Seminar Reviews by Clarity Patton Newhouse - Clarity.tv
Compliments of Metropolitan Lincoln of Garden City - MetroMichigan.com
The Yes! Network is one of America’s leading seminar training companies. President Michael Jeffreys offers complimentary workshops that can take place at your business, networking group or association meeting. For more information, visit YesMidwest.com.
January 19, 2011 - Novi, Michigan. This month’s Yes! Network speakers packed extraordinary amounts of practical and motivational material into their high-energy seminars. Productivity expert and bestselling author Laura Stack presented two separate seminars on productivity and supercompetence during the afternoon session and the dynamic Desi Williams delivered a highly motivational seminar on how to program yourself for success during the evening session. In case you missed either of the seminars or would simply enjoy a little refresher, here are some of the highlights.
AFTERNOON SESSION A: PRODUCTIVITY
In Laura Stack’s first seminar, “Practical Productivity Principles: How to Do More in Less Time and Feel Great About It!” she points out that a lot of the time management skills we learned in the past don’t work today. Laura asks, “When was the last time you “finished” all your work? Imagine if you added up all the hours it would take to catch up. People think it’s about trying to get it all done. That’s just not possible. If you had a 30 hour day would that solve the problem? No - you’d just fill it up! The reality of time is that there will always be more things to do than time to do it.”
Over the years Laura has been associated with many companies and has studied the characteristics of people who are highly productive. This led to her new book “Leave The Office Earlier” in which she outlines the ten characteristics of productive people. Laura has organized them under the acronym of ‘Productive’ to help us remember these traits so we can work on improving our own performance in these areas.
P – Preparation. Lay the foundation for a productive day. Plan your activities daily before you begin working.
Laura suggests “The best time to plan is the night before. Mornings are typically crazy busy. I’m in reactive mode and it isn’t until noon that I have a chance to focus on what to do.” She recommends that the last thing you do before you leave the office at night is to think about the next day. Stop working ten minutes before you leave and think about tomorrow. You will find tremendous benefits in doing this.
R – Reduction. Reduce the things that waste your time. These could be excessive meetings, too much socializing, too many personal phone calls, etc. Laura reported that the number one way people waste time involves the internet, such as surfing, shopping, exploring Facebook, etc. She admonishes us to write down the things we do during the day that waste time and start eliminating them.
O – Order. Laura tells us to systematically manage all of the paper, email and other inputs that come into our workspace. Determine how you can create an environment that has everything in the right place so you can find what you need in 30 seconds or less. According to Laura, people who are orderly tend to satisfy the “HUG” criteria. Think about your management system and ask yourself if it is Handy, Usable and Garbage free.
D – Discipline. Self control is a huge component of productivity. High performers have the ability to do what they need to do, even (or especially) when they don’t feel like it. To help us tackle intimidating tasks, Laura advises us to outline projects and slice them into little bite sized pieces. Also make time to think, because daytime work activities can get in the way of strategic thinking.
U – Unease (better known as overload and stress.) Laura points out that stress isn’t always a bad thing. When stress is positive it makes you jump out of bed in the morning thinking, “I can’t wait to get this day started!” But she cautions us to avoid the “faster, cheaper, do more with less” mentality.
"As stress climbs and people work, harder, faster and longer, eventually they have ‘had it up to here’ and performance starts to diminish,” explains Laura. “There is a sweet spot where you have absolutely the perfect level of stress and maximum performance. This is the line that you want to play on in your life.”
C – Concentration (focus and attentiveness.) Laura notes that people are losing the ability to concentrate and no longer have the skill of sitting still and doing one thing for five minutes. If “multitasking” is really just flitting about from task to task, then what is happening to the task we started out to do? According to Laura we can only consciously do one thing at a time. Turn of the email alerts and focus on getting the job done at hand.
T – Time mastery and self management. Laura says this is working with the top 25% of your energy. Ask yourself “What can you not do when you’re not “Brain-dead?”
Give thoughtful analysis and planning to your day and make the best use of every minute, every day.
I – Information management. Some people have thousands of emails in their inbox. They’ve started using their inbox as a to-do list. Laura suggests we use technology to help us with this. “If you don’t know how to convert an email into a task so it’s not sitting in your inbox, then that’s a skill that you’ll want to learn how to do.” Most people only employ abut 20% of their computer programs because they haven’t learned how to use them.
V – Vitality. Possess the energy to accomplish the things you want to do. Eat healthy, pace yourself, exercise, sleep. Laura warns “We each need to look at how our self care is impacting our ability to perform throughout the day. And watch out for sleep foods! Flour + sugar = a nap!”
E – Equilibrium. Achieve balance by allocating appropriate time to the various activities in your life. Sometimes people can be a little too perfectionist about how things get done. Laura points out, “If you insist on having everything done your way, other people will be happy to let you do it your way.”
In conclusion, Laura’s seminar points us that longer hours in the office don’t necessary equal more productivity. Instead, by developing or honing these ten traits we can be more productive with our time and leave the office earlier. For more information about Laura Stack and her productivity principles, visit www.TheproductivityPro.com.
AFTERNOON SESSION B: SUPERCOMPETENT
Laura Stack’s second seminar is “Supercompetent: The Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best.” Competent, Laura points out, is not a compliment. It’s simply what’s expected of us. To be truly successful, we must be supercompetent and these six keys can help.
1. Activity. People who are supercompetent have an intense focus on their priorities. Laura believes that our priorities indicate the value and importance of the things we want to accomplish, and give our day direction. She reminds us that even if we tackle nine items on our list, we’ll still feel bad if we fail to address the most important one. It’s not about numbers. It’s more productive to accomplish a few critical tasks than many less important ones.
To succeed with this principle, Laura believes we have to acknowledge that it’s hard to do the things we need to do when we’d rather avoid them. However, if we don’t accomplish those important tasks we’ll get to the end of the day dissatisfied, saying to ourselves “Once again, I didn’t get the things I need to do done.” The solution is that intense focus on priorities.
2. Availability. Once you know what you should be working on you have to make time for it. Supercompetent people know they can’t be available to everyone all the time. We have to be able to say “no.”
“These are desperate times,” says Laura. You have to figure out how to make time in your schedule to do the important things. You can block out time on your Outlook calendar as an appointment with yourself, just to get things done. This way you give yourself permission to work for extended periods of time.
3. Attention. People with super productivity have the ability to focus on the task at hand. Watch out for “multitasking,” which can be such a problem. Instead of starting and stopping a number of different tasks, keep going on one.
Keeping your attention focused on one task will probably require turning off email notifications. Instead of being notified of all incoming email, setup email notifications for your best clients or people you actually need to hear from in the office. That way, you keep the focus ongoing without the interruptions.
4. Accessibility. Laura reminds us that if we sit down but can’t find the necessary information to accomplish the task at hand, we’ll waste time looking for things. People who are able to access information “at will” rise head and shoulders above the rest.
To reduce physical and electronic clutter and keep important information accessible, Laura recommends taking one of the following actions in the following order.
1. Discard it.
2. Delegate it – distribute or forward the information.
3. Do it – if you read it and it’s something you can actually do right then, do it and be done with it.
4. Date it. If you can’t do it immediately then date it. It needs to go in a tickler file.
5. Drawer it. If it’s something you need to save, put it in a hard file or an electronic file.
6. Deter it. Keep it from coming to you again. Remove yourself from unnecessary the distribution lists. Unsubscribe from unnecessary email. Setup helpful Rules in Outlook.
Make yourself do one of these six things every time information comes to you, and process your “inbox” down to zero at least once a day. It doesn’t mean you did the work, but at least your organized your work, because your Inbox should not be used as a “task list.”
5. Accountability. Supercompetent people never point the finger at others and blame them for things that go wrong. Ask yourself, “How can I improve? How can our team improve this procedure? If I had that project to do over again, what would be a different, better or more efficient way to do it? “
6. Attitude. You know how important this is. There are some people who fill you with joy and you walk away from them a better person. On the other hand there are people who “suck the life out of you.” In both cases, remember that attitudes are infectious.
In concluding her seminar, Laura encourages us to “Never give up. Always try. Always push. The people who aren’t being defeatist see challenges as opportunities and they’re going to be positioned successfully when the economy turns around. The supercompetent people don’t give up, they take action. The world needs what you have to offer. You need to get out there and tell people what you do. Never give up!”
For more information about Laura Stack and her new book, visit http://www.supercompetentbook.com/.
EVENING SEMINAR: SUCCESS
Desi Williamson’s seminar titled “Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way! How to Program Yourself for Big Success” drew inspiration from his own experiences overcoming extraordinary challenges.
Desi defines unsuccessful people as people who have given up. They’ve stopped taking action, dreaming and hoping. Desi tells us, “As long as you have a pulse and a heartbeat you can do it. The only thing missing is purpose. If you don’t have one, you need to find one.”
To illustrate his point Desi recalled words from basketball great Michael Jordan. When Michael was retiring he was asked how he’d accomplished so much. Michael answered that it was because at one time he’d been cut from his basketball team. That’s when Michael determined to demand more of himself than anyone else could ever expect.
Desi underscores the lesson that if you demand more from yourself than anybody else could expect, you’ll always blow the competition away. “My goals were always 30% higher than corporate management thought they were,” says Desi. “I just didn’t tell them.”
Desi asks, “Are you a Master of Change or a Victim of Circumstances?” He reminds us that when the sun goes down it goes down on everybody. When it rains it rains on everybody. So, do we go inside and complain or go get an umbrella and deal with it?
“If you’re riding a horse and you look down and see the horse is dead, get off. Don’t say giddy up. Giddy off!” advises Desi. “We stick with what we’re doing because that’s the way we’ve always done things. We have to be able to change. It’s so important!”
He pointed out that the only way we learn is by trying things. “How many people say, ‘I’ve tried everything!’ No you haven’t. Because if you’d tried everything you’d have found something that worked!”
There are many reasons why being able to change has never been more important than it is today. There’s more competition and solutions to problems aren’t as durable as they used to be. “The things we’re doing right now won’t work at some future point,” explains Desi. “Conditions will catch up with us. But fortunately, it’s easier to change now than ever before.”
Desi says, “People lose the game of life everyday because they’re not willing to make adjustments. It takes work to make adjustments. Take a different route to work. Get yourself out of your patterns. We have to change our patterns of thinking. Like the monkey bars. You can’t reach the one in front of you unless you let go of the bar behind you.”
In order to be successful in business, Desi encourages us to look for “niches,” specific un-served needs in the marketplace. “Niches create markets,” says Desi. It’s a question of identifying and exploiting niches. How can we do it better? That’s the key. Do it faster, differently, more effectively, more efficiently.
“Look for the niches. Look for what resources are available. Get out and ask questions. You’ll end up in places you never imagined.”
Desi also encourages us to challenge limiting beliefs because they affect what we’re willing to do and see. Colonel Sanders of KFC got 1,009 rejections before he got somebody to say yes. But all he needed was one yes.
“Society tells us no, stop, don’t, you can’t,” says Desi. “That’s what we’ve been told since childhood. People want us to be conventional, to keep us in a box.”
To illustrate this point he informs us that by the time a child is 18 they’ve suffered 5,000,000 negative impressions on their ‘disk’ i.e. their brain. ‘Garbage in garbage stays.’ Whatever goes in there, it stays. So we have to careful with words. Words can build people up or tear people down. We have to careful not to use words that are destructive.
“Everybody tells us what we can’t do and what won’t work” cautions Desi. “We all know negative people. Guard your disk. Tell them you don’t want to hear it. Ask yourself, ‘Who or what has influence in your life? Is it okay?’ Protect yourself. ‘Will this association get me closer to my goal or further from my goal?’ If it’s not okay, you have the power to change it.”
Desi tells us that the biggest lesson in life is that “there is no ‘something for nothing.’ So if somebody gives you something for nothing, you’d better be looking around ‘because something else is coming and it probably won’t be pleasant.”
Another important point Desi makes is about fear. Or, as he defines it as an acronym, False Evidence Appearing Real. “Most of the things we’re afraid of never happen. Challenge your fears! Whatever you fear most, do it tomorrow morning.”
Desi exhorts us to “Fight for what you believe in. You’ve got to fight for the right to be the best!”
1. Reignite your purpose and passion for life
2. Raise your own standards of excellence
3. Take massive action
4. Challenge limiting beliefs
5. Challenge your fears
And remember that “Where there’s a will, there’s a way!”
For more information about Desi Williamson, visit http://www.desiwilliamson.com/.
Your comments and feedback on these seminar reviews are welcomed and appreciated. Sincerely, Clarity
About Me
- Clarity Patton Newhouse
- Clarity Patton Newhouse is co-president of Sunny Media Group, Inc., a Livonia based advertising agency that specializes in television, radio, print and internet advertising. Clarity also directs advertising for Metropolitan Lincoln of Garden City. __________________ Clarity serves on the Board of Directors for the Garden City Chamber of Commerce (gardencity.org). Previously, Clarity served three years on the Automotive Division Council for the American Society for Quality (asq.org) and four years on the Board of Directors for the Media Communications Association International (mca-i.org) Detroit Chapter. ___________________ Clarity is also active in the community, organizing American Red Cross (redcrossblood.org) blood drives regularly at Metropolitan and has served on committees for fundraisers to support Garden City Hospital (www.gchosp.org), St. Mary Mercy Hospital (stmarymercy.org), Celebrities Against Autism (generationrescue.org), Garden City Public Schools (gardencityschools.com) and more.