Author: jeff noel

Retired Disney Institute Keynote Speaker and Prolific Blogger. Five daily, differently-themed personal blogs (about life's 5 big choices) on five interconnected sites.

Work For Money?

jungle jeff, Daily reflections on Excellence, has an overarching theme.  Money.

As I teach our son about life’s four big quadrants, jungle jeff’s blog is focused on only one.  Money.

Money is not the root of all evil. It is the love of money that is the root.

Whatever you believe, I’m teaching our son that every human should contribute to society in some way.  In return, society pays you with money, generally speaking.

With money, you can buy food, shelter, insurance, transportation, and even use money to help others.

And one more thing I’m trying to teach him, “He is rich who owes nothing.” — Hungarian Proverb

Only Going to Say This Once

Please listen carefully.  This simple fact about public speaking may be the key to becoming a more effective leader.

But only if people listen very carefully, and not rush through this.

Here’s the truth about being a Professional Speaker:

  • If you look out at your audience and they look bored, you’re boring them
  • If you look out and they are on fire, you lit it

Leaders hate to admit they sometimes stink are not highly effective. This makes them look bad and feel horrible. Who wants that?

But the simple truth is, if the people around you don’t seem passionate about their work, their mission, their customers, guess what?

PS.  If your team is on fire with passion, mission, service, guess what?

Seth Godin’s Top Book Picks

Seth Godin announced his November Top Book picks. Click here.

Most people, like I was three months ago, are clueless who Seth Godin is.

If you are serious about your career, and committed to becoming better at your leadership performance, and especially your leadership thinking, you better should become familiar with Seth Godin.

I first read Purple Cow (about being remarkable) and now Tribes (about, well, stay tuned).

Seth Godin is also on You Tube and you can start to see how refreshingly different, and amazingly brilliant, his thinking is.

But wait. I almost forgot. Most humans (like 90%) are not proactively seeking change.  Leaders say they embrace change, but how often do you see leaders transforming themselves and others?

Conformity Leadership Insight

“The reason they want you to fit in is that once you do, then they can ignore you.” — Seth Godin

Bet most of you have never seen it from that vantage point before. Have you?  Not me.

Until today.

Standing out, or being remarkable, usually makes others uncomfortable. Everyone’s so competitive.

When was the last time you saw people rushing to become the most homogeneous?

Think

Think.  Think Tank.  Think it over. Think before you act.

Think things through.  What will people think?  I can’t think.

What would your parents think?  No time to think.

Think before you speak.  Think you know it all, don’t you?

  1. Make yourself think
  2. I challenge you to think
  3. Do you demand yourself to think?
  4. Do you demand others to think?

When we are aware of the reasons why we don’t think -which causes us to slowly start to wither as a vibrant, inspired individual – we have the opportunity to really do something about it.  You know, to reverse it.

But that might be too hard for you, I think.

I mean, what do you think?

Hell Heck yes it’s difficult.  Why the hell heck do you think so few people have the guts to change anything, let alone change themselves.

PS.  This is the conversation I just had with myself. This happens all day, everyday.  My mind is a battlefield of what I want to do, should do, and actually do.  I think.