Archive for January, 2008

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John Richardson

Who are you? What makes you tick? What do you like to do? If you can take these questions and refine them down into keywords, you’ll have a powerful tool for goal setting. These keywords can be described as “you-words“… words that describe you.

Let me give you an example. I’ll use myself as the guinea pig… What words describe me…

I work in the computer field…. Computers

I like to watch racing… Racing

I like to blog… Blogger

I belong to an organization called Toastmasters… Toastmaster

As you can see, keywords give us a quick and easy way to describe ourselves. If I were to tell you just the keywords above, you would start to form a picture of who I am. A very simple concept.

A great way to visualize this is to take the new Web 2.0 concept of tagging and form a tag cloud of your keywords or tags. Here is an example of what a tag cloud looks like, with some of my examples.

A great exercise is to take a few minutes and download the You-Word Tag Cloud Creator. Print it out on a heavyweight sheet of paper. Grab a pencil or pen and a countdown timer (an egg timer works great). Write your name in the middle box, set the time for five minutes, and start filling in the blanks with words that describe you. You can use multiple word terms too.

There are different thickness lines on the diagram. If the word is a major part of your life put it on one of the thicker lines. Use the thinner lines for the more mundane words. Fill in the lines until the timer goes off. Now you’ll have an easy to reference look at your “You-Words”.

Now that you have your tag cloud it’s pretty easy to see a vocabulary of yourself. This tool is quick and easy and since it is timed, it forces your mind to come up with descriptive words.

Later this week we’ll take these words and plug them into some other diagrams that will help us set goals and create a vision of who we are. Stay tuned.

As the new year started I had a pretty well defined set of goals this year. I had dates written down and a pretty concise path laid out in front of me. Personal goals, work goals, spiritual goals… they were all there. Then this week something happened that was totally unexpected. I didn’t see it coming. I got sick.

For the last three days I’ve had a stomach bug that left me so sick that I didn’t even want to see a computer… much less sit in front of one. I don’t get sick that often and it’s been years since I’ve had this type of illness, so when it happened Monday night I was really surprised.

What I realized after three days of worrying and fretting about things not getting done… is there was nothing I could do about it. I’ve come away with some thoughts that really hit home this week, as things had to be canceled or postponed.

1. I’m really thankful for my wife who rescheduled appointments and made phone calls for me. She has been wonderful and I’m very lucky to have someone to help when things are upside down. And the Chicken soup was wonderful!

2. I’m thankful for our secretary at work who delegated some of my tasks and rescheduled others. She let me know that everything was under control. It’s that positive reassurance that really helps.

3. I’m thankful for Doctor Combs who was able to see me the same day and offer some medicine that really helped. It’s nice to know a doctor that really cares about his patients.

4. I’m thankful to God, whose daily scriptures really spoke to me this week. As I was forced to slow down in the last few days, His words really helped me put things into perspective and see some of the really important things in life.

Now that I’m feeling better, I realize my goals are still there… but changed somewhat. In the future I’m going to set a somewhat slower pace and bring others in to help. And it’s not the end of the world if one or two of them drop off the radar.

I guess the biggest thing I learned about goals this week… is that they need to be realistic and they need to be flexible. I also had a couple of unexpected benefits from being sick that were actually part of my goal list… hey… I lost four pounds and I completely got off caffeine. How about that!

It’s Monday morning.

Time to face a new week.

There will be problems and there will be opportunities.

New faces will appear.

Old friends will call and e-mail.

There will be things to buy and money to be spent.

It’s nice to make a list at the beginning of the week.

Of places to go, people to see, problems to solve, opportunities to discover.

Maybe I can put three things on that list that might make a difference…

I will write down… I will talk to someone new today and put a blank next to it.

I will write down a problem that I’m facing and put an action step next to it.

I will write down an opportunity and put down a first step to accomplish it.

Three simple things in a simple list…. hmmm maybe four.

I’ll write down a name of someone to call and encourage today.

Make a list, check it twice, call someone up and say something nice….

I was watching the hit TV show Deal or No Deal last night and a family ended up winning a penny. How could this be? They were offered over $200,000 a few minutes before and they didn’t take it.

Deal or No Deal is a game of odds and chance that unfolds when a contestant is confronted with 26 sealed briefcases full of varying amounts of cash - ranging from a measly penny to $1 million. Without knowing the amount in each briefcase, the contestant picks one — theirs to keep, if they choose - until it is unsealed at game’s end.

If you have ever watched the show you know how nerve racking it can be. It comes down to some preconceived goals as each remaining case is opened.

The risk element kicks in when the player must then instinctively eliminate the remaining 25 cases - which are opened and the amount of cash inside revealed. The pressure mounts as in each round, after a pre-determined number of cases are opened, the participant is tempted by a mysterious entity known only as “the Banker” to accept an offer of cash in exchange for what might be contained in the contestant’s chosen briefcase - prompting Howie Mandel to ask the all-important question - Deal or No Deal?

In last night’s game, with a series of bad draws, the family opened suitcase after suitcase of high dollar amounts which diluted what the banker was willing to offer them. Halfway through the show the family was offered $207,000. They didn’t take it. They finally ended up taking their original suitcase which could have been either $10,000 or a penny. It turned out to be just one red cent.

Having watched the show before I realized the chances of success are solely based on a contestants goal. If a contestant is willing to take $100,000, the odds are very good that they will walk away with that amount. If you bump this up to $200,000 the odds are still pretty good. Above that the odds really drop.

In the case of the family winning a penny, their goal was a million dollars. Had they set it to $200,000 they would have walked away with the money.

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When we set goals in our life we need to do some research and ask some questions. We need to set the goal high enough that we don’t sell ourselves short, but not so high that we fail completely.

In short… we need to figure the odds.

We need to ask other people who have gone before us how they accomplished their goal. What were the pitfalls and problems? How did they overcome them?

Example: Lets say you need to lose 50 pounds.

You do some research at Weightwatchers and find out very few people are able to lose 50 pounds in one try. But many people are able to lose twenty pounds in a single 12 week period.

If you set your goal at 50 pounds in a year you will most certainly fail.

If you set it at 20 pounds in twelve weeks you have a good chance at success.

If you set it at 5 pounds it wont be enough of a difference to stick with it.

So this new year when you are making deals with yourself… make sure they are high enough to be important but low enough to be accomplished…

Deal or no Deal?

I woke up this morning and realized something… it’s a new year and I still have problems. In fact most of the problems I have now I had last year.

Problems bug me.

Problems cause stress and keep me up at night.

Problems usually don’t go away by themselves.

So what can I do about my problems?

1. I can complain and gripe about them
2. I can forget about them (can I really?)
3. I can put them off to tomorrow
4. I can do something about them

Since the first three things in the list just make problems worse, I decided this morning to do something about them.

Here is a simple outline I came up with to tackle the problem(s)

1. Make a complete written list of them
2. Create an action item next to each one
3. Write down a name next to each one of someone who can help with the problem or keep me accountable to solve the problem
4. Put an expected completion date next to each one

It’s funny how writing them down takes their power away. They don’t seem so bad once they are in a list… especially when I have an action step and a name of someone who can help.

Oh… and I did one other thing… I crossed out the word problems at the top of the list and wrote in the space next to it opportunities.

Seth would be proud of me!