So I put on my cool sunglasses, grabbed my bag and went out to the car, jumped in, started off and drove down the road. Oh, about 1/2 kilometer later I realized I HAD NO IDEA WHERE I WAS GOING. I had no plan. I had lots of things I wanted to do, but didn’t know where I was headed. I hadn’t set a goal. I had just driven off.
Crazy.

You’re probably thinking, ‘What a nut. She jumps in the car to take care of something and then a piece down the road she realizes that she doesn’t even know where she’s going. Absolutely planless.’

I agree, pretty planless. You should always know where you’re going or you’re probably not going to get there.

Wait, now before you get too smug - tell me, what’s your plan? Where are you going? Do you have a destination or goal, or are you just aimlessly driving through life? Comfortable perhaps, especially if you have a nice car, but you’re not really going anywhere.

There’s no difference. If you don’t have a goal, you can’t be surprised if you don’t get anywhere; if you just keep driving in circles.  It’s amazing how many of us have no real goals. Nothing concrete to move towards, nowhere to head. It’s like me driving off to ‘take  care of things’  with  no real destination. I did want to get some things done, but I had no real plan. How should I know when I get there? How should I adjust the direction if I go astray? How should I know if I’m going forwards or backwards?

Your chances of getting somewhere, if you don’t know where you’re going, are pretty slim indeed. And you’ll never get the chance to congratulate yourself for reaching the goal you never set - and believe me, that’s half the fun.

So think about it, are you just enjoying the scenery or are you driving somewhere special? You actually can do both - you can drive towards a really wonderful destination and enjoy the scenery along the way (pit stops allowed!).

Happy motoring,
Lisa

In the back of his mind he sort of had a picture of himself loping over the prairie, looking a bit like the Marlboro Man (without the cigarette part).

Well, after a few months of looking, he finally found what he wanted in the newspaper - Buster, a 4 year old paint gelding, 1.55 at the withers, healthy and sound. Without much ado, he bought the horse and had him transported to his stable.

And what a gorgeous horse Buster was! Dark brown and white markings, with one blue eye. But, as wonderfully nice as he was to look at, Buster was a handful to manage. It seems that Buster had indeed noticed that his new owner only weighed about 85 kilos, where he himself weighed easily 600.

The first few weeks were exciting, especially for Buster. Martin was dragged through the pastures, his feet were stomped on, he was bit twice and thrown off once. Buster was really living it up.

Martin began to get nervous. He didn’t want to get dragged any more, he didn’t want his feet stomped on, his fingers bit or get his face rubbed in the dirt. He started avoiding working with Buster and finding excuses why he couldn’t drive out to the barn.

His Clint Eastwood dreams were waning, his hopes were fading fast. This horse seemed just too big and too scary for him to make it work.

After a few months he decided it was best to forget it and to sell Buster. His dream just wasn’t working out. The horse was too big, too rambunctious - simply too much horse. He was scared and he didn’t want to go on.

Martin found a good home for the horse with a professional rider and figured it was best. Somebody else should deal with him, and that somebody had to be pretty solid and tough.

The day Buster was to be picked up by the transporter, Martin went out to the pasture to bring him in. He looked at the grazing horse and knew that with him went his dream, but that’s how life worked some times. He sighed, nervously slipped the halter over his ears and lead Buster carefully in.  

Oh, I’d say as they were about half way to the gate, the horses in the other pasture suddenly began to run and buck, having a good, wild time. Buster’s head shot into the air, nostrils flaring, eyes wide. What was this? Playing without me? He gathered himself and prepared to take off - in a straight line over the top of his horrified owner.

Martin saw it coming and knew that this was going to hurt. But finally, in a moment of clarity, he suddenly knew what he had to do. He quickly turned toward Buster and stood his ground, trying to look big. He squared his shoulders and looked that horse straight in the eye. “Stop right there, Buster. Don’t you move. I’ve had it. It’s you or me.”

Buster stopped immediately and dropped his head. This was something new. This took all the fun out of it. He relaxed his muscles and chewed. Hmmm. ‘Well’, he seemed to think, ‘I guess that was a bad idea. We’ll just walk in then, we two.’

Martin stood there with Buster’s lead in his hand; larger, stronger and tougher than ever before. Buster was no longer a scary horse, just a big, powerful and beautiful dream and now he knew that he held that dream right in his hand.

Aren’t all big scary situations just like big scary horses? They often seem so insurmountable and bigger than life that we get all caught up in their magnitude. We get all caught up in the fact that this could hurt. We forget that big scary situations, like big scary horses, are just being big and scary because we’re being small and frightened. If you just stand up tall, square your shoulders, look those scary things straight in the eye, you see that they’re not really as big, as scary or as insurmountable as you thought.

Big things are only big if you are small.

Have you got any big scary horses? Don’t forget that the more powerful the dream, the more scary it seems if you let it make you feel small. So remember Martin and Buster the horse with one blue eye. Scary horses are only scary until you get big.

Happy horsing,
Lisa

Here’s another “airport story” that - at least for my part - proved one of our beliefs to be true: they way you phrase something - the worst or best news - can change a person’s day quite a bit.

Here we are, coming in late with one flight, boarding for the next flight already starting when we’re not even on the bus to the terminal yet. One woman next to me gets really nervous and asks the bus driver if she even has the lightest chance to catch her connection. The bus driver remains calm, asks her about her gate and then says that she shouldn’t worry since it’s really just up the stairs and a few yards and she’ll make that distance within a few minutes. One could see that she was still worried, but feeling slightly better since the bus driver was showing a very positive attitude and encouraged her to not worry.

A few minutes later - my next flight was basically about to leave when I got off the bus - I asked the Lufthansa assistant whether I was able to catch that flight or if she had some advice. The only comment she made was “run up the stairs and ask at the other desk, they’ll be able to tell you more”. I felt like an idiot, not only disappointed about the poor customer service, but also about the lack of “mental support”, felt a sudden drain of my energy, frustration and no desire to head up the stairs and run like a goof through the terminals; I’d never make it to my flight…;  due to my responsibilities though, I couldn’t afford to miss the flight and started to run, arrived breathless at the gate and just made it to the plane.

While starting to relax and breathe deeply again in my seat, I thought about what just happened and realized, how happy that other woman must have been to just hear some encouraging words (even if she didn’t make it to the plane or had to walk at a faster pace to the next gate). She had at least much more of that positive spirit and energy in her, with a great deal of hope that she’ll reach her destination.

It’s so important how you approach people, how you tell them critical things, how you inform them about sad or bad issuess, how you can still generate some positive energy within the worst situation.

It was once again one of those tight-deadlines, everybody-working-their-buds-off type of project, implementation of some new, yet standard piece of software. As the software development partner already previously hasn’t shown great understanding nor respect of us as customers, nor proven any sense of business partnership approach, has regularly missed deadlines and constantly kept arguing against our requirements and inquiries, I had a feeling that also this upcoming project would go down the drain.

Management - against my advice - thought that, since it’s such a simple piece to implement and only 6 workers would be involved in the new process and technology - we wouldn’t have to start testing a few days prior to go live but one to a max of 1.5 days would be more than enough.

hmmm, and there we went…Tuesday came, nothing set in stone, Wednesday came, again no signs of some more activity and software testing, Wednesday evening came and suddenly the ball started rolling. Doubts rose that the software partner might not have done his job, Thursday came and we asked the software engineer to come on site. By Thursday evening it was clear that neither they had done their job, nor had the internal staff been well prepared. By Friday morning, it was nothing but a stressful case. The workers didn’t know what was going on, management was trying to save their project but realized that they made a huge mistake, the software partner was the one who cared least (having been able to charge at least 2 days worth of consulting fees). The project was cancelled shortly after lunch-time on Friday. The (late) training/instruction session was cancelled at the minute, workers who pushed their week-end planning off till next week-end were left with neither new technology, nor any positive outlook for the next few weeks. All the energy they invested in the project during the past few weeks suddenly burst like a bubble.

There was nothing more painful and worse in the failure of this project than such lack of respect towards the workforce, towards a customer - both top management and business partner missed out on the most important value in business: the value of relationships up and down the ladder, the value of respect, the value of the contribution people make either physically or emotionally.

Next time you pick up a project, make sure you remember those points - you’ll see your project succeed and happy faces move on if you hold on to the very basic values you probably already honored as a child in your family.

I reached London late after a bumpy ride from New York and had about 30 minutes to catch my connecting flight to Vienna. I made a wild dash from one terminal to the next to get to my gate - I didn’t even stop to shop.

I got there just in time, congratulating myself on my ability to dodge elderly English couples with sensible shoes and too much luggage. 

I walked over to the gate, ticket in hand, and joined the line behind a successful looking guy with a laptop and 3 or 4 newspapers under his arm. We hadn’t waited more than 5 minutes when the stewardess came out, switched the PA system on and shocked the masses. “I’m sorry. The flight to Vienna has been canceled. The next flight leaves in 5 hours.” 

After a brief moment of disbelief, a black cloud formed over the crowd. They became loud and angry and started yelling at that poor lady in red. Some of them really got worked up; they were missing connecting flights, they were losing time. They had places to go, people to meet and things to do. None of them was really in the mood to wait 5 hours for the next flight to Vienna. How could this happen? 

In the midst of all that chaos, the guy with the newspapers tucked under his arm sort of laughed and looked over at me. “Wonderful. Just enough time to see a bit of London.” He gathered his overcoat, dumped his newspapers onto one of the empty seats and headed out to catch a taxi. 

As I watched him go I realized that he was right. None of us could change the fact that the flight was canceled. None of us could change the fact that we were going to be late and miss our connecting flights. There was no changing what had happened. Most people were running around getting their blood pressure up, yelling at the stewardess and each other, looking for someone to blame. But not this guy. He was going to enjoy an unexpected afternoon in London. 

I didn’t go sightseeing in London that afternoon, but I did buy a good novel, drink an interesting cup of coffee and have a nap on my suitcase. I missed the event I had been looking forward to, but learned an important lesson that day. We can’t always change what happens to us, but we can always change how we respond to it. 

They can cancel your flight, but they can’t cancel your day. You do that yourself. 

Happy sightseeing!

It didn’t take too long, and a few days later I got a call that they were ready and I drove over to pick them up. The nice guy working there fitted them, told a few jokes about how wonderful I looked, and sent me on my way. 

My new glasses and I went out into the world. 

Wow. Peering through my new glasses the whole world seemed different. I saw that trees were already budding, getting ready for spring. I saw that the shop next to the optician had a freshly painted sign above the door. I saw a help-wanted sign in the window of a coffee house. I saw children laughing and playing at a playground. I saw how clear the air can be early in the morning. 

The whole world seemed brighter, newer, more friendly, more open, more inviting, more fun. 

Isn’t that interesting. The world didn’t change, only the way I saw it. My new glasses gave me the chance to see the world from a different perspective. I guess new glasses do that. 

Maybe what we all need are new glasses to look at our world through. Glasses that show us the chances, not the problems. Glasses that make the opportunities clear, the tools noticeable and goals within reach. Glasses that empower, strengthen and enliven us. Glasses that help us enjoy what we have now and see where we can go from here.

The world doesn’t define the chances and opportunities we have. Neither does it do this for others.
We define our chances and opportunities ourselves through the way we see and interpret the world and the events happening around us. We define our chances and opportunities through the glasses we wear.

Get yourself some glasses that’ll show you the opportunities and chances available to you now.  They’re out there, I guarantee you that. You just have to be able to see them.

While Obama is certainly the most important person people pay attention to at the moment and watch closely, there are so many others out there who do great things and remain strong, confident and full of leadership charisma in troubled times like these. Anyone who owns a business, anyone who needs to feed his children and care for his/her family, anyone who feels socially responsible for what’s happening around him, anyone of those people is on the move, is speaking up, is trying to improve things in little steps.

Here’s an example how companies that had been hit seriously several times, still believe in the “we can”:

While the ongoing world economic crisis has left many business leaders sweating (or worse), John Chambers, President and CEO of Cisco Systems, is rolling up his sleeves in anticipation of an eventual recovery. After every economic challenge, he says during his recent visit at MIT, Cisco has come out with dramatic gains in market share. This time won’t be different, if Chambers’ bets pay off.

Watch the video >>

If there is hope in tomorrow, there is power in today.

Well, I’ll be watching the inauguration - with a big smile and good feelings for the future.

Just having a goal and an action plan to reach it might not be enough to actually achieve that goal. It is impossible to consistently perform in a manner which is inconsistent to the view we hold of ourselves. First we must be, then we can do and only then can we have.

We might need to change our basic belief systems first. We have to redefine who we are before we can overcome that which has hindered us from reaching our goals in the first place.

So I challenge you to evaluate the beliefs you hold about yourself and your company. If they are inconsistent with your goals, then you need to begin your work at the base and re-align your belief systems first.

Our horses can help…