Show Me Your Friends And I Will Show You Your Future!

Year ago Bill Gates was asked that question, "what is one of your main formulas for success?” Without blinking an eye he said “hiring smart people as well as surrounding yourself with smart people.” His best friend is Warren Buffet, who just recently decided to leave his 40+ billion dollar empire to the Bill Gates Foundation upon his death. This friendship alone affirms his aforementioned statement. As a speaker and trainer, many people tell me that there too many people out here today giving various formulas for success in business and career. The internet has turned everybody into an expert, so it often gets confusing. My answer to them is simple and plain, I do not proclaim to have the all the answers, never have. But, one thought I have on life and career success is “If you show me your friends I will show you your future.” This nugget of wisdom was given to me by a man by the name of Jim Murphy who I met as a seventeen year old during a plane trip to college. This few minutes of mentoring by Mr. Murphy changed my life forever. It is almost impossible to build a successful business, ministry or anything else if you do not have successful advisors. Even bible in proverbs says "Plans fail due to a lack of advisors." I find that many people who are trying to climb the ladder of purpose often have friends who are doing the same. I am in no way saying that we must judge our friendships by achievement. If so, I am proclaiming the prosperity gospel which is something I do not stand by or for. What I am saying is that you need some friends or advisors in you inner circle who have gone through the process of building a successful business or career in an area in which you aspire to achieve success.

A few ways I have personally been able to build my personal network of friends and associates are as follows:

Volunteering:

Through volunteering my time to help various causes, I have been able to meet with overachievers in all types. A few of my early stage mentors were met via volunteerism, and as a result of these connections and their wisdom, I have been able to remain in business since 1996. My goal in volunteering was not to meet mentors but I found that it was a beneficial by-product. Zig Ziglar used to often say “In life you get everything you want when you help other people get what they want.” Volunteering your time is most beneficial to the organization you are supporting first, but a secondary benefit to you is the people you get to meet.

Networking

Time is often the enemy of networking but I have found this to be highly beneficial to make professional connections. The type of networking I am talking about is not the type where you dump a load of information on a person at a meeting or event. It is the kind where you ask questions of people and do your best to get to know their career and personal interest. I remember meeting a very successful business owner once who told me he was tired of people asking him to hand hold them through the process. I responded by saying to him the only thing I want from you is the wisdom you have learned over the years; I will do all of the work. He proceeded to give me a mentoring session of a lifetime. On another note, one of the challenges I have with all of the business social networking sites is it is often one way communication. You have millions of people communicating all of their information to us and wondering why they are not getting a response. This is not real networking. I am not saying to dump your internet based social networking if you are a fan of it, but I am saying get out and have some real human to human interactions. This type of connectedness will always be the best way to meet new friends and associates.

Enough said for this BLOG. I hope the information was helpful to you. Please visit my websites www.passionview.com for life coaching Information and www.coachdspeaks.com for speaking and training information.

Is America Becoming A Modern Day Sodom & Gommorah?

The other day I had a conversation with a friend of mine who I had not spoken with in a number of years. We were discussing the good old days and how we stood for moral and values for the sake of our community and family. In our conversation, we discussed the many changes we see in today's world and our belief that the lion share of the changes will destroy the moral integrity of our nation. We were discussing how parents are allowing their children to play video games in which the worst kind of killing takes place, and we call this entertainment? We talked about how in today's world if you say that the person you are married to is your wife or husband, you will be considered intolerant and the proper term is "partner." We were amazed at how many of the schools are becoming insular by hiding the violent acts and fights that take place everyday for they do not want to be perceived in a negative light. They want you and I to think that the kids are fine and that everything is perfect. I am convinced that if people continue to sit on the sidelines and say "nothing", one day the country that we love will become like the cities of Sodom & Gomorrah that were discussed in the bible. We are a long way off, but the potential is there. Even the elect are being deceived today thinking that money and riches are the goal of God.

I thought long and hard about should I write this because many people think that letters like these are similar to conspiracy theories, but I decided this year to speak the truth no matter what the outcome. I cannot hide my head in the sand and think that this onslaught of improper behaviors and attitudes can be overlooked.

If you stand for morality, integrity and character, I would encourage you to get involved with your community and political system. Your words count only if you are saying something. If not, your words mean nothing. I am involved and plan on running for political office because we need morally sound people making decisions for the masses. We can complain about legislation that takes place if we are not at the table. Don't assume things are going well at your kids school. Often your kids won't tell you because they fear being rejected by their peers. Ask questions and get involved. Turn off the television set and read to your children. We turned off our television for the entire month and our relationships have blossomed as a result. I have found that my children have been more peaceful during this time. Teach your children good moral behavior by discussing right and wrong with them as well as being an example of right. And most importantly, do not let them get lost in video games, music and television shows that exploit people and show contempt for human life. We must shape our family's identity and stop allowing this broken system to become our children's teachers. If you do not give your children a sense of identity, someone else will!

I know this is a heavy BLOG but I have to be obedient to God first. I hope that the information is an eye opener and encourages people to stand up for what's right. If we choose not to, we will eventually fall to what's wrong!

Darrell "Coach D" Andrews
www.passionview.com

Reinvention-The Key To 21st Century Career Success

Nationally recognized author Daniel Pink mentions in his book, A New Kind of Mind that “the jobs that our parents enjoyed in the past are not going to be the jobs that we will enjoy in the future. Many of the jobs are, or will become obsolete.” In the past two years companies eliminated 7 million jobs, larger corporations such as Circuit City and Blockbuster closed their doors, and many more cuts are looming. Per the US Department of Labor, unemployment rates hover around 10%, the highest rates since the Great Depression. My personal analysis of the situation has led me to believe two factors have impacted the workplace as we know it:

1. The Dynamics of Doing Business Has Changed

Outsourcing was a term seldom used in the American workplace a decade or so ago. Today, corporations nationwide are outsourcing their operational jobs (answering phones, product manufacturing, etc.) to foreign companies. I read in Thomas Friedman’s book, The World is Flat-A Brief History of the 21st Century that many accountants in the USA are now outsourcing tax paperwork to accountants in India. The cost of labor in countries such as India is much less than here in the states. Companies that are looking to cut cost, see this as an attractive possibility. The majority of the companies I call today to address technical assistance issues have people from foreign countries answering their phones. Years ago, call centers in America handled this function.

2. Certain Types of Jobs Are Being Replaced Through Automation

Let’s be real about this, machines are now doing the job of people. I often tell the youth I work with “you want to be the person who runs the machines that are doing the jobs. You will be invaluable if you do.” You can simply look in any factory in America and find a function where machines are now doing the job of people. This will continue to increase as companies are looking for better and faster ways to produce the products we use everyday.

Reinvention Time

What this means to the employee of the 21st century is that they must begin the process of reinventing themselves. In order to be valuable to corporations, governments and other employers, people must become creative thinkers and innovators as well as upgrade their current skills. As you read information from the national news outlets, there is a lot of despair and anxiety taking place regarding finding jobs. It is quite obvious to anyone who analyzes labor trends, the only way to remain workforce competitive is to possess a skill that is significant to the employer and regularly upgrade that skill set to make your position relevant. I am convinced that identification of personal passions and affinities go hand to hand in this process. Once a person chooses to reinvent themselves, they will be more valuable to the employer if the reinvention is centered on a personal passion that inspires them to get up in the morning. Listed below are a few ideas for reinventing yourself in today’s workplace:

1. Participate in trainings designed to identify and mobilize your unique gifts, talents and abilities.
2. Identify a career and life coach who will direct and inspire you through the career transition process.
3. Consider going back to school (or to school if never attended) and learning a new trade-career.
4. Use social networking tools such as Linked-In to make connection with new career opportunities and networks. Linked-In has thousands of innovative job and career networking opportunities and it is a free source.
5. Identify how your passion connects to hot job markets such as green jobs, technology and healthcare.
6. Develop a network of people who can help you advance in your career. Ask for their advice often.

Economic experts seem to all agree that this problem will be around for awhile, I am part of a team of political leaders in my state and we recently had a meeting with our Governor. He shared with us that their will be massive job cuts and a budget deficit of over $200,000,000. Reinvention is not only going to be the key to finding a job in the future, it may be the key to ones ability to keep a job as well. It is no longer business as usual. In order to make it these days you have to be creative, innovative and assertive. Reinventing your self in the 21st century is no longer an option, it is required. By doing so, you are securing a good future for yourself and your family.

About The Author

Darrell “Coach D” Andrews, CSP, is the author of the book, How To Find Your Passion And Make A Living At It. He is nationally acclaimed motivational speaker and career-life coach. Coach D conducts individual and group coaching sessions. He can be reached at his office toll free 1-866-426-2243 or via his website www.passionview.com.

Lessons Learned From Tiger Woods-Is a New Norm Being Established?

It has taken me well over a week to muster up the courage to write this Blog. I say muster up the courage because I was a huge fan of Tiger Woods primarily due to his perceived stand as a father and husband coupled with the fact that he was a great athlete. In the line of work I am in, character, integrity, honesty and loyalty mean a lot. There are so few athletes and entertainers that exhibit these traits that I get real excited when I see one that does. Let me start off by saying how truly disappointed I am in the decision made by arguably the most talented athlete of the century. He had a beautiful wife, a beautiful family, and this was not enough. We often talk about kids having an entitlement mentality but we hardly ever speak of adults having the same. He must have felt that he was entitled to do whatever he wanted to do because he was so wealthy and had so much influence. Unfortunately for him and his family, it backfired. For his young kids and current wife, they will live with this stigma forever. They will always be known as the kids of the man who decided to cheat on their mom with all kinds of women from all kinds of backgrounds (most not to good.)

Tiger’s situation is directly connected to a bigger problem in our country, the problem of overexposure to valueless behavior. Reality shows pay big money for people who can stir up chaos, people are doing anything they can to get negative exposure so that they can write a book or get a talk show and the concept of family as we know it is being destroyed by people who do not believe in it. Who would have ever thought in the 60’ and 70’s that we would need parent blocks on television sets? Who could have imagined that youth would use social networking and texting to communicate vial and deplorable messages to one another? If a parent shows up while they are communicating to their peers they type in “POS” (Parent Over Shoulder.) Ladies and gentleman we are heading down a path that one day we will all pay for if we do not wake up and do something about it. Yes, parents play a big role and are extremely important; however, I know of many good parents who have lost their children due to overexposure to crude behavior. Their diversion from family values is often derived from the expectations of their peers at school and in the community to “conform or be rejected.” This is a secondary problem that is emerging; many negative youth are driving societal behaviors and expectations. Excuse my terrible example but the “animals” are running the “farm.”

We need for as many people as possible to step up and become accountable. We rational, logical thinking adults can no longer stick our heads in the sand and say “it is somebody else’s responsibility.” I say this because the kid that is ignored today may be the same one who is robbing our homes tomorrow. We need for schools, communities, churches and organizations to collaborate around mentoring and inspiring our youth to greater heights. It is easy to look at them as a problem but it takes a strong person to see them for them for their potential, despite the problem. If we do not chose to go the path of optimism and work diligently towards collaborating around impacting our youth in a positive way, what Tiger, The Governor of South Carolina, The Governor of New York, The Pastor in Colorado and many others have done to destroy their families, will become the new norm. We are well on our way to this becoming a reality, but as a wise man once said “One person with courage is a majority.” Choose in 2010 to be that one person in your home, in your school and in your community. The world will be better off as a result of your efforts.

Please feel free to forward this Blog to any person or organization you feel would benefit from it. I encourage you to provide your thoughts and comments as well. It is my hope that this will be an on-going conversation that leads to positive outcomes.

Making Connections With People-The Bobby Principle

People collect a lot of things. To the collector, that what they collect is precious. My mother-in-law collects porcelain and wooden elephants. My children can play with anything in her house, but they cannot, and I repeat cannot, touch the elephants. At the facility in which I workout, their is a guy who I will call Bobby (This is not his real name for I did not get his approval to use it.) Bobby has a habit or hobby that has truly made him one of the most popular people at our workout facility, he collect names. This man knows every person who walks into the facility, close to 2,000 on an average week. Not only does he know their names, he knows their birthdays, wedding dates, when birth is given to a child, etc. One day a guy walked in to participate in one of our weekly workouts and Bobby gave this man a birthday card, for his wife! The gentleman and I looked in amazement, but Bobby proceeded to simply say, I remembered that her birthday was today. All we could do is laugh! Bobby can tell you all of the happenings at this organization and is a great resource for all of us. He brings humor to our exercise class and makes the time go by quickly with his constant joking and interacting with, well, everyone. I am quite sure that there is not anything that people in our workout facility would not do for Bobby. He cares about them and in return, they care about him.

Most people are the opposite of Bobby. They are rushed, stressed, do not reach out to others, and speak to their chosen few. This is amazing when you consider the fact that many are business owners, sales people, etc. who could benefit from building relationships with others. Bobby's passion for people has definitely helped me to open up more for no other reason than to be a nicer person. As a business owner it is beneficial as well, because it expands your resource base. From a career standpoint, it can give you more options, because the more people you know, the more connections you have. I know people who never have to place a job application when they are looking for work, they simply have to pick up the phone and call one of their connections. If you are teacher, your students (and the students in other classes) will benefit from you knowing their name, as well as certain aspects of their lives. This might impact your school climate in a positive way.

The moral of this story is how many people are you connecting with? Are you building up a mental database of friends and connections? It is not necessary for you and I to become like Bobby, for he is certainly one of a kind. But you and I can learn from Bobby. By making connections, you are not only being a blessing to other people, one day those other people might just become a blessing to you!.

Educational Relevance is a By-Product of Dream Relevance

I remember as a child desiring to one day become a pro football player. I loved football with a passion and worked hard in the gym as well as studying the playbook just to make sure I did my job correctly. I also remember thinking that I was a pretty good basketball player as well. Between the two, I was going to play for somebody’s pro team in the future! Well, unfortunately the many dreams I had of scoring the winning touchdown or hitting the winning basket did not come to pass. I was pretty good, but not good enough. There is a happy ending to this nominally sad story. I have a college degree, the first one in my family to do so. I have a career in which I am privileged to help thousands of youth and adults annually. I have authored three books (with two more on the way) and I am happily married with three beautiful children. Ladies and gentleman I am proud to say that the life I am living today is directly connected to the fact that I realized the importance of finishing secondary school and graduating from college to achieving my goal of professional sports. IT WAS THE DREAM THAT MADE MY ACADEMICS RELEVANT! If it were not for the dream, I am not sure if I would have graduated from college for I had no personal examples beside the pro-athletes who did it.

Educational relevance is a by-product of dream relevance. From my perspective, they cannot be mutually exclusive. I worked hard in the classroom because I was confident that I could achieve my dream. My children attended a tutorial program called Kumon that was heavily focused on math. 90% of the kids in the program my children attended were from India or parents were from India. I am sure that with India’s emphasis on math and sciences, Kumon kids have a dream of one day working in a technology field or some other field directly associated with math. Their dream is driving them to take this “Grilling”* related tutorial program on top of their regular course work. While many kids are outside playing after school, Kumon kids are pushing themselves academically.

If we want students to see school as relevant, we must help them capture and strategize a dream plan. I have been sharing the same message for close to two decades and I will continue to scream it from the mountaintop until academic and political leaders get it. We will never improve academics with a focus on instructional practices only; we must help kids connect their dreams to the importance of the classroom. Until then, we will continue to see our academic numbers slide in comparison to country’s like India who have helped their kids get a dream. Kumon kids work hard and I am sure it is directly connected to the fact that they have a picture in their minds of where this hard work is taking them.

As always, please contact the office toll-free at 1-866-426-2243 to discuss a passionate staff or in-service training, student assembly or parent motivation event.

* Grilling-A term describing the power of constant repetition to enhance academic retention.

The Power and Example of Character Driven Leaders

I often wonder why adults often have expectations of kids that they do not have of themselves. Over the years, I have found that so many children are told to be respectful, show care and consideration for others and most importantly, honor your parents and those in authority. A kid who follows this model is one who is revered by teachers, parents and society as a whole. The ones who do not are considered rebellious and bucking authority. I often wonder what kind of society we would live in if many adults would live up to same expectations they have of kids. To treat people with respect, exhibit leadership ability, honor people in authority and have compassion for others. There are times when I conduct professional development events that many of the attendees sit in the back of the auditorium or the back tables in a training setting. Many of them are doing this as a way of protesting the authority that asked them to attend the training. Unfortunately, it provides a poor example of leadership. Let's look at this from a national perspective. I am convinced that President Obama is by far the most vilified President in modern history. He is attacked maliciously and people have seem to forgotten that the man has only been in office for 9 months! But we tell our kids, show respect for those in authority while so many of us proceed to bash anyone who we disagree with philosophically. Our kids really have bad examples of respect, honor and integrity today. I say that not to be disrespectful but to highlight the fact that there is a serious dearth of character taking place in our nation. If we ever expect our kids to be respectful, diligent and exhibit leadership characteristics, it is high time more people become examples of these traits. Being an adult is no excuse for lacking character and integrity.

Our country is in desperate need of leaders with character. Character driven adults provide an example that so many of our youth need to see in our schools and homes today. Adults who are willing to respect the opinions of others. Adults who exhibit self control. Adults who are willing to communicate with a child even if that child can be somewhat challenging. This shows that we are the bigger people.

The example established by this model, if implemented correctly, can change the negative environment that is steeped in many organizations and homes today. Let’s get over the paradigm of vitriol that has proliferated so many people. If you care for youth, we need to become the example of what we expect. This is, and always will be, the best way for youth to develop character.

If you are finding that your organization, school, business or home environment is impacted by pessimism, share this E-zine. Please feel free to forward it to someone you know who could benefit from this information. We cannot expect our youth to change if we do not change first. Please call the office toll free at 1-866-426-2243 if you would like to discuss a professional development program for your business or organization or life coaching (parents, managers, etc.) dealing with the power of character driven leadership. We offer coaching programs for individuals or group coaching for organizations.