I am my Brother’s Keeper
I am my Brother’s Keeper
Today, the less I say the better.
Today I let Pictures and Videos do the talking for me.
No matter what your situation is, you can still help others.
www.iammybrotherskeeper-pc.org
The Not-So-Secret Secret to Success:
The Not-So-Secret Secret to Success:
There are so many books and classes and schools of thought for success. Let me break it down for you. The Super-Secret Formula for Success is not really all that Secret. The whole Secret think seems to play like a sales pitch after you have read through enough Success Strategies. It took me my whole life to get to this place and I am going to share it with you right here and right now for free. The Super-Secret Success Strategy is not really a Secret.
The Not-So-Secret Secret to Success:
People are successful for one of three basic reasons. 1: They built a successful system. 2: They took over a successful system. 3: They inherited a successful system.
The Not-So-Secret Secret to Success:
There it is; you either Build, Climb or Inherit a Ladder to the Stars. So I am betting you were not born rich or you are not already rich, otherwise why would you be reading my free blog when I can sell you the same information dressed up like Super-Secret Insider Information that only my exclusive circle of friends can share? Seriously, I have made this overly simple because it is that simple. If you are not in line to inherit a successful system, then your choices are 1: Build your own system or 2: Work your way up through someone else’s system.
The Not-So-Secret Secret to Success:
So what is a System? It is a Business that provides a good or service at a profit or some other benefit. I am not here to define what good or service or profit point you want to be at, that would take a lot of books. Maybe that is why there are so many books that basically say the same thing for every good, service and profit point. My point is that you will either figure out your own way of doing something that you want to do, or you will move through the ranks of someone else’s way of doing something you may or may not want to do; and usually though not always, you will do it because you will get paid or you will get some other benefit. Now if you come from a rich family the only thing you really have to do is stay in the good graces of your family and learn the family business; unless you want to do your own thing. If you stand to inherit a successful system and you are reading this blog, the only advice I have for you is, try to do some good!
The Not-So-Secret Secret to Success:
In all honesty, my only advice to everyone is to try to do some good. If you are trying to build your own system, try to do some good. If you are in someone else’s system, again try to do some good. Lastly, if you stand to inherit riches; I beg of you to try to do some good. So basically a System is a Business and Businesses are Collections of people working toward a common goal. So one way to build a system is to have a goal and train up people to help you reach your goal. The best way to train people is to show them that you know how to do what you are going to train them to do, or something that fits into the big picture. Another way to train people is to get them around people who know the things you don’t know, and also show them that you generally care for their well-being. Another way to train people is to make them fear you; I am no fan of this type of training. So my advice to you is to figure out what you want to do. Learn from people who are doing what you want to do. Figure out your own way of doing it. Teach your way to others, and care for their general well-being along the way. That and try to do some good along the way.
The Not-So-Secret Secret to Success:
See this Simple Secret, Not-So-Secret Model for Success works regardless of if you want to 1: Build your own system, 2: Rise through the ranks of an existing system, or 3: You are going to inherit a system. Learn from people who are doing or have done something similar to what you want to do. Put you own personal stamp on it. Train other people. Care for their well-being and lastly try to do some good. If you will do those things, I am betting you will be a success.
The Not-So-Secret Secret to Success:
So try my Super-Secret-Not-So-Secret-Secret-To-Success and if it does not work for you, I will give you a full refund of the purchase price. What a minute, it is free!
Leadership V.I.E.W.-P.A.C. for Success:
Welcome to 60 Seconds of Motivational Mojo. Leadership V.I.E.W.-P.A.C. for Success: Sounds like some kind of Political Machine doesn’t it? Well if you have been reading my post on a regular basis, you would see I try to stay politically neutral. Let’s get back to this new acronym. V.I.E.W.-P.A.C. stands for Vision, Ideas, Energy, Workload, Pain, Accolades and Compensation. Leadership V.I.E.W.-P.A.C. for Success means a Leader has to try to balance and share each of these items.
A Leader must strive to balance and share Vision, Ideas, Energy, Workload, Pain, Accolades and Compensation to be successful. Now some people, some managers and some leaders get these concepts out of balance. It is my belief that you should try to balance them as honestly and fairly as possible. Let’s take a closer look.
A Leader should strive to share the overall Vision. The Leader should take a balanced approach to sharing the Vision. How would you like it if you were following a Leader who was only sharing the Vision with a select few people, and leaving others in the dark or out of the loop? To be fair, a Leader should try to make the Vision, Plain and Simple and available to all. Everyone should know the direction they are heading and if they choose to follow. This may be the easy step to understand. A Leader should take a balanced approach to sharing the Vision or Mission of their team.
A Leader should strive to share their Ideas and the Leader should also strive to allow others to share their Ideas. This is a two-way street. Everyone has ideas, opinions, points of view and a voice. Everyone should be able to give input. Everyone should be able to see how they fit into the overall Vision of the team. A Leader should encourage everyone’s input and find the balance between everyone’s Ideas and the Vision. This does not mean to change your Vision based on Popularity or Political Pressure. No, this is just the opposite. This is why a Leader should be open and honest, but in the end they still must lead. The Leader has to find a way to balance everyone’s input while staying focused on the Overall Vision. Again, this should be easy to understand.
A Leader should strive to share their Energy and balance the Energy of the Team. A Leader can not do it all, and a Leader should do more than just give inspiration speeches. A Leader has to roll up their sleeves and put the Energy into making the Vision and the Ideas a reality. A sure sign of a bad Leader is one that barks orders or never lends a hand when the going gets tough. A Good Leader should be one of the first to help push the car or pull the rope when the going gets tough. A Good Leader sets the best possible example. This should also be pretty easy to understand.
A Leader should strive to share and balance the workload. Again, a Leader can not do everything all the time. A Leader can not even do most things most of the times. A Leader has to realize why every person on the team matters. The best if not the only way to do that is to share and balance the workload. It is not fair for some people to be working hard all the time, while others seem to only do the bare minimum if anything at all. If every member of the team is important, everyone should pull their fair share. A Leader gives everyone a chance to excel why maintaining a balance that everyone can respect. A Good Leader does not play favorites while the team suffers. A Good Leader maintains a fair balance of the workload and pitches in wherever they can help even things out. Maybe this is not so easy to see, but maybe it is not so hard to see either.
A Leader must strive to share and balance the Pain. Pain, no one wants to hear those words. Everyone wants to believe that Leadership and Teamwork are all cushy and comfortable. If you want to be Successful as a Team and as a Leader there will be some pain involved. There are growing pains while you learn to be a team. You will win some and you will lose some. You may have to work or practice long hours. You may have to ask people to do extra to get over the top. A Good Leader does not heap all the pain on a select few while others seem to skate. A Good Leader is striving for Balance, Balance, and more Balance. If as a Good Leader, you have been open, honest and balanced about the Vision, The Ideas, The Energy and the Workload, than you should not find it hard to figure out why you need to balance the painful times when they arise.
A Leader must strive to balance and share the Accolades that come with success. It is amazing what people will do to get credit for the things they have accomplished. It is more amazing what people will do to take credit for what someone else has accomplished. Ever want to change the energy in a room. Break out a camera and see how much people’s personality’s change. So people love to have their pictures taken, others will run for cover. This is only one small window into what I am trying to explain. Everyone knows someone who tells exaggerated stories. Everyone knows someone who talks about how they never get credit for they work they perform. Now a Good Leader can not solve all of these problems, but they can share and balance out the credit with their team. Too much credit can lead to ego problems, too little credit can lead to moral problems. If this is too much to ask, go back and start at the beginning. If it is still too hard to handle the second time around, either I have it all wrong or you do.
Ok, so as a Leader you have shared and balanced your Vision, Ideas, Energy, Workload, Pain and Accolades of both the Successes and Failures of your team. Now it is time to make sure you are taken a balanced approach to sharing the Compensation. I believe that a lot of companies pay their Executives too much and people in the middle and bottom too little. I truly believe there is more than enough wealth to go around. The only way to prove it is to Lead successful teams and share the wealth. For me it is more than words, it is a life’s mission. Now I have given you a chance to reread and leave this post. Now you are stuck with it. I believe a Good Leader who has shared everything up until this point should not stop now. Share the Compensation when the team earns it. Take a balanced approach. I have seen Incentive Bonus given out to freely in good times and then taken away in tough times. People felt cheated when they lost bonuses they never really earned and were never really explained to them. Balance and Share all the way around up to and including the compensation.
No Leadership V.I.E.W.-P.A.C. for Success is not a Political Movement, it is a 60 Seconds of Motivational Mojo Movement. Leadership V.I.E.W.-P.A.C. for Success is a new acronym, a new motivational phrase for the readers of this blog. Now like most of my beliefs, theories and or posts; I will tell you to think for yourself. I will also tell you that unless I can get out and prove this you will have to take it on faith. You can choose to follow or choose to ignore. Either way I believe a Good Leader must strive to share and balance their Vision, Ideas, Energy, Workload, Pain, Accolades and Compensation with their team.
C.Y.E. – Communicate your expectations.
So here we are, another 60 Seconds of Motivational Mojo post. I try to post what I am thinking. I am trying to post the best advice that I hear. Then I try to make sure I am living that advice. Maybe this blog is more for me than for anyone else. I don’t know. So today, I tackle a topic that is so basic and so simple it should be easy. But simple is not always easy, sometimes the simple things can be the hardest things to accomplish. So today I say that people should simply communicate what they expect.
So we take to very simple topics, communication and expectations. All of us have expectations. All of us think in some way how we would like things to happen. All of us have opinions on how things should play out. All of us have things we hope will happen. We all have expectations. C.Y.E. – Communicate your expectations.
Now just because we have expectations does not mean we let people know what we are thinking. A lot of times we keep what we want to happen to ourselves. A lot of times we do not communicate with each other all that well. We say one thing and mean another; or we say one thing and we do another. Sometimes we do not communicate at all and other times we do not communicate all that well.
So let me say it again. We need to learn how to communicate our expectations. This is so basic and so simple and yet so hard to accomplish. Say what you mean, mean what you say, say what you are going to do and do it, say what you expect and make sure you are being understood. This is the real art to communicating your expectations. Make sure that people fully understand what you are saying. The easiest way to make sure you are being understood is to keep things simple. Keep things as basic as possible when you are explaining what you expect. Keep it simple. C.Y.E. – Communicate your expectations.
The next way to communicate your expectation is to put things in writing. Write down what you expect, they read what you have written back to yourself. Read your own writing. Also, it is good to wait a day or two and read it again. It is easy to think you know what you have written soon after you have it written it, but does it stand the test of time? Also, it is good to have someone else read what you have written; then have them read it back to you. Ask them what they think. Do you both come to the same conclusions? This is a way to find out if what you are communicating and what you think you are communicating are the similar, exactly the same or not even close to each other.
Listen, be careful taking advice from people who are not really paying attention and do not really care about what you are trying to communicate. Also, be careful taking advice from people who are just trying to butter you up or be overly nice to you. Some people will try to get on your good side, because they want to take advantage of you. If people are paying attention and not trying to butter you up, they may have some basic questions or basic suggestions. Take them with a grain of salt. If people are paying attention to you, you should pay attention to them. You see communication and expectations are a two-way street. Respect your part in that process. C.Y.E. – Communicate your expectations.
So again, the best way to communicate your expectations are to keep them simple, put them in writing, read your own writing, then have someone read it back to you to make sure your point is getting across. Don’t be afraid to have someone read them back to you. Respect that part of the process. Respect that communication is a two-way street and that expectations are a two-way street also. To effectively communicate your expectations you must respect both sides of the process.
C.Y.E. – Communicate your expectations.
44 Countries in 30 Days:
Imagine if you tried to travel to 44 Countries in 30 Days. It would take a lot of planning and would more than likely mean a lot of stops and waiting in line. What a fun thing it would be to try to do of course to visit 44 countries in 30 days.
United States, Canada, India, United Kingdom, Philippines, Australia, Germany, Pakistan, Norway,
This is the power of Social Media in general and WordPress to be specific, my blog has been read in 44 different countries in the last 30 days. I find that fact amazing and an honor at the same time. To be able to reach people around the world with a message of hope that you can make a difference in your own life and in the life of others.
Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Indonesia, South Africa, France, Netherlands,
I do not have the resources to pull something like that off. I have been able to visit about 10 countries in my lifetime, but certainly not 44. Visiting 10 countries in a lifetime is not a bad number, but it is certainly not 44 countries. This is why the power of social media should be more than just parties and dancing cats and celebrities behaving badly. It should be a means to try to make the world a better place. All we have to do is try, anyone almost anywhere can upload their thoughts to a place like WordPress and the world will find you. What do you have to say?
Finland, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, Greece, Thailand, Russia
People in 44 Countries have viewed this blog in the past 30 days. Most of them have come from random searches on the big search engines. Even though I have thousands of contacts on Facebook and Google and LinkedIn, 95% of the people who view this blog come from search engines. You too can spread your message around the globe, all you have to do is try.
Italy, Spain, Lithuania, Hong Kong, Ukraine, Argentina, Latvia, Sweden, Cameroon, Brazil,
So what do you want the world to know? I want the world to know that I still have hope. I still believe that if we work together we can make a difference. I still believe if you will just get started and invite people to journey along with you that the world will find you. You just have to start.
Cambodia, Tunisia, Belgium, Poland, Portugal, Ireland, Venezuela, Morocco, Iceland
I would love to be able to say I was able to travel to 44 countries in a lifetime, let alone in a single year. Few people have that privilege. For now I will settle for the fact that my words can reach people in 44 countries if I just have the courage to keep posting. At day’s end, my wish is that I can be a beacon of hope for the world to see.
Thank you WordPress:
Jump Start Your Fitness Program.
I don’t have time. I don’t have the strength. I will next year. I don’t like working out. Ok, enough excuses. This is the most simple, down to earth way to explain jump starting your fitness program. One of the best pieces of advice I was given last year was this, “No one can do it for you.” So either find something you will do and stick to it or these are just empty words on paper.
I will give you a series of Tips to Jump Start Your Fitness Program. You can choose to try them or ignore them. Either way I know they work for me, or have worked for people who I have seen the results first hand.
Jump Start Tip #01 – Do one set of push ups every day! Do as many as you can, do not stop at a preset number like 10 or 20, be honest with yourself and do as many as you can. It is OK to only do them every other day, but shoot for every day. This will only take 5 minutes, unless you are a “Fitness Superstar,” then take as long as it takes. If you are a beginner, do the bent-knee kind!
Jump Start Tip #02 – Do one set of Deep-Knee Bends every day! Start with 10 or 20 and build up from there. If you are a beginner, find a very sturdy chair or bench and just stand up and sit down 5 or 10 times until you build your strength and confidence. Take it easy but do them every day. This is another exercise that will only take a couple of minutes, unless you are already a “Workout Guru!”
Jump Start Tip #03 – Play Kids Games Again! Remember when you were a kid and you used to play tag, or hide and go seek, or kick the can? This was fun and no one told you it would keep you in good shape. You just did it because it was fun. Why not go out and have fun, innocent fun like you are a kid again? Why Not Play Kids Games Again? Go to the park with your family or your friends or your kids and invite the neighborhood kids and their parents and have a fun day once a week or once a month.
Jump Start Tip #04 – Find something you like to do. Face it; a fitness program is worthless if you do not stick to it. So you must find something you like to do. Do something you actually look forward to doing on a regular basis. Is it Biking or Hiking or Rock Climbing or Swimming or Swinging on a Kids Swing? You will not know until you try. Also try to keep it fun. You will not like it if you over do it and burn yourself out. Find something you like to do and have fun with it!
Jump Start Tip #05 – Do not try to do too much too soon. Some people try to diet and exercise and make a lot of changes all at the same time. Be careful, make small changes to your workout routine first; then after you have settled into a new routine make small changes to your diet. It is not an all or nothing right now thing. Take it one day, one week at a time. Sometimes you may want to eat more after a good workout. It is ok if you have earned it. Again, don’t lie to yourself; be honest about it!
Jump Start Tip #06 – Drink more water: Just do it!
Jump Start Tip #07 – Take an inexpensive vitamin every day after a set meal, breakfast or lunch. You do not have to spend a lot of money or take a big package of pills. Just take a simple vitamin every day. They have worked for me for years.
Now let’s recap:
Jump Start Tip #01 – Do one set of push ups every day! If you are a beginner, do the bent-knee kind!
Jump Start Tip #02 – Do one set of Deep-Knee Bends every day. If you are a beginner, find a very sturdy chair or bench and just stand up and sit
Jump Start Tip #03 – Play Kids Games Again!
Jump Start Tip #04 – Find something you like to do.
Jump Start Tip #05 – Do not try to do too much too soon.
Jump Start Tip #06 – Drink more water: Just do it!
Jump Start Tip #07 – Take an inexpensive vitamin every day after a set meal.
So you can either try these tips or you can ignore them. You can make excuses or you can make small changes. Start at the top of this list and add in things one week at a time. No one can do it for you. It will not happen over-night. You will not go from beginner to guru in one day or one week or one month, but give it some time. You will see a difference if you stick to a routine that you like that also challenges you.
G.I.V.E. – Get Involved, Volunteer to Empower.
G.I.V.E. – Get Involved, Volunteer to Empower.
Get Involved! Welcome to 60 Seconds of Motivational Mojo. I am asking you to act. I am asking you to Get Involved! I am asking you to do more than think about it, be worried about it or assume someone else will do what you think should be done. I am asking you to take some time, give it some effort and get involved.
There are hundreds of ways that you can help out. I am not trying to tell you what to believe, I am asking you to get involved in any cause you truly think you should support. My only hope is that your intent is not to hurt or suppress others. You will be amazed by what you will learn if you get involved. If you get around like-minded people who support the same causes you can share knowledge and refine your skills. You will be able to network with people and hopefully learn from them. You will also appreciate your skills more. There is a lot of growth and satisfaction that can come from helping others.
G.I.V.E. – Get Involved, Volunteer to Empower.
Volunteer, it is simple. There are plenty of great causes that need your help. More than they need your money, they need Volunteers to help do the work. You see, while there are many noble causes, not all people are noble. Not all people can be trusted, and not everyone has your talents. You may be the difference between one more person getting the help they need, or not getting any help at all. This is worth more than money. This can very well be about showing someone you care for them and their well-being. Listen, sometimes is it better to find out where your money is going before you give your money to a cause. If people what your money but not your help, maybe just maybe you should not give them either. Find out the Truth of where the money is going first hand, Get Involved, Volunteer!
G.I.V.E. – Get Involved, Volunteer to Empower.
Empower. The best way to help someone is to show them how they can help themselves. After you get involved, after you have volunteered and you know that a cause is a worthy cause; help others get involved and learn what you have learned. Bring more volunteers with you. Leading more people to serve others is a form of Servant Leadership. You can help change your community and build a network just by helping others get involved. Simple things like Tutoring Services or Voter Registration Drives or After School Programs for the Children of your Neighborhood can make a big difference. If you have gotten involved and volunteered than you can help others get involved and become a Leader in your own right. You can help empower others to help change their neighborhood. I have heard it said that “All boats rise with the tide.” If that is true we all are helped by helping others learn to help themselves. How can argue with that line of thinking?
G.I.V.E. – Get Involved, Volunteer to Empower.
What can one person do?
One person can make a difference. Today I volunteered at Gleaner’s Food Bank Warehouse in Detroit. Even though there were lots of people in groups, I volunteered as an individual.
You may wonder how much of a difference one person can make. Today I am here to tell you, you can make a difference. Regardless of your circumstance, I challenge you to get involved. Volunteer one day a month.
Today my task was simple, take frozen pasta from big boxes and bag them up. Each bag would more than likely feed a family. I was able to do this much in one hour.
I was working with a team of people taking boxes and filling bags. In a few hours we were able to fill hundreds of bags pasta that will help feed hundreds of families.
You can make the same kind of difference. You can volunteer at a food bank or a shelter one day a month and help make a difference in a lot of people’s lives! A few friends of mine and I have started a new service organization called the Point of Light Network. We are striving to provide Community Service, Team Building, Leadership Development and Motivation to provide Real World results!
Gleaners Community Food Bank
http://www.gcfb.org/site/PageServer
The Point of Light Network
http://pointoflightnetwork.com/
The Point of Light Network on LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Point–Light–Network-4931348/about
The Point of Light Network on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Point-of-Light-Network/234809060003587?hc_location=timeline
Looking back:
When I look back I see all the things I could have done better. I think that is the reason I look back, it is to ask myself what I could have done better. Random memories fill my head and it is just as much the things I would do better the next time more so than the things I have done that were pretty cool.
I guess that is why I am thankful for second chances, and third chances. I mean each of us should keep trying until we get it right. I try not to get too hung up on looking back, because we all must keep moving forward. That is the point of this blog, to try to get us to all moving forward; one step at a time, but to keep moving forward.
Looking back I try to learn the lesson more than put myself in some kind of denial. What good is blaming other people going to do? Listen, all of us have lessons to learn. When you look back to you seek to learn a lesson or place blame? I choose to look for the lesson. Some many times I can say, if I knew then what I know now, or if I would have, could have and should have; but the lesson is for right now not back then. Today is the lesson; every new day is a lesson.
Don’t look back with regret, if you have regrets than fix them. If you have can’t fix them you must move on with your life and not make the same mistakes over and over.
I am far from perfect; I have so much more to learn. So when I look back, I always remember to take the lesson forward. Looking back is great, but don’t spend so much time looking back that you forget to look forward. Always have something to look forward to; look back, find the lesson and then look forward. Look forward to tomorrow. Look forward to your future plans. Look forward to leaving things better than you found them.
I look back to learn.
I look forward to what I can do better the next time around.
Refresh your connections.
Sometimes after a while, I notice my links from my WordPress Blog to Facebook or LinkedIn or Google are broken. Sometimes I receive a notice to repair my connections. Depending on what computer system, operating system and web browser combination I am using at the time, this can be an easy or difficult process. So without getting overly technically “cyberiffic” let me say that is a good practice to refresh our connections. So today’s topic is refresh your connections.
“Cyberiffic” is a new term I have coined a hybrid of terrific performance in cyberspace. Now we can move on. Refresh your connections. This is more than just linking one webpage to another webpage. This is a challenge to actually try to connect with people. Instead of a mass spam hello, why not a personal message for each of your links? Instead of a text message, why not a telephone call? Instead of an e-mail, why not a postcard? Instead of a Web chat or video conference, why not a face-to-face sit-down over lunch or coffee?
Refresh your connections. I am going to challenge myself to volunteer at different community service organizations once a month and invite as many people as possible to join me. I am going to try to connect with people once a month for sit down conversations, workshops and public speaking events. I am going to try to film them and share them with as many people as possible. I want to make real connections with real people and share these connections with the world.
Refresh your connections. You can do this also, you can invite people to do more than just show off, promote a party or be a voyeur into other people’s lives. You too can use social media to create real world results. That is kind of the point of 60 Seconds of Motivational Mojo and the Point of Light Network. Creating real world results, all you have to do is refresh your connections. Take an extra minute to make a personal connection instead of a mass spam induced grab for attention.
Repair your connections. You may have to take a minute to get back in touch with someone and rehash something where you could not find agreement. You may have to let time heal an old wound. In the past I have held grudges and hurt people. Am I sorry, yes I truly am; but we need to find a way to keep moving forward. Sometimes you have to realize there are some things you can fix and some things you can’t and keep moving forward. It is not about holding each other back, it is about not blocking someone from finding their own way if they do not want to go your way. Am I good at repairing connections? No, but I can try. Am I good at refreshing connections, maybe and that is even easier. They both start the same way, reaching out with a simple hello. If you have wronged someone, say you are sorry and admit what you have done. If you can work it out, work it out. If you can not agree, then it is better to leave it alone than to keep stirring the pot.
Refresh your connections. Try to make a real personal connection. Take an extra minute and let people know how they are special in your life and tell them about their unique gift or talent. If you are going to be friends, be friends who look out for and appreciate each other. This is more than just who has the most links, it is about who can make quality connections.
Again, I am going to invite people to come along with my a couple of times a month to volunteer and to have some face to face conversations. You can do it also, or you can do your own thing your own way. Just find a way to refresh your connections!
60secondmotomojo 