It really isn't what you know...

It really isn't what you know.  It's what you do with what you know that counts.  --Jody Holland

I have seen countless individuals who had every scrap of necessary information, every byte of data possible, who knew they needed to take correct action, who still chose to do nothing.  In business, we know what we need to do in order to be successful.  In leadership, we know the behaviors and skills we must master and then demonstrate.  In service, we know the processes we must follow and the communication style that we must portray.  If we know all of that, then why do people still not do what they ought to do?

The answer may be a simple reference back to the basics of human motivation.  You see, there are only two, yes only 2, human motivators.  They are pain and pleasure.  We avoid pain, or that which we perceive to cause, or even potentially cause, pain.  On the other side, we tend to pursue pleasure, or the things that we believe will bring us pleasure.  When there are two painful things looming in our minds, we will always go with the one that causes us the least amount of pain.

Let's take making sales calls as an example.  When a sales rep is tasked with bringing in 10 new accounts, they can refer to the law of averages for selling.  This would indicate that it will take 50 presentations and 250 phone calls for any average sales person to make the 10 new accounts mark.  If the person has 10 weeks to accomplish this goal, they will need to make 5 presentations per week and 25 phone calls per week.  That would be 5 calls per day and 1 presentation per day.  When you look at the pain points, you can understand why some people simply won't.

The fear of rejection, whether real or imaginary, will often stop the bravest of souls from picking up the phone one more time.  When people tell a person "no," it can be scary for them because of the way they define "no."  If a person sees that as a person rejection, they will often fear it and avoid it at all costs.  This means that having their spouse angry with them for not performing well at their job, or having a boss yell at them can be more inviting than having a stranger tell them no.  The fear of failing at the task can sometimes even lead to the person not performing the task at all, thereby failing, but avoiding the rejection with failure.

The key to overcoming this hesitance to act on what we know is leverage.  You must build the right leverage in your own mind in order to do what you know is necessary.  In order to do that, simply write down all the negatives of staying in the situation you are in (not selling and presenting and calling).  Then, write out all of the positives of accomplishing your goals.  Once you have done that, then write out what you will feel like when you win, and then what you would feel like if you lost.

By taking a little time to write out the positives and the negatives, you can build enough pain and enough pleasure to move you to right action.  If you are finding yourself not implementing the things that you know and know you need to do, then build leverage in your mind.  I would encourage you to write the top 3 positive attributes of the successful you on a card and the top 3 negative attributes of not becoming the successful you on the opposite side of the card.  Carry this card with you for 2 weeks.  Read both sides first thing in the morning, beginning with the negative and then ending with the positive.  Repeat this process in the middle of the day and then again right before you go to bed.  Your subconscious will begin to change you into the new person you want to be.

Try it and let me know what you think.  I believe you will be astonished at the positive results that you achieve!


To Your Success!


Jody N Holland
www.myjudolife.com
www.jodynholland.com
www.murfsystems.com
(806) 355-5567 office

Winners operate uncomfortably!

Winners always seem to do well outside of the normal comfort zone.  Jody Holland

"I am just not comfortable asking people for money."
"I am not comfortable in front of a group."
"I am not comfortable with taking risks in business."

Whatever the phrase is explaining why a person is not taking action, you can bet that it actually comes back to whether or not they can operate outside of their comfort zone.  A person can use any excuse that they want to as to why they are not succeeding.  Regardless of the excuse, the lack of success still remains.  In order to be successful, you have to learn to act in spite of your comfort, or lack there of.

I can hear myself talking, in my own head, about how I don't want to be seen as pushy.  I have used that excuse in order to not promote what I do repeatedly.  When I realize what I am doing, in sabotaging my own success, I stop myself and reframe the thought.  Instead of saying I don't want to be pushy, I ask whether or not I have something of value to offer.  If the answer is truly yes, which it is, then I try to imagine how I would feel if someone had the answer to my challenges in business, yet refused to give them to me.

I would be upset if they had the answers and kept them from me.  I would be annoyed if my problems could be solved with new information or training, yet the person who had the answers did not value me enough to share them.  More than anything, when you are learning to operate outside of your normal comfort zone, you need to be able to see the situation in a new light.

Reframing your thoughts allows you to take a different perspective and see how you really can help another person.  Varying your perspective puts you in a position to be helpful when you might have been withdrawn, to be of value when you might have been silent.  I want to encourage you to find one area that is outside of your comfort zone that you can look at differently today.

How can you reframe your thoughts in order to bring success to others as well as yourself?

To Your Success!


Jody N Holland
www.jodynholland.com
www.myjudolife.com - Ask About The Book - It can help!
(806) 355-5567 office 9am - 5pm M-F

Bite Off More Than You Can Chew!

"I have always admired the ability to bite off more than one can chew and then chew it." --William DeMille One of the key characteristics of successful people is that they seem to always bite off more than they can chew, but somehow, they still chew it. Pushing yourself beyond what your know limits are is an exercise in management called "stretch assignments." Just because you have never done something or even if you tried and failed in the past, that does not mean that you can't do it now. One of the most irritating things that I have dealt with over the years was being on non-profit boards and having to listen to people 20 years my senior tell me that an idea will never work because someone tried and failed at that back in the 1960's. I say, so what! Just because someone else has failed at it does not mean that this current group of people will. Can you imagine if we stopped trying things as soon as someone failed at it? Our world would be absolutely pathetic if we did. We would never have had NASA. We would never have had cell phones, automobiles, clean drinking water, flush toilets, the light bulb, or electricity for that matter, flavored coffee, higher education, or virtually anything that we take for granted as normal today. I know people who have failed at writing, so nobody should write anymore. That is not logic! That is fear. A life lived in fear is no life at all. Successful people look fear in the eyes, cock their head slightly, and display and sly and defiant grin, then take massive action. They act in spite of fear. They take on projects that nobody else wants because they know that it will be next to impossible. They climb mountains in business because people have told them that they can't. They do what others will not. That is the reason they are successful. If you look around this country, we don't see now what we used to see. We don't see people saying, YES I WILL RISK IT ALL! You see people wanting a safety net before they risk. You see them wanting guarantees in their businesses. I can't say that it is all their fault. We have conditioned them in this direction. We have bailed out businesses when they had overspent. We took the risk out of large capitalism. I want the risk back. I want banks to look at entrepreneurs and think they are slightly crazy, but admire their guts so much that they give them the loan anyway. I want young people to look at life like a warrior would. I want them to square off with their day, take on more than they can chew, then chew it up. I want to see them smile at the end of the day because they accomplished what nobody thought they could. Remember, nobody ever steals second base with their foot still on first. Take some risk! My challenge to you today is to take your day and choke a victory out of it, especially if people don't think that you can. To Your Success! Jody N Holland www.jodynholland.com www.murfsystems.com 806-355-5567 office jodynholland@gmail.com

Culture Beats Strategy...

I have always found it amazing to watch the amount of money that gets pumped into an organization's strategy in hopes that the perfect strategy will make everything better.  I have seen amazing products flop. I have seen unbelievably funded companies go bankrupt.  I have seen people try to force their people into success, only to realize that they can't make that happen.  There is a reason for this.

The culture that exists within an organization has a tremendous amount of influence.  In fact, I would say that it has the ultimate influence of the organization's success or failure.  If you have a great culture, then your people will be engaged at work.  If your people are engaged, then they will put the success of the company ahead of their own success.  If they put the company's success first, then they will innovate, work harder, sacrifice, and find ways to ensure that the company succeeds.  None of that comes from business strategy though.  It comes from a great culture.

The foundation of a great culture is have the RIGHT interpersonal and management skills developed.  These are the skills that enable you to be adaptive in your management style and connect with people at the right level.  Unfortunately, these skills are not taught in most universities.  We teach accounting, marketing, and yes, even strategy.  However, it is your ability to connect that will make you a success on the job or you inability to do so that can cause you to fail.

As the generations continue to shift away from the thinking of the Baby Boomers and towards the philosophies of the Gen-Exers and Millenials, I predict that culture will become more and more vital to the success of every organization.  I also predict that companies who do not embrace and value their people will go down kicking and screaming.  As we come out of the recession, those companies who reverted to mistreating their people under the guise of having them "pay their dues," will lose their talent the quickest.

Look at Google, Apple, and Southwest Airlines as just a few top examples of great cultures.  Their focus is on how to make sure their people have what they need, as much of what they want as feasible, and the right environment to be creative.  It is no longer about the top dog calling all the shots.  It is now about the top leader supporting a vision that enables creativity and success.  Notice that I said "enables."  You can't force it.  You have to "lead" it.

To Your Success!


Jody N Holland
MuRF Systems
www.murfsystems.com - This Is The Website
www.jodynholland.com - This Is The Blog Address
www.myjudolife.com - Ask About The New Book
(806) 355-5567 office

If it was easy...

Michael Gerber, in his book, The E-Myth, talks about how people often get into business for themselves as the result of an entrepreneurial seizure. They don't necessarily plan for the success of the business and they definitely do not have the right resources laid out for their success. They simply woke up one day, looked at their boss, and thought... I can do better than they can. And, voila, they cash in their 401K and try their hand at business. I think that this is why so many people who go into business end up going out of business.

You need to go into business with your eyes wide open. You need to realize that it IS hard work. It IS long hours. It IS sacrifice. Most importantly, it is a journey of self-discovery. If you going into business with the idea of being open to learning, changing as you need to, and discovering the best path to success, then you can find it. If you go into with the idea that you already know everything that you need to know, then you will most likely be miserable and eventually not be in business for yourself any more.

There are three key components to ensuring that your business is successful. The first is having a coach or a mentor. I put this before having a plan because you need to have someone who has already messed things up and learned from that you can lean on. This coaching relationship can be a paid relationship or simply someone who wants to help. I have found that you get the most honestly and the best results on the paid side though. That is my experience personally. You can also get the needed coaching and mentoring by going through training programs and/or seminars that target the skills you need to acquire. The second component is a plan. Your plan does not necessarily have to be from the latest business plan template program. It does need to account for how you will manage, market, sell, and service your business and customer base. Just having the better mousetrap no longer works. The third component to your success a moldable mind. You have to be willing to reinvent yourself on a regular basis. Your market, like the world around it, is going to change. Not wanting it to change makes no difference to the market. Montgomery Wards, Service Merchandise, and thousands of other companies did not want things to change for them. They did though, and they will continue to change.

If you have those key components, you will be on the path to success. It does take hard work to get there. But, if you are doing what you love, you won't tend to notice that the work is hard. In my first several years in business, I worked an all-nighter an average of once per week. I only do 3 to 5 of those a year now. I do put in more than 40 hours of work per week, every week that I am working. I don't believe I am working too hard. I am not upset about the hours that I work. I love what I do because it is what I was designed to do. It is my passion! When you are doing what you were made to do, the hard work feels like play.

If you were designed to be in business, nothing else will make you happy. Simply figure out who to go to for guidance, develop a plan, and be willing the become the person that embodies success!

To Your Success!

Jody Holland

MuRF Systems

(806) 355-5567 office

www.murfsystems.com

www.jodynholland.com - My Blog

www.myjudolife.com - My New Book

Why is it that we continue to expect more from technology and less from each other?

The title of the blog is my question for you today? I believe that with each generation, we have gotten more in tune with how to connect away from each other and more out of tune with how to connect face to face. With 93% of the interpretation of messages being non-verbal, it is no wonder we have so much miscommunication these days. We are using the skills that we learned by watching our parents and teachers and friends, yet we did not have the same parents, teachers, and friends as the people we are managing, or being managed by. The events and experiences that you had during your youth put you in the position you are in right now with the knowledge and skills that you have right now. The fact that some of you reading this had a cell phone in high school and others would not have had any idea what cellular communication would be all about at that time indicates the difference. For traditionalists and baby boomers, they would talk face to face, express themselves in letters, and spend a great deal of time reading the responses of other people. For gen-exers and gen-y, they would spend a great deal of time figuring out how to talk on everything from party lines to IM, social media, and texts. They spent an inversely proportional amount of time communicating through technology from their older counterparts. I remember hearing my father tell me how ridiculous texting was and how if someone had something to say to him, they just needed to call him. Now, he is embracing that technology. He loves to text. While, as a gen-exer, I do love technology, I also recognize the pitfalls that it presents. It is ridiculously easy to avoid human contact when we want to. It is easy to have an excuse that technology is simply more efficient. The danger is that we are dulling our abilities as humans to effective interact on a personal level. When we counsel and coach our employees, we are often less effective at reading their body language and adjusting our message to ensure that we achieve the change we desire. When we look at interpersonal training, we often see it as frivolous because we have things like extended data plans that need our money and attention. No matter how you slice it, though, business is still about relationships. It is still about our connection with others and the depth of interaction that we are able to deliver. If we are incapable of depth with our interpersonal skills, then we are simply a commodity. I don't know about you, but I want to be a valuable asset to my clients. I want to be the person that they can trust and rely on. I want to be effective at my interactions with each of the leaders that I deal with. I do NOT want to be the king of technology. I want to be the master of relations. I would encourage you to practice one of the oldest and most effective management techniques in the book. I encourage you to practice MBWA today. Management By Walking Around will help you to re-engage with your people, connect at a deeper level, and build the trust that is absolutely necessary for their full engagement on the job. To Your Success! Jody N Holland MuRF Systems www.jodynholland.com www.murfsystems.com jody@murfsystems.com (806) 355-5567 office

A Life Examined...

"Life unexamined, is not worth living."  --Democritus

I remember taking martial arts as a young person.  My instructor would say to us... "The more you sweat, the less you bleed."  It sounds a little harsh to say out loud to a nine year old, but it set me up to realize that the more focused I was on being prepared, the easier the battles of life, or a tournament, would be.  The objective in life is to win, right?  But, what is the definition of winning?  If we take the time to examine ourselves and the path that we wish to travel, then we can adapt our lives to fit with where we want to ultimately be.

We have to examine ourselves in the following areas...
--Personal Growth and Development
--Professional Growth and Development
--Relationships
--Financial Status
--And Physical Health

Often times, we will look at only one or two areas of life, step back, and say, "Wow, look at how good I am."   If we don't seek out balance in our lives, we will not ever truly enjoy success though.  Just being financially successful isn't enough.  If you have no depth in relationships, you simply become a self-centered, miserable rich person.  Take a look at each of the five areas and ask yourself...

1.  What am I doing to grow in this area right now?
2.  What do I need to start doing that I am not currently doing?
3.  What do I need to stop doing that I am currently doing?
4.  What do I need to keep doing that is working?

It is ideal to watch these five areas on a weekly basis.  Examine your life from an outside, objective perspective.  Try to remove your emotional attachment at the time of examination and simply be honest with yourself.

The most dangerous words that a person can ever say are...  "I already know that."  There is always something that you can learn.  If you are not willing to listen to others, then you cannot grow.  I did say CANNOT.  You can only grow if you are open to examination from yourself and from others.

Plus, people who think they know it all are really annoying.  Wouldn't you agree?  I challenge you to ask yourself the four examination questions this week on each of the areas of your life.  If you just want to think through them instead of writing them out, that's alright.  Just take the time to examine so that  you will truly have a life worth living!


To Your Success!


Jody N Holland
www.jodynholland.com
www.murfsystems.com
(806) 355-5567 office
jody@murfsystems.com

It is who you think you're not that holds you back.   -Jody Holland

Where we end up in life has more to do with our lack of self-confidence than our lack of ability.  I have caught myself saying things like, "I would like to do great at that, but I am not a professional ____________."  That self-doubt creeps in and begins to strangle the creativity and confidence that should be thriving at that exact moment.

I have wanted to write a book, but for years convinced myself that I was not an author.  I have written hundreds of pages of training and hundreds of articles.  Despite the fact that I had already done what I was afraid to try, I still allowed that doubt to infiltrate my psyche.  So, what do we do about the demon known as doubt.

Well, my advice is we get aggressive.  We pull out a Chuck Norris roundhouse directly to the nose of self-doubt.  In other words, we hit it head on.  There are different ways to handle this, but I have found that modifying my perception of the thing I am afraid of works very well.  How do you do that?  Good question...

The answer...  Put yourself in a relaxed state, close your eyes, and then imagine the very thing that you are afraid of, allowing the emotions to well up inside you.  You know the ones I am talking about.  They are fear, self-doubt, hesitation, and the like.  Imagine going through with the act and how scary it could be.  Once you can fully feel that fear, play the scene backwards.  See the whole thing backwards, going in reverse through the fear.  Then, put a psychedelic background in your picture and play it forward again.  Then play it backwards.  Then change another aspect of it.  If there is someone in your vision who is contributing to the self-doub, make them look like the Disney character, Goofy.  Now you have a Goofy doubter with a psychedelic background.  Go ahead and throw some prom music into the scene as well.  Then, play it backwards at half speed.  Keep doing this back and forth with a new change each time, different speeds, and multiple variations.  Pretty soon, you will no longer be able to see the scary scene in your mind the way you did before.

Often times, you will end up laughing at the thought that used to scare you.  This would be the equivalent of taking the needle on a record (google playing 45's for those under 25 years old not into all things retro) and scratching it back and forth until the record no longer plays.  You are simply screwing up the negative record in your mind.

Now, record the right record.  Visualize yourself doing what you now know that you can do, and see it succeeding beyond anyone's wildest dreams.  The next step for you...

Take some action!


To your success,


Jody N Holland
www.jodynholland.com
www.murfsystems.com
jody@murfsystems.com
806-355-5567 office

You could be more than you are...

"If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that."  --Goethe

So often, we treat people as they are right now without regard for what they are capable of becoming.  If we take the time to imagine a person's potential, that vision will guide us to developing them into so much more.  I remember when I was young, I always wanted to compete with people that were better than me.  By doing this, I pushed myself to improve and grow.  When I competed with people that I knew I could beat, I didn't work as hard.

When we look at our employees, we need to see them for who they could be and then equip them with the skills to get there.  If we are not continuously investing in their future, they will become stale and often disengaged.  For some reason, people often imagine that their team will grow on their own, whether they are pushed and developed or not.  While there are a few people that will seek out the resources to grow, they are not the norm.

A strong leader knows that building up their team is their main priority.  A strong team knows that they must push each other beyond what the known limits are and see how far they, as a team, can excel.  We are capable of more than we are demonstrating.  We are capable of tremendous levels of success.  We just need someone to see that in us and treat us as if...

My challenge to you today is to go out and find ways to push yourself and your team to higher levels of achievement.

To Your Success,


Jody Holland
www.jodynholland.com
www.murfsystems.com
806-355-5567 office
jody@murfsystems.com

How To Get Hired...

This is a web show that I was a guest on.  The show is called Hire Presence.  It is about a half hour long, but tells a great story about how you find your niche' in life.  It is interesting to note that recent research puts 67% of people as being unhappy in their current job and desiring a change.

Video streaming by Ustream