Joe Paterno passed away over the weekend.  You probably know this but he was the football coach at Penn State for the past 46 years.  He has more wins than any other coach in Division I college football.  He was known for running a very clean program with no recruiting violations or scandals.  Besides building a winning football program, Joe did a lot for Penn State, giving millions of dollars to the university to expand the library.

I’m a Penn State alum.  Joe was the head coach when I arrived there in the Fall of 1968.  I was always proud to be a Penn State alum.  I was especially proud of the football program and is reputation for fair play.

That all changed for me last Fall when one of Joe’s longtime assistant coaches was charged with several counts of child sex abuse.  You probably know the story.  In 2002, one of Joe’s assistant coaches, Mike McQueary observed Sandusky, who was retired but still had access to the Penn State football facilities, raping a young boy in a shower.  McQueary told Joe, who reported the incident to the Athletic Director.

Sandusky was never barred from the Penn State training facilities, and it is alleged that he continued to abuse young boys up until his arrest last Fall.  Many people, myself included, feel that Joe Paterno should have done more to follow up on what McQueary told him.  Make no mistake, he did what was required of him by law – he even testified at the Grand Jury investigating the allegations.  But doing what’s legal, isn’t necessarily doing what’s right.

Joe Paterno will forever be regarded as a great football coach, but one who gave tacit approval to child sex abuse.  And that’s the career success point of this post.   Your personal brand and reputation are important.  Guard them with all your might.

Last Friday, I was doing an interview for my membership site with Van Horsley, President of the Colorado operations of a large national bank.  I do these interviews to give my members inside advice on life and career success from successful people.  If you would like to see what the membership site is all about, go to http://www.MyCorporateClimb.com.  In our interview, Van concluded his remarks by saying, “Your integrity is an asset.  And once you spend that asset, it’s gone forever.”

As I listened to the coverage of Joe Paterno’s passing, I was reminded of Van’s remarks on integrity.  Joe Paterno spent his integrity when he didn’t follow up on the allegations about Jerry Sandusky.  By not doing so, and by continuing to let this man have access to the Penn State athletic facilities, Joe lost his integrity – which is too bad, because by all accounts he is a man of high integrity.

But that’s the way it goes.  It takes a long time to build a reputation as a person of integrity.  One foolish move can destroy all that.  All of the coverage on Joe’s passing said he “was a great football coach, BUT…”

Tweet 62 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Your personal brand should be unique to you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”

According to Wikipedia, “Integrity is consistency of actions, values, methods, measures and principles.”  Integrity and consistency are intertwined.  People who are consistent in their actions are seen as people with a high degree of integrity.

Oprah says, “Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.”  This is true.  If you practice situational ethics – doing the right thing only when you’re in the public eye — you aren’t really a person of high integrity, you’re just pretending to be one.

Besides, it’s hard to act one way in public, and another in private.  So to be safe, resolve to act like Oprah.  Do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do – not because you’ll get credit, or avoid getting into trouble.

John Maxwell is a well-known business author.  One of his books sends the same message.  It’s called, There’s No Such Thing As Business Ethics: There’s Only One Rule for Making Decisions.  According to John, that rule is the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  In other words, do the right thing.

There’s a practical side to this too.  Mark Twain once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”  In other words, if you’re always a person of high integrity, it’s easy to be a person of high integrity; there are no complicating factors – like remembering what you did or said in a given situation.

Polonius gave similar advice to Hamlet.  “To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day the night, thou canst be false to no man.”  Roy Blackman, my father in law, passed away a few years ago.  This quote was his epitaph.  It was on the program handed out at his funeral.  Roy embodied it in how he lived his life.  It was the only piece of advice he gave his grandson, Matt, as he went off to college.

Oprah, John Maxwell, Mark Twain and Shakespeare are all in agreement on one common sense piece of career advice.  If you want to become known as a person of high integrity – and I believe integrity is the cornerstone of any personal brand – act as a person of high integrity all the time – not just when it suits you, or when someone might notice.

Here’s a story to illustrate this point.  Cathy, my wife, was a flight attendant for 36 years.  Seniority is a very important thing in the airline industry.  It governs how you bid for trips, positions on the airplane and vacations – almost anything important to a flight attendant’s quality of work life.

Cathy was very active in her union.  And seniority was one of the union’s most sacred principles.  A few years before she retired, Cathy’s airline made a big push into the international market.  International flights were plum assignments; they went to people with high seniority.

However, the airline realized that it would be to their advantage to have some flight attendants who spoke the language of the country to which they were flying on these international flights.  Most flight attendants in her airline spoke English only.  The airline proposed putting two “language speakers” on each international flight.  Many people, including Cathy, were upset with this arrangement as they felt it violated the seniority concept.

Cathy used to fly from the US to London.  One day I said to her, “This whole language speaker issue doesn’t really affect you.  You fly to London; there are no language speakers on those flights.  Why do you care so much?”  She said, “I believe in the concept of seniority.  It doesn’t matter if I’m affected by language speakers.  It’s the principle of the thing.”  That’s consistency – and integrity — in action.

And that brings us back to Joe Paterno.  Here was a man with an incredibly strong personal brand.  He was known for doing the right thing in a business where too many people don’t do the right thing.  Sadly, his legacy is forever tarnished, because of what he didn’t do at a moment of truth.  I’m not writing this post to pass judgment on Joe – enough people have done that already.  I am writing it however, to reinforce my point of building your personal brand on integrity.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Creating positive personal impact is one of the competencies all successful people possess.  You create positive personal impact by developing and nurturing your unique personal brand, being impeccable in your presentation of self, and knowing and following the basic rules of etiquette.  Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but it should be built on integrity.  Follow the advice in Tweet 62 in Success Tweets.  “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  As the sad ending to Joe Paterno’s career and life demonstrates, even a momentary lapse in your integrity can lead to serious consequences for a carefully crafted brand.

That’s the career advice I take from the sad ending of Joe Paterno’s life and career.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to 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.

The June 2011 SUCCESS Magazine arrived over the weekend.  As you know, I’m a big fan of SUCCESS.  It has tons of great common sense career success advice.  If you’re not already a subscriber, I suggest you go to http://www.success.com and subscribe as soon as you finish reading this post.

The new issue has a small story called “5 Tips for Creating a Powerful Personal Brand.”  I think that a powerful personal brand is the first step in creating positive personal impact – a key ingredient in your career success mix.

The article lists these five keys for building your brand…

1. Brand yourself through your professional presence.
2. Brand yourself as a valued partner.
3. Brand yourself with strong communication skills.
4. Brand yourself by staying one step ahead.
5. Brand yourself as being social savvy.

I agree with all five of these common sense personal branding tips.  If you page through my career advice book Success Tweets, you ‘ll see that I mention all of them in one way or another.

I do have one additional common sense personal branding tip to add though…

Brand yourself as a person of integrity.

Tweet 62 in Success Tweets says… “Your personal brand should be unique to you, but build on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  Like all of the tweets, this is simple common sense.

According to Wikipedia, “Integrity is consistency of actions, values, methods, measures and principles.”  Integrity and consistency are intertwined.  People who are consistent in their actions are seen as people with a high degree of integrity.

Oprah says, “Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.”  This is true.  If you practice situational ethics – doing the right thing only when you’re in the public eye — you aren’t really a person of high integrity, you’re just pretending to be one.

Besides, it’s hard to act one way in public, and another in private.  So to be safe, resolve to act like Oprah.  Do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do – not because you’ll get credit, or avoid getting into trouble.

John Maxwell is a well-known business author.  One of his books sends the same message.  It’s called, There’s No Such Thing As Business Ethics: There’s Only One Rule for Making Decisions.  According to John, that rule is the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  In other words, do the right thing.

There’s a practical side to this too.  Mark Twain once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”  In other words, if you’re always a person of high integrity, it’s easy to be a person of high integrity; there are no complicating factors – like remembering what you did or said in a given situation; more common sense.

Polonius gave similar advice to Hamlet.  “To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day the night, thou canst be false to no man.”  Roy Blackman, my father in law, passed away a few years ago.  This quote was his epitaph.  It was on the program handed out at his funeral.  Roy embodied it in how he lived his life.  It was the only piece of advice he gave his grandson, Matt, as he went off to college.

Oprah, John Maxwell, Mark Twain and Shakespeare are all in agreement on one common sense piece of career advice.  If you want to become known as a person of high integrity – and I believe integrity is the cornerstone of any personal brand – act as a person of high integrity all the time;  not just when it suits you, or when someone might notice.

Here’s a story to illustrate this point.  Cathy, my wife, was a flight attendant for 36 years.  Seniority is a very important thing in the airline industry.  It governs how you bid for trips, positions on the airplane and vacations – almost anything important to a flight attendant’s quality of work life.

Cathy was very active in her union.  And seniority was one of the union’s most sacred principles.  A few years before she retired, Cathy’s airline made a big push into the international market.  International flights were plum assignments; they went to people with high seniority.

However, the airline realized that it would be to their advantage to have some flight attendants who spoke the language of the country to which they were flying on these international flights.  Most senior flight attendants in her airline spoke English only.  The airline proposed putting two “language speakers” on each international flight.  Many people, including Cathy, were upset with this arrangement as they felt it violated the seniority concept.

Cathy used to fly from the US to London.  One day I said to her, “This whole language speaker issue doesn’t really affect you.  You fly to London; there are no language speakers on those flights.  Why do you care so much?”  She said, “I believe in the concept of seniority.  It doesn’t matter if I’m affected by language speakers.  It’s the principle of the thing.”  That’s consistency – and integrity — in action; and a great career success model.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Creating positive personal impact is an important career success competency.  You create positive personal impact by developing and nurturing your unique personal brand, being impeccable in your presentation of self, and knowing and following the basic rules of etiquette.  Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but it should be built on integrity.  Follow the career advice in Tweet 62 in Success Tweets.  “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  Arnold Schwazanegger’s revelations yesterday demonstrates how a lack of integrity can lead to serious consequences for a carefully crafted brand.  Take a lesson from Arnold.  Build your personal brand and your career success on integrity.

That’s my career advice on personal branding – especially the importance of integrity to your brand.  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 advice book Success Tweets Explained.  It’s a whopping 390 + pages of careersuccess advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.

The June 2011 SUCCESS Magazine arrived over the weekend.  As you know, I’m a big fan of SUCCESS.  It has tons of great common sense career success advice.  If you’re not already a subscriber, I suggest you go to http://www.success.com and subscribe as soon as you finish reading this post.

The new issue has a small story called “5 Tips for Creating a Powerful Personal Brand.”  I think that a powerful personal brand is the first step in creating positive personal impact – a key ingredient in your career success mix.

The article lists these five keys for building your brand…

1. Brand yourself through your professional presence.
2. Brand yourself as a valued partner.
3. Brand yourself with strong communication skills.
4. Brand yourself by staying one step ahead.
5. Brand yourself as being social savvy.

I agree with all five of these common sense personal branding tips.  If you page through my career advice book Success Tweets, you ‘ll see that I mention all of them in one way or another.

I do have one additional common sense personal branding tip to add though…

Brand yourself as a person of integrity.

Tweet 62 in Success Tweets says… “Your personal brand should be unique to you, but build on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  Like all of the tweets, this is simple common sense.

According to Wikipedia, “Integrity is consistency of actions, values, methods, measures and principles.”  Integrity and consistency are intertwined.  People who are consistent in their actions are seen as people with a high degree of integrity.

Oprah says, “Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.”  This is true.  If you practice situational ethics – doing the right thing only when you’re in the public eye — you aren’t really a person of high integrity, you’re just pretending to be one.

Besides, it’s hard to act one way in public, and another in private.  So to be safe, resolve to act like Oprah.  Do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do – not because you’ll get credit, or avoid getting into trouble.

John Maxwell is a well-known business author.  One of his books sends the same message.  It’s called, There’s No Such Thing As Business Ethics: There’s Only One Rule for Making Decisions.  According to John, that rule is the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  In other words, do the right thing.

There’s a practical side to this too.  Mark Twain once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”  In other words, if you’re always a person of high integrity, it’s easy to be a person of high integrity; there are no complicating factors – like remembering what you did or said in a given situation; more common sense.

Polonius gave similar advice to Hamlet.  “To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day the night, thou canst be false to no man.”  Roy Blackman, my father in law, passed away a few years ago.  This quote was his epitaph.  It was on the program handed out at his funeral.  Roy embodied it in how he lived his life.  It was the only piece of advice he gave his grandson, Matt, as he went off to college.

Oprah, John Maxwell, Mark Twain and Shakespeare are all in agreement on one common sense piece of career advice.  If you want to become known as a person of high integrity – and I believe integrity is the cornerstone of any personal brand – act as a person of high integrity all the time;  not just when it suits you, or when someone might notice.

Here’s a story to illustrate this point.  Cathy, my wife, was a flight attendant for 36 years.  Seniority is a very important thing in the airline industry.  It governs how you bid for trips, positions on the airplane and vacations – almost anything important to a flight attendant’s quality of work life.

Cathy was very active in her union.  And seniority was one of the union’s most sacred principles.  A few years before she retired, Cathy’s airline made a big push into the international market.  International flights were plum assignments; they went to people with high seniority.

However, the airline realized that it would be to their advantage to have some flight attendants who spoke the language of the country to which they were flying on these international flights.  Most senior flight attendants in her airline spoke English only.  The airline proposed putting two “language speakers” on each international flight.  Many people, including Cathy, were upset with this arrangement as they felt it violated the seniority concept.

Cathy used to fly from the US to London.  One day I said to her, “This whole language speaker issue doesn’t really affect you.  You fly to London; there are no language speakers on those flights.  Why do you care so much?”  She said, “I believe in the concept of seniority.  It doesn’t matter if I’m affected by language speakers.  It’s the principle of the thing.”  That’s consistency – and integrity — in action; and a great career success model.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Creating positive personal impact is an important career success competency.  You create positive personal impact by developing and nurturing your unique personal brand, being impeccable in your presentation of self, and knowing and following the basic rules of etiquette.  Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but it should be built on integrity.  Follow the career advice in Tweet 62 in Success Tweets.  “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  Arnold Schwazanegger’s revelations yesterday demonstrates how a lack of integrity can lead to serious consequences for a carefully crafted brand.  Take a lesson from Arnold.  Build your personal brand and your career success on integrity.

That’s my career advice on personal branding – especially the importance of integrity to your brand.  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 advice book Success Tweets Explained.  It’s a whopping 390 + pages of careersuccess advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.

I saw a great movie over the weekend that brought up a great point about personal branding and career success: Win Win.  Paul Giamatti plays a small town lawyer whose practice is hurting.  He needs money to pay his bills like health care insurance, cutting down a dead tree in his front yard and fixing the furnace in his office.  He finds what he considers to be a safe way to take advantage of a situation and commits an ethical breach that comes back to haunt him. 

Win Win reminded me of the career advice in Tweet 62 in my career success book, Success Tweets.  “Your brand should be unique to you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”

In Win Win Paul Giamatti thought no one was looking – and they weren’t at the time.  But as things played out, several people learned of his ethical breach and lost respect for him.  Things worked out OK for him in the end, but he was in real danger of losing his law practice. 

According to Wikipedia, “Integrity is consistency of actions, values, methods, measures and principles.”  Integrity and consistency are intertwined.  People who are consistent in their actions are seen as people with a high degree of integrity.

Oprah says, “Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.”  This is true.  If you practice situational ethics – doing the right thing only when you’re in the public eye — you aren’t really a person of high integrity, you’re just pretending to be one.

Besides, it’s hard to act one way in public, and another in private.  So to be safe, resolve to act like Oprah.  Do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do – not because you’ll get credit, or avoid getting into trouble.

John Maxwell is a well-known business author.  One of his books sends the same message.  It’s called, There’s No Such Thing As Business Ethics: There’s Only One Rule for Making Decisions.  According to John that rule is the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  In other words, do the right thing.  Act with integrity all the time.

There’s a practical side to this too.  Mark Twain once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”  In other words, if you’re always a person of high integrity, it’s easy to be a person of high integrity; there are no complicating factors – like remembering what you did or said in a given situation.

Polonius gave similar advice to Hamlet.  “To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day the night, thou canst be false to no man.”  Roy Blackman, my father in law, passed away a few years ago.  This quote was his epitaph.  It was on the program handed out at his funeral.  Roy embodied it in how he lived his life.  It was the only piece of advice he gave his grandson, Matt, as he went off to college.  When you act with integrity, you are being true to yourself.

Oprah, John Maxwell, Mark Twain and Shakespeare are all in agreement on one common sense piece of career advice.  If you want to become known as a person of high integrity – and I believe integrity is the cornerstone of any personal brand – act as a person of high integrity all the time – not just when it suits you, or when someone might notice.

Here’s a story to illustrate this point.  Cathy, my wife, was a flight attendant for 36 years.  Seniority is a very important thing in the airline industry.  It governs how you bid for trips, positions on the airplane and vacations – everythin that is important to a flight attendant’s quality of work life.

Cathy was very active in her union.  And seniority was one of the union’s most sacred principles.  A few years before she retired, Cathy’s airline made a big push into the international market.  International flights were plum assignments; they went to people with high seniority.

However, the airline realized that it would be to their advantage to have some flight attendants who spoke the language of the country to which they were flying on these international flights. 

Most flight attendants in her airline, and her seniority level,  spoke English only.  The airline proposed putting two “language speakers” on each international flight.  Many people, including Cathy, were upset with this arrangement as they felt it violated the seniority concept.

Cathy used to fly from the US to London.  One day I said to her, “This whole language speaker issue doesn’t really affect you.  You fly to London; there are no language speakers on those flights.  Why do you care so much?”  She said, “I believe in the concept of seniority.  It doesn’t matter if I’m affected by language speakers.  It’s the principle of the thing.”  That’s consistency – and integrity — in action.

Then there’s Tiger Woods.  Tiger had one of the best personal brands in the world.  He earned close to $100 million in 2009 on it.  If you were following the news in late 2009 and early 2010 (how could you miss it?), you know that the Tiger brand has taken som e serious hits because of his marital indiscretions which have come to light.

Sadly for Tiger, his integrity is now in question – and that’s being kind.  His wife has left him, taking the kids.  Several sponsors have dropped him.  And, his golf game is suffering.  It will be interesting to see how he does this week at The Masters.  I’m not writing this to pass judgment on Tiger – enough people have done that already.  I am writing it however, to reinforce my point of building your personal brand on integrity.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Creating positive personal impact is one of the competencies of all successful people.  You create positive personal impact by developing and nurturing your unique personal brand, being impeccable in your presentation of self, and knowing and following the basic rules of etiquette.  Your personal brand is really important.  Don’t mess with it.  Follow the career advice in Tweet 62 in Success Tweets.  “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  As the movie Win Win and Tiger Woods’s case demonstrates, a lack of integrity can lead to serious consequences for a carefully crafted brand.  Take a lesson from Tiger – one he’s learning the hard way – build your personal brand on integrity.

That’s my career advice on the importance of building your personal brand on integrity.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  And, as always, thanks for reading my musings on life and career success. 

Bud

I saw a great movie over the weekend that brought up a great point about personal branding and career success: Win Win.  Paul Giamatti plays a small town lawyer whose practice is hurting.  He needs money to pay his bills like health care insurance, cutting down a dead tree in his front yard and fixing the furnace in his office.  He finds what he considers to be a safe way to take advantage of a situation and commits an ethical breach that comes back to haunt him. 

Win Win reminded me of the career advice in Tweet 62 in my career success book, Success Tweets.  “Your brand should be unique to you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”

In Win Win Paul Giamatti thought no one was looking – and they weren’t at the time.  But as things played out, several people learned of his ethical breach and lost respect for him.  Things worked out OK for him in the end, but he was in real danger of losing his law practice. 

According to Wikipedia, “Integrity is consistency of actions, values, methods, measures and principles.”  Integrity and consistency are intertwined.  People who are consistent in their actions are seen as people with a high degree of integrity.

Oprah says, “Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.”  This is true.  If you practice situational ethics – doing the right thing only when you’re in the public eye — you aren’t really a person of high integrity, you’re just pretending to be one.

Besides, it’s hard to act one way in public, and another in private.  So to be safe, resolve to act like Oprah.  Do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do – not because you’ll get credit, or avoid getting into trouble.

John Maxwell is a well-known business author.  One of his books sends the same message.  It’s called, There’s No Such Thing As Business Ethics: There’s Only One Rule for Making Decisions.  According to John that rule is the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  In other words, do the right thing.  Act with integrity all the time.

There’s a practical side to this too.  Mark Twain once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”  In other words, if you’re always a person of high integrity, it’s easy to be a person of high integrity; there are no complicating factors – like remembering what you did or said in a given situation.

Polonius gave similar advice to Hamlet.  “To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day the night, thou canst be false to no man.”  Roy Blackman, my father in law, passed away a few years ago.  This quote was his epitaph.  It was on the program handed out at his funeral.  Roy embodied it in how he lived his life.  It was the only piece of advice he gave his grandson, Matt, as he went off to college.  When you act with integrity, you are being true to yourself.

Oprah, John Maxwell, Mark Twain and Shakespeare are all in agreement on one common sense piece of career advice.  If you want to become known as a person of high integrity – and I believe integrity is the cornerstone of any personal brand – act as a person of high integrity all the time – not just when it suits you, or when someone might notice.

Here’s a story to illustrate this point.  Cathy, my wife, was a flight attendant for 36 years.  Seniority is a very important thing in the airline industry.  It governs how you bid for trips, positions on the airplane and vacations – everythin that is important to a flight attendant’s quality of work life.

Cathy was very active in her union.  And seniority was one of the union’s most sacred principles.  A few years before she retired, Cathy’s airline made a big push into the international market.  International flights were plum assignments; they went to people with high seniority.

However, the airline realized that it would be to their advantage to have some flight attendants who spoke the language of the country to which they were flying on these international flights. 

Most flight attendants in her airline, and her seniority level,  spoke English only.  The airline proposed putting two “language speakers” on each international flight.  Many people, including Cathy, were upset with this arrangement as they felt it violated the seniority concept.

Cathy used to fly from the US to London.  One day I said to her, “This whole language speaker issue doesn’t really affect you.  You fly to London; there are no language speakers on those flights.  Why do you care so much?”  She said, “I believe in the concept of seniority.  It doesn’t matter if I’m affected by language speakers.  It’s the principle of the thing.”  That’s consistency – and integrity — in action.

Then there’s Tiger Woods.  Tiger had one of the best personal brands in the world.  He earned close to $100 million in 2009 on it.  If you were following the news in late 2009 and early 2010 (how could you miss it?), you know that the Tiger brand has taken som e serious hits because of his marital indiscretions which have come to light.

Sadly for Tiger, his integrity is now in question – and that’s being kind.  His wife has left him, taking the kids.  Several sponsors have dropped him.  And, his golf game is suffering.  It will be interesting to see how he does this week at The Masters.  I’m not writing this to pass judgment on Tiger – enough people have done that already.  I am writing it however, to reinforce my point of building your personal brand on integrity.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Creating positive personal impact is one of the competencies of all successful people.  You create positive personal impact by developing and nurturing your unique personal brand, being impeccable in your presentation of self, and knowing and following the basic rules of etiquette.  Your personal brand is really important.  Don’t mess with it.  Follow the career advice in Tweet 62 in Success Tweets.  “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  As the movie Win Win and Tiger Woods’s case demonstrates, a lack of integrity can lead to serious consequences for a carefully crafted brand.  Take a lesson from Tiger – one he’s learning the hard way – build your personal brand on integrity.

That’s my career advice on the importance of building your personal brand on integrity.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  And, as always, thanks for reading my musings on life and career success. 

Bud

A unique and distinctive personal brand is a big part of creating positive personal impact and your life and career success.  However, there is one thing that I believe that should be a part of everyone’s personal brand – integrity. 

Tweet 62 in my latest career success book Success Tweets says it well.  “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”

I get a daily meditation from my friends at The Walk the Talk Company.  You can get one too by going to their website (www.walkthetalk.com) and signing up. 

Several months ago, their meditation was this quote from Oprah Winfrey.  “Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.”  This is true, man is it true.  If you practice situational ethics – doing the right thing only when you’re in the public eye — you aren’t really a person of high integrity, you’re just pretending to be one.  And in my experience this will catch up with you and hamper your drive toward the life and career success you want and deserve.

Besides, it’s hard to act one way in public, and another in private.  So to be safe, resolve to act like Oprah.  Do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do – not because you’ll get credit, or avoid getting into trouble.  This approach to life will put you on the road to career success.

John Maxwell is a well known business author.  One of his books sends the same message.  It’s called There’s No Such Thing As Business Ethics: There’s Only One Rule for Making Decisions.  According to John, that rule is the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  In other words, do the right thing.  Always act with integrity.

There’s a practical side to this too.  Mark Twain once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”  In other words, if you’re a person of high integrity there are no complicating factors – like remembering what you did or said in a given situation.

Polonius gave similar advice to Hamlet.  “To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day the night, thou canst be false to no man.” 

Roy Blackman, my father in law passed away a few years ago.  This quote was his epitaph.  It was on the program handed out at his funeral.  Roy embodied it in how he lived his life.  It was the only piece of advice he gave his grandson, Matt, as he went off to college.

Oprah, John Maxwell, Mark Twain and Shakespeare — and me to, for that matter — are all in agreement on one common sense career success point.  If you want to become known as a person of high integrity – and I believe integrity is the cornerstone of any personal brand – act as a person of high integrity all the time – not just when it suits you, or when someone might notice.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Creating positive personal impact is  a necessarycompetency you must develop if you want to creat the life and career success you deserve.  The first step in creating positive personal impact is developing and nurturing your unique personal brand.  Your personal brand should be built on integrity.  This is embodied in the career advice in Tweet 62 in Success Tweets.  “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”  Act with integrity and you will become known as a person who can be trusted.  Being trusted will help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s my career advice on the importance of building your personal brand on integrity.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my career advice.  Thanks even more for your comments.  They help me make this career success blog the absolute best it can be.

Bud

This is my last career advice blog post of 2010.  I always take off two weeks at the end of the year to celebrate the holidays, to visit family, to recharge my batteries and to prepare myself for the coming year.  I will begin posting again on January 3, 2011.  Happy holidays to you and your family.

I have been blogging about life and career success for quite a while now.  I always say that creating the life and career success you want and deserve is a matter of applied common sense.  My writing, speaking and coaching is devoted to providing easily implementable common sense ideas that you can use to create your career success.

If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I am a big fan of SUCCESS Magazine.  If you’re not a subscriber to SUCCESS you should be.  I read it cover to cover every month.  Each issue provides truly valuable career advice – the kind of stuff that will get you on the road to career success and help you stay there.

I was reading the latest issue of SUCCESS the other day.  It had an article called “Get Started: Take the First Step Toward Success” by John Maxwell, a well known author and speaker.  I mentioned him in a post a couple of days ago.  Three of John’s books have sold more than a million copies.  I have several of them on my office bookshelf.  He writes a great blog that you can find at www.JohnMaxwellOnLeadership.com. 

As I read the article in SUCCESS, I was struck by how much John Maxwell and I think alike.  Here are some examples from the SUCCESS article and my latest book Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less… 

Maxwell says, “Know yourself.” 

Success Tweet 125 says “Get to know yourself.  Use your self knowledge to better understand others and build mutually beneficial relationships with them.”

Maxwell says, “Determine your priorities.” 

Success Tweet 7 says, “Figure out what you really want to do.  Work you love will make it easier to create the life and career success you want and deserve.”

Maxwell says, “Develop your life philosophy.” 

Success Tweet 17 says, “Clarify your personal values.  Your values are your anchor.  They ground you.  They center you.  They keep you focused on what’s important.”

Maxwell says, “Get physically fit.” 

Success Tweet 91 says, “The better you fell, the better you’ll perform.  Live a healthy lifestyle.  Eat well.  Exercise regularly.  Get regular checkups.”  Success Tweet 93 says, “Becoming a high performer is easier if you’re physically fit.  Increasing your heart rate is a great way to improve your fitness level.”

Maxwell says, “Learn your trade.” 

Success Tweet 83 says, “Master your technical discipline.  Share what you know.  Become the go to person in your discipline in your company.”

Maxwell says, “Pay the price.” 

Success Tweet 97 says, “Today, do the things others won’t do; so tomorrow you can do the things they can’t do.”

Maxwell says, “Develop solid relationships.” 

Success Tweet 123 says, “Use every interaction to build and strengthen relationships.  Strong relationships are your ticket to success.”  Success Tweet 127 says, “Pay it forward.  Build relationships by giving with no expectation of return.  Give of yourself to build strong relationships.”

Maxwell says, “Prepare for the future.” 

Success Tweet 81 says, “Become a lifelong learner.  The half-life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing.  Staying in the same place is the same as going backwards.”

Maxwell says, “Find purpose in your life.” 

Success Tweet 3 says, “Think of your purpose as your personal mission; why you are on this earth.”  Success Tweet 4 says, “The mightier your purpose the more likely you are to succeed.  It will give you a strong foundation when the winds of change shift.”

I make these comparisons between John Maxwell’s advice in SUCCESS and the advice in Success Tweets to show how most career success is simple common sense.  However, to take advantage of any career advice you have to work at it. 

As we approach 2011, I urge you gather up the five or so bits of career advice that make the most sense to you — no matter where you found them, and create a plan for how you will put that career advice into play in the coming year.  Take it one step at a time.  Keep focused on creating the  life and career success you deserve.  As Success Tweet 21 says, “You’re in charge! Commit to taking personal responsibility for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.”

There is a bonus tweet in Success Tweets.  Success Tweet 141 says, “Knowing is not enough.  Successful people will read the advice in these tweets.  And they act on it.  Be a successful person.”  That’s my wish for you as we enter 2011.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Remember the advice in Success Tweet 141.  “Knowing is not enough.  Successful people will read the advice in these tweets.  And they will act on it.  Be a successful person.”  Knowing is great.  Acting is better.  Knowing is easy.  As I’ve demonstrated in this post, most career success advice is the same message, presented in different words.  That’s why I urge you to find the five bits of career advice that make the most sense to you and act on them.  Knowing is not enough.  You have to do.  Thank you for reading these posts in 2010.  I hope you continue to read and comment on what I write in 2011.  More important, you have my best wishes for making 2011 your best year yet – one in which you truly achieve the life and career success you want and that you deserve.

That’s my last career advice blog post for 2010.  What do you think?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.  Best wishes for your career success in 2011 and beyond.

Bud

Competence is one of the four common sense coach keys to career success that I discuss in my new book Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  You can purchase a copy of Success Tweets on Amazon.com or at your local bookstore, or better yet, you can download it for free at www.SuccessTweets.com.

If you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve, you need to develop four basic but important competencies: 1) creating positive personal impact; 2) becoming a consistently high performer; 3) communication skills; and 4) relationship building.

You create positive personal impact in three ways.  1) Developing and nurturing your unique personal brand.  2) Being impeccable in your presentation of self – in person and on line.  3) Knowing and following the basic rules of etiquette.

Today’s career advice on personal branding comes from Tweet 62 in Success Tweets…

Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.

There are two common sense steps for developing and nurturing your personal brand.

• Figure out how you want people to think of you.
• Consistently and constantly act in a manner that will lead them to think of you that way.

While your brand should reflect you and your uniqueness, it has to be built on integrity.  According to Wikipedia, “Integrity is consistency of actions, values, methods, measures and principles.”  Integrity and consistency are intertwined.  People who are consistent in their actions are seen as people with a high degree of integrity.

Oprah says, “Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.”  This is true.  If you practice situational ethics – doing the right thing only when you’re in the public eye — you aren’t really a person of high integrity, you’re just pretending to be one.

Besides, it’s hard to act one way in public, and another in private.  So to be safe, resolve to act like Oprah.  Do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do – not because you’ll get credit, or avoid getting into trouble.

John Maxwell is a well known business author.  One of his books sends the same message.  It’s called There’s No Such Thing As Business Ethics: There’s Only One Rule for Making Decisions.  According to John, that rule is the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  In other words, do the right thing.

There’s a practical side to this too.  Mark Twain once said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”  In other words, if you’re always a person of high integrity, it’s easy to be a person of high integrity; there are no complicating factors – like remembering what you did or said in a given situation.

Polonius gave similar advice to Hamlet.  “To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the day the night, thou canst be false to no man.”  Roy Blackman, my father in law, passed away a few years ago.  This quote was his epitaph.  It was on the program handed out at his funeral.  Roy embodied it in how he lived his life.  It was the only piece of advice he gave his grandson, Matt, as he went off to college.

Oprah, John Maxwell, Mark Twain and Shakespeare are all in agreement on one common sense piece of career advice.  If you want to become known as a person of high integrity – and integrity is the cornerstone of any personal brand – act as a person of high integrity all the times – not just when it suits you, or when someone might notice.

Here’s a story to illustrate this point.  Cathy, my wife, was a flight attendant for 36 years.  Seniority is a very important thing in the airline industry.  It governs how you bid for trips, positions on the airplane and vacations – almost anything important to a flight attendant’s quality of work life.

Cathy was very active in her union.  And seniority was one of the union’s most sacred principles.  A few years before she retired, Cathy’s airline made a big push into the international market.  International flights were plum assignments, they went to people with high seniority. 

However, the airline realized that it would be to their advantage to have some flight attendants who spoke the language of the country to which they were flying on these international flights.  Most flight attendants in her airline spoke English only.  The airline proposed putting two “language speakers” on each international flight.  Many people, including Cathy, were upset with this arrangement as they felt it violated the seniority concept.

Cathy used to fly from the US to London.  One day I said to her, “This whole language speaker issue doesn’t really affect you.  You fly to London, there are no language speakers on those flights.  Why do you care so much?”  She said, “I believe in the concept of seniority.  It doesn’t matter if I’m affected by language speakers.  It’s the principal of the thing.”  That’s consistency – and integrity — in action.

On the other hand, there’s Tiger Woods.  Tiger had one of the best personal brands in the world.  He earned close to $100 million in 2009 on it.  He will earn a lot less in 2010.  If you were following the news in late 2009 and early 2010, (how could you miss it) you know that the Tiger brand is in serious jeopardy because of some of his indiscretions which have come to light. 

Sadly for Tiger, his integrity is now in question – and that’s being kind.  His wife has left him, taking the kids.  Several sponsors have dropped him.  And, his golf game is suffering.  I’m not writing this post to pass judgment on Tiger – enough people have done that already.  I am writing it however, to reinforce my point of building your personal brand on integrity.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Creating positive personal impact is one of the competencies all successful people possess.  You create positive personal impact by developing and nurturing your unique personal brand, being impeccable in your presentation of self, and knowing and following the basic rules of etiquette.  Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but it should be built on integrity.  Follow the career advice in Tweet 62 in Success Tweets.  “Your personal brand should be uniquely you, but built on integrity.  Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.  As Tiger Woods’s case demonstrates, a lack of integrity can lead to serious consequences for a carefully crafted brand.  Now, everyone is looking at Tiger and most people aren’t liking what they’re seeing.  So take a lesson from Tiger – one he’s learning the hard way — build your personal brand on integrity.

That’s my take on the career advice in Tweet 62 in Success Tweets.  What’s yours?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

My latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less is now available on Amazon.com and in bookstores.  I am in the process of blogging about each of the tweets in it. You can get a free copy of Success Tweets at www.SuccessTweets.com.  If you like it, I’d appreciate a positive review on Amazon.com.

Today’s career success coach post is on Tweet 39…

While other people and events have an impact on our life, they don’t shape it.  You get to choose how you react to people and events.

As I was getting ready to write this post, an email from my friends at Heart Math popped up in my in box.  It had a quote from Viktor Frankl…

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”

Victor Frankl survived the Nazi death camps in WWII.  He lost his wife, mother and father in those camps.  His experience with the Nazis led him to conclude that even in the most absurd, painful and dehumanized situation, life has potential meaning. 

He chronicled his experiences in the camps and what he learned from them in his famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning.  In 1991, the US Library of Congress designated it as one of the ten most influential books in the United States.  It as sold over 10 million copies and been translated into 24 languages.

One of his famous quotes always brings tears to my eyes…

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Speaking of attitude, the June 2010 issue of SUCCESS Magazine has a great article by John Maxwell called “Attitude Is the Difference Maker.”  If you’re not already a subscirber, I suggest you go to www.success.com and become one.  The career advice in SUCCESS is invaluable.  WhatJohn has to say about attitude is a great example. .. 

“Attitude isn’t everything, but it’s the main difference maker.”

As you can see from the Viktor Frankl quote above, choosing your attitude is choosing your own way.   As a human being, you get to choose how you respond to the people and events in your life.  You can choose to have a positive, optimistic attitude and respond to difficult people and events in a constructive manner.  Or, you can choose to have a negative attitude and respond to difficult people and events in a self destructive manner.  Your attitude is the difference maker between a successful, rewarding life and career and an unsuccessful and unfulfilling life and career.

Take it from a career success coach.  You get to choose how you respond to every person you meet and everything that happens that happens to you.  Your moment of choice comes in between the stimulus and your response.  This can be a small space, but it is a real space that exists.  Your attitude has a big impact on what you choose in these moments of choice.

Writing in SUCCESS, John Maxwell says, “Your attitude makes a difference in how you face challenges.  Successful people don’t have fewer problems than unsuccessful people – they just have a different mindset.”  That bares repeating – “Successful people don’t have fewer problems than unsuccessful people – they just have a different mindset.”

We all have our problems and challenges.  The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is simple.  Successful people choose to respond to problems in a positive manner.  They choose a positive, proactive approach.  They choose to take personal responsibility for themselves, their actions and their life and career success.  They choose to see problems as challenges – and they meet the challenges they encounter. 

Choose is the important word here.  We human beings have free will.  We can choose how we respond to the things that happen to us.  We can choose our attitude.  Successful people choose to respond positively to the negative people and events in their lives.  Successful people choose to have a positive attitude.

The SUCCESS article has a quote from Chuck Swindoll on the “Power of Attitude”…

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.  Attitude, to me, is more important than education, than money, than circumstance, than failures, than successes, then what other people think, say or do.  It is more important that appearance, giftedness or scale.  It will make or break a company, a church, a home.  The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we embrace for that day.  We cannot change the past.  We cannot change the fact that people act in a certain way.  We cannot change the inevitable.  The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.  I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90 % how I react to it; and so it is with you.  We are in charge of our attitude.”

Or as Viktor Frankl says…

“Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Your attitude is the difference maker.  A positive attitude leads to positive results and career success.  A negative attitude leads to negative results.  The good thing is that you can choose your attitude.  Remember the career advice and wisdom in Tweet 39 in Success Tweets.  “While other people and events have an impact on our life, they don’t shape it.  You get to choose how you react to people and events.”  Use the free will that God has given you to create your life and career success.  Choose a positive attitude.  Choose to respond positively to the negative people and events in your life.  Remember what Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor teaches us, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”  Empower yourself to make the right choices, the positive choices, when you encounter negative people and events.

That’s my take on the career advice in Tweet 39 in Success Tweets – and the advice of Viktor Frankl, John Maxwell and Chuck Swindoll.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thank for reading.  I have an attitude of gratitude when it comes to my readers.  I really appreciate you.

Bud

My latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less is now available on Amazon.com and in bookstores.  I am in the process of blogging about each of the tweets in it. You can get a free copy of Success Tweets at www.SuccessTweets.com.  If you like it, I’d appreciate a positive review on Amazon.com.

Today’s career success coach post is on Tweet 39…

While other people and events have an impact on our life, they don’t shape it.  You get to choose how you react to people and events.

As I was getting ready to write this post, an email from my friends at Heart Math popped up in my in box.  It had a quote from Viktor Frankl…

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”

Victor Frankl survived the Nazi death camps in WWII.  He lost his wife, mother and father in those camps.  His experience with the Nazis led him to conclude that even in the most absurd, painful and dehumanized situation, life has potential meaning. 

He chronicled his experiences in the camps and what he learned from them in his famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning.  In 1991, the US Library of Congress designated it as one of the ten most influential books in the United States.  It as sold over 10 million copies and been translated into 24 languages.

One of his famous quotes always brings tears to my eyes…

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Speaking of attitude, the June 2010 issue of SUCCESS Magazine has a great article by John Maxwell called “Attitude Is the Difference Maker.”  If you’re not already a subscirber, I suggest you go to www.success.com and become one.  The career advice in SUCCESS is invaluable.  WhatJohn has to say about attitude is a great example. .. 

“Attitude isn’t everything, but it’s the main difference maker.”

As you can see from the Viktor Frankl quote above, choosing your attitude is choosing your own way.   As a human being, you get to choose how you respond to the people and events in your life.  You can choose to have a positive, optimistic attitude and respond to difficult people and events in a constructive manner.  Or, you can choose to have a negative attitude and respond to difficult people and events in a self destructive manner.  Your attitude is the difference maker between a successful, rewarding life and career and an unsuccessful and unfulfilling life and career.

Take it from a career success coach.  You get to choose how you respond to every person you meet and everything that happens that happens to you.  Your moment of choice comes in between the stimulus and your response.  This can be a small space, but it is a real space that exists.  Your attitude has a big impact on what you choose in these moments of choice.

Writing in SUCCESS, John Maxwell says, “Your attitude makes a difference in how you face challenges.  Successful people don’t have fewer problems than unsuccessful people – they just have a different mindset.”  That bares repeating – “Successful people don’t have fewer problems than unsuccessful people – they just have a different mindset.”

We all have our problems and challenges.  The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is simple.  Successful people choose to respond to problems in a positive manner.  They choose a positive, proactive approach.  They choose to take personal responsibility for themselves, their actions and their life and career success.  They choose to see problems as challenges – and they meet the challenges they encounter. 

Choose is the important word here.  We human beings have free will.  We can choose how we respond to the things that happen to us.  We can choose our attitude.  Successful people choose to respond positively to the negative people and events in their lives.  Successful people choose to have a positive attitude.

The SUCCESS article has a quote from Chuck Swindoll on the “Power of Attitude”…

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.  Attitude, to me, is more important than education, than money, than circumstance, than failures, than successes, then what other people think, say or do.  It is more important that appearance, giftedness or scale.  It will make or break a company, a church, a home.  The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we embrace for that day.  We cannot change the past.  We cannot change the fact that people act in a certain way.  We cannot change the inevitable.  The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.  I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90 % how I react to it; and so it is with you.  We are in charge of our attitude.”

Or as Viktor Frankl says…

“Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Your attitude is the difference maker.  A positive attitude leads to positive results and career success.  A negative attitude leads to negative results.  The good thing is that you can choose your attitude.  Remember the career advice and wisdom in Tweet 39 in Success Tweets.  “While other people and events have an impact on our life, they don’t shape it.  You get to choose how you react to people and events.”  Use the free will that God has given you to create your life and career success.  Choose a positive attitude.  Choose to respond positively to the negative people and events in your life.  Remember what Viktor Frankl, a holocaust survivor teaches us, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.”  Empower yourself to make the right choices, the positive choices, when you encounter negative people and events.

That’s my take on the career advice in Tweet 39 in Success Tweets – and the advice of Viktor Frankl, John Maxwell and Chuck Swindoll.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thank for reading.  I have an attitude of gratitude when it comes to my readers.  I really appreciate you.

Bud