How to achieve your extraordinary

As a business owner, leader and entrepreneur, there is one coveted goal I continue to strive for. I simply call it “extraordinary.” It is my definition of success as a leader and for my company. My vision for achieving extraordinary is both my inspiration and my ever-present nemesis. When I see it within my reach, it inspires me to push harder. And when it slips further away, it frustrates the hell out of me because I know, somehow, I allowed it to slip away.

Achieving extraordinary is not to be confused with company vision. It’s infinitely more individual. It is purely about breakthroughs on a personal, leadership and business level in ways that positively and profoundly impact the lives of many. That’s what achieving extraordinary means to me. The question is, what does it mean to you?

Here are some no-compromise strategies to help you define what achieving extraordinary means to you:

1. Make it yours: What do you really want to achieve in your lifetime? What fulfills you and makes you feel strong, proud and worthy? The work I’m doing today is the work I dreamed of doing. But even after 40+ years, there are still plenty of extraordinary things I need to check off my list.
2. Intimidate yourself: Achieving extraordinary means pushing yourself far beyond your comfort zone. I never thought I could ride my bike 100 miles in a day, but I’ve done it many times. I remember how amazing I felt the first time I hit 40 miles. Then I did 50 miles, then 75 miles. The same happens in leadership and business. I freaked out the first time I spoke in front of 500 people; today, public speaking is what I love to do. I didn’t know I could write and move people with my words. I’ve written and published three books. Comfort zones are for couch potatoes. Challenge yourself to attempt something extraordinary.
3. Break the mold: Breakthroughs happen when you smash the mold, raise the bar, and discover new possibilities. The mold is about conformity and doing things the same way. Yesterday’s mold may have achieved yesterday’s extraordinary, but yesterday’s extraordinary is today’s ordinary. When was the last time you broke your trusted mold? It’s probably past its useful life. Invent a new mold to achieve a new breakthrough. Just remember, you’ll have to break that mold too one day.
4. Choose wisely: Achieving extraordinary doesn’t mean ignoring best practices and industry benchmarks. It means selecting the best-of-the-best business practices that will take your company to extraordinary new places. It means locking them in to your company’s thinking and culture. Most importantly, it means testing and perfecting new best practices and defining new benchmarks to make your company stretch. Olympic athletes know about achieving extraordinary and the discipline and accountability it takes to set records and win gold medals.
5. Believe in yourself: Life is a roller coaster full of ups and downs. There are times when you need to reach deep to find those morsels of courage to keep you in the game and moving forward. It sure helps to have people around you who believe in you, but in the end, you must believe in your own ability to achieve extraordinary. We all have the ability. Not everyone has the courage. Then again, what’s the worst that could happen if you give it a go?

Six strategies to get the team your company needs

There is something different about an individual who plays to be indispensable. There is an unmistakable level of engagement and tenacity that keeps such people at the forefront of darn near everything in their sphere of influence. They give it their all, play hard, and play to win. More importantly, they play hard because they want to. They take ownership in creating the right outcomes – without being asked. “Indispensable” means that you wouldn’t want to run your company without them.

On the flipside, there are players on your team who are dispensable. They occasionally, rarely or never step up. They show up, do their job and go home. They expect more for doing the same average performance, and even for doing less. In more deteriorated cases, their view and relationship with the company becomes adversarial, or at best, indifferent. It’s a scary question: How many dispensable players do you have on your team?

How to harness the power of momentum

True forward momentum pushes through any obstacle. It has an implied efficiency because once an object achieves a certain level of forward momentum, it requires less energy to maintain that speed. By connecting the physics of an object in motion (a piece of matter) to a business in motion (an idea/concept), you gain a unique perspective on how momentum can work for a business.

A start-up business requires massive amounts of energy to gain enough forward momentum to sustain itself. Once it achieves a level of sustainable momentum, you can dial back the throttle a bit and allow “physics” to work for you. In essence, the leader is “piloting” the business by adjusting throttle to maintain its forward momentum. Achieve a certain level and the company can easily break through obstacles such as competitors, cash crises, loss of key employees, bad decisions and other issues. However, every obstacle the company breaks through chips away at its momentum. If the leader fails to throttle up the company’s sense of urgency to overcome the obstacles in its way, it will lose its energy and eventually stall.

When employees fall off track

It’s something that happens slowly over time and is often barely perceptible as a growing problem. You hire or promote someone into a specific job in your company. It’s a suitable fit, and you feel good that a key position in your company is producing the intended results. But as time passes, subtle changes occur. Certain areas where the employee once paid close attention appear to be less of a priority. Work patterns are showing telltale signs of inconsistency. Projects or responsibilities that the employee once sought out are now avoided. Finally, that little voice in your head asks, “What happened? How did this person’s job turn into this?”

Everything in business is perpetually evolving into something new. As leaders, we’re supposed to lead the charge for change and inspire individuals to achieve their full potential. We’re also supposed to be ever vigilant to what’s going on around us and respond appropriately to opportunities and threats to our companies. But as glaciers can reshape the earth moving just a few feet per year, employees can morph their jobs into something different that may or may not be what the company needs. Time, an individual’s shifting priorities and plain old human behavior can create issues if you’re not paying attention.