Writing my own legacy. One word at a time. Yours?

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What do you do when you get up every day? Anything to do with your legacy? I doubt it.

Here’s a short version of your morning: Shower. Coffee. TV. Get dressed. Check your calendar. Check your email. Check your social media. Maybe even make a follow-up call (or two) or read a few pages. No legacy there. More like ‘routine.’

Me? I write something. And while I confess I do not do it every day, over the past 22 years I have written more than 1,100 columns, 12 books, 10 e-books, 4,000 tweets, and recorded more that 300 videos on my YouTube Channel.

Numbers? With more that 3.4 million views and more than 19,000 subscribers on my YouTube Channel, my weekly email magazine goes out to more than 350,000 people a week, my twitter followers number more than 70,000, and I have more than 18,000 LinkedIn connections – all from writing.

Yes, I have enjoyed ‘reader acceptance’ and ‘reader response’ – and that combination has more than helped my legacy grow. But…

REALITY: I didn’t start out with 12 books. It started with consistency, and 20 years later, BOOM! I started with ONE idea, one column, one tweet, and went from there.

It’s not a book, it’s a writing project. It’s not my column, it’s a captured idea and my weekly self-discipline. It’s not my tweet, it’s my documented, posted thought that hopefully will get a positive measurement by being re-tweeted more than 50 times.

Over the past eight years, I have grown my social network to a substantial presence. One follower, one reader, one subscriber, one re-tweeter at a time. And I basically did it while you were watching TV. And for the record here – that’s not a brag of mine – it’s a wake-up call of yours.

What will your legacy be? Watching news? Watching reruns? Getting drunk on the weekends? Going to parties? Watching SportsCenter?

INSIGHT: Legacy is something you have to be socially aware of and intellectually on top of. It requires both self-discipline and self-sacrifice – without regret. If you wanna be remembered for it, you gotta love it and give it everything you’ve got. And you have to become known for it. And in my case – you gotta write about it.

In today’s world, writing and being published is no longer a mystery. Blog something, tweet something, post on your LinkedIn page, Facebook something, post a video on YouTube, create your own email magazine, post a quote on Instagram, and BOOM, you are published. Create followers, and BOOM, you have acceptance and a reputation. Do that for 20 years, and BOOM, you have a legacy.

No longer do you have to ‘submit’ your writing and wait for acceptance to be published. You can do it yourself. And in fact, if you do it yourself AND submit, the discerning editor will Google you and find everything. Cool, eh?

START HERE: Ask yourself these legacy-based questions:

  • What do you love to do?
  • What are you passionate about?
  • Where do you excel?
  • Do you have a philosophy about how you live your life?
  • What do you want to be remembered for?
  • What do you want said at your eulogy?
  • What do you want written on your tombstone?

The answers to these questions will uncover legacy potential and create a starting point. Keep in mind, this may be the first time you have ever contemplated your legacy – explore a little.

Here are a few things you can do to get started:

  • Decide ‘what’ you want to be remembered for.
  • Write to clarify your thoughts and affirm your intentions.
  • Dedicate 15 minutes a day – an apple a day.
  • Include some kind of journal or scrapbook to document your progress.
  • Talk about your intentions with those closest to you.
  • Begin writing and posting.
  • Ask people on your list to follow you and contribute their ideas.
  • Start now!

AFFIRM IT: I am a writer and a speaker. I am a dad, granddad, and friend. I love what I do, and I love life.

REALITY: Legacy takes years to create, but achieving it is not a matter of patience. It’s a matter of self-discipline and dedication to your passion, and building your expertise to legacy level. Legacy is not created in a day – it’s created day-by-day.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

How to Listen to Hear What’s Intended

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professional ArticleLike most of us, I assume I understand what my communication partner is saying and respond appropriately. I don’t think about it; I just do it. I don’t realize anything is wrong until it’s too late. But why do I make that assumption? I was never taught how to hear what others meant to convey.

From kindergarten through university, there are no programs taught on how to accurately hear what others intend to convey or how to make adjustments if there is a breakdown. Current Active Listening models don’t go far enough into the problems of misinterpretation: how, exactly, do our brains make it so difficult for us to avoid biasing what it hears? And what’s the cost to us in terms of relationships, creativity, and corporate success?

What is Listening?

Our listening skills seem to be largely intuitive: we instinctively know how to listen to music and to listen carefully when getting directions to a wedding. But sometimes we mishear or misinterpret what someone said. Or interpret something incorrectly and adamantly believe we are correct. Or lose a client or friend because we’ve not really heard their underlying message. Sometimes we listen for the wrong thing, or listen only to a part of the message.

Do we even know what listening is? We all recognize it as a core communication skill – core to our lives, our relationships, our ability to earn a living and share ideas and feelings. But how do we do it? And how do we do it right – and know when we are doing it wrong? Who’s to blame when we get it wrong? Are there skills that would enable effective listening in every conversation?

My broad interests and unique professional life have brought me in contact with an extensive range of people and situations. Along the way I’ve had thousands of successful conversations with people from many walks of life and in 63 countries. The conversations I found frustrating were my communication partner’s fault. Or so I’d like to think.

My lifelong curiosity with listening was piqued to the point of finally writing this book when reflecting on a seemingly simple conversation I heard at the tail end of a meditation retreat:

Transportation Guy: “You can either leave your luggage near the back of the go-cart and we’ll take it down the hill for you, or you can bring it down yourself.”

Woman: “Where should I leave it if I do it myself?”

Transportation Guy: “Just put it in your car.”

Woman: “No… Just tell me where I can leave it off. I want to walk it down myself when I go to the dining room.”

Transportation Guy: “Just put it in your car. I don’t know why you’re not understanding me. Just. Walk. It. Down. And. Put. It. In. Your. Car.”

A simple exchange. Simple words, spoken clearly. Words with universally recognized definitions. Yet those two folks managed to confound and confuse each other, and instead of asking for clarity they assumed the other was being obtuse.

Indeed, it sounded like they were having two different conversations, each with unique assumptions: the man assumed everyone had a car; the woman assumed there was a specific space set aside for suitcases.

The missing piece, of course, was that the woman was being picked up by a friend and didn’t have a car. The transportation guy didn’t ask for the missing piece and the woman didn’t offer it. When they didn’t get the responses they sought, they each got exasperated by the other’s intractability and, most interesting to me, were unable to get curious when confused. Two sets of assumptions, reference points, and world views using the same language. And when the communication broke down both thought they were right.

Why We Misunderstand

Because we filter out or fabricate so much of what is being said, we merely hear what our brains want us to hear and ignore, misunderstand, or forget the rest. And then we formulate our responses as if our assumptions were true. Our communications are designed merely to convey our internal assumptions, and how people hear us are based on their internal assumptions.

So it merely seems like we are having conversations. We are not; we are just assuming what we hear means something, leaping to false conclusions based on what our brains choose, and blaming the other person when the communication falters. Surprising we don’t have more misunderstandings than we do.

How humbling to realize that we limit our entire lives – our spouse, friends, work, neighborhood, hobbies – by what our brains are comfortable hearing. We are even held back or elevated in our jobs depending on our ability to communicate across contexts. Our listening skills actually determine our life path. And we never realize how limited our choices are.

Would it be best for us to communicate only with those we already know? Seems the odds of us truly hearing and being heard are slim otherwise: unless the speaker’s intent, shared data, history and beliefs are so similar to ours as to share commonality, the odds of understanding another’s intent – and hence what they are really trying to tell us – are small.

But make no mistake: the way we listen works well-enough. We’ve constructed worlds in which we rarely run into situations that might confound us, and when we do we have an easy out: blame the other person.

What if it’s possible to have choice? In Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard, I break down filters, biases, assumptions and communication patterns to enable every reader to truly hear what their Communication Partner intends them to hear, diminish misinterpretation, and expand creativity, leadership, and management.

This article is an excerpt from Sharon Drew Morgen’s new book Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard? coming out in late 2014 with AMACOM. Look for it in bookstores.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is founder of Morgen Facilitations, Inc. (www.newsalesparadigm.com). She is the visionary behind Buying Facilitation®, the decision facilitation model that enables people to change with integrity. A pioneer who has spoken about, written about, and taught the skills to help buyers buy, she is the author of the acclaimed New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

Want to enhance your or your team’s listening skills? Contact Sharon Drew at [email protected]. Learn about her training programs and speaking topics at www.buyingfacilitation.com.

Good to Great. Are you ‘good’ or maybe slightly below?

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Jim Collins immortal business bestseller, Good to Great, created a revolution in many businesses and an explosion in book sales. The book was adopted, adapted, taught, and implemented. In many instances, companies did go from good to great – or at least from good to very good.

The key is these companies sought improvement. Self-improvement. Whether it was from within, or from an outside group of impartial experts, the concept was and is to ‘get better.’ Great is an illusive target. Collins knew it.

The concept is not complicated. It revolves around self-assessment, an agreed-upon game plan of action, measurable results, and an overall spirit that includes individual work, teamwork, and remarkable leadership. So far it’s simple.

The real issue is, and the thing that has always bothered me about the book, is that the beginning premise assumes you are ‘good.’ Most companies and their people are not. Most businesses are not. And you see them every day, going out of business.

Many companies try to maximize profit by cutting costs, or worse, cutting quality, or way worse, cutting service offerings. Then customers get angry and tell other potential customers through social media, or some form of online reporting like Trip Advisor or Angie’s List. Then reputation is somewhere between questionable and lost. Followed by a downturn in business.

In 1996, I wrote this customer service truth: “It never costs as much to fix the problem as it does to not fix the problem.” Eighteen years later, that statement has never been more true.

Good to Great was published in 2001 way before social media dominated the scene. Companies no longer have to self-assess; all they have to do is go to their Facebook page where their customers have already done it. And there’s usually a huge gap between what companies and their leadership THINK they are, and what their customers SAY they are. I will always take the latter as the true picture.

So the real challenge is not how you get from good to great. It’s how you get from crappy to good. Things like rundown hotels, lousy food in a restaurant, rude clerk in a retail store, long lines to be served, long waits on hold, not keeping up with technology, and poor management seem to be pervasive in our society.

An easy way to begin your march up the ladder to greatness (or even just goodness) is to talk to more of your customers. Get their views both online and in person. Get video from them if you can. Create a YouTube channel that features their voices.

‘Voice of customer’ in any format forms a clear picture of exactly where you are in their opinion, what they like, what they expect, and what they wish was better. It creates a solid foundation from which to start. What better place to start than from the customer’s perspective of what would help you get better?

Oh, it’s also your reputation. And it’s also FREE!

This same lesson applies to salespeople. How ‘good’ are you? Is ‘good’ your starting point? If you didn’t make your sales goals last year, can you honestly say you’re good? Or would you fall just below good? Somewhere between crappy and good?

Keep in mind that as I’m attempting to help salespeople assess themselves, they are the lifeblood, and the cash flow, and the profit of the business. Businesses that don’t make enough sales go out of business. Were they good businesses gone bad? Were they good businesses with bad salespeople? Or were they bad businesses that failed? I’ll take the latter.

And while I realize that I’m taking a superficial view, not going into detail about quality of leadership, quality of service, quality of product, employee retention, or customer retention, I maintain my premise that ‘voice of customer,’ both internal and external, will net better truth and a better foundation than a bunch of leaders and consultants sitting around a table coming up with ideas. Many of them self-serving.

Back to salespeople for a moment… There is no quick fix to get a salesperson from good to great, or from below good to above good. But there is a real answer: training. Repetitive training until the salesperson goes from understanding and willingness to application, to proficiency, and finally mastery through daily action.

Be willing to measure your results. CAUTION: Measurement isn’t: How many cold calls you made this week. Weak measurement. Don’t measure failure, measure success. Measure pipeline dollars. Measure sale to profit percentage. Measure new customers secured. Measure reorders.

Make measurement a learning experience, not a punishment.

Good to Great isn’t just a book and a concept; it’s also a challenge. The ultimate desired outcome, wherever you enter the process is: IMPROVEMENT. Where are YOU on that path? How big is the ‘room for improvement’ in your world?

Want to see the best online experience for repetition, mastery, and fun? Take a look at the challenge by going to www.gitomer.com and entering the word REPEAT in the GitBit box. You’ll get information, and a link.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

The Big Picture of Business – Becoming a Legend

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Are you a legend? Do you admire people who went the distance? Have you celebrated organizations that succeeded? I hope that you are and will continue to be distinctive.

This essay is to give insights into those who leave legacies. The secret to long-term success lies in mapping out the vision and building a body of work that supports it. The art with which we build our careers and our legacy is a journey that benefits many others along the way.

These are the ingredients that make a legend:

  • Significant business contributions.
  • Mature confidence and informed judgment.
  • Courage and leadership.
  • High performance standards.
  • Professional innovation.
  • Public responsibility.
  • Ethics and integrity.
  • Cultural contributions.
  • Giving to community and charity.
  • Visionary abilities.
  • Commitment to persons affected (stakeholders).

I have been blessed by receiving several Legend honors. What I remember the most are the ceremonies and the nuggets of wisdom that flowed. The commonality was the zest of giving back the honors to others.

The first was a Rising Star Award, presented to me in 1967 by Governor John Connally. That was the first time that I was called Visionary, and that experience told me to live up to the accolades later. The governor whispered to me, “Get used to wearing a tuxedo. Live up to the honor by saluting others.”

That same year (1967), I met singers Sonny and Cher, little knowing that 26 years later, I would be inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame and that they would hand me the award. I remarked to Sonny that I often quoted his song “The Beat Goes On” as analogous to change management, and he was pleased. Cher recalled the 1971 occasion where she and I visited at a jewelry store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California. I remembered that we drank champagne in a pewter cup. Her quote: “There are new ways to approach familiar experiences,” and I have applied that to corporate turnarounds.

It was by being inducted into the U.S. Business Hall of Fame that I met Peter Drucker. We subsequently worked together, doing corporate retreats. You’ll note his endorsement on the back cover of my signature book, The Business Tree™.

One year, I received several awards. I got a Savvy Award, for the top three community leaders. I was a Dewar’s profile subject. I had gotten a standing ovation at the United Nations for volunteer work that was my honor to do (especially since it enabled me to work with my favorite actress, Audrey Hepburn).

Subsequently, I was judging a community stewardship awards program. I quizzed, “Why is it that the same old names keep popping up? There are great people to honor other that those of us from business, high society or other top-of-the-mind awareness. What this community needs is an awards program that people like us cannot win.”

I was then challenged to come up with such a program, the result being the Leadership in Action Awards. At the banquet, the swell of pride from the winning organizations was heartening to see. These unsung heroes were finally getting their just recognition for community work well done.

One cannot seek awards just for glorification reasons. However, recognition programs are a balanced scorecard that involves the scrutiny of the company and its leaders by credible outside sources.

Awards inspire companies of all sizes to work harder and try more creative things. Good deeds in the community are not done for the awards; they just represent good business. Receiving recognition after the fact for works that were attempted for right and noble reasons is the icing on the cake that employees need. Good people aspire to higher goals. Every business leader needs to be groomed as a community leader.

Recognition for a track record of contributions represents more than ‘tooting one’s own horn.’ It is indicative of the kind of organizations with whom you are honored to do business. The more that one is recognized and honored, the harder that one works to keep the luster and its integrity shiny. Always reframe the recognition back to the customers, as a recommitment toward serving them better and further.

Characteristics of a Legend

  • Understands that careers evolve.
  • Prepares for change, rather than becoming the victim of it.
  • Realizes there are no quick fixes in life and business.
  • Finds a blend of perception and reality, with emphasis upon substance.
  • Has grown as a person and professional… and quests for more enlightenment.
  • Has succeeded and failed… and has learned from both.
  • Was a good ‘will be,’ steadily blossoming.
  • Knows that one’s dues paying accelerates, rather than decreases.

Best Advice to Future Legends

Fascinate yourself with the things you are passionate about. Be fascinated that you can still be fascinated. Be glad for people who mentored you. Be grateful for the opportunities that you have had. Be proud of yourself and your accomplishments. Do not let the fire burn out of your soul.

There comes a point when the pieces fit. One becomes fully actualized and is able to approach their life’s Body of Work. That moment comes after years of trial and error, experiences, insights, successes and failures.

As one matures, survives, life becomes a giant reflection. We appreciate the journey because we understand it much better. We know where we’ve gone because we know the twists and turns in the road there. Nobody, including ourselves, could have predicted every curve along the way.

However, some basic tenets charted our course. To understand those tenets is to make full value out of the years ahead. The best is usually yet to come. Your output should be greater than the sum of your inputs. This is accomplished by reviewing the lessons of life, their contexts, their significance, their accountabilities, their shortcomings and their path toward charting your future.

  • Whatever measure you give will be the measure that you get back.
  • There are no free lunches in life.
  • The joy is in the journey, not in the final destination.
  • The best destinations are not pre-determined in the beginning, but they evolve out of circumstances.
  • You’ve got to give in order to get.
  • Getting and having power are not the same thing.
  • One cannot live entirely through work.
  • One doesn’t just work to live.
  • As an integrated process of life skills, career has its place.
  • A body of work doesn’t just happen. It is the culmination of a thoughtful, dedicated process, carefully strategized from some point forward.

About the Author

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flameis now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

Assessment: How much do you stink at listening?

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StrategyDriven Business Communications Article
 
Answer these questions to see how accurately you hear what your communication partner intends you to hear, and how much business you are losing as a result.

  1. How often do you enter conversations to hear what you want to hear – and disregard the rest?
  2. How often do you listen to get your own agenda across, regardless of the needs of the speaker?
  3. How often do you have a bias in place before the speaker’s points or agenda are known?
  4. Do you ever assume what the speaker wants from you before he/she states it – whether your assumption is accurate or not?
  5. How often do you listen merely to confirm you are right… and the other person is wrong?
  6. Do you ever enter a conversation without any bias, filters, assumptions, or expectations? What would need to happen for you to enter all conversations with a totally blank slate? Do you have the tools to make that possible?
  7. Because your filters, expectations, biases, and assumptions strongly influence how you hear what’s intended, how do you know that your natural hearing skills enable you to achieve everything you might achieve in a conversation?
  8. How much business have you lost because of your inability to choose the appropriate modality to hear and interpret through?
  9. How many relationships have you lost by driving conversations where you wanted them to be rather than a path of collaboration that would end up someplace surprising?

As I am writing my new book, Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard? I’ve gotten notes from all around the world: everyone thinks they listen accurately. Ah… But do they hear what’s intended?

It’s physiologically impossible to accurately hear what our communication partner intends us to hear. We have biases, filters, triggers, assumptions, and habits that get in the way. And people don’t accurately represent what they mean for us to hear, leaving out details that they assume will be understood and aren’t, or choosing words that have different meanings for listeners. Or the situation we find ourselves in has any range of situational biases that make it difficult. We hear according to our education, family history, religious beliefs, political beliefs, age, ethnicity…

Are you getting the picture here? Not even close to possible. So what is it we are defending? What is so important about believing we hear what’s intended when we don’t – and it’s not even possible?

My new book will break down the good, the bad, and the ugly of how we hear, why we don’t, where we have problems (lots of assessments and fun exercises), and ways to fix it. Lots of funny examples of just plain dumb conversations between really smart people. And trust me: my snarky personality will lead readers through the process. I can’t wait until it comes out next year.

Email me with questions about listening. Speak to others about the project. Let’s make ‘hearing what’s intended’ the new buzz phrase. Because if we all can hear what’s intended, we can make a huge difference in the world.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is founder of Morgen Facilitations, Inc. (www.newsalesparadigm.com). She is the visionary behind Buying Facilitation®, the decision facilitation model that enables people to change with integrity. A pioneer who has spoken about, written about, and taught the skills to help buyers buy, she is the author of the acclaimed New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

Want to enhance your or your team’s listening skills? Contact Sharon Drew at [email protected]. Learn about her training programs and speaking topics at www.buyingfacilitation.com.