I have never been a big fan of manifesting as exemplified in The Secret – the book or the movie — because I think it oversimplifies the concept of life and career success.  In case you’re not familiar with the concept of manifesting or The Secret, here is what an internet search on The Secret turned up…

• Ask – You must know what you want. I mean, really know what you want. The universe can’t deliver without first knowing what it is that you want to have manifested into your life.
• Believe – You need to truly believe that what you are asking for will become yours. Doubts need to be pushed away. The idea that failure is a possibility will mess up the delivery.
• Receive - It is important that you become an active player in reaching your goals. When opportunity comes your way you must not hesitate. Grab the brass ring when it appears.

I always thought that there is a pesky little step between Believe and Receive – and that step is “work hard.”

I was pleased to come across something on manifesting the other day from Yee Shun-Jian of RichGrad.com.  Yee suggests that learning is an important part of working hard….

“So seek and be hungry for new knowledge. Also, make an effort to be amongst people or communities where you can support each other, learn from each other and also share new knowledge that you have found.”

I think that lifelong learning is so important that I devoted five tweets to it in my career advice book Success Tweets.

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

Tweet 82: Learn faster than the world changes.  In a world that never stops changing, you can never stop learning and growing.

Tweet 83: Master your technical discipline.  Share what you know.  Become the go to person in your discipline in your company.
Tweet 84: Stay up to date in your industry.  Read industry publications.  Know the hot topics for your company, competitors and industry.

Tweet 85: Always be on the lookout for new ideas.  Find opportunities where others see obstacles.

From these quotes, it should be pretty obvious that I believe that learning is an important key to life and career success.  One of my favorite quotes on lifelong learning comes from Louis L’Amour, the great American writer of stories about the old west…

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.  That will be the beginning.”

I know a lot about career and life success.  I’ve written several books on it.  I have a new one called Climbing the Corporate Ladder coming out in about a month.  I’ll let you know when it is available.

I give lots of talks about life and career success.  I’ve coached hundreds of people – helping them build the life and career success they want and deserve.  I write this blog.  At one point, I thought I knew it all.

And you know what?  Every time I write about life and career success, every time I speak about it, every time I coach someone offering my career advice, I gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to create life and career success.

I begin anew every day, doing whatever I can to learn about life and career success so I can pass on this knowledge and wisdom to others.  I choose to keep learning.  So should you.  I’ve learned that if you don’t keep learning, you don’t stand still – you fall behind in the game of life.  I’ve also learned that what I learned after I knew it all was some of the best and most important of my learnings.

Thomas Carlyle once said, “What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us.  The greatest university of all is a collection of books.”  He lived in the 19th century.  If he were alive today, he might have amended his statement to say, “Books and the Internet are the greatest university of all.”  Today, so many of the great books, as well as other life and career success information, are available on line.  The Internet is a great way to access this information.  The important thing is to keep learning – how you do it and where you get your information is secondary.

I have a huge collection of books on a variety of subjects.  These books are the first place I turn when I am looking for information to post on my blog, when I am working with my career success coach clients, when I am preparing a speech and when I am designing a training program.  When I can’t find what I’m looking for in my books, I go on line.

My best common sense suggestion for becoming a lifelong learner is simple.  Read.  Read technical journals.  Read trade magazines.  Read business publications like “The Wall Street Journal,” “Business Week,” “Fortune” and “Forbes.”  If you think they’re too stodgy, read “Fast Company.”

Read your company’s annual report.  Read your competitors’ annual reports.  Read your local newspaper and “The New York Times.”  Read news magazines like “Newsweek” and “Time.”  Read business and industry blogs.  Read ezines and eBooks.  Read books.  Reading is the best way to stay up with what’s happening in business, in your industry and in the world.

There are other things you can do to keep learning.  Attend seminars.  Join the major groups or trade associations for your industry.  Attend their meetings and participate.  Volunteer for committee work.  Become known locally in your field.  Take a class at your local university.  Use your company’s tuition reimbursement program to get a free undergraduate or Master’s degree.

Your education doesn’t stop when you graduate from college or get an MBA, it begins anew.  There are many ways to keep learning.  Decide which ones work for you, and then follow through.  Outstanding performers are competent.  They stay competent because they are lifelong learners.

I agree with Albert Einstein who said…

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong learning attempt to acquire it.”

The career success point here is simple common sense.  Successful people are outstanding performers.  Outstanding performers are lifelong learners.  They follow the career advice in tweet 81 in Success Tweets.  “Become a lifelong learner.  The half-life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing.  Staying in the same place is the same as going backward.”  Lifelong learning is really important to creating the successful life and career you want and deserve.  Remember what Louis L’Amour says: “There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.  That will be the beginning.”  Treat each new day as an opportunity to learn.  Stay open to new people and new ideas.  If you do this, you’ll come to realize that you are never finished learning and that what you learn after you know it all is the most valuable knowledge you’ll develop.

That’s my career advice on the subject of manifesting and lifelong learning.  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 really value and 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.

Steve Jobs ended his famous Stanford commencement address with these words…

“Stay hungry.  Stay Foolish.”

Pretty good career success advice.  I’d like to add another piece of career advice though – stay curious.

Cathy and I visited her mother during the holidays.  When we were there I spent some time in Cathy’s father’s home office.  Roy Blackman passed away a few years ago, but his library is still there.  I began looking at the titles on his bookshelf.  Their diversity amazed me.

In addition to a lot of history books and a great collection of novels, I found these titles…

• Adventures With a Hand Lens
• Hunting With a Microscope
• How to Clean Practically Anything
• Juggling for the Complete Klutz
• Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts
• The Formula Book: Easy, Safe Instructions for making Hundreds of Personal Care and Household Products
• The World’s 100 Best Short Stories
• The Best of Health
• Insects
• The Way Things Work
• The Indispensable Calvin and Hobbs
• Invest with the Best
• Roget’s Thesaurus
• Sisson’s Word and Expression Locator
• English/Spanish Dictionary
• The Oxford English Dictionary – Cathy’s mother gave me this one to take home

These books show that Roy Blackman was a curious man.  He wanted to know a little bit about a lot of different things.  This type of curiosity can serve you well as you go about creating your life and career success.  Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, it helped her become a life and career success.

I have always been curious.  In my neighborhood in Ambridge PA it was very common for grandparents, parent and lids to share the same house.  My grandparents lived upstairs from us.  The same was true for the Hronas family who lived next door.

Old Mr. Hronas (my friend’s grandfather – or “Papou” as they called him in Greek – was one of my favorites.  He was kind and patient.  But sometimes I could drive crazy with my questions.  I remember him saying to me, “Why, why, why Bud.  All you do as ask why.  You want to know so much.  Doesn’t your brain ever get tired?”  To be truthful, my brain never does get tired.  I always want to understand things.

This curiosity has served me well in my life and career.  When I first joined Marathon Oil about 35 years ago, I found a copy of a book the company had commissioned on its history called Portrait in Oil on a bookshelf in my work area.  I took it home and read it.  It provided some great insight into the company I had just joined and how it came to be what it was.

In those days Marathon was located in a small town in Ohio about 45 miles from the Toledo Airport.  Often, a group of us would make the trip to the airport in a company car.  When I had been with the company for about three months, I had a conversation about the company with a fairly senior executive who was sitting in the back seat with me on one of those trips.

He said, “How long did you say you were with us?”  I said, “Three months.”  He said, “You know more about this company than a lot of people who have worked here for 10 years or more.  How did you learn all this stuff?”

I told him that I read Portrait in Oil and the company’s annual reports for the past five years.  He was impressed.  After he got back from his trip, he invited me to his office.  He became my mentor, helping advance in the company – all because I was curious about the company I joined and took the time to learn more about it.

My sister is like me.  Betty is a CPA who has developed a specialty in Sarbanes Oxley or SOX– the law which set new or enhanced standards for all U.S public company boards, management and public accounting firms. It was a reaction to a number of major corporate accounting scandals at companies like Enron, Tyco, Adelphia, and World com. Basically, the law was passed so senior executives like Ken Lay and Dennis Kozlowski could not say that they were unaware of some shady dealings carried out by the people who worked for them.

Most people considered SOX to be a headache, and more work for accounting and internal audit departments.  Betty saw it as an opportunity.  She delved into the Code of Federal Regulations, curious to learn about the new law and how it applied to her company.  She became and expert and saved her company a couple hundred thousand of dollars in outside accounting fees the first year the law went into effect.  Her curiosity got her a nice bonus and promotion.

There are plenty of opportunities to learn and grow.  All you have to do is look around you.  Be curious.  Learn everything you can and you’ll be on the road to the life and career success you deserve.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Curiosity didn’t kill the cat it helped her create the life and career success she deserves.  Successful people are curious.  They want to learn everything they can about the important things that affect their life and career success.  Be curious.  Learn something new as often as you can.  Put these learnings to work in your life and career and you’ll succeed.  I guarantee it – after all it’s only common sense.

That’s my career advice on curiosity.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  Better yet, please share a situation in which your curiosity paid off for you in your life and career.  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.

Welcome to the first work day of 2012.  I’ll be blogging five days a week this year – as I do every year – in an attempt at helping you create the life and career success you want and deserve.  Let’s make 2012 your best year ever.  On to today’s post…

Vittana is a great service organization.  They arrange loans for students in the developing world to help them finish their education so they can make a difference in their communities.  Right now Vittana is holding a blogging contest.  They are looking for posts on one of two subjects: education and making a difference.  To my way of thinking, education is the best way to make a difference in this world and a major key to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.

Here are my thoughts on lifelong learning – education that continues once you leave the classroom…

If you want to become the life and career success you deserve to be, you need to become a lifelong learner.  One of my favorite quotes on lifelong learning comes from Louis L’Amour, the great American writer of stories about the old west.  I think this quote captures the essence of lifelong learning…

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.  That will be the beginning.”

I know a lot about career and life success.  I’ve written several books on it.  I give lots of talks about it.  I’ve coached hundreds of people – helping them build the life and career success they want and deserve.  I write this blog.  At one point, I thought I knew it all.

And you know what?  Every time I write about life and career success, every time I speak about it, every time I coach someone offering my career advice, I gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to create life and career success

I begin anew every day, doing whatever I can to learn about life and career success so I can pass on this knowledge and wisdom to others.  I choose to keep learning.  So should you.  I’ve learned that if you don’t keep learning, you don’t stand still – you fall behind in the game of life.  I’ve also learned that what I learned after I knew it all was some of the best and most important of my learnings.

Thomas Carlyle once said, “What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us.  The greatest university of all is a collection of books.”  He lived in the 19th century.  If he were alive today, he might have amended his statement to say, “Books and the Internet are the greatest university of all.”  Today, so many of the great books, as well as other life and career success information, are available on line.  The Internet is a great way to access this information.  The important thing is to keep learning – how you do it and where you get your information is secondary.

I have a huge collection of books on a variety of subjects.  These books are the first place I turn when I am looking for information to post on my blog, when I am working with my career success coach clients, when I am preparing a speech and when I am designing a training program.  When I can’t find what I’m looking for in my books, I go on line.

My best common sense suggestion for becoming a lifelong learner is simple.  Read.  Read technical journals.  Read trade magazines.  Read business publications like “The Wall Street Journal,” “Business Week,” “Fortune” and “Forbes.”  If you think they’re too stodgy, read “Fast Company.”

Read your company’s annual report.  Read your competitors’ annual reports.  Read your local newspaper and “The New York Times.”  Read news magazines like “Newsweek” and “Time.”  Read business and industry blogs.  Read ezines and eBooks.  Read books.  Reading is the best way to stay up with what’s happening in business, in your industry and in the world.

There are other things you can do to keep learning.  Attend seminars.  Join the major groups or trade associations for your industry.  Attend their meetings and participate.  Volunteer for committee work.  Become known locally in your field.  Take a class at your local university.  Use your company’s tuition reimbursement program to get a free undergraduate or Master’s degree.

Your education doesn’t stop when you graduate from college or get an MBA, it begins anew.  There are many ways to keep learning.  Decide which ones work for you, and then follow through.  Outstanding performers are competent.  They stay competent because they are lifelong learners.

I agree with Albert Einstein who said…

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong learning attempt to acquire it.”

In today’s fast-paced world, if you don’t keep learning, you’re not standing still, you’re falling behind.  One of my favorite quotes from Gandhi nails it when it comes to lifelong learning…

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow.  Learn as if you were to live forever.”

He’s right.  None of us should ever quit learning.  I have a thirst for knowledge and do my best to quench it through learning.  I try to learn something new every day.  Sometimes my learning is trivial, sometimes it is profound.  Regardless, I keep on learning.

On days when I feel as if I haven’t learned anything, I turn to a little book that I have called, Live and Learn and Pass It On.  The subtitle is, “People ages 5 to 95 share what they’ve discovered about life, love, and other good stuff.”  I usually find something in there that satisfies.

Here are a few of the learnings in the book that have helped me…

I’ve learned that if you wait until all conditions are perfect before you act, you’ll never act.

I’ve learned that if you want to get promoted, you must do things that get you noticed.

I’ve learned that 90% of what happens in my life is positive and only about 10% is negative.  If I want to be happy I just need to focus on the 90%.

These are little life learnings that I have found to be helpful.

All of the people I know who are committed to lifelong learning have several traits in common.  They all…

…Are humble.  They admit what they don’t know.  This is the first step in learning what they need to know.

…Question the status quo.  They realize that because something is right today, it may not be right tomorrow.  They know that doing things “the way we’ve always done them” is not good reasoning.

…Are intellectually curious.  They truly want to learn and find learning fun, interesting and stimulating.  They see life as a journey in which they are constantly learning.

…Are willing to try new stuff.  They experiment and see what works.  When things work, they use them.

…Are not afraid to fail.  They see failure as an opportunity to learn.  Just as they incorporate what works into their repertoire, they use failures as stepping stones to other experiments.

…Are tolerant of ambiguity.  Learning creates ambiguity.  These people are willing to let go of past ways of doing things in order to come up with new ways of doing things in the future.  The gap between the past and future can make for an uncomfortable present.

…Focus on staying ahead of the pack.  They are early adopters – of new technology and new ways of thinking.  They realize that knowledge has a short half-life today.  They keep learning to stay ahead.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people are lifelong learners.  They continually expand their knowledge in order to get out in front of the pack and stay there.  They follow the career advice in  Tweet 82 in ny book, Success Tweets. “Learn faster than the world changes.  In a world that never stops changing, you can never stop learning and growing.”  Begin your lifelong learning journey by focusing on your strengths and working to improve them every day.  Building on your strengths is easier than overcoming your weaknesses.  When you build on your strengths you can make incremental improvements.  However, if you have a glaring gap in your skills, address it now.  Don’t wait to take necessary quantum leaps.  What do you need to learn to create the life and career success you want and deserve?  How do you plan on learning it?  Remember what Ben Franklin had to say, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”

That’s my career advice prompted by the Vittana blogging challenge.  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 hope that 2012 is your best year ever.

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.

I send a career success quote to my subscribers every day.  If you would like to start receiving these daily success quotes log on my website http://www.BudBilanich.com and enter your name and email address in the box to the right, just under the image of my career success book, Success Tweets.  Sunday’s career success quote came from David Rockefeller.  “Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you’re not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.”

Three tweets in the Outstanding Performance section of Success Tweets reflect Mr. Rockefeller’s thoughts.

Training — Tweet 81: “Become a lifelong learner.  The half-life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing.  Staying in the same place is the same as going backwards.

If you want to become an outstanding performer, you need to become a lifelong learner.  I once saw a great quote from Louis L’Amour, the great American writer of stories about the old west.  I think this quote captures the essence of lifelong learning…

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.  That will be the beginning.”

I know a lot about career and life success.  I’ve written several books on it.  I give lots of talks about it.  I’ve coached hundreds of people – helping them build the life and career success they want and deserve.  I write this blog.  At one point, I thought I knew it all.

And you know what?  Every time I write about life and career success, every time I speak about it, every time I coach someone offering my career advice, I gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to create life and career success

I begin anew every day, doing whatever I can to learn about life and career success so I can pass on this knowledge and wisdom to others.  I choose to keep learning.  So should you.  Pay attention here – this is solid career advice.  I’ve learned that if you don’t keep learning, you don’t stand still – you fall behind in the game of life.  I’ve also learned that what I learned after I knew it all was some of the best and most important of my learnings.

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

I got this one from Jerry Rice an American Football player.  He is in the NFL Hall of Fame.  When he retired, he held all of the important records a wide receiver could amass.  I’ve never seen anyone better – and I’ve watched a lot of football over the years.  Growing up in Pittsburgh, Sundays meant two things – church and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Jerry Rice was well known for his commitment to fitness.  He worked out harder and longer than any other pro football player.  When he was asked the secret of his success, he said, “I am willing to do the things today that others won’t do, so I can do things on Sunday that they can’t do.”  In other words, work hard, prepare, commit to taking personal responsibility for your own success.

It’s simple, really.  Success is all up to you, and me, and anyone else who wants it.  We all have to take personal responsibility for our own success.  I am the only one who can make me a success.  You are the only one who can make you a success.  Become willing to do things that others are unwilling to do – and this can be a million little things like keeping your clothes in good repair; shining your shoes; rehearsing your presentation out loud; proofreading your emails, not just relying on spell check; staying up-to-date on your company, your competitors and your industry, building relationships by doing willingly for others.

If you already do these kinds of things, bravo.  You’re in the minority.  Too many people do only what they have to.  Successful people always go the extra mile.  As Jerry Rice says, they do the things others won’t.

Think for a minute.  What are the kinds of things that you can do that go above and beyond, that demonstrate your commitment to your own success?  Make a list.  Then go about doing these things regularly.

Hard Work – 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.”

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 I give it away for free.  That’s why I wrote a series of blog posts explaining each of the 141 tweets in more detail.  I care so much about this that I committed to writing 700 or 800 words every day for 28 weeks.  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.

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.

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 career success coach point here is simple common sense.  David Rockefeller provides some great career advice when he says, “Success in business requires training and discipline and hard work. But if you’re not frightened by these things, the opportunities are just as great today as they ever were.”  Here’s my take on what he has to say.  Keep learning and growing – that way you won’t stagnate.  Discipline yourself to take on difficult tasks and to do the things that other people won’t do.  Care about your job.  Demonstrate how much you care by working hard – every day.

That’s my career advice prompted by David Rockefellers quote on training, discipline and hard work.  What do you think?  Please take a few minutes 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 on September 1.  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.

If you read this career success blog with any regularity you know that I am The Common Sense Guy.  I help people create the life and career success they want and deserve by showing them how to apply their common sense to build their careers.

I was reading the August 2011 issue of The Costco Connection the other day, and was struck by a column written by Wally Amos, founder of Famous Amos Cookies and Uncle Wally’s Muffin Company.  This particular column was entitled “Common Sense,” so it immediately grabbed my attention.

Here’s what Wally had to say…

“It has been said that common sense is not so common.  When I was an agent in show business, attending a recording session or a television taping, and the performer would miss a lyric or flub a line, the producer or director would stop the tape, have a friendly chat with the artist, and announce, ‘OK, let’s do another take.  We’re rolling, take 25.’

“Why is it when people make a mistake in business we get so angry, and our response is anything but friendly?  It would help us all to remember the times we made mistakes and to realize we are all in training and in becoming a better parent, student, friend, employer and employee…

“So, remember one more age-old saying, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’  As they say, it’s just good common sense.”

Two things about this little column caught my attention.  First is Wally’s suggestion that we are all in training, trying to become better at all of the roles in our life.  Tweet 81 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Become a lifelong learner.  The half life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing.  Staying in the same place is the same as going backwards.”

That’s what Wally is talking about when he says we are all in training.  The world changes, and we need to change with it if we are going to create the life and career success we all want and deserve.  We have to keep learning.  Thinking of yourself as always being in training is a great way to become a lifelong learner.

Louis L’Amour, the great American writer of stories about the Old West says it very well in two of my favorite quotes…

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.”

“No one can get an education, for of necessity education is a continuing process.”

In other words, even though you think you know it all, you need to keep learning, as education and learning — and creating your life and career success – are continuing processes.  Or as Wally Amos says, we’re all in training.

The second point that struck me in Wally’s column was the one about anger.  Tweet 136 in Success Tweets says, “Be responsible for yourself.  No one can ‘make you angry.’  Choose to act in a civil, constructive manner in tense situations.”

In the column, Wally tells a story about an employee who burned a rack of 20 trays of cookies.  “Just before I yelled, a little voice reminded me of the times I burned cookies.  I settled down, explained the tremendous loss incurred when we burn cookies…and told the employee to do another take, only more carefully the next time.”

That little voice is what I’m talking about in Success Tweet 136.  You’re a human being.  You get to choose how you respond to every person and every situation you encounter.  It’s true that no one can make you angry.  You choose to get angry.  Most of us have a little voice that can help us from taking out our frustrations on others.  It’s the voice of reason, or common sense.  Sadly though, we often don’t listen to that little voice of common sense and we choose anger over a constructive response.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Besides making great cookies and muffins Wally Amos is a wise man.  He suggests that we use our common sense in tense situations to avoid anger and making a bad situation worse.  He also suggests that we are all in training in all that we do, a great way of encouraging us to become lifelong learners.  Taking responsibility for yourself in tense situations and responding positively, and being a lifelong learner are two small but important keys to creating the career success you deserve.  And, as Wally Amos says, they are simple common sense.

That’s the career advice I found in Wally Amos’ column in a recent Costco Connection.  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.

If you read this career success blog with any regularity you know that I am The Common Sense Guy.  I help people create the life and career success they want and deserve by showing them how to apply their common sense to build their careers.

I was reading the August 2011 issue of The Costco Connection the other day, and was struck by a column written by Wally Amos, founder of Famous Amos Cookies and Uncle Wally’s Muffin Company.  This particular column was entitled “Common Sense,” so it immediately grabbed my attention.

Here’s what Wally had to say…

“It has been said that common sense is not so common.  When I was an agent in show business, attending a recording session or a television taping, and the performer would miss a lyric or flub a line, the producer or director would stop the tape, have a friendly chat with the artist, and announce, ‘OK, let’s do another take.  We’re rolling, take 25.’

“Why is it when people make a mistake in business we get so angry, and our response is anything but friendly?  It would help us all to remember the times we made mistakes and to realize we are all in training and in becoming a better parent, student, friend, employer and employee…

“So, remember one more age-old saying, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’  As they say, it’s just good common sense.”

Two things about this little column caught my attention.  First is Wally’s suggestion that we are all in training, trying to become better at all of the roles in our life.  Tweet 81 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Become a lifelong learner.  The half life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing.  Staying in the same place is the same as going backwards.”

That’s what Wally is talking about when he says we are all in training.  The world changes, and we need to change with it if we are going to create the life and career success we all want and deserve.  We have to keep learning.  Thinking of yourself as always being in training is a great way to become a lifelong learner.

Louis L’Amour, the great American writer of stories about the Old West says it very well in two of my favorite quotes…

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.”

“No one can get an education, for of necessity education is a continuing process.”

In other words, even though you think you know it all, you need to keep learning, as education and learning — and creating your life and career success – are continuing processes.  Or as Wally Amos says, we’re all in training.

The second point that struck me in Wally’s column was the one about anger.  Tweet 136 in Success Tweets says, “Be responsible for yourself.  No one can ‘make you angry.’  Choose to act in a civil, constructive manner in tense situations.”

In the column, Wally tells a story about an employee who burned a rack of 20 trays of cookies.  “Just before I yelled, a little voice reminded me of the times I burned cookies.  I settled down, explained the tremendous loss incurred when we burn cookies…and told the employee to do another take, only more carefully the next time.”

That little voice is what I’m talking about in Success Tweet 136.  You’re a human being.  You get to choose how you respond to every person and every situation you encounter.  It’s true that no one can make you angry.  You choose to get angry.  Most of us have a little voice that can help us from taking out our frustrations on others.  It’s the voice of reason, or common sense.  Sadly though, we often don’t listen to that little voice of common sense and we choose anger over a constructive response.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Besides making great cookies and muffins Wally Amos is a wise man.  He suggests that we use our common sense in tense situations to avoid anger and making a bad situation worse.  He also suggests that we are all in training in all that we do, a great way of encouraging us to become lifelong learners.  Taking responsibility for yourself in tense situations and responding positively, and being a lifelong learner are two small but important keys to creating the career success you deserve.  And, as Wally Amos says, they are simple common sense.

That’s the career advice I found in Wally Amos’ column in a recent Costco Connection.  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.

The other day I was rereading a great little career advice book from Sam Parker and my friends at Walk the Talk.  It’s called 212: The Extra Degree.  The back cover says it all…

At 211 degrees, water is hot.
At 212 degrees, it boils.
And with boiling water comes steam.
And with steam you can power a train.

The career advice here is simple common sense.  An extra degree can yield extraordinary results.  212: The Extra Degree is a gift book.  It is a perfect gift for the graduate you know.  You can get it at www.WalktheTalk.com.Here is some of the advice Sam suggests for applying the extra degree at work…

Add a few hours each month to your professional development – outside of the work day – knowing that you’ll have invested the equivalent of a full work day during the year in your most valuable asset…you.

Make the extra contact each day…a sales call…a customer…a brief discussion with a colleague…an encouraging talk with a member of your team.  With contact comes opportunity.  At the end of a year you’ll have opened more than 200 additional doors of possibility.

These are two pieces of great life and career success advice.  Let’s look at each of them in a little more detail…

When it comes to adding a few hours each month to your professional development, Tweet 81 in my career advice book Success Tweets says it all.  “Become a lifelong learner.  The half-life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing.  Staying in the same place is the same as going backwards.”

If you really want to create the life and career success you deserve, you need to become a lifelong learner.  The other day, I came across a quote from Louis L’Amour, the great American writer of stories about the old west.  I think this quote captures the essence of lifelong learning…

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished.  That will be the beginning.”

I know a lot about life and career success.  I’ve written several books on it.  I give lots of talks about it.  I’ve coached hundreds of people – helping them build the life and career success they want and deserve.  I write this blog.  At one point, I thought I knew it all.

And you know what?  Every time I write about life and career success, every time I speak about it, every time I coach someone offering my career advice, I gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to create life and career success

I begin anew every day, doing whatever I can to learn about life and career success so I can pass on this knowledge and wisdom to others.  I choose to keep learning.  So should you.  Pay attention here – this is solid career advice.  I’ve learned that if you don’t keep learning, you don’t stand still – you fall behind in the game of life.  I’ve also learned that what I learned after I knew it all was some of the best and most important of my learnings.

A lot of what I have learned came in those extra hours after my work day.  I read a lot – three or four books a week.  I choose to read one professional development book for every three novels.  In this way, I am investing some of my non-working hours to help me become better at what I do.

Tweet 124 in Success Tweets gets at the idea of making one extra contact every day.  “Everyone has something to offer.  Never dismiss anyone out of hand.  Take the initiative.  Actively build relationships.”

If you want to create the life and career success you deserve, take a lesson from Sam Parker.  Pay attention to the people around you.  You will learn a lot and your life will be richer for it.  Don’t judge people by what they do.  Get to know others as individuals.  You’ll be surprised at what you learn.

I have had some very interesting conversations with taxi drivers in New York City.  These days, most of them are immigrants.  They love this country and are well-informed about it.  When I get into a taxi, most often the driver is listening to NPR or an all-news station.  I have had some great conversations about local and national politics, the state of the US economy, and sports with taxi drivers.

In Denver, I occasionally use a car service to go to and from the airport.  This service is a cooperative.  The members of the coop are all immigrants from Ethiopia.  They were all political refugees.  I love my rides to and from the airport with them.

And, I learned something very interesting.  Ethiopia was a Catholic country until the schism in 1066.  The Ethiopian Church sided with the Eastern Church in Constantinople and broke with Rome.  I was raised Catholic, but my father’s parents were Orthodox Christian, or Russian Orthodox as we called them.  In that tradition they celebrate Christmas on January 7 because they use a different calendar.

I remember having two Christmases when I was young.  I always got a small present on January 7.  Imagine my surprise when a guy from Africa told me that he couldn’t drive me to the airport on January 7 because he chose to stay at home and celebrate Christmas with his family.  This led to a very interesting discussion on how Ethiopia participated in the schism.  When the Ethiopian community in Denver was building a new church, Cathy and I were some of the donors.

See what I mean about treating everyone as if he or she has something to offer?  I never would have learned some valuable information about how similar the life experiences of a black guy from Ethiopia were to my own growing up had I not taken the time to engage this person in conversation.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Go the extra mile, put in the effort that others aren’t willing to do. Remember what Sam Parker has to say about water.  “At 211 degrees, water is hot.  At 212 degrees, it boils.  And with boiling water comes steam.  And with steam you can power a train.”  Power your career success train by raising your temperature that extra degree.  Spend time outside of work learning, as I suggest in Tweet 81 in Success Tweets.  “Become a lifelong learner.  The half-life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing.  Staying in the same place is the same as going backwards.”    Make contacts and build relationships as I suggest in Tweet 124 in Success Tweets.  “Everyone has something to offer.  Never dismiss anyone out of hand.  Take the initiative.  Actively build relationships.”  Do just these two things and your career success quest will reach the boiling point.
That’s the career advice I take from Sam Parker’s book 212: The Extra Degree.  What do you think?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  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, 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.

The July issue of SUCCESS Magazine is out.  As usual, it is filled with some great life and career success advice.  If you’re not already a SUCCESS subscriber, I suggest you go to http://www.success.com and do so as soon as you finish reading this post.

I was struck by an article in this month’s SUCCESS about Jenni Flinders, VP of Microsoft’s US Partner Group.  The article begins with some great career advice…“Jenni Flinders believes in being a learner, not a knower.”

Tweet 81 in Success Tweets, my career advice book says, “Become a lifelong learner.  The half-life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing.  Staying in the same place is the same as going backwards.”  Tweet 82 says, “Learn faster than the world changes.  In a world that never stops changing, you can never stop learning and growing.”

Ms. Flinders offers three tips on becoming a learner…

1. Listen.  Don’t assume you already know the answer.  Every idea has merit and deserves to be heard.
2. Open your mind – to new ideas, people and cultures, and you’ll find new solutions.  Encourage collaboration and nurture innovation.
3. Be a mentor.  You aren’t just imparting knowledge and experience – you’re gaining it too.

This is great common sense career advice, presently simply.

Let’s look at each of these common sense ideas in a little detail.

Listening is the best way to learn.  I always tell my career success coach clients to listen hardest when their initial reaction to what someone says is, “that’ the craziest thing I’ve even heard.”  You’re most likely to learn something in this situation.

Tweet 109 in Success Tweets says, “Use the 2/3 – 1/3 rule. Listen two thirds of the time; speak one third of the time.  Focus your complete attention on the other person.”  You’ll learn something by listening to understand.  I have three bits of advice for becoming a learner by being a good listener.  1) Ask lots of questions; 2) Pay attention to what the other person is saying; 3) Ask clarifying questions to make sure you understand.

Open your mind. Tweet 124 in Success Tweets says, “Everyone has something to offer.  Never dismiss anyone out of hand.”  It’s easy to dismiss people whose ideas are different from your own – especially if they are from a different culture, race, gender or religion.  Ms. Flinders is right when she points out that different perspectives lead to innovation.

Successful people have a deep respect for the dignity of each individual.  It doesn’t matter if the person in front of you is the President of the United States, your boss, a co-worker, a taxi driver, a security guard or the housekeeper at your hotel.

Cathy, my wife, is the best example of someone who values every person she meets.  She is friends with everyone – the pharmacy techs where we get our prescriptions, the couple who own the dry cleaners where we do business, the supermarket checkout people and baggers, the servers at the restaurants we frequent, and on and on and on.

Cathy is genuinely interested in these people.  She knows their names, their spouses’ names and their kids’ names.  She inquires about their lives.  She knows about their vacations, what grades their kids are in school and lots of other things about them – all because she values them as individuals and takes the time to get to know them.  She is one of the least judgmental people I know.

If you want to create the life and career success you deserve, take a lesson from Cathy.  Pay attention to the people around you.  You will learn a lot and your life will be richer for it.  Don’t judge people by what they do.  Get to know others as individuals.  You’ll be surprised at what you learn.

Mentoring. Ms. Flinders right again.  Just as it’s important to find someone you respect to mentor you, it also important to mentor others.  You don’t have to be in a formal leadership position or have years and years of experience to mentor someone else.  It’s never too early to become a mentor.  We all have something to give, and the sooner you begin giving, the better.  If you’re in college, you can mentor high school students.  If you’re a recent graduate, you can mentor others still in school.

I take great joy in mentoring other people.  I love it when I can use my experience to help accelerate the growth of someone else.  It takes the sting out of some of the negative consequences I’ve experienced because of poor judgment.  I think to myself, “At least he or she won’t have to go through that.”

I’m participating in the Women’s Vision Mentor Walk here in Denver tomorrow.  I love the concept.  I’ll be paired up with two or three people and will stroll around Denver’s City Park talking life and career success.  The summer weather in Denver is beautiful.  The flowers are in full bloom in the park — what a great way to start my Saturday.

In his great book, Love is the Killer App, Tim Sanders tells the story of how he turned one of the people who worked for him from a “mad dog” into a “lovecat.”  The advice is simple: “Offer your wisdom freely… And always be human.”

Tim is right on.  Mentoring is a great way to become a lovecat by serving others.  The more you serve others, the more confidence – and career success – will come your way.  Besides that, you’ll grow by mentoring.  As you reflect on your life experiences and distill them into some nuggets that you can share with others, your knowledge will become wisdom.  In addition to being better able to help others learn and grow, you will be better able to take advantage of what you know.  You never learn something so completely as when you teach it to another person.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  As Jenni Flinders of Microsoft points out, you can enhance your life and career success by becoming a learner.  She suggests three simple ideas for becoming a learner. 1) Listen.  Don’t assume you already know the answer.  Every idea has merit and deserves to be heard. 2) Open your mind – to new ideas, people and cultures, and you’ll find new solutions.  Encourage collaboration and nurture innovation.  3) Be a mentor.  You aren’t just imparting knowledge and experience – you’re gaining it too.  Follow these simple ideas and you’ll learn all sorts of interesting things that will help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s my career advice on learning for career success.  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.

Last week I got an email from Scott Dinsmore that hit on two of my favorite pieces of common sense career advice: 1) find your passion in life, and 2) become a lifelong learner.  Scott did a great job of tying the two together.  Take a look at what he has to say…

I can guarantee you find your passion. I can guarantee you do work you love.

Don’t believe me? Then you probably aren’t ready to work your ass off.

If you are, then read on.

When I tell people I write and coach on how to find work you love, so many of them scream back “I need your help!”

I calmly respond with a question: “Have you read any of the 100+ books out there on purpose and passion?”

I proceed to hear pins drop.

It’s not that complicated…

In the past 8 years I’ve tested just about everything under sun when it comes to finding my passion and doing work I actually give a sh*t about. I now spend close to 100% of my working hours doing things I love. I am grateful, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

Getting here wasn’t easy and it wasn’t fast. There’ve been plenty of late nights (and there still are), but it’s been a ton of fun.

And one thing’s for sure. The fact that I’m doing what lights me on fire right now, does not by any means mean it will be the same thing ten years from now. That’s the best part! I almost guarantee it won’t. At least not exactly the same.

As long as you are currently spending your time doing what you believe you are best at and you are meant to do, that’s a life well lived.

That’s fulfillment.

Every better yet, that’s excitement!

Literally I think I’ve tried everything. Some include:
• Starting businesses
• Traveling the world
• Getting to know people in all walks of life
• Hiring a coach
• Being a coach
• Taking negotiation seminars
• Attending Tony Robbins events
• Reading books – a lot of books. Mainly personal development.
• Reading workbooks
• Taking personality tests
• Taking personal strengths test
• Attempting at first seemingly impossible fitness challenges
• Meeting entrepreneurs
• Working for companies with 10,000+ employees
• Working for companies with 12 employees
• Working for companies with 1 employee
• Writing blog articles, stories, ideas, journals
• Taking university courses

I could go on. Hopefully you get the point.

In all this there is a common thread. There is one thing that will ensure you the very best chance at finding what you love to do and actually living it.

You ready for it?

Learn.

That’s it.

Become obsessed with learning. Learn to love it. Do it every day in some way. One day it might be reading or watching a TED talk, listening to a podcast, having lunch with a new person, interviewing a business owner or sitting down and being completely still for 30 minutes.

Then actually make something with what you learn.

The process is ridiculously simple:

Step 1: Learn.
Step 2: Experiment.
Step 3: Repeat.
Step 4: Do what you love.
Step 5: When restless, repeat.

Tweet 7 in my career advice book Success Tweets 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.”  Scott says that it took him eight years to get to a place where he loves what he does every day.  I was lucky I figured out that I wanted to be an independent career success coach by the time I was 25.  It took me 13 years to realize my dream, but I’ve been living it for the past 23 years – and plan to keep right on living it for the next 23.

Tweet 81 in Success Tweets says, “Become a lifelong learner.  The half life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing.  Staying in the same place is the same as going backwards.”  I am constantly learning; especially about my passion – career success.  I read books, print magazines and blog posts, listen to podcasts, watch videos, engage in conversations with other career success coaches – anything I can do to make sure that I stay current and moving forward.  I don’t want to be in reverse.  I came across Scott’s blog post because of my pursuit of learning.

As Scott suggests, it’s important to not only learn, but to use what you learn.  As the U.S. Steel pencils my Dad brought home from work used to say, “Knowing is not enough.”  Knowing is not enough.  You have to do.  We all have to do.  Treat all of your tasks associated with your job as an opportunity to put your learning to use and become the career success you deserve to be.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  You can create the life and career success you want and deserve if you find your passion, learn everything you can about it, and then apply what you learn in your daily work.  As Scott Dinsmore says, “As long as you are currently spending your time doing what you believe you are best at and you are meant to do, that’s a life well lived.”  I would add that it’s likely to be a life full of career success.

That’s my common sense career advice on the importance of finding you passion and of lifelong learning.  What do you think?  What is your passion?  How did you find it?  What do you do to keep learning about it?  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, you can download a free copy of my latest book Success Tweets Explained.  It’s a whopping 395 pages of common sense career advice explaining each of the tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.

I was walking through Denver International Airport the other day and I saw an ad for the Daniels School of Business at the University of Denver.  It said, “In five years, business will be dependent on technology that has yet to be invented: Frightening, or Inspiring?”  That got me thinking about how fast things change these days. 

This means that in order to continue to stay technically competent and one the road to career success, you have to be learning all the time.  Tweet 81 in my career success book Success Tweets says, “Become a lifelong learner.  The half life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing.  Staying in the same place is the same as going backwards.” 

In previous posts, I have mentioned that this is an exciting time for me, as I am learning a lot about social media and internet marketing.  However, I’m keeping up with the advances in my traditional areas of expertise – coaching, speaking, training — as well.

The web makes continuing education accessible.  If you want to learn about something, just Google it and there you are!  In fact, you might end up with too information.  Nevertheless, it is a great place to start.  Sites like www.Careerealism.com and www.GenJuice.com are great places for career advice and learning. 

 Blogs are another great way to keep on learning.  I read several blogs every day.  I have learned a lot from all of them.  I also subscribe to several on line newsletters.  I save them in a separate folder and read them when I am traveling.  Jeffrey Gitomer’s Sales Caffeine (www.gitomer.com) newsletter is written for sales people, but anyone can benefit.

 Books – like my new one, Success Tweets (couldn’t help but engage in a little shameless self promotion here – you can download a free copy at http://www.SuccessTweets.com) are another great way to keep on learning.  I have set a goal of reading all of the classic success books listed in the premier issue of SUCCESS Magazine.  I am willing to set up a virtual book club with me as the facilitator if I can get at least five people interested.  Please leave a comment on this post if this interests you.

Seminars and workshops are another way to keep learning.  I continue to do talks and webinars on my life and career success model.  Many of these are part of larger two and three day programs.  Most professional organizations sponsor a variety of learning events.  If you want to learn and grow, join one of the professional societies in your field.  Get involved.  Don’t just be a passive participant.  Teach something.  You never learn anything really well, until you are able to teach it to another person.

Finally, you can go back to school.  It’s easier than ever these days.  If you can’t make regular day or evening classed, almost every two and four year institution has an online option.  You can finish that undergraduate or graduate degree if you are motivated to do so.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  As Tweet 81 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Become a lifelong learner.  The half-life of knowledge is rapidly diminishing.  Staying in the same place is the same as going backwards.” If you want to become  an outstanding performer and career success, you have to be technically competent.  The half life of knowledge is diminishing rapidly.  You need to put in time and effort to remain technically competent.  You can learn by reading books, blogs and online newsletters.  You can learn by joining and participating in professional societies.  You can learn by going back to school.  How you do it is up to you, but like the Nike ads say, “Just Do It.”

That’s my career advice on the importance of lifelong learning.  What’s your take on this?  Please share your toughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I apprecaite you.

Bud

PS — Don’t forget to download your free copy of Success Tweets Explained, a 395 page eBook explaining the tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://www.budurl.com/STExp.