To awaken to your great­ness in your career, you must love what you do…truly love it. You must see it as a craft… as an art… and your­self as an artist. This is the way to greatness!

by John Spence

Sev­eral years ago I read a book called the Cam­bridge Hand­book of Exper­tise and Expert Per­for­mance. To sum­ma­rize this and cred­i­bly weighty tome, it basi­cally said that to become world-class at any­thing you need the 4P’s.

Pas­sion: if you don’t really love what you’re doing, there is no way you will ever become an expert at it.

Per­sis­tence: as Mal­colm Glad­well pointed out in his book Out­liers it takes about 10 years or 10,000 hours to mas­ter a skill or spe­cific area of knowledge.

Prac­tice: but the key here is to do “delib­er­ate prac­tice,” which means that every prac­tice ses­sion is a lit­tle bit more chal­leng­ing than the last, con­stantly push­ing you to improve and grow.

Pat­tern Recog­ni­tion: once you invest 10 years or 10,000 hours in some­thing that you are deeply pas­sion­ate about and con­sis­tently push your­self to improve through delib­er­ate prac­tice… You real­ize that you have dis­cov­ered how to “con­nect the dots” and under­stand your area of focus at the level far beyond oth­ers. This is how the chess grand­mas­ter “sees down board,” were great actu­ally see the entire field of play and antic­i­pate their oppo­nents next moves, or how a vir­tu­oso musi­cian can sim­ply look at a piece of music and begin to play it imme­di­ately… they see the pattern.

The more I stud­ied this topic, by many dif­fer­ent authors and experts, the idea of pat­tern recog­ni­tion kept com­ing up over and over again — there was a pat­tern around pat­tern recog­ni­tion! The inter­est­ing thing though is that most often the things that allow a per­son to con­nect the dots are the unique, dif­fer­ent, sur­pris­ing and inter­est­ing things you find… when you get off the beaten path. When you read a book on a topic you would nor­mally never study, watch a movie on some­thing that you know lit­tle about, or go to a museum look at paint­ings in style that doesn’t nec­es­sar­ily fit your nor­mal pat­tern for the type of art you typ­i­cally like to look at.

Don’t get me wrong, rou­tine can be very good, it is com­fort­able, it is pre­dictable, it is safe… but rou­tine often cre­ates a rut — the absolute epit­ome of a beaten path!

So if you want to make new dis­cov­er­ies in your life, find new ways to see things, new per­spec­tives on some of your thorni­est prob­lems — then push your­self way out of your com­fort zone, far, far off the beaten path… and as if by magic the dots will begin to connect.

by John Spence

For the past few months I have been work­ing on a new book I am writ­ing on the key char­ac­ter­is­tics of effec­tive lead­ers in today’s new busi­ness world. As one might expect, COURAGE is one of the attrib­utes that many peo­ple look for in a leader they would will­ingly fol­low. It seems rea­son­able that peo­ple would want their leader to be coura­geous, to take bold risks, to move for­ward with confidence…but there is another form of courage that might be even more impor­tant. The courage to be… vulnerable.

The courage, that as the leader, you do NOT have all of the answers, that you are not sure exactly what to do, that you might be wrong… that you need help. I know this flies in the face of what we think being a “coura­geous leader” is all about — but it is the truth. In today’s fast-paced, information-intensive global econ­omy no one has all the answers — no one can be suc­cess­ful alone — we all need help and we all need to courage to admit that with­out shame.

Let me also point out that nearly all of the highly suc­cess­ful peo­ple I have ever spent time around were dis­arm­ingly coura­geous in their will­ing­ness to admit their faults and ask for help. They never pre­tended to be experts in areas where they were not and eagerly sought out the wise coun­sel of the true experts.

So of course be bold, take BIG risks, show great courage in the face of dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances, but by all means also know when it is time to show an even great level of courage… the courage to admit that you need help!

by John Spence

I am giv­ing a speech in a few days at the TEDx event at the Uni­ver­sity of Florida and they have asked me to talk about “The MOST Impor­tant Thing I Have Ever Learned.” I plan to share three key ideas with the 1,600 or so attendees…

1. You become what you focus on and like the peo­ple you sur­round your­self with. What­ever you fill your mind with — what­ever you watch, read, lis­ten to, and think about… and who you choose to spend your time with, will pretty much deter­mine what your life will look like a decade from now!

2. Ask For HELP.  It is NOT weak to admit that you are in over your head, that you are con­fused, that you do not what to do… that you need some help. It takes a great deal of courage to finally face that fact that you can­not do it all alone. But here is the neat thing… once you learn to ask for help your life will get much eas­ier and more enjoy­able because peo­ple who love and respect you will will­ingly offer you all of the help they can give — and that is a beau­ti­ful thing my friend, a beau­ti­ful thing indeed.

3. The ONLY mea­sure that counts in life is how much love you can give, cre­ate and receive. The amaz­ing thing is that you can give and give and give love… and you will have even more love left to give away the very next day.  You have an end­less sup­ply… and you always will. Is that cool or what? And lest you think that receiv­ing love is self­ish, some­times the great­est way to show love is to allow oth­ers to give their love to you. That is really cool too!

So I leave you with my favorite pas­sages on love from “The Prophet” by the amaz­ing Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran.

Love has no other desire but to ful­fill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a run­ning brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much ten­der­ness.
To be wounded by your own under­stand­ing of love;
And to bleed will­ingly and joy­fully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of lov­ing;
To rest at the noon hour and med­i­tate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at even­tide with grat­i­tude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

by John Spence

Sev­eral years ago a client asked me to deliver a speech on “The Essence of Excel­lence.” I won’t drag you through the entire process, but I spent weeks re-reading books from my library, call­ing CEOs and college/university Pres­i­dents and ask­ing every­one I could get to talk to: What is excel­lence to you?

In the end it came down to three key watchwords…

FOCUS: To be truly excel­lent at any­thing you must have an incred­i­bly clear def­i­n­i­tion of what excel­lence is to you, what it will look like in your life and how you will mea­sure it. I call this your “Per­sonal Phi­los­o­phy of Excel­lence.” Once you have thought­fully cre­ated your own per­sonal phi­los­o­phy of excel­lence you must then focus on it intensely, day in and day out, always keep­ing a clear pic­ture of specif­i­cally what you must do to achieve the level of excel­lence you hon­estly want in your life.

DISCIPLINE: Once you have deter­mined what excel­lence looks like to you and cre­ated a plan to move your life in that direc­tion, you must then exhibit a level of dis­ci­pline that most peo­ple are unwill­ing to put forth. Lots of peo­ple talk about excel­lence, many say they want to be more effec­tive, suc­cess­ful, hap­pier, more joy­ful… but is the rare per­son who applies con­sis­tent dis­ci­pline in order to turn their plan… into reality.

ACTION: The amount of suc­cess you achieve in your life is directly pro­por­tional to the amount of action you apply to stay­ing dis­ci­plined around your per­sonal phi­los­o­phy of excel­lence. Not quite clear on what excel­lence and suc­cess looks like to you? Or, you know exactly what you want but you’re not very dis­ci­plined about pur­su­ing it? Or per­haps you really under­stand what level of excel­lence you want to achieve, and you’re very dis­ci­plined, but you just don’t apply much action to your phi­los­o­phy? The out­come is medi­oc­rity, and we have a say­ing in my firm: ” The minute you start accept­ing medi­oc­rity in your life, you become a mag­net for medi­oc­rity in your life.”

The truth is; the process to achieve excel­lence is not that com­pli­cated if you sim­ply apply focus, dis­ci­pline and mas­sive action. Of course, the same could be said for win­ning an Olympic gold medal in the 100 yard dash; Run really fast — faster than every­one else!

by John Spence

• A Damn: “Life is a dar­ing adven­ture – or noth­ing at all” ~ Helen Keller
   
• Help: to any­one you can offer it to.
   
• LOVE: to your­self first… then to as many oth­ers as pos­si­ble – you have an end­less sup­ply!
   
• Respect: because EVERYONE is wor­thy of it.
   
• Hugs: as long as HR does not have a rule against it – ugh!
   
• Freely of your best ideas: the future will be unlocked through col­lab­o­ra­tive cre­ativ­ity.
   
• Advice: when it is asked for… and then… care­fully!
   
• Advice: some­times – only some­times – when it is NOT asked for… and then even MORE care­fully!!
   
• Men­tor­ing: help oth­ers to avoid some of the mis­take you have made.
   
• Gen­er­ously: to a char­ity you are truly pas­sion­ate about.
   
• Time: to peo­ple who will not waste it.
   
• Wis­dom: to those who love you and will lis­ten.
   
• Your­self a break: you are not sup­posed to be per­fect – let that go.
   
• Praise and thanks: to every­one – often!!
   
• 100% of your per­sonal effort: life is not a dress rehearsal.
   
• A smile: pass along some warmth and joy to oth­ers.
   
• Under­stand­ing: remem­ber that every­one you meet is fight­ing a mighty bat­tle.
   
•  Give, give, give and give some more. Embrace an abun­dance men­tal­ity by under­stand­ing deeply that if you just help enough other peo­ple get what they need – you will get every­thing you need.

I promise this works – I GIVE you my word!

Now… would you like to give me some addi­tional things to add to my list?

by John Spence

My post this month will likely be dif­fer­ent than the other authors here at Jun­gle of Life, because I am going to be a cham­pion for mas­sive over­con­sump­tion!! That’s right, I am going to encour­age you to be a glut­ton, a pig, an absolute and total over­con­sump­tion freak for… learning.

If you were to look at learn­ing as “food” for the brain, the major­ity of peo­ple in busi­ness today would be dying of star­va­tion. I recently saw sta­tis­tic that said the aver­age busi­ness per­son reads 1.5 business-related books per year!!  Here is a star­tling fact: if you were to read just one busi­ness book every two months – six busi­ness books a year – you would be in the top one per­cent of self-learners and Amer­ica. If you were to read one busi­ness book every month – 12 books a year – you would be in the top one per­cent of self-learners on the face of the earth.

So here’s my rec­om­men­da­tion to you: become an obscene over-consumer of qual­ity learn­ing. Ded­i­cate your­self to read­ing at least one busi­ness book every month, go and watch the videos on Ted.com and Big Think, lis­ten to audio books, get all the free pod­casts and audio down­loads from iTunes, read a few indus­try mag­a­zines and check out a few blogs every month – month after month – with­out fail. If you will do this, I will absolutely guar­an­tee that in five years you will built a base of knowl­edge, ideas and infor­ma­tion that will dra­mat­i­cally increase your value in the marketplace.

How can I state with this with such cer­tainty? Well, I have read a min­i­mum of 100 to 120 busi­ness books a year, every year since 1989 and lis­tened to an addi­tional 30 to 50 each year as well. I also read nearly a dozen busi­ness related mag­a­zines every month and spend at least one hour a day read­ing blogs or watch­ing videos from the top busi­ness web­sites on the web.

How did this work out for me?

In early 2011 I was rec­og­nized as one of the top 100 busi­ness thought lead­ers in Amer­ica. Now I tell you this not to impress you, but to impress upon you this: I’m not really very smart, I’m just very, very focused. I under­stood a long time ago that employers/clients pay for ideas, strate­gies, and infor­ma­tion that will help them grow their busi­ness and gen­er­ate more prof­its. The more high-quality ideas and infor­ma­tion you have – the more valu­able you are in the mar­ket­place – it is just that simple. 

So pick up a book, lis­ten to an audio book, peruse a few dozen web­sites and begin a steady diet of mas­sive over-consumption of the best infor­ma­tion you can put in your brain.

by John Spence

Right now many of us are faced with mas­sive amounts of change in our careers. Lay­offs, down­siz­ing, off-shoring, reduc­tions, bud­get cuts… It can be over­whelm­ing. Although there are many fac­tors that go into deal­ing well with change, I’d like to focus on two spe­cific issues that I feel have the biggest impact in a person’s abil­ity to effec­tively adapt to change.

1. Face the hard facts

I see a lot of pain cre­ated in people’s lives when they fight the inevitable. Unwill­ing to accept the changes that are thrust upon them, they com­plain, they stress, they fight and strug­gle, they get depressed and they get beaten down. Although it is exceed­ingly dif­fi­cult to do it, the best way to deal with change is to sim­ply accept it and begin adapt­ing to the new nor­mal.  I do a lot of work in the health­care indus­try, a sec­tor of our econ­omy that is under­go­ing gut-wrenching and incred­i­bly over­whelm­ing changes. Some of my health care clients are see­ing their entire orga­ni­za­tions turned upside down and their employ­ees nearly par­a­lyzed with fear and unwill­ing­ness to accept the changes.  Bud­gets have been slashed, patient sat­is­fac­tion is drop­ping, and employee sat­is­fac­tion is nonex­is­tent.  Yet oth­ers are adapt­ing to the change mag­nif­i­cently, because they have instilled in their work­force to clear con­cept that things are never going back to the way they used to be – these changes are unas­sail­able – so don’t even try to resist!  Instead they help their peo­ple learn to spend all of their energy and emo­tion on adapt­ing to the changes and find­ing a way to make things as good as they pos­si­bly can even in the face of incred­i­ble chal­lenges.  It works exactly the same with you in your career; you can fight it and be mis­er­able, or accept that change is inevitable and become a mas­ter of change.

2. Fig­ure out what you can control

One of the major fac­tors that makes change so dif­fi­cult is that it gives peo­ple a feel­ing of help­less­ness.  One day every­thing seems fine, and then the next day some­one four lev­els up in the orga­ni­za­tion makes a change that has a ter­ri­ble neg­a­tive impact on you.  Again, I see great pain cre­ated in people’s lives when they spend a sig­nif­i­cant amount of their time wor­ry­ing, com­plain­ing, fight­ing and get­ting highly stressed over sit­u­a­tions that are com­pletely out of their con­trol. The best tech­nique I know to deal with this issue is to sit down and write out a long list of all the things that are giv­ing you stress and anx­i­ety in your life.  Then take a long hard look at each of them and decide whether you CAN con­trol or CANNOT con­trol this par­tic­u­lar item.  If you can­not con­trol it, then you must learn to have the dis­ci­pline and courage to com­pletely let go of it.  Do not obsess about it, do not think too much about it, do not worry too much about it – sim­ply keep telling your­self this is not some­thing you can really do any­thing about – so you should let go of it and put it out of your mind.  How do you put it out of your mind?  By then look­ing at the other list of items that you can con­trol – and tak­ing mas­sive con­trol of those.  Stress­ing your­self to death about the econ­omy, pol­i­tics, the ozone layer, the weather, taxes, other people’s opin­ions of you… this will only drive you crazy. Instead take all of that emo­tional energy and focus intently on the areas of your life where you have control.

If you will fol­low these two pieces of advice you should become much more adept at deal­ing effec­tively with change.

by John Spence