crystalizes what the REAL problem is and delivers to the reader clear instructions on how to find their way on how to succeed in the new business world.

Bottom line: Seth espouses what I do every day with my clients.

A short summary from Amazon: "Linchpin is a most unusual, well-organized, concise book about what it takes to become indispensable in the workplace - whether you work for someone else (at any level) or are self-employed. It's about how business has rapidly changed and how treating employees like factory workers (or doing your job like one) doesn't work any longer. We must make choices and take action to "chart our own paths" and add value that others do not. We cannot wait for a boss or a job description to tell us what to do, rather we must just take the initiative ourselves. Only then can we become indispensable "linchpins," rather than replaceable "cogs." "You don't become indispensable merely because you are different. But the only way to become indispensable is to be different. That's because if you're the same, so are plenty of other people."

Stop what you're doing right now and go out and buy this book. It will change your life.

How To Be Successful Every Day.

  Time to hit work after a wonderful weekend . . . check your email . . . get ready for all those wonderful meetings . . . and make sure you schedule for all the work coming down the pike this week.

Whoops! Forgot to tell you something . . . Most executives tend to forget that their job isn't supposed to crank out work (okay - that's part of your job - but just follow my thinking for a bit).

You are also expected to IMPROVE. CONSTANTLY.

Of course you work. But to be successful in your position, you need to be a machine. A machine that constantly strives to:

1. Do better.
2. Take on additional responsibilities.
3. Never wear out (keep on running and have a bright smile every day).

But how do you do that? Your schedule is ALWAYS full. You come in early, you stay late, and you bring work home. How are you going to IMPROVE CONSTANTLY?

There are three little letters that will help you do that EVERY DAY:    S   D   R

S = STREAMLINE Regularly look at your workload and apply the 80/20 rule to it. Why? Candidly, if you work day-to-day, you tend to get into little ruts in your work habits, your responsibilities, and your inter-personal connections. Not major ruts - small ones. What eventually happens is that they take over your schedule, eking out more and more time, until you find yourself working 60-70 hours a week and 10-20 hours at home.

These ruts steal precious time from those high-value, high-impact tasks that move you forward quickly. So on a monthly basis, stand back and look at your litany of responsibilities, and make highly critical assessments of each one. See how you can eliminate steps in accomplishing each task. Instead of a report, will an email suffice? Instead of an email, would a quick 2 minute phone call be in line? Instead of a phone call, how about a personal drive-by their office? Cut your email in half by using some quick tips (call me - 203.500.2421).

When you regularly cut small steps out of your responsibilities and accelerate your interpersonal communications, they go faster and get done quicker.

D = DELEGATE Take a close look at your responsibilities and see what ones can be delegated to your staff. Or delegated to technology.

That is your job as a manager - to constantly motivate your team and get them to take on more complex and harder tasks. So give them a taste of what you do. Here's the hint - don't give them the fun stuff - give them the tasks that  you HATE to do. They will feel empowered that they are working on management-level responsibilities and you will have more time for more important things.

Or figure out how technology can come to the rescue. Review reports online rather than printing them out.

You'll find that your day gets more fun and you get to work on the stuff that really matters to your business and your success.

R = RETIRE Which tasks take up a lot of time but don't really deliver the impact that merits their priority?

Begin to prioritize all of your responsibilities and pick off one or two - stop doing them - see what happens. It might be a regular meeting that you have, a report that you do, a task that no one really appreciates. Try it - you might realize that no one notices that it's gone.

Candidly - this one is the hardest one to do - but when you get good at it - you'll find that this step delivers the biggest bang for your buck. Try it!

What's The New Phrase For This Economy?

Do you know what my new phrase for this economy? Is it: "Beg For That Job"? No. "Ask Your Friends For Connections"? No.

It's a bit more simple than that. Simply put, it's:

"GET OFF YOUR ASS."

I know — a little blunt — a little in your face. But spot on.

In economic times like these we all have ample opportunities to grow. To take advantage of the upheaval in our marketplace. Up is Down. Down is Up.

I always say: "There are people who make things happen. There are people who watch what happened. And there are people who wonder WHAT HAPPENED!"

Which one will you be today? Take charge of your life:

• Take a risk at work. Ask to be on that new project. Present your new ideas to your boss.
• If you're unemployed, take a chance, call a CEO at a company that you really want to work for and set up a lunch with him.

Don't wait for a better time or when you will have more information. As I also say. "We must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good." Don't wait for perfection - Do it now.

Bottom line — Step out of your comfort zone and MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Hiding Is Not Good For Your Career.

During times like these, most executives tend to worry if the axe will be falling near their neck. So what do they do? They power down, think small, take no risks and ensure that they don't appear in anyone's crosshairs.

Unfortunately, this not only does nothing (if they choose, they're going to fire you anyway), it can actually hurt your career.

Why might you be next to be laid off in this economy . . . let's look at the facts:

1. You make too much.
2. You make too little.
3. You're working on a low-level or non-strategic project.
4. You're working on a high-level, very strategic project.
5. You've worked much too long at that company.
6. You are the last one hired, first fired.
7. You're boss doesn't like your face.

What am I really saying here? Firing is capricious. It can happen for a number of reasons and most (if not all) of them have nothing to do with your performance. The reality is: 99 times out of 100, mass firings are due to bad planning by management, not by you. And they have to move fast, cut deep, and recover quickly to SAVE THEIR OWN NECKS. Or they will see the axe coming around the conference table for them.

SO . . . what am I REALLY saying here? In times like these, it is in your best interest to STEP OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE. Don't hide.

For example . . . Take a little risk:

1. Speak up at meetings. Let people know your point of view.
2. Have strategic lunches — meet with key executives inside and outside of your company.
3. Ask for more work — but choose carefully — get on that key project.
4. Make it a point of bumping into higher-ups and building relationships with them.

In times like these, companies have NO IDEA what to do. They're juggling all the balls in the air and NO ONE wants to catch one. They just keep juggling and praying they don't drop one.

Smart executives that are go-getters take advantage of this craziness and grab one of those balls. So . . . time to grab some balls.

America's "Can't-Do" List.

Lately, I've been studying the melting of glaciers in the greater Himalayas. Understanding the cascading effects of the slow-motion downsizing of one of the planet's most magnificent landforms has, to put it politely, left me dispirited. By Orville Schell at The Los Angeles Times.

It is impossible to focus on those Himalayan highlands without realizing that something that once seemed immutable and eternal has become vulnerable, even perishable. Those magnificent glaciers are wasting away on an overheated planet, and no one knows what to do about it.

Another tipping point has also been on my mind lately, and it's left me no less melancholy. In this case, the threat is to my own country, the United States. We Americans too seem to have passed a tipping point. Like the glaciers of the high Himalaya, long-familiar aspects of our nation are beginning to seem as if they are, in a sense, melting away.

In the last few months, as I've roamed the world from San Francisco to Copenhagen to Beijing to Dubai, I've taken to keeping a double- entry list of what works and what doesn't, country by country. Unfortunately, it's become largely a list of what works elsewhere but doesn't work here. In places such as China, South Korea, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland and (until recently) the United Arab Emirates, you find people hard at work on the challenges of education, transportation, energy and the environment. In these places, one feels the kind of hopefulness and can-do optimism that used to abound in the United States.

China, a country I've visited more than 100 times since 1975, elicits an especially complicated set of feelings in me. Its Leninist government doesn't always live up to Western ideals on such things as political transparency, the rule of law, human rights and democracy. And yet it has managed to conjure an economic miracle. In China today, you feel an unmistakable sense of energy and optimism in the air that, believe me, is bittersweet for an American pondering why the regenerative powers of his own country have gone missing.

As I've traveled from China's gleaming, efficient airports to our often-chaotic and broken-down versions of the same, or ridden on Europe's high-speed trains that so sharply contrast with our clunky, slowly vanishing passenger rail system, I keep expanding my list of what works here at home and what doesn't.

Over time, the list's entries have fallen into three categories. There are things that are robust and growing, replete with promise, the envy of the world. Then there are those things that are still alive and kicking but are precariously balanced between growth and decline. Finally, there are those things that are irredeemably broken.

Here is the score card as I see it:

Aspects of U.S. life that are still vigorous and filled with potential:

• , which is delivering much of the world's most innovative research and ideas.
• Silicon Valley, which has enormous inventiveness, energy and capital at its disposal.
• Civil society, which, despite the collapse of the economy, seems to be luring the best and brightest young people, and superbly performs the crucial function of goading government and other institutions.
• American philanthropy, which is the most evolved, well funded and innovative in the world.
• The U.S. military, the best-led, -trained and -equipped on the planet, despite being repeatedly thrust into hopeless wars by stupid politicians.
• The spirit and cohesiveness of small-town American life.
• The arts, including our film industry, which remains the globe's sole superpower of entertainment, along with the requisite networks of orchestras, ballet companies, theaters, pop music groups and world-class museums.

Aspects of U.S. life that still function but need help:

• Higher and secondary school education, in which America boasts some of the globe's preeminent institutions. Increasingly, though, many of the best institutions are private, and jewel-in-the-crown public systems such as California's continue to be hit with devastating budget cuts.
• Environmental protection, which compares favorably with that in other countries despite being underfunded.
• The national energy system, which still delivers but is overdependent on oil and coal, and depends on a grid badly in need of upgrading.

Aspects of U.S. life in need of drastic intervention:

• Public elementary education, which in most states is desperately underfunded and fails to deliver on its promise to provide all children with high-quality schooling.
• The federal government, which is essentially paralyzed by partisanship and incapable of delivering solutions to the country's most pressing problems.
• State governments, which are largely dysfunctional and nearly insolvent.
• American infrastructure, including highways, docks, bridges and tunnels, dikes, waterworks and other essential systems we aren't maintaining and upgrading as we should.
• Airlines and the airports they service, which are almost Third World in equipment and service standards.
• Passenger rail, which has not one mile of truly high-speed rail.
• The financial system, whose over-paid executives and underregulated practices ran us off an economic cliff in 2008 and compromised the whole system in the eyes of the world.
• The electronic media, which, except for public broadcasting and a vital and growing Internet, are an overly commercialized, broken-down mess that have let down the country in terms of keeping us informed.
• Print media, which from newspaper publishing to book publishing are in crisis.
• Basic manufacturing, which has fallen so far behind it seems headed for oblivion.

I started keeping these lists because I was searching for things that would banish that dispiriting sense that America is in decline. And yet the can-do list remains unbearably short and the can't-do one grows each time I travel.

American prowess and promise, once seemingly as much a permanent part of the global landscape as glaciers, mountains and oceans, seems to be melting away by the day, just like the great Himalayan ice fields.

Orville Schell is the director of the Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations. He is the former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and the author of many books on China. A longer version of this article appears at tomdispatch.com.

2009 - The Best of Rich Gee.

It's almost 2010.

But there might be a lot of stuff that you missed in 2009.

So for everyone's benefit, I am presenting the Top 10 most clicked/read posts in an easy-to-scan format.

So here goes:

Breakthrough Click Here - https://richgee.com/?p=2069

10 Ways To Grow Your Career In A Bad Economy — Part One Click Here - https://richgee.com/?p=1870

10 Ways To Grow Your Career In A Bad Economy — Part Two Click Here - https://richgee.com/?p=1877

Five Reasons Why Leaders Fail (& Why Failures Lead) Click Here - https://richgee.com/?p=2030

3 Powerful Tips To Energize Your Team Click Here - https://richgee.com/?p=1802

Ethical Leadership — You Need A Mentor Click Here - https://richgee.com/?p=1439

How to Be an Effective CEO Click Here - https://richgee.com/?p=1265

4 Ways To Coach Your Team Click Here - https://richgee.com/?p=880

Great Leaders Empower Others Click Here - https://richgee.com/?p=749

Get Ready For Annual Reviews! Click Here - https://richgee.com/?p=2005

Enjoy and have an UNBELIEVABLE 2010! - Rich

Thank You Central Connecticut State University!

It was a real pleasure last night presenting to your chapter of the American Marketing Association! I had a great time, I hope you all went away with lots of information and we all had some great pizza! The article that I mentioned is linked here. You will find it a powerful ally in your hunt for a career after graduation.

Professor Green and Kho were consummate hosts - thank you for everything.

If you ever need anything, don't hesitate to give me a call — ANYTIME!

Regards - Rich

There's No Speed Limit (Lessons That Changed My Life).

Whether you're a student, teacher, or parent, I think you'll appreciate this story of how one teacher can completely and permanently change someone's life in only a few lessons.

Another Incredible Story By Derek Sivers at http://sivers.org.

I met Kimo Williams when I was 17 – the summer after I graduated high school in Chicago, a few months before I was starting Berklee College of Music.

I called an ad in the paper by a recording studio, with a random question about music typesetting.

When the studio owner heard I was going to Berklee, he said, “I graduated from Berklee, and taught there for a few years, too. I’ll bet I can teach you two years’ of theory and arranging in only a few lessons. I suspect you can graduate in two years if you understand there’s no speed limit. Come by my studio at 9:00 tomorrow for your first lesson, if you’re interested. No charge.”

Graduate college in two years? Awesome! I liked his style. That was Kimo Williams.

Excited as hell, I showed up to his studio at 8:40 the next morning, though I waited outside until 8:59 before ringing his bell.

(Recently I heard him tell this same story from his perspective and said, “My doorbell rang at 8:59 one morning and I had no idea why. I run across kids all the time who say they want to be a great musician. I tell them I can help, and tell them to show up at my studio at 9am if they’re serious. Almost nobody ever does. It’s how I weed out the really serious ones from the kids who are just talk. But there he was, ready to go.”)

He opened the door. A tall black man in a Hawaiian shirt and big hat, a square scar on his nose, a laid-back demeanor, and a huge smile, sizing me up, nodding.

After a one-minute welcome, we were sitting at the piano, analyzing the sheet music for a jazz standard. He was quickly explaining the chords based on the diatonic scale. How the dissonance of the tri-tone in the 5-chord with the flat-7 is what makes it want to resolve to the 1. Within a minute, I was already being quizzed, “If the 5-chord with the flat-7 has that tritone, then so does another flat-7 chord. Which one?”

“Uh… the flat-2 chord?”

“Right! So that’s a substitute chord. Any flat-7 chord can always be substituted with the other flat-7 that shares the same tritone. So reharmonize all the chords you can in this chart. Go.”

The pace was intense, and I loved it. Finally, someone was challenging me – keeping me in over my head – encouraging and expecting me to pull myself up, quickly. I was learning so fast, it had the adrenaline of sports or a video game. A two-way game of catch, he tossed every fact back at me and made me prove I got it.

In our three-hour lesson that morning, he taught me a full semester of Berklee’s harmony courses. In our next four lessons, he taught me the next four semesters of harmony and arranging requirements.

When I got to college and took my entrance exams, I tested out of those six semesters of required classes.

Then, as he suggested, I bought the course materials for other required classes and taught myself, doing the homework on my own time, then went to the department head and took the final exam, getting full credit for the course.

Doing this in addition to my full course load, I graduated college in two and a half years – (got my bachelor’s degree when I was 20) – squeezing every bit of education out of that place that I could.

But the permanent effect was this:

Kimo’s high expectations set a new pace for me. He taught me “the standard pace is for chumps” – that the system is designed so anyone can keep up. If you’re more driven than “just anyone” – you can do so much more than anyone expects. And this applies to ALL of life – not just school.

Before I met him, I was just a kid who wanted to be a musician, doing it casually.

Ever since our five lessons, high expectations became my norm, and still are to this day. Whether music, business, or personal – whether I actually achieve my expectations or not – the point is that I owe every great thing that’s happened in my life to Kimo’s raised expectations. That’s all it took. A random meeting and five music lessons to convince me I can do anything more effectively than anyone expects.

(And so can anyone else.)

I wish the same experience for everyone. I have no innate abilities. This article wasn’t meant to be about me as much as the life-changing power of a great teacher and raised expectations.

A professional musician (and circus clown) since 1987, Derek started CD Baby by accident in 1998 when he was selling his own CD on his website, and friends asked if he could sell theirs, too. CD Baby was the largest seller of independent music on the web, with over $100M in sales for over 150,000 musician clients. In 2008, Derek sold CD Baby to focus on his new ventures to benefit musicians, including his new company MuckWork where teams of efficient assistants help musicians do their “uncreative dirty work”. His current projects and writings are all at sivers.org.

Laid Off? Check This Out.

Recommended by Chris Brogan (he's the best!), this message and movement will ROCK YOUR WORLD.

More than 130,000 advertising professionals have lost their jobs in this Great Recession. Lemonade is about what happens when people who were once paid to be creative in advertising are forced to be creative with their own lives.

www.lemonademovie.com

Five Reasons Why Leaders Fail (& Why Failures Lead).

It's hard to be a leader in today's economy. Add that you need equal parts of courage, vision, empathy, and reality (Peter Koestenbaum's Leadership Diamond) AND get your work done, it's almost impossible. I've reduced my list of hundreds down to five — and here they are: 1. You move from confident to cocky. There is a fine line between confidence and cockyness — my definition:

Confident - fully comfortable in their skin, able to hold their own in most situations, but always willing to learn from others to better oneself. Cocky - fully comfortable in their skin, able to hold their own in most situations, knows it all - and let's everyone know that fact.

Be more humble — keep your mind open to new ideas. This leads me to my next reason:

2. You speak more than you listen. Pontification is a rampant disease of leaders. Candidly, as you move from communicating to pontification, you slowly lose the attention of the very people that you are speaking to. Communication is a two-way street — so feel free to let your people know what you are thinking and impart key information, but please fit in a bit of listening to complete the circle. It will go miles whenever you communicate with your team.

3. You care more about your performance than your team's performance. This primarily affects new managers than accomplished ones, but it does creep in sometimes when times are hard for the company. We all fall back on touting our own laurels rather than bringing up the rear with stories of the real performers of your company — your team. Try to pick one person and one action every so often and message it to the people that matter. It will pay dividends in exposure and good will from your team.

4. You manage upwards significantly more than downwards. A corollary to the previous reason — when we focus on ourselves, we tend to manage upwards to hone impressions of our performance. When we spend time doing this, we tend to forget that our job is to manage our people — which is quite easy to do:

a. Give them the information they need to do their job. b. Motivate them when required. c. Help them get rid of any obstacles.

If you spend more time on your people, everything else will fall into place. If you would like to read more on leadership, read this.

5. You care more about where you're going than where you are. Everyone becomes enamored with shiny objects — add to that a bit of executive ADD, and you tend to look elsewhere for better vistas. I'm not saying not to do this (it's always good to keep your options open), but you also need to pay attention to where you are. Too many executives come onto the scene, make a big splash, pull in a big client or coup, and then immediately get distracted and look for other shores to conquer. Slow down, enjoy the accolades and see if there are bigger beasts to manage where you are — it might pay off in the long run.