Crafton Wallace at Jabz Health and Fitness
So I’ve been a member of the gym I go to for over a year now and I’m glad I made the switch when I did. Before joining Jabz Health and Fitness, I worked out at a Lifestyle Fitness, also for about a year. Both gyms are good, but are very different in many ways. Continue Reading…
As some of you know, I’ve been reading a lot more than usual. I believe this to be a transformational period for me, one that I’m embracing more and more each and every day. For the past six months or so, I find myself reading 5 or 6 books at a time, while listening to one audio book each week while walking/running to and from the gym. After a long break, I’ve come to appreciate the views of many great authors. Some in which a lot of us have heard of and deserve all the credit they receive… if not more. And then there are the authors that many never hear about for one reason or an other. Continue Reading…
Co-author of the best seller Freakonomics, Steve Levitt, took the stage at the World Business Forum to share stories about tax fraud, passing gas, and prostitution. This was definitely not a typical economics discussion, but a great storytelling experience. He expressed how some of the best ideas in business today are also the simplest ones.
“The best ideas are the simplest ones, and after you hear them they’re totally obvious, yet they evade us for years and years and years. You don’t have to be Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking to have great ideas. You just have to think and keep your eyes open.” ~ Steve Levitt
He said the problem most businesses have is that they don’t make time to step back and think about things like academics within the organizations. Continue Reading…
Co-founder of Altimeter Group, Charlene Li, spoke on the first day at the World Business Forum. She passionately expressed the value of social technologies.
“Social technologies are all about the relationships you can form.”
Here are a few items of interest and advice from Charlene Li: Continue Reading…
During the World Business Forum, Carlos Brito, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev, explained to the audience his three elements of a performance culture: dream, people, and culture.
Dream:
Dreams are important because they set the bar. Once you set that bar it anchors everything. You have to dream big. Dreams have to be stretched but credible. And you have to know about 80 percent how you’re going to get there; the rest you can figure out along the way.
The dream has to inspire and align people. Organizations are formed by people… this is obvious, but that can be easy forgotten. If leaders work in harmony on that dream, the company goes forward. When company leaders don’t work together, things stall and often begin to fall apart.
Keep raising the bar; don’t be afraid to dare and try harder. Be public about it. Make it measurable. Be remarkable! Continue Reading…
This morning at HSM’s World Business Forum, Jim Collins, leadership expert and author of Built to Last and Good to Great shared a list of 10 to-dos for successful leadership:
1. Do your diagnostics. (There are free tools at www.jimcollins.com). Self-assess how you’re doing. Find weaknesses to improve upon.
2. Don’t focus on your career; focus on building pockets of greatness throughout your career.
3. Fill key seats with the right people. Ask yourself whether that’s the case in your organization. If not, start to make changes. Continue Reading…
Six weeks ago, I received an invitation to be a featured blogger at the 2010 World Business Forum, which is being held October 5th and 6th at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Come to find out, this is an invitation-only opportunity offered to a select group of top business bloggers, and establishes a membership amongst the WBF10 Bloggers Hub.
As I read over the invite, I was uncertain if it was actually true. I expressed gratitude for kindly extending the invitation to attend the forum and asked why I was chosen to attend, as for I felt that I had yet to contribute anything of significance to the leadership community. Micheal Singer replied with: “I found your blog on someone else’s blogroll, and I took a brief look and liked what I saw. We’re looking for interesting viewpoints. And while many of our bloggers have institutional ties and recognition, etc., we also want some new voices. This is a great opportunity to stretch your voice and reach some new people if you want the opportunity. It’s that simple.” Continue Reading…
The other day I received an e-mail notification that my domain name for this blog is up for renewal. This triggered me to go back and review my blog postings and perform a quick personal inventory. While I was reading over each of my previous posts, it reminded me why I began blogging and what my short and long term goals were. Being completely honest, I had no idea what I was getting myself into and what the future had in store. Here is a short list of phases and their descriptions I encountered along the way:
Now that I think I have the swing of things and have been lurking around the blogsphere, I’ve decided to add some personality…make this something personal, find ways to materialize what I’ve gathered into something meaningful, opposed to writing robotic “content friendly” posts simply to appease the search engines’ crawlers.
With that said, I must express my deep, sincere gratitude for the wonderful people I’ve encountered along the way. The level of friendly engagement has made me realize the power of blogging, the world of social media (twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc…), and how social networking has the ability to bring together so many people they we never knew existed. The level of synergy that is available to us is extremely powerful. With the tools of a laptop, a internet connection, the motivation to seek like-minded people, as well as the passion to help other achieve their goals, I am convinced that there is absolutely nothing that cannot be achieved.
Now, I know that the last sentence of the previous paragraph may have some overtones of the cliche our parents told us for all those years: “You can do anything that you put your mind to.” Well, it’s true and the efforts and their results far outweigh the consequences of living in fear or sustaining a lack of confidence. I know, I’ve been there a few times throughout my short life and I am so thankful for those who’ve been there to help pick me back up and support me during those dark times.
I’m going to go ahead and warp this post up with a couple words: Dream Big.
Call me “Juno” if you will, call me a post-modernist, or call me some new age yuppie type…but we’re in the 21st century and the rules have changed. Globally, as Robert Dickie recently tweeted: “We did not just go through a “recession” we went through a “reset.” This is important to understand. Many of the rules have changed.” It’s time to throw away the status-quo and begin leading from within. It will allow for a reflection so bright that it will glow amongst all of those close to you and those you’re about to meet along the way.
I’d like to thank Tom Schulte for the inspiration of the title and thought of this blog post. Thank you Tom.
