jungle jeff

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Are you satisfied?

When you wake up every day, what are some of the first things you do or think about?  Did you start thinking about today last night?

The workday begins the night before.

So last night, in thinking about yesterday’s post and the reference to the Fast Company article, I’m good with it ending the way it did.

Do you start blaming others and thinking about all the things “they” need to do? Or do you look in the mirror and analyze what you need to fix?

This will determine, in large part, your success or failure.

What was interesting was that just yesterday, these jeff noel blogs set a single day record for daily visits. It’s taken years to get “here”.

And I got here by doing stuff, not by anything else.

Be more:

• Creative than you ever have
• Focused than you ever have
• Willing to fix yourself than you ever have
• Determined than you ever have

And find your purpose.  That’s the key.  You know it and I know it. We all read about it, and listen to others talk about it.

Talk is cheap. And so is lying to ourselves.

Fortune What?

Finding our passion and pursuing our dreams with sheer determination is something we all dream about.

When is the best time to ease off the dreaming and ramp up the doing? It really depends. There’s so much to consider. So much to take into account.

Have you given up?

Eventually, most people give up. I almost did too. Then a small child was born. He changed my life and my purpose. He was and is the catalyst that inspires me to work tirelessly.

Over time, my five daily blogs have slowly, but surely been getting better. It’s funny sometimes, to think that many readers have no idea how hard I work in my professional position with a Fortune 100 company.

All this blogging is extra. Ya with me? Extra. What are you doing that’s extra? That’s hard?  That’s difficult? That you love so much you can’t stop?

My blogs are so basic and simple it’s almost embarrassing.  When there’s some “spare” time, I’ll be looking to take another step to jazz up the blogs.  I’ll be clicking here for more Wordpress Theme tips.

Do you let what you can’t do stop you from what you can?

Get In Line

Sometimes we need the proverbial spanking, or maybe a kick in the buttocks, to rattle our cage enough to do what’s common sense but not common practice.

Ask yourself, “Why don’t I have a personal vision/mission statement?”

Imagine a child – maybe your child, niece or nephew – asking you, very seriously, “What’s the meaning of life?”

We expect everyone else to have a clue.  But not ourselves.

Mind-boggling.

Then one lucky day, someone did me the favor of a major cage rattling, and I finally did something about it.

Any other way is just lame.

“Who needs this”?, is stereotypically said in a sarcastic tone, and maybe even with our arms thrown up in the air is frustration.  Can you picture it?

But that’s not what I mean here.  Not today ever.

Today, in these tough economic times, these extraordinarily turbulent world times, we need this.

We need leaders.

Not managers.  Well, we need managers, but not as much as we desire leaders.

We need someone with passion to make a difference.

Most humans are hard-wired to do good – to make a difference.  But most are hard-wired, also, to fear.  Fear keeps good people, who want to make a difference, in the shadows, where it’s safe.

We don’t need any more people in the shadows.  it’s too crowded there. We need people to go out in the sun, and lead the others who want to make a difference, but have no one to follow.

The past two days, talking about “Big Picture”, vision, and perspective has me thinking this morning, and reflecting.

Re-reading the past two posts, written from here in Anchorage, Alaska, it makes me curious about how and why leaders choose their leadership style.  It also begs the question, “How much thought do leaders put into their present day, yesterday, and tomorrow”?

A friend of mine was here in 1993 and visited Portage Glacier with his wife.  From the visitors center, he said you could reach out and touch Portage Glacier.  Too cloudy to see anything while I was there two days ago. But even if it had been clear, the only way to see it now is to travel by boat.

Didn’t anyone see this coming?  Where were our global leaders when it came to thinking about environmental lessons learned from the past, real time consideration for current direction, and a look into the future to visualize where we will end up?

Whether it’s global warming and icebergs, or business conditions and technology, every leader ought to be thinking big picture as they plow headlong into their day.  Otherwise, we may get to our destination, but our ship has already left port.

Yesterday, we saw this glacier from 15,000 feet.  Today, we see it from the ground.  What’s different about the two views?

What’s different? There used to be a time when I didn’t understand the difference. And not only that, the difference never even hit my radar screen.  Why?

Because, “Wisdom comes from experience and experience comes from making mistakes”.

So what has become clearer over the years is simply this. We have the choice to look at things from more than one perspective.

Funny thing is, we’ve always had this choice. The difference in the perspectives makes all the difference in the world.

We have this choice today.  And that’s just the “tip of the iceberg glacier”.

Click here to see list on Top 10 Social Bookmarking Sites on the Web. Social networking has many tools, and many challenges. There’s an ocean of competition, but technology makes for smoother sailing.

Don’t ya just love technology?  The more we do something, the less fearful we are of it.  That’s one of the key drivers that makes many people want to try something new – to lessen fear.

And that’s one of our key accountabilities as a leader, isn’t it?  To lessen fear.  Carpe diem.

PS. Skyped a friend in South Africa yesterday.   Wasn’t exactly fearful of it, but had never done an International video chat before. Now I wonder why I waited so long.  It was ridiculously easy.

jungle jeff Leadership 101 Tip:

“Leadership  - Inspiring others by the courage of your own example”.

This is the essence of what I personally believe is the ultimate leadership definition.

Perhaps the best way to fully understand its meaning is to re-read it, think deeply about it, and ultimately, evaluate our own “daily examples”.  This would lead us to a “personal leadership score”.

We would base our “score” on our daily leadership example.  And our basis should be brutally honest.

It seems, to me, that on days where I don’t need much courage, I’m probably not a very good example.  Hope today is a courage-filled day for all of us.

Rosa Parks was not out to win a popularity contest.  Was she?

She also was not the first to refuse to give up her bus seat for a white man.  But thank goodness she did on December 1, 1955.  She was 42.

• Where did her courage come from?
• Why did she demonstrate it?
• Did she have a plan?
• What was she prepared to give up?
• What did she think she’d gain?
• Was she scared?

Rosa Parks is one of my heros, inspiring  me to use courage for the right reasons.  So today I commit to asking  the same questions.

And, by the way, it’s not a popularity contest.  Courage rarely makes you popular until years later.

Indescribable?  Completely.

Meeting with a writer this morning after Church.  We’re collaborating. I’ve written somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,300 jeff noel blog posts, from five individual jeff noel blogs.  Began writing consistently six months ago.

He agreed to read every single Mid Life Celebration blog post prior to today’s meeting.  While it wasn’t required, I decided to do the same. Wow.  It’s pretty inspiring content, because it is written by a common man.

Here’s an example from August 1st, entitled “Indescribable“.

Hope you day is, well, Indescribable!.