If you are like me, your whole life is one appointment after another. My work calendar is filled with coaching appointments, client meetings, interviews, time blocks and scheduled to-dos. My personal life is much the same way.
So here is my big tip-which may seem a bit unconventional, and even odd, but stay with me:
Stop rescheduling regular appointments!
Yep, you read correctly. Stop rescheduling your regular, recurring appointments when something comes up. Unless it’s with a client or your boss, don’t do it. If you create a policy right now that you will no longer reschedule regular appointments that aren’t going to work out for whatever reason, three important things will happen:

1. You will have more time.
   The amount of time we spend rescheduling appointments is getting more and more ridiculous. Plus, it adds to our stress because rescheduling increases our risk of double- booking or rescheduling for a time that is best used for something else. Instead, just let it go, and pick it up again next week or month or year.
2. You will stop reinforcing the wrong behavior in others.
   If your assistant, co-worker, kid’s math tutor, web designer or dentist has a “flexible” relationship with time you will no longer be in their insane rescheduling loop. It will not take them long to realize that if they want your business or your time or whatever, they will have to show up when they say they will.
3. You will be more conscious when making commitments.
   Pay your personal trainer for a cancellation a time or two, and you will start thinking pretty long and hard about the best time to get your work out in. If you establish that you “don’t do reschedules,” then remarkably fewer things will get in the way of actually doing what you intended to do-at the time you intended to do it.

Give it a try!
“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes an overqualified candidate can make very a convincing argument for why you should hire them even though the pay is substantially less and their experience is way more than you need. As appealing as these candidates can be to hiring managers, it usually does not work out in the long run. While many components such as cultural fit and, of course, experience are necessary for a successful hire, these two qualities are often overlooked or undervalued. We feel they are of supreme importance:

1. This job is a natural, upward, career progression for this candidate - In an ideal world the job is the “job of their dreams” and the culmination of everything they have ever done in their lives. In the absence of that ideal, the job should at least be a natural next step and definitely a step up for the candidate. Making lateral moves and taking a cut in pay “to break into your industry” rarely pay off for the employer, although the candidates can talk a good game about it. If given a choice, pick the slightly less qualified candidate for whom the job is the perfect next step.
2. This job is an increase in pay for the candidate - The ideal candidate for your job and your industry is one who currently makes less money than you are going to offer them for this job OR there is more money to be made in the near future with your company. Otherwise, proceed with caution when it comes to pay. Again, in spite of the best tales of being “done” with their former area of expertise or being ready to stop traveling, these very things often seem attractive again when the smaller paychecks become a reality. An offer letter from your company should be a moment of joy and elation for the candidate, but when the job honeymoon is over, it’s all about the money.

I find that people can be pretty hard on themselves when it comes to assessing their own skills and abilities. Being self critical may help us move toward improvement, but only for about two seconds—the two seconds it takes for us to realize that we are not where we want to be. After that it is pointless to dwell on how we got there or how slow our progress has been. It’s better to focus on something more helpful-something more concrete.

This is my second year of tracking the books I read and now I am hooked. Keeping a list actually encourages me to read more. And it adds a feeling of accomplishment to something I was doing anyway.

Keep in mind that quantity is not nearly as important as setting a goal and following through.
One book per year in a category you don’t usually read is a great place to start. But then again, so is one book per year.

Business and Non Fiction

The Mission, The Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander by: Pete Blaber. A great read and very informative with salient points that can apply to business, too. Manly yes, but I liked it.

Outliers: The Story of Success by: Malcolm Gladwell. Fantastic and must read. I listened to this one in my car. He is brilliant and the information is very useful.

Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story by: Peter Guber. This guy makes an art out of name dropping but it is actually a good higher-level sales book. Key points: Know your audience and tell a great story.

Poke the Box by: Seth Godin. Easy, quick read about taking initiative and risks.

Inspiration and Self-Help

Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life by: Byron Katie. I picked this up for my coaching practice and ended up really getting into it. Includes a priceless psychological strategy to use every day.

A Course In Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever by: Marianne Williamson. Wow. Forget the title and do the exercises in this book if you want a shift in your life.

What You Must Know About Women’s Hormones: Your Guide to Natural Hormone Treatments for PMS, Menopause, Osteoporosis, PCOS, and More by: Pamela Wartian Smith, M.D. Hey, it’s my age group! But there was so much conflicting information I wanted to read from the expert with the latest research. Excellent resource.

Getting Into The Vortex: Guided Meditations CD and User Guide by: Esther Hicks, Jerry Hicks. I simply cannot meditate on my own so in accepting this fact I tried a variety and I like this one the best. It is a bit new-age focused and it works like a charm for me.

Fiction

The Help by: Kathryn Stockett. One of the best books I have read. Excellent.

Bel Ami by: Guy de Maupassant. Tale of a social scoundrel in the 1800s. Saucy good read.

(Here is last year’s list.)

Recently I had a very heated exchange with one of my coaching clients because it was obvious to me that she was completely misconstruing some direct feedback she had received from the CEO of her company. I helped her understand what he probably meant, and when it finally sunk in, she had the realization that she had been about to torch her future with the company over a misunderstanding. She joked with me and said, “Well, we don’t all speak CEO.”

It amazes me how often I end up “translating” for the heads of companies and departments, or at least offering some additional perspective to the rationale behind their decisions. Often managers and associates are too close to a situation to really have perspective, and this can seriously affect communication at work—especially with the higher-ups.

Tips for speaking to your CEO:

• Manage your fear and insecurities– The most basic confidence tips apply here as they do in any situation: Stand up straight, care about your appearance, smile, listen, think before you talk and most importantly, stop worrying about how you may be coming across while you are in a conversation. No conversation is life threatening. Just relax and do your best.
• Stop faking it– There is no point in trying to be something or someone you are not. Chances are that the CEO, the President of the Board, or whoever it is got there because they have some experience in the world and they will likely see right through any attempt to manufacture a personality. And, if you are working on #1 above, keep in mind that trying to fake who you are only adds to your fear and insecurities.
• Stop complaining– Using an impromptu meeting or interaction with the CEO to whine about the company is just foolish. Instead, use the opportunity to listen, share an idea or result you are excited about or offer a solution. The way you handle this can either increase your chances of being heard in the future, or create a negative association with the very sight of you. It’s your call.
• Ask great questions– This is really the secret to any relationship—personal, business, sales, or work related. Ask people really good, relevant questions and then listen intently to their answers. It’s magic!
• Show a little empathy– So the CEO has a private jet, an entourage, and a luxurious office. There is an excellent chance that the same person has a crushing amount of pressure on them coming from a variety of sources. Have a heart. CEOs are people too.

Do you have bad habits that might be hurting your sales?

Test yourself to see if you know which sales mistakes are the worst. Rank these common sales rep mistakes from 1-7, with 1 being the worst.

____ A) Poor product knowledge
____ B) Bad breath or body odor
____ C) Not listening
____ D) Embellishing value of a product
____ E) Poor follow-up
____ F) Not keeping promises
____ G) Being arrogant or condescending

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Answers in descending order:

7. G) Being arrogant is annoying, but it is actually pretty common in top salespeople. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t watch your attitude, but a little arrogance will probably be forgiven.
6. B) Having bad breath or body odor may cause clients to talk about you behind your back, but they will not hate you for stinking up the place. It might even make them feel sorry for you.
5. D) Please try not to embellish the value of a product. However fellow salespeople all over the world have set the bar pretty low on the concept of being trustworthy, so embellishing the truth is bad-but not the worst.
4. E) Poor follow-up is common among salespeople. Because so few are great at follow-up, not doing it is not a deal killer-but doing it will put you at the top of the heap.
3. F) The habit of not keeping promises is a bad one. Now we are getting into frustration territory because your promise to do something has set a sales timer in the mind of the buyer-so not doing it can kill your future deals, referrals, etc.
2. A) A salesperson with poor product knowledge is fairly unforgivable for today’s consumer-especially in B2B sales. They are under pressure and stretched for time, and they need you to know your stuff.
1. C) Having poor listening skills is the worst thing you can do. Talking too much and listening too little can kill current and future deals faster than any other mistake. If you want to make more sales, ask great questions and then be a lot more quiet. Really listen to the answers. The secondary benefit to developing listening skills is that it actually makes selling easier.

Most of us are leaders in many aspects of our lives. Perhaps we lead and manage a team of employees, and we may also lead our children, other family members, a board of directors or a committee. As leaders, the thing that can get us the most mileage is respect. If we are respected, things happen faster and easier, and people we lead will work harder than they might have if they did not respect us.

In your quest for respect, you may think you have to be perfect—or at least appear to be perfect. But actually, the opposite is true.

Leadership secret 101 : Be flawed!

There are two very important reasons why you should admit it when you miss the boat, forget something, miscalculate, experience an epic failure or otherwise screw up. The first reason why it is good to admit that you are flawed (a.k.a. human!) is that it makes others feel okay with being human themselves. Think about the social response to people we see as flawed in today’s pop culture—we tend to forgive flaws and harshly judge those who try to hide their mistakes (think Charlie Sheen, Alec Baldwin vs. Former Senator John Edwards and Lindsay Lohan). Covering up your mistake, hiding your humanity or trying to blame someone else is never a good idea.

The second reason why admitting to mistakes might work in your favor is because people as a whole tend to have very highly developed brains that let us know when something is not quite right. If you try to hide your mistake, although people may not consciously realize that you are covering something up, they may get a funny little feeling that creates a tiny bit of mistrust—and mistrust cannot ever lead to respect. If it’s respect you crave you will have a much better chance of getting it by copping to your flaw and moving on.

“A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.” – John Burroughs

In the coaching world, curing procrastination is one of the top “fix me” requests.

“Why do I put things off until the last minute?” “Why can’t I just make myself do the reports/workouts/cold calls?” “Why do I have issues with this?” And any coach worth her salt will change the subject from why to how.”How” is where it’s at! Here are a few methods that can help you outsmart even the most ingrained procrastination habits:

1. When you fail at something, complete a task that you would normally procrastinate. I know it’s not fashionable to talk about failure, but we all mess up occasionally—so stay with me.
   Let’s say you had a particularly clunky, unsuccessful interaction with a client you were hoping to close, or perhaps you were late and missed your child’s parent/teacher conference. Channel that anger and disappointment into knocking off a few to-dos that you usually leave until the last minute. Not only will you have used your less-than-ideal emotional state wisely, you will actually feel better!
   Then you can say to yourself, “Well, I blew it on that one, but I got my report handed in early for the first time in ten years.”
2. Be aware of what gets onto your list starting now. Sure, much of what we do is in the “have to” column, but many, many other to-dos are self-imposed based on our values, goals and the roles we choose in our lives. Is this really a good time to enroll in that on-line class? Is it really, absolutely necessary to host every gathering for your extended family?
   For the next three weeks, really think through every single yes to make sure it is not something that will land on that procrastination list later.
3. Use task completion as a cheap thrill. Once we decide that an item is on our to-do list it gains the capacity to affect how we feel about ourselves. It would be great if this was not true, but for most of us, it is very true. But you can use this to your advantage if you begin to notice how good crossing off a to-do feels.
   The longer we put something off, the worse we feel, and that feeling grows and grows far beyond the pain of actually completing the task. Knock a few items off your list today and see how you feel.
   Then repeat.

“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” Don Marquis

For most of us, work days filled with super-charged stress and pressure give way to fantasies about not working at all. Perhaps we imagine ourselves running a canoe shop in Hawaii or traveling around Europe—permanently. When it all seems like too much, we long to escape, slow down, be more present and feel less crazed.

We are conditioned to think that there is life, and then there is work—and one must be sacrificed for the other.

I recently had the very unfortunate experience of attending the funerals of two different friends who died unexpectedly. Both had been hardworking, admirable men who worked in competitive, results-driven industries. I mention this awful thing only because a large part of their memorial events were focused on the impact their work had on their lives and the lives of others. Their families were proud of their work and work ethic; their contribution and their commitment.

As odd as it may sound, hearing about the career accomplishments of these men inspired many others toward excellence at work-as opposed to daydreams about taking a permanent vacation to Disney World or Miraval Spa (although I highly recommend both).

What makes work bad?

Work itself might not be inherently bad. Like chocolate-a little is good, even a lot is good, but consuming a bucket of it will bring about some very unpleasant side effects. It is possible that some of our own habits around work actually bring about more stress. These habits may include allowing perfectionism to dominate our projects far beyond what is necessary; wasting time on political maneuvers at work instead of actually working; or procrastinating all day and then spending precious family time making up work that could have been completed earlier. We may not have control over many aspects of our work-but there are many, many areas we do have the power to improve. Take some time in the next week or so to think about your approach and your attitude toward work. See if there are a few tweaks you can make that might mean the difference between seeing work as drudgery vs. seeing work as an important part of your life.

“Imperfection is not our personal problem; it is a natural part of existing.” – Annie Dillard

Being persistent is a basic standard in today’s business world. Going after business, expanding our network, creating a need where one does not yet exist, and making sure we “put it out there” is critical to our success.  When does persistence travel into the territory of desperation? The answer depends entirely upon the recipients of your actions-the prospective buyers, clients and customers of your business.

Think about your own experiences for a moment: that sales rep who called you constantly after you visited his store, or the Realtor who put you on her mailing list and sent five emails per week (until you unsubscribed). At what point did you cross over from being mildly interested to feeling annoyed or even creeped-out by that person? Something made you feel uneasy about them or suspicious about their motives or actions. When we feel turned off but don’t quite know why, it’s because something has triggered the part of the brain (the Amygdala) which processes our emotional reactions. We might not even be conscious of it, but our brain makes decisions about who we trust and who we don’t.

As salespeople, we need to remember that when we behave in a desperate manner, it makes the object of our attention want to move away from us-not toward us. If you are concerned that you might be putting out the desperation vibe, follow these three rules:

1. After you take an action, busy yourself with other tasks and resist the temptation to push. If you are circling back to prospects too soon you probably don’t have enough in your pipeline. Build your network to keep yourself from pestering people.
2. Catch yourself when you really, really, really want a deal to close, and see if you need to listen more, ask better questions, or just back off-because wanting it and seeming desperate are close cousins.
3. Take steps to actually feel less panic and desperation. Deep breaths, a workout, or taking time to set goals, plan and dream are all great ways to feel more in control and less at the whim of others.

“Desperation is like stealing from the Mafia: you stand a good chance of attracting the wrong attention.” – Douglas Horton