You have to be in reasonable shape if you want to become the life and career success you deserve to be.  A reasonable level of fitness will help you deal with the inevitable stress that accompanies creating a successful life and career.  Diet and exercise are the key to living a healthy lifestyle.  You don’t have to be a fitness fanatic, but you do need to get some exercise and pay attention to what you eat.

I’m not the best role model when it comes to a healthy lifestyle.  I’ve battled weight my entire life.  However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more serious about living a healthy lifestyle.  I exercise more and pay attention to what I eat.

I have found that the US government revised food pyramid provides great guidance on how to eat healthy.  Here are some of the highlights.  I try to follow these guidelines.  If you follow them, you will be doing well from a nutrition standpoint.

Eat at least three ounces of whole grain bread, cereals, crackers, rice or pasta every day.  Look for the word “whole” before the grain name on the list of ingredients.

Eat lots of vegetables every day.  I’m lucky here.  I love vegetables – even brussels sprouts.  Dark green and orange vegetables are the best for you.  Dry beans and peas are also good for you.

Fruits are also good for you.  Raw fruit is the best.  On the other hand, it’s best to limit your intake of fruit juice.  It’s often very high in calories and sugar.

Milk is a great source of calcium – something we all need for strong bones.  However, whole milk is very high in fat, so it’s best to drink low-fat or fat free milk.  Yogurt and cheese are also good sources of calcium.

Eat protein (meat, fish and poultry) is small quantities.  Bake, broil or grill – don’t fry – your protein.

The Mayo clinic suggests eating at least three fruits, four vegetables, four to eight servings of grains and pasta, three to seven servings of protein or dairy, three to five servings of fat and no more than 75 calories of sugar a day.

In general, you can eat healthy by eating more fruits, vegetables and whole grains.  Reduce your intake of saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol.  Limit sweets and salt.  Drink alcoholic beverages in moderation, if at all.  Control portion sizes and the total number of calories you consume.

Exercise is the other important component of a healthy lifestyle.  It’s best if you can exercise for at least 30 minutes five times a week.  Fitness experts suggest that of the 30 minutes 20 should be spent in some form of cardio exercise, five in stretching and five in resistance training.

I find that it’s best to choose a time to exercise and build your daily schedule around it.  Some people like first thing in the morning.  Others like the evening.  I prefer mid-day.  I find that if I exercise around noon, I am less hungry and consume fewer calories at lunch.

Hydration and circulation are important too.  Drink plenty of water.  It keeps you hydrated and helps combat hunger.  If you spent a lot of time at your desk, take a few minutes every hour to get up and stretch.  You can do leg lifts and stomach squeezes at your desk.  A little bit of activity can give you a burst of oxygen that will energize you and keep you feeling good.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  While good performance is not enough to guarantee your life and career success, it is a necessary component of your success plan.  A healthy lifestyle will make it easier for you to become a top performer.  You don’t have to become a fitness fanatic to be a high performer.  However, eating well and exercising will keep you sharp and on top of your game.  It will keep your stress in check.  And while a little stress is a good thing, too much stress can knock you out of the game.

That’s my career advice on the importance of living a healthy lifestyle.  What do you think?  What are your tricks for staying in shape?  Please share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb/

Tweet 100 in my career advice book Success Tweets says “Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.”  Last week I met a young woman who embodies this career success advice.

Miriam Chisala works at the front desk of the Hampton Inn on West 31st Street in New York City.  I was a guest there.  One day, I had a minor crisis.  I lost the button on my trousers.  I went to the front desk and asked if I they could direct me to a local dry cleaner or tailor shop.  When Miriam asked why, I told her that I needed a button replaced on my trousers.  She said, “I can sew, bring them to me.”  I did, and she sewed the button.

I thought that was pretty good service.  I never would have expected that a hotel employee would go out of her way to help me with a sewing problem.  The next morning, it was pouring rain.  As I was leaving  the hotel, I asked to borrow an umbrella.  Miriam’s colleague told me that they had already lent all of the umbrellas they had.  She said, “You can use mine – as long as you bring it back.  I’ll need it to go home.”

Both of Miriam’s acts were small kindnesses, but ones that I really appreciated.  She went out of her way to help me.  This goes way beyond good customer service.  Miriam Chisala cares about what she does.  This makes her an outstanding performer – and puts her on the road to the life and career success she deserves.

I have a model of customer service that I use with my consulting clients. It begins from the premise that after any interaction your customers R.A.T.E. you. The people in your life R.A.T.E. you too.  You can use your R.A.T.E.ing to enhance your career success.  It works like this:

• R stands for Responsiveness.
• A stands for Assurance.
• T stands for Tangibles.
• E stands for Empathy.

If you notice, only one of the four points in the model – tangibles – is what you actually do for, or deliver to, the people in your life. The other three are the emotional measures by which people judge you. These emotional measures are at least as important as the tangibles you deliver.

You have to deliver the tangibles. You must produce results. That’s the cost of a ticket to the professional success sweepstakes.

However, you have to pay attention to the other three factors – responsiveness, assurance, and empathy – if you’re going to make a positive personal impact while you’re performing. Let’s look at each of these three in detail.

Responsiveness. You have to ensure that the people in your life see you as someone who is willing to help, someone who understands what needs to be done and is willing to do it. Other people need to think that you will give them what they want, when they want it, and in a manner that they can use it.

Assurance. You have to be able to convey trust and confidence. People need to feel that you are going to deliver. To do this, you must be very knowledgeable about the people in your life and their needs and wants. You need to be clear on what you can offer them to help them meet their goals. You need to ensure that they are confident that you will do what you say you will do.

Empathy. The people in your life must perceive you as an individual who understands, cares about, and pays attention to their needs. To do this, you need to be willing to walk a mile in other people’s shoes. You have to demonstrate to them that you are aware of and sensitive to their unique and individual needs.

Back to Miriam.  She definitely delivered the tangibles.  She sewed a button for me and she lent me her umbrella.  More important, she excelled on the three emotional factors – Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy.

Miriam demonstrated her responsiveness by realizing that I had problems she could solve.  I needed a button and I needed an umbrella.  She could have directed me to the closest tailor and store where I could buy and umbrella.  Instead she offered to sew the button and lent me her umbrella.  That’s being responsive to a customer’s needs.

Miriam put my mind at ease about my button problem.  She said, “I can sew.  It will only take me a minute.  Just bring me the pants and the button.”  That was a huge relief for me.  I wanted to wear the trousers that evening.  Her offer meant that I didn’t have to worry about finding a tailor.  I felt assured that my problem was solved.

Finally, Miriam demonstrated her empathy in both cases.  First, she realized I was a stranger in her city with a button problem.  While a missing button is not a big deal, having to find someone to do the repair when you don’t know your away around the neighborhood is no fun.  Second, she knew that I could buy an umbrella on the street corner – vendors magically appear when it rains in New York.  But that was also a small headache for me, so she lent me hers.

All in all, I R.A.T.E.  Miriam – and the Hampton Inn on West 31st Street in Manhattan — very high.  Miriam is a young a woman who cared enough about her job and customers that she went out of her way to help me, not once but twice in a two day period.  In some ways this is not surprising as I found the entire property to be well run.

If you want to create the life and career success you deserve, be like Miriam.  Show that you care about what you do by doing the little things that set you apart from others.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.   If you want to create you career success, you have to be seen by others as a person who cares.  You need to be responsive to the needs and requests of others. You have to gain the trust of people with whom you come into contact.  And you need to demonstrate that you understand their needs and issues.  Miriam Chisala, by her actions, provides a great example of someone who is responsive, someone who is trustworthy, and someone with loads of empathy.  Be like Miriam and you’ll be on your way to the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s my career advice based on my experience with Miriam Chisala last week.  What do you think?  Plesae share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment.  Better yet, please share a story about someone you R.A.T.E. highly.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

Tweet 100 in my career advice book Success Tweets says “Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.”  Last week I met a young woman who embodies this career success advice.

Miriam Chisala works at the front desk of the Hampton Inn on West 31st Street in New York City.  I was a guest there.  One day, I had a minor crisis.  I lost the button on my trousers.  I went to the front desk and asked if I they could direct me to a local dry cleaner or tailor shop.  When Miriam asked why, I told her that I needed a button replaced on my trousers.  She said, “I can sew, bring them to me.”  I did, and she sewed the button.

I thought that was pretty good service.  I never would have expected that a hotel employee would go out of her way to help me with a sewing problem.  The next morning, it was pouring rain.  As I was leaving  the hotel, I asked to borrow an umbrella.  Miriam’s colleague told me that they had already lent all of the umbrellas they had.  She said, “You can use mine – as long as you bring it back.  I’ll need it to go home.”

Both of Miriam’s acts were small kindnesses, but ones that I really appreciated.  She went out of her way to help me.  This goes way beyond good customer service.  Miriam Chisala cares about what she does.  This makes her an outstanding performer – and puts her on the road to the life and career success she deserves.

I have a model of customer service that I use with my consulting clients. It begins from the premise that after any interaction your customers R.A.T.E. you. The people in your life R.A.T.E. you too.  You can use your R.A.T.E.ing to enhance your career success.  It works like this:

• R stands for Responsiveness.
• A stands for Assurance.
• T stands for Tangibles.
• E stands for Empathy.

If you notice, only one of the four points in the model – tangibles – is what you actually do for, or deliver to, the people in your life. The other three are the emotional measures by which people judge you. These emotional measures are at least as important as the tangibles you deliver.

You have to deliver the tangibles. You must produce results. That’s the cost of a ticket to the professional success sweepstakes.

However, you have to pay attention to the other three factors – responsiveness, assurance, and empathy – if you’re going to make a positive personal impact while you’re performing. Let’s look at each of these three in detail.

Responsiveness. You have to ensure that the people in your life see you as someone who is willing to help, someone who understands what needs to be done and is willing to do it. Other people need to think that you will give them what they want, when they want it, and in a manner that they can use it.

Assurance. You have to be able to convey trust and confidence. People need to feel that you are going to deliver. To do this, you must be very knowledgeable about the people in your life and their needs and wants. You need to be clear on what you can offer them to help them meet their goals. You need to ensure that they are confident that you will do what you say you will do.

Empathy. The people in your life must perceive you as an individual who understands, cares about, and pays attention to their needs. To do this, you need to be willing to walk a mile in other people’s shoes. You have to demonstrate to them that you are aware of and sensitive to their unique and individual needs.

Back to Miriam.  She definitely delivered the tangibles.  She sewed a button for me and she lent me her umbrella.  More important, she excelled on the three emotional factors – Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy.

Miriam demonstrated her responsiveness by realizing that I had problems she could solve.  I needed a button and I needed an umbrella.  She could have directed me to the closest tailor and store where I could buy and umbrella.  Instead she offered to sew the button and lent me her umbrella.  That’s being responsive to a customer’s needs.

Miriam put my mind at ease about my button problem.  She said, “I can sew.  It will only take me a minute.  Just bring me the pants and the button.”  That was a huge relief for me.  I wanted to wear the trousers that evening.  Her offer meant that I didn’t have to worry about finding a tailor.  I felt assured that my problem was solved.

Finally, Miriam demonstrated her empathy in both cases.  First, she realized I was a stranger in her city with a button problem.  While a missing button is not a big deal, having to find someone to do the repair when you don’t know your away around the neighborhood is no fun.  Second, she knew that I could buy an umbrella on the street corner – vendors magically appear when it rains in New York.  But that was also a small headache for me, so she lent me hers.

All in all, I R.A.T.E.  Miriam – and the Hampton Inn on West 31st Street in Manhattan — very high.  Miriam is a young a woman who cared enough about her job and customers that she went out of her way to help me, not once but twice in a two day period.  In some ways this is not surprising as I found the entire property to be well run.

If you want to create the life and career success you deserve, be like Miriam.  Show that you care about what you do by doing the little things that set you apart from others.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.   If you want to create you career success, you have to be seen by others as a person who cares.  You need to be responsive to the needs and requests of others. You have to gain the trust of people with whom you come into contact.  And you need to demonstrate that you understand their needs and issues.  Miriam Chisala, by her actions, provides a great example of someone who is responsive, someone who is trustworthy, and someone with loads of empathy.  Be like Miriam and you’ll be on your way to the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s my career advice based on my experience with Miriam Chisala last week.  What do you think?  Plesae share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment.  Better yet, please share a story about someone you R.A.T.E. highly.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

Tweet 100 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.”  On Tuesday, I met someone who is the very essence of this tweet.  Caroline Mehle is the Wealth and Freedom Director with Speaking Empire.  She’s a good person to know.  Who doesn’t want more wealth and freedom?

Caroline is managing an event for Speaking Empire where I am a VIP guest.  As part of my VIP package, I was given the opportunity to put a flyer in the participant welcome packet.  The event began on Tuesday.  Caroline and I agreed that we would meet on Monday and I would give her my flyers for the packet.  I arrived before Caroline and left a note to be given to her upon check in.  I hadn’t heard from her by 7:00 so I called the front desk to ask to speak with her.  I was told she was a no show and had cancelled her reservation.  I was bummed by that.  I had spent some money getting the flyer designed and printed especially for this event.

Tuesday morning I arrived at the event a little before registration was to begin.  Lo and behold, there was Caroline.  She stayed at the hotel Monday night and hadn’t received my message when she checked in.  I asked if it were too late to get my flyer into the welcome packet.  She said “Absolutely not, give them to me.  I’ll take care of it.”  Remember, this was five minutes before about 200 people were going to descend on her asking for their meeting credentials.  My flyer was in every welcome bag.

That’s caring about what you.  Here’s another example.  I drink a lot of bottled water.  I couldn’t find a recycling bin at the meeting venue.  At the end of the day on Tuesday, I asked Caroline if there was a recycling bin handy.  She said, “Give it to me.  I’ll take care of it.”  No funny look, no “Gee I don’t know,” no “It’s not my job.”  The next day there was a recycling bin in plain view.  Again, that’s caring about what you do.

Let’s switch gears.  It’s football season .  If you read this blog regularly, you know that I am a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan.  I grew up in Pittsburgh.  My dad had Steelers season tickets for many years.  He gave them up only because he moved to Florida.  He learned to use the Internet at age 70, so he could follow the Steelers on line.  He really cares about the Steelers.  I’m not that much of a fanatic, but there is no professional sports team more near and dear to my heart than the Pittsburgh Steelers.

On Sunday, February 1 2009, Steelers won the Super Bowl.  On Monday, February 2 2009, Mike Tomlin, their coach, noted that because the Steelers were in the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl, he was “a month behind getting ready for the 2009 season.   We’ve got to be thoughtful in how we prepare our football team.”

Some may say, “Chill, Mike, savor what you’ve just accomplished.”  However, Mike Tomlin, just like Caroline Mehle, knows that outstanding performers don’t rest on their laurels.  They care about what they do, and they care about their life and career success.  High performers always set higher goals and look towards greater achievements.  The Optimist Creed urges us to “Press on to the greater achievements of the future.”

That’s what Mike Tomlin was doing the day after he won the Super Bowl, and that’s what all outstanding performers do.  They set high goals and meet them.  Then they set higher goals and meet them too.  They are always looking to exceed expectations.  They care about what they do.

I care about helping people create the life and career success they want and deserve.  I care a lot.  That’s why I wrote Success Tweets and give it away for free.  You can get a copy at http://budurl.com/STExp.  That’s why I wrote a series of blog posts explaining each of the 141 tweets in more detail and turned it into a book called Success Tweets Explained.  I care so much about helping people create the career success they deserve that I committed to writing 700 or 800 words every day for 28 weeks.  I’ve also created a membership site to further help people create their career success.  I do this because I care.

I care a lot about helping you achieve the kind of career success you deserve.  And I know that this caring will pay off in me becoming an outstanding career success coach – somebody who gives really great career advice.  Caroline Mehle is in the business of making seminars run smoothly, creating great experiences for the participants.  She cares about what she does, and it shows.  That’s why she is so good at what she does, and is a tremendous career success.  Mike Tomlin is a football coach.  he cares about winning every single game.  That’s why he is good at what he does.

When you care you do your very best.  One of my favorite books, To Kill a Mockingbird was published over 50 years ago.  There is a passage in that book that has always stuck with me.  It’s in Chapter 11 and is spoken by Atticus Finch, the father, played by Gregory Peck in the film.  He’s speaking to Scout, his daughter…

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

It takes courage to care. Because when you care, you put yourself out there.  You do your best.  And doing your best can be a scary thing.  When you care, when you consciously do your best and fail, it is heartbreaking.  But at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you did your best.

I remember when I applied to graduate school at Harvard.  I decided that I was going to demonstrate to myself how much I cared by writing the very best application I could.  I wasn’t going to let myself off the hook if I didn’t get accepted by saying, “I could have written a better application, but I just didn’t spend the time I should have.”

When I put my application in the mailbox – we still did quaint things like that back in the old days – I was proud of what I had written.  I knew it was the very best I could do.  I was also frightened because I knew that my best might not be good enough.  After all, both of my other degrees were from state schools.  Who was I to think that those kind of credentials would get me accepted at Harvard?

I cared about the quality of my application, so I did the very best I could.  The story in this case has a happy ending.  I was accepted and got my degree.  Even if I had not been accepted, I would have been proud of myself because I cared enough to write the best application I could, and I dared enough to admit it to myself.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are proud of what they do.  They care.  They follow the career advice in Success Tweet 100.  “Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.”  Does your work show that you care?  Or does it reflect an “it’s good enough” attitude?  Take it from a career success coach, if you want to create the life and career success of which you are capable, make sure that how much you care shows through in every single piece of work you do.

That’s my career advice based on working with Caroline Mehle.  What do you think?  Do you know somebody who really cares about what he or she does?  If so, give them a shout out by leaving a comment here.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb.  You can find out about the membership site and get the career advice in I Want YOU… for free by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

Tweet 100 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.”  On Tuesday, I met someone who is the very essence of this tweet.  Caroline Mehle is the Wealth and Freedom Director with Speaking Empire.  She’s a good person to know.  Who doesn’t want more wealth and freedom?

Caroline is managing an event for Speaking Empire where I am a VIP guest.  As part of my VIP package, I was given the opportunity to put a flyer in the participant welcome packet.  The event began on Tuesday.  Caroline and I agreed that we would meet on Monday and I would give her my flyers for the packet.  I arrived before Caroline and left a note to be given to her upon check in.  I hadn’t heard from her by 7:00 so I called the front desk to ask to speak with her.  I was told she was a no show and had cancelled her reservation.  I was bummed by that.  I had spent some money getting the flyer designed and printed especially for this event.

Tuesday morning I arrived at the event a little before registration was to begin.  Lo and behold, there was Caroline.  She stayed at the hotel Monday night and hadn’t received my message when she checked in.  I asked if it were too late to get my flyer into the welcome packet.  She said “Absolutely not, give them to me.  I’ll take care of it.”  Remember, this was five minutes before about 200 people were going to descend on her asking for their meeting credentials.  My flyer was in every welcome bag.

That’s caring about what you.  Here’s another example.  I drink a lot of bottled water.  I couldn’t find a recycling bin at the meeting venue.  At the end of the day on Tuesday, I asked Caroline if there was a recycling bin handy.  She said, “Give it to me.  I’ll take care of it.”  No funny look, no “Gee I don’t know,” no “It’s not my job.”  The next day there was a recycling bin in plain view.  Again, that’s caring about what you do.

Let’s switch gears.  It’s football season .  If you read this blog regularly, you know that I am a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan.  I grew up in Pittsburgh.  My dad had Steelers season tickets for many years.  He gave them up only because he moved to Florida.  He learned to use the Internet at age 70, so he could follow the Steelers on line.  He really cares about the Steelers.  I’m not that much of a fanatic, but there is no professional sports team more near and dear to my heart than the Pittsburgh Steelers.

On Sunday, February 1 2009, Steelers won the Super Bowl.  On Monday, February 2 2009, Mike Tomlin, their coach, noted that because the Steelers were in the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl, he was “a month behind getting ready for the 2009 season.   We’ve got to be thoughtful in how we prepare our football team.”

Some may say, “Chill, Mike, savor what you’ve just accomplished.”  However, Mike Tomlin, just like Caroline Mehle, knows that outstanding performers don’t rest on their laurels.  They care about what they do, and they care about their life and career success.  High performers always set higher goals and look towards greater achievements.  The Optimist Creed urges us to “Press on to the greater achievements of the future.”

That’s what Mike Tomlin was doing the day after he won the Super Bowl, and that’s what all outstanding performers do.  They set high goals and meet them.  Then they set higher goals and meet them too.  They are always looking to exceed expectations.  They care about what they do.

I care about helping people create the life and career success they want and deserve.  I care a lot.  That’s why I wrote Success Tweets and give it away for free.  You can get a copy at http://budurl.com/STExp.  That’s why I wrote a series of blog posts explaining each of the 141 tweets in more detail and turned it into a book called Success Tweets Explained.  I care so much about helping people create the career success they deserve that I committed to writing 700 or 800 words every day for 28 weeks.  I’ve also created a membership site to further help people create their career success.  I do this because I care.

I care a lot about helping you achieve the kind of career success you deserve.  And I know that this caring will pay off in me becoming an outstanding career success coach – somebody who gives really great career advice.  Caroline Mehle is in the business of making seminars run smoothly, creating great experiences for the participants.  She cares about what she does, and it shows.  That’s why she is so good at what she does, and is a tremendous career success.  Mike Tomlin is a football coach.  he cares about winning every single game.  That’s why he is good at what he does.

When you care you do your very best.  One of my favorite books, To Kill a Mockingbird was published over 50 years ago.  There is a passage in that book that has always stuck with me.  It’s in Chapter 11 and is spoken by Atticus Finch, the father, played by Gregory Peck in the film.  He’s speaking to Scout, his daughter…

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

It takes courage to care. Because when you care, you put yourself out there.  You do your best.  And doing your best can be a scary thing.  When you care, when you consciously do your best and fail, it is heartbreaking.  But at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you did your best.

I remember when I applied to graduate school at Harvard.  I decided that I was going to demonstrate to myself how much I cared by writing the very best application I could.  I wasn’t going to let myself off the hook if I didn’t get accepted by saying, “I could have written a better application, but I just didn’t spend the time I should have.”

When I put my application in the mailbox – we still did quaint things like that back in the old days – I was proud of what I had written.  I knew it was the very best I could do.  I was also frightened because I knew that my best might not be good enough.  After all, both of my other degrees were from state schools.  Who was I to think that those kind of credentials would get me accepted at Harvard?

I cared about the quality of my application, so I did the very best I could.  The story in this case has a happy ending.  I was accepted and got my degree.  Even if I had not been accepted, I would have been proud of myself because I cared enough to write the best application I could, and I dared enough to admit it to myself.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are proud of what they do.  They care.  They follow the career advice in Success Tweet 100.  “Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.”  Does your work show that you care?  Or does it reflect an “it’s good enough” attitude?  Take it from a career success coach, if you want to create the life and career success of which you are capable, make sure that how much you care shows through in every single piece of work you do.

That’s my career advice based on working with Caroline Mehle.  What do you think?  Do you know somebody who really cares about what he or she does?  If so, give them a shout out by leaving a comment here.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb.  You can find out about the membership site and get the career advice in I Want YOU… for free by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

No, this post is not about Andrew Weiner.  It’s a true story that has some great career success implications.

Every once in a while, I come across someone who gets and uses my career advice intuitively.  That was the case this week.  Rebecca Tisbe is the Housekeeping Manager at the Hilton Manhattan East in New York City.  I spent three nights there this week.

On Tuesday, I sent a pair of trousers out to be dry cleaned.  I had an important meeting on Wednesday and wanted to look good.  They weren’t returned by 7:00 – and hour after they were supposed to be.  I called the housekeeping number as directed on the receipt and spoke with Rebecca.  She investigated the matter and told me that the trousers never came back from the dry cleaners.

I told her that I needed them for an important early morning meeting the next day.  Rebecca could have said, “I’m sorry, I can’t do anything about that.”  Instead, she got in touch with the dry cleaner and arranged to have the trousers delivered to my room by 7:00 am.  She also removed the dry cleaning charge from my hotel bill and offered to send me a bottle of wine or champagne to make up for the problem.

Later that evening, I found an envelope under my door.  Inside was a note from Rebecca that said in part, “Please accept my sincerest apologies for the inconvenience you endured during your stay due to your dry cleaning not being available upon request.”

Now that’s service! 

Tweet 100 in my career advice book, Success Tweets says, “Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.”  Rebecca cares – a lot.  And in my book she is an outstanding performer.

When you care you do your very best.  Last year marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of one of my favorite books: To Kill a Mockingbird.  There is a passage in that book that has always stuck with me.  It’s in Chapter 11 and is spoken by Atticus Finch, the father, played by Gregory Peck in the film.  He’s speaking to Scout, his daughter…

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

It takes courage to care. Because when you care, you put yourself out there.  You do your best.  And doing your best can be a scary thing.  When you care, when you consciously do your best and fail, it is heartbreaking.  But at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you did your best.  But when you succeed – like Rebecca did in solving my small dry cleaning problem, you can take great pride in your accomplishment.

I remember when I applied to graduate school at Harvard.  I decided that I was going to demonstrate to myself how much I cared by writing the very best application I could.  I wasn’t going to let myself off the hook if I didn’t get accepted by saying, “I could have written a better application, but I just didn’t spend the time I should have.”

When I put my application in the mailbox – we still did quaint things like that back in the old days – I was proud of what I had written.  I knew it was the very best I could do.  I was also frightened because I knew that my best might not be good enough.  After all, both of my other degrees were from state schools.  Who was I to think that those credentials would get me accepted at Harvard?

I cared about the quality of my application, so I did the very best I could.  The story in this case has a happy ending.  I was accepted and got my degree.  Even if I had not been accepted, I would have been proud of myself because I cared enough to write the best application I could, and I dared enough to admit it to myself.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people are proud of what they do.  They care.  They follow the career advice in Success Tweet 100.  “Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.”  Does your work show that you care?  Or does it reflect an “it’s good enough” attitude?  Take it from a career success coach, if you want to create the life and career success of which you are capable be like Rebecca Tisbe, Housekeeping Manager at the Hilton Manhattan East.  Make sure that how much you care shows through in every single piece of work you do.

That’s my career advice on caring about what you do.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest career success book Success Tweets Explained.  It’s a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

I’m really enjoying writing this series of posts further explaining the ideas in my latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I hope you’re enjoying reading them.  I’m pleased to say that Success Tweets is now in its second printing.  You can pick up a copy at your local book store, or online at Amazon.com.  Better yet, you can download the eBook for free at http://www.successtweets.com.

Today’s career advice comes from Tweet 99…

Get the job done with what you have.  Don’t worry about what you don’t have, or would like to have.

I studied journalism as an undergraduate.  Journalism is a great major.  It teaches you to write.  It keeps you up on current events.  And most of all, it provides you with the discipline of making deadlines.  Bob Farson was my advisor at Penn State.  He never accepted a late assignment.  He never gave an incomplete in a course.  Every journalism student in my day at Penn State heard his mantra over and over again… 

“There is no late in journalism.  You can’t put out a blank paper.  A good reporter will never have everything he wants for a story.  You’ve got to learn to go with what you’ve got and do the best job you can with it.”

Bob Farson’s career advice – “go with what you’ve got” — really stuck with me.  I finished my four years at Penn State, got an MA at The University of Colorado and a PhD at Harvard, and never missed a deadline.  I never asked for an extension, and I never took and incomplete in a course.

I never worked as a journalist, but my journalism education taught me the importance of getting the job done with what I have – and that, in turn, helped me create the life and career success I so badly wanted.

When it comes to deadlines, I find that people make two types of mistakes.  1) They miss them because they are always looking for that one additional piece of information that will bring everything together perfectly.  2) They get so focused on making them that they don’t dig deep enough to find all in information they need to do an outstanding job.

Both are problems.  When I say go with what you’ve got, I mean you need to find the right balance of gathering all the information you need and still making the deadline.  Avoid problem number 1 by realizing that you’ll never know everything you want to know about a given subject.  I’ve been a career success coach for 20 years, and I still learn new stuff about career success every day.  Avoid problem number 2 by getting overly focused on the deadline.  If you do, you run the risk of not doing as good a job as you can on any given project.

Go with what you’ve got only after you do an exhaustive information search and make sure that you have all the information you can possibly find and still make the deadline.

In a post earlier this week, I mentioned a great little book QBQ: The Question Behind the Question by my friend John Miller.  If you find yourself needing information or materials to get a job done right, don’t ask, “Why won’t people give me what I need to do my job?”  Instead ask yourself, “How can I get what I need to get this job done right and on time?”  The answer that question will put you in charge.  You’ll be better able to go with what you’ve got to get the job done well.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people meet deadlines.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 99 in Success Tweets.  “Get the job done with what you have.  Don’t worry about what you don’t have, or would like to have.”  Take personal responsibility for doing the work with what you have – or getting what you need to do to do the work well.  If you don’t have what you need, do whatever it takes to get it.  Take personal responsibility for making sure you have what you need to do your job well.  Taking personal responsibility for getting the job done – with what you have, not what you want will set you apart from the pack and put you on the road to the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s my take on the career advice in Success Tweet 99.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading.  I really appreciate it.

Bud

I’m really enjoying writing this series of posts further explaining the ideas in my latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I hope you’re enjoying reading them.  I’m pleased to say that Success Tweets is now in its second printing.  You can pick up a copy at your local book store, or online at Amazon.com.  Better yet, you can download the eBook for free at http://www.successtweets.com.

Today’s career advice comes from Tweet 95…

Get into a high performance mindset.  Don’t question yourself.  Trust your skills and abilities.

If you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve you have to trust yourself.  Trusting yourself is one of the key components of self confidence.  Self confident people cultivate a high performance mindset, one in which they believe they will succeed at whatever they attempt.

If you read this blog, you know that I am a big fan of The Optimist Creed. 

Point 4 of the creed says,

“Promise yourself to look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.”

Point 7 says,

“Promise yourself to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.”

You have to trust yourself to put these two bits of common sense career advice into play.  Optimists trust themselves.  They trust themselves to do whatever is necessary to meet the goals they set for themselves.  They trust themselves to develop the skills they need to meet their goals.  They trust themselves to create the life and career success they want and deserve.

There is a lot of great career advice in The Optimist Creed.  I have prepared a .pdf of it that you can download, print and hang in your office – just like I have done.  If you would like a copy of The Optimist Creed, go to http://budbilanich.com/optimist.

Here’s a personal example about trusting yourself.  I have trained thousands of people in leadership skills, I’ve led hundreds of team building workshops, I’ve coached hundreds of people, helping them create the life and career success they want and deserve.  Recently, I decided that I wanted to reach a broader audience – not just the people who work for the Fortune 500 companies who have engaged my consulting and coaching services.

To do this, I needed to make my ideas more widely available via the internet.  Several years ago, I realized that I didn’t have a clue about how to prepare, present and market my ideas on the internet.  I trusted my knowledge and wisdom, but I didn’t know how to get it to a broader audience.  This might have stopped some folks dead in their tracks.  But I trust my ability to learn new skills.

First I learned how to blog, and then I committed to blogging five days a week.  I’ve kept that commitment for the past five years.  I blog every Monday through Friday with the exception of two weeks at the end of the year.  That’s 250 posts every year.  Then I learned about social media.  I spend about an hour a day on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook sharing my thoughts on life and career success.  Finally, I’m continuing to learn about internet marketing – affiliate programs, membership sites, etc.  When I started, I had no internet marketing skills.  Today, I am a bit of an expert.  I say this realizing that I need to keep learning and growing in this field.

I trusted myself.  I knew I had something of value to give, and I knew I could learn the skills necessary to reach large numbers of people.  By the end of this year, I will have launched several information products on the internet – all because I trusted my ability to learn and my motivation to do new things.

How about you?  Do you trust yourself?  Do you believe that what you have to offer is important and of high quality?  Do you believe that you can learn what you need to know to succeed?  I bet you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this blog post.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people believe in themselves.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 95 in Success Tweets.  “Develop a high performance mindset.  Don’t question yourself.  Trust your skills and abilities.”  Trusting your skills and abilities means knowing when you need to learn something new, and then doing whatever it takes to gain that knowledge.  Be a self confident optimist.  Trust yourself.  Know in your heart of hearts that you will succeed. 

That’s my take on the career advice in Success Tweet 95.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  I appreciate and value every one of your comments.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

I’m really enjoying writing this series of posts further explaining the ideas in my latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I hope you’re enjoying reading them.  I’m pleased to say that Success Tweets is now in its second printing.  You can pick up a copy at your local book store, or online at Amazon.com.  Better yet, you can download the eBook for free at http://www.successtweets.com.

Today’s career advice comes from Tweet 94…

Don’t take yourself too seriously.  Lighten up.  It will help you master yourself and become an outstanding performer.

I love the internet.  You can find anything and everything there.  I googled “lighten up”.  I got 1,740,000 hits in less than half a second – 0.42 seconds to be exact.  I clicked on a Wiki How called “How to Lighten Up” and found six common sense tips on how to lighten up.

1. Stop assuming you know everything.  Nobody knows everything – even in his or her field.  When you think you know everything, you become closed to new ideas.

2. Stop exaggerating.  Be truthful with yourself about your skills and abilities.  Just like you should avoid assuming you know everything, you need to avoid coming across to others as a know it all.  Knowing it all sets you up for unwanted stress.

3. Let go of things.  I love what the WikiHow has to say about this.  “Better to be humble and humorous about your journey through life than to be the drama queen of Seriousville.”  Learn from your mistakes and move on.  Don’t hold grudges.

4. Laugh.  Be willing to laugh at yourself.  It may just be me, but I laugh about myself or something I do almost every day.  I’m not an idiot, but I do make my share of human mistakes.  Instead of getting frustrated, I choose to laugh.  Laugh with others.  Share their humor.  But, never laugh at others. 

5. Delegate.  This may come as a surprise to you, but you’re not indispensible.  Someone else can probably do your job at least as good, and maybe better than you.  The old saying “if you want something done right, do it yourself,” just isn’t true.  Figure out what you’re holding on to just to satisfy your ego, and then let it go.

6. Stop being so rules focused.  We make lots of rules for ourselves.  Things like “I should do this,” or “I should do that.”  As one of my early mentors told me – “Don’t should on yourself.  You’ll be happier.”  I couldn’t agree more.

I love these tips, and agree with them.  I thkn they are great career advice.  I particularly like number 4 – laugh.  I think that the ability to laugh at yourself on one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself – and the people around you.  Being too serious, beating up yourself over mistakes causes lots of stress.  And it makes you an unpleasant person.  No one wants to be around someone who is constantly frustrated by the smallest mistakes.

I heard a story about a teacher the other day.  She asked some young children just learning to read if they could identify the animal in a picture she showed them.  One little boy said, “it’s a frickin’ lion.”  The teacher was upset about his choice of modifiers.  When she pointed that out to him he said, “It is a frickin’ lion.  It says so right here.”  The teacher was frustrated, but looked at the picture again and saw that the caption read, “African Lion.”  Now that’s cause to laugh – at yourself and the phonics method of learning to read.

I also like point number 6 – stop being so rules focused.  As I mentioned above, we sometimes create unreasonable expectations for ourselves and these expectations become rules – if only in our head.  These rules become “shoulds.”  “Don’t should on yourself ” is some of the best career advice I’ve ever received.  Stop thinking that you should do this, or should be so far along in your career, or shouldn’t have to do a job you think is below you.  The best way to stop letting unnecessary rules govern your life is to stop making up rules to govern you.  Don’t should on yourself.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people work hard at creating the life and career success they want and deserve.  But they don’t take themselves too seriously.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 94 in Success Tweets.  “Don’t take yourself too seriously.  Lighten up.  It will help you master yourself and become an outstanding performer.”  If you want to lighten up laugh a little more, don’t get too caught up in rules by making too many “shoulds” for yourself.  Or, as one of my early mentors always said, “Don’t should on yourself.”

That’s my take on the career advice in Success Tweet 94.  What’s yours?  Are you willing to laugh at yourself?  Do you learn from your mistakes and move on?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

I’m really enjoying writing this series of posts further explaining the ideas in my latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I hope you’re enjoying reading them.  I’m pleased to say that Success Tweets is now in its second printing.  You can pick up a copy at your local book store, or online at Amazon.com.  Better yet, you can download the eBook for free at http://www.successtweets.com.

Today’s career advice comes from Tweet 93…

Becoming a high performer is easier if you’re physically fit.  Increasing your heart rate is a great way to improve your fitness level.

As a career success coach, I advise my clients to live a healthy lifestyle.  This means eating right and exercising.  You don’t have to become a tri-athlete; every little bit of exercise helps.  Exercise helps you increase your heart rate.  I like to ride my bike to increase my heart rate.

Dan Robey is a friend of mine.  He is the author of The Power of Positive Habits.  I am one of his subscribers.  A while back, I received a great e mail from Dan where he discussed how brisk walking is a positive habit – and a great way to increase your heart rate.  Dan is a generous guy and he always lets me repost his posts here. 

Check out what Dan robey has to say about the power of brisk walking…

Make “Brisk Walking” A Positive Habit

“Not running, not jogging, but walking is your most efficient exercise and the only one you can safely follow all the years of your life.” – Executive Health Organization

Walking as a daily exercise habit can truly be a life-changing positive habit and is one of the most powerful habits for reaching your goal of a healthy trim and fit body. Over the past 20 years, there have been dozens of studies that have proven the benefits of brisk walking.

Thousands upon thousands of people have improved their health and lost weight by the diligent habit of walking. If you think that walking does not provide the same benefits as other more vigorous exercises, think again.

A study published by the New England Journal Of Medicine showed that postmenopausal women who walked regularly lowered their risk for heart disease just as much as women who did more vigorous exercise, such as playing sports or running.

This study suggests that walking is just as good for your heart as heavy exercise. I spoke with study author Dr. JoAnn E. Manson, Chief of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Womens Hospital, Professor of Medicine, at Harvard Medical School.  She said, “The study provides compelling evidence that walking and vigorous exercise provide similar heart benefits, about a 30% to 40% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease with 30 minutes per day of either activity.”

I also asked her about the benefits of making brisk walking a positive habit, and she responded, “They could surely walk away from heart disease and several other chronic diseases. We have also found that brisk walking for at least 3 hours a week can lower the risk of stroke, type 2 diabetes, and breast cancer.”

No pain, no gain, is an outdated notion; exercise doesn’t need to be strenuous or uncomfortable. It can be easy and enjoyable. Even though the study consisted solely of women, it is likely that men would experience similar benefits from the positive habit of brisk walking.
 
Here are additional benefits you will receive from your habit of brisk walking:

Walking burns calories and helps you lose weight and burn excess body fat.

Walking can help to improve your posture.

Walking requires no special equipment or gyms.

Walking can help lower blood pressure and help prevent circulatory and heart disorders.

Brisk, aerobic walking will give you the benefits of other exercises, such as jogging and cycling, but without the risk of injuries.

Walking at night can help promote better sleep.

Dan makes some great points about the benefits of developing a positive habit of brisk walking.  Personally, I prefer to bicycle in the summer, and walk in the winter. 

A lot of the people who I coach say that they know they should exercise, but often can’t seem to “get around to it.”  I have come up with the answer this problem.  I have printed several thousand stickers that are round and say “TUIT” in big capital letters.  Whenever someone tells me that they know they should do something but can’t seem to get around to it, I give them one of these stickers.  It is a round TUIT.  I tell them that now they can never say that they can’t get a around to it anymore, because they have a round TUIT.  I have a round TUIT sticker on my computer.  I have another one on my bike.  They are constant reminders to me to keep up good work and exercise habits.

Would you like a round TUIT?  If so, please send me and email at Bud@BudBilanich.com with the words “Round TUIT” in the subject line.  Include your snail mail address, and I’ll put up to five round TUITs in the mail to you – free of charge.  Use them for yourself, or give them to your friends who are procrastinators — especially about exercise. 

Make sure that you get around to living a healthy lifestyle.  Elevate your heart rate.  Brisk walking is a great way to start.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are outstanding performers.  Outstanding performers live a healthy lifestyle.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 93 in Success Tweets.  “Becoming a high performer is easier if you’re physically fit.  Increasing your heart rate is a great way to improve your fitness level.”   My friend Dan Robey, author of The Power of Positive Habits says that brisk walking is a great way to increase your heart rate and one of the most healthy habits you can adopt.  I agree, almost everybody can walk.  The more you walk, the healthier you’ll be.  Dan points out that “No pain, no gain, is an outdated notion; exercise doesn’t need to be strenuous or uncomfortable. It can be easy and enjoyable.”  Elevate your heart rate daily.  Llike the Nike ads say, Just Do It!  Or as this career success coach says, “Get around to it.”

That’s my take on the career advice in Success Tweet 93 and on developing positive habits that will keep you healthy and on top of your game.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud