The legend of Tim Tebow grows. If you’re not an NFL fan, Tim Tebow is the quarterback for the Denver Broncos.  He has won six straight games.  On Sunday, the Broncos were losing 10 – 0 with about two and a half minutes in the game.  Tim led them to 10 points in the final two minutes, and then to a game winning field goal in sudden death overtime.

Like a lot of people, I wasn’t a Tim Tebow fan at first.  While I’ve always known that he is an incredible athlete, I didn’t think he had the right skills to become an NFL quarterback.  It’s early days yet, but he seems to be proving me wrong.  One thing for sure, he’s an incredible leader.

Tim Tebow also is an eternal optimist.  He never gives up.  Think about this.  On Sunday, he completed three of 16 passes in the first 45 minutes of the game – and 18 or 24 in the last 15 minutes.  That’s a remarkable turnaround in my book.  It reminds me of point 7 in the Optimist Creed.

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

In Sunday’s game, he forgot about all the mistakes he and his teammates made in the first three quarters – they dropped a lot of his passes, and pressed on to win a game the Broncos had no reason to win.

When I think about it, Tim Tebow personifies all 10 points of the Optimist Creed…

The Optimist Creed

Promise Yourself:

• To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
• To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.
• To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
• To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
• To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.
• To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
• To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
• To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
• To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
• To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

Tweet 42 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Choose optimism.  It builds your confidence.  Believe that today will be better than yesterday, and that tomorrow will be better yet.”

Like Tim Tebow, I’m a big believer in the power of optimism.  I think it is the foundation of all self-confidence.  You can’t be self-confident if you’re not optimistic.  And, optimism is a choice.  I get up every day believing that good things will happen – and then I go about making them happen.

When I was a kid, I participated in the local Optimist International chapter’s oratory contest.  I won my section, and finished third in the state.  The topic that year was “Optimism, Youth’s Greatest Asset.”  That’s hard enough for a ninth grader to say (think Joe Pesci in “My Cousin Vinnie”), let alone write and deliver a ten-minute talk.

Optimist International is a great service organization.  They help kids build self-confidence and become more optimistic.  The Optimist Creed defines them.  It is powerful stuff.

I love The Optimist Creed.  I have it framed and hanging in my office, just above my desk.  I have made a .pdf of The Optimist Creed that is suitable for framing.  If you want a copy, just go to http://budbilanich.com/optimist.

One thing that you’ll notice about The Optimist Creed is that it is proactive.  It asks you to promise yourself to do ten things that will help you create the life and career success that you want and deserve.  It suggests that optimism is related to action – action you can take to become more optimistic and to build your career success.  I think it is some of the best career advice I’ve come across.  I do my best to live the 10 points in The Optimist Creed every day.  You should too.

I especially like the fourth point – promise yourself to look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.  This point goes directly to the idea of committing to taking personal responsibility for your life and career success.  I know it’s difficult to look at the sunny side of things when you’re mired in a problem or are dealing with a failure.  However, if you look for what you can learn from problems and failures, you’ll be looking at the sunny side.  More important, you’ll be on your way to making your optimism come true.

Tim Tebow started the year as the Broncos third string quarterback.  After they won just one game in their first five, the Broncos’ coach John Fox gave him the opportunity to become the starter.  He has won six of the seven games he’s started.  Tebow looked at the sunny side of things.  When he wasn’t playing, he worked hard in practice and paid close attention to the games.  When he got his chance, he made his optimism come true – six out of seven times.

Optimism works – and not just for athletes.  Christopher Reeve is no longer with us, but he exemplified the idea of looking at the sunny side of things.  Even though he was paralyzed from the neck down after a riding accident, he devoted himself to finding a cure for spinal cord injuries.  I love the way his optimism comes across in this quote…

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”

Christopher Reeve looked at the sunny side of his injury and did what he could to make his optimism come true.  His foundation carries on the work he started.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are self-confident.  Self-confident people are optimists.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 42 in Success Tweets.  “Choose optimism.  It builds your confidence.  Believe that today will be better than yesterday, and that tomorrow will be better yet.”  The Optimist Creed is a great guide to becoming more optimistic and self-confident.  Its proactive approach to life is a great guide to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  Remember the old saying, “Whether you’re an optimist, or a pessimist you’ll be proven right.”  I choose optimism, and suggest you do too.

That’s my career advice based on watching Tim Tebow’s remarkable run over the past seven weeks.  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 musings on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

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

PPS: I opened a membership site 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 legend of Tim Tebow grows. If you’re not an NFL fan, Tim Tebow is the quarterback for the Denver Broncos.  He has won six straight games.  On Sunday, the Broncos were losing 10 – 0 with about two and a half minutes in the game.  Tim led them to 10 points in the final two minutes, and then to a game winning field goal in sudden death overtime.

Like a lot of people, I wasn’t a Tim Tebow fan at first.  While I’ve always known that he is an incredible athlete, I didn’t think he had the right skills to become an NFL quarterback.  It’s early days yet, but he seems to be proving me wrong.  One thing for sure, he’s an incredible leader.

Tim Tebow also is an eternal optimist.  He never gives up.  Think about this.  On Sunday, he completed three of 16 passes in the first 45 minutes of the game – and 18 or 24 in the last 15 minutes.  That’s a remarkable turnaround in my book.  It reminds me of point 7 in the Optimist Creed.

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

In Sunday’s game, he forgot about all the mistakes he and his teammates made in the first three quarters – they dropped a lot of his passes, and pressed on to win a game the Broncos had no reason to win.

When I think about it, Tim Tebow personifies all 10 points of the Optimist Creed…

The Optimist Creed

Promise Yourself:

• To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
• To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.
• To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
• To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
• To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.
• To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
• To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
• To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
• To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
• To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

Tweet 42 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Choose optimism.  It builds your confidence.  Believe that today will be better than yesterday, and that tomorrow will be better yet.”

Like Tim Tebow, I’m a big believer in the power of optimism.  I think it is the foundation of all self-confidence.  You can’t be self-confident if you’re not optimistic.  And, optimism is a choice.  I get up every day believing that good things will happen – and then I go about making them happen.

When I was a kid, I participated in the local Optimist International chapter’s oratory contest.  I won my section, and finished third in the state.  The topic that year was “Optimism, Youth’s Greatest Asset.”  That’s hard enough for a ninth grader to say (think Joe Pesci in “My Cousin Vinnie”), let alone write and deliver a ten-minute talk.

Optimist International is a great service organization.  They help kids build self-confidence and become more optimistic.  The Optimist Creed defines them.  It is powerful stuff.

I love The Optimist Creed.  I have it framed and hanging in my office, just above my desk.  I have made a .pdf of The Optimist Creed that is suitable for framing.  If you want a copy, just go to http://budbilanich.com/optimist.

One thing that you’ll notice about The Optimist Creed is that it is proactive.  It asks you to promise yourself to do ten things that will help you create the life and career success that you want and deserve.  It suggests that optimism is related to action – action you can take to become more optimistic and to build your career success.  I think it is some of the best career advice I’ve come across.  I do my best to live the 10 points in The Optimist Creed every day.  You should too.

I especially like the fourth point – promise yourself to look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.  This point goes directly to the idea of committing to taking personal responsibility for your life and career success.  I know it’s difficult to look at the sunny side of things when you’re mired in a problem or are dealing with a failure.  However, if you look for what you can learn from problems and failures, you’ll be looking at the sunny side.  More important, you’ll be on your way to making your optimism come true.

Tim Tebow started the year as the Broncos third string quarterback.  After they won just one game in their first five, the Broncos’ coach John Fox gave him the opportunity to become the starter.  He has won six of the seven games he’s started.  Tebow looked at the sunny side of things.  When he wasn’t playing, he worked hard in practice and paid close attention to the games.  When he got his chance, he made his optimism come true – six out of seven times.

Optimism works – and not just for athletes.  Christopher Reeve is no longer with us, but he exemplified the idea of looking at the sunny side of things.  Even though he was paralyzed from the neck down after a riding accident, he devoted himself to finding a cure for spinal cord injuries.  I love the way his optimism comes across in this quote…

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”

Christopher Reeve looked at the sunny side of his injury and did what he could to make his optimism come true.  His foundation carries on the work he started.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are self-confident.  Self-confident people are optimists.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 42 in Success Tweets.  “Choose optimism.  It builds your confidence.  Believe that today will be better than yesterday, and that tomorrow will be better yet.”  The Optimist Creed is a great guide to becoming more optimistic and self-confident.  Its proactive approach to life is a great guide to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  Remember the old saying, “Whether you’re an optimist, or a pessimist you’ll be proven right.”  I choose optimism, and suggest you do too.

That’s my career advice based on watching Tim Tebow’s remarkable run over the past seven weeks.  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 musings on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

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

PPS: I opened a membership site 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 Rugby World Cup final was played over the weekend.  New Zealand beat France 8 – 7 in a very intensely contested and physical match.  If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I am a rugby player.  I played my first match for Penn State in 1968 and my last on my 60th birthday last year.

Rugby is a hard physical game, played by hard physical men — and women.  I learned a lot about life and career success on the rugby pitch.  One of the most important career success lessons I learned on the pitch was the importance of preparation.  Tweet 97 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Today, do the things others won’t do, so tomorrow you can do the things they can’t do.

I got this bit of career success advice 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 career success.

It takes a tremendous level of commitment to win a Rugby World Cup – or to finish second for that matter.  As I watched on Sunday, I was astounded by the level of physical fitness and the intensity both sides brought to the match.  I was pulling for New Zealand, but came away with tremendous respect for the French players.  All of the players on the pitch that day demonstrated their commitment to winning.  And that’s where today’s career success advice comes into play.

It’s simple, really.  Career success is all up to you, and me, and anyone else who wants it.  We all have to take personal responsibility for our own career success.  I am the only one who can make me a career success.  You are the only one who can make you a career 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 for others with no expectation of return.

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.

Stuff happens as you go about creating your life and career success: good stuff, bad stuff, frustrating stuff, unexpected stuff.  Successful people respond to the stuff that happens in a positive way.  Humans are the only animals with free will.  That means we – you and me – get to decide how we react to every situation that comes up.  When you take responsibility for responding positively to people and events – especially negative people and events – you’re doing the things that a lot of people won’t do.  This means that you’ll be more successful in the long run.

Personal responsibility means recognizing that you are responsible for your life and career success and the choices you make.  It means that you realize that, while other people and events have an impact on your life, these people and events don’t shape your life.  When you accept personal responsibility for your life, you own up to the fact that how you react to people and events is what’s important.  And you can choose how to react to every person you meet and everything that happens to you.

The concept of personal responsibility is found in most writings on success.  Stephen Covey’s first habit in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is, “Be proactive.”  My friend John Miller’s book, QBQ: the Question Behind the Question, asks readers to pose questions to themselves like, “What can I do to become a top performer?”  When you ask and answer this question, you’ll be on your way to doing the things that other won’t do – and getting the promotions and recognition that they can’t get.

In my opinion, all of this comes down to two words: activity and persistence.  Activity and persistence are my watchwords.  I set some very high goals for myself every year.  I begin each year in high gear and then I kick it into overdrive.  And, I persist until I achieve all of my goals, no matter what.  I am committed to activity and persistence.

Mike Litman has some interesting things to say about activity…

“Activity.  Activity.  Activity.  Too many people are standing still.  Too much pondering, too little action.  Too much scatteredness, too little focus.  Too much talk, too little results.  In 2009, commit to a year filled with activity.  Be 1% more active each day in your business.  Start at 1%.

“Activity.  Activity.  Activity.  When you stand still too long, moving becomes real tough.  Very tough.  Every day, do at least one action that moves you forward.  What I love best about a lot of activity, is that I get to make mistakes and learn what works.  You can do the same.  Activity.  Activity.  Activity.  2009 is about you being more active than you’ve ever been.  Are you in?  Are you ready to commit to a year filled with activity?”

Kevin Eikenberry writes to leaders, but his ideas apply to anyone who wants to create life and career success.  He says…

“Let me be blunt.  We can create and engage in the best leadership skill training, we can create the best leadership development opportunities, and we can provide coaching and mentoring that is outstanding, and yet, if all of these programs and leadership activities don’t include an ongoing persistent process of improvement – a way to instill and inspire persistence – we will fall short of what is possible… Ask yourself today what you can do to create greater persistence in yourself and your organization.  Your answer (and the action taken on that answer) will pay you rich rewards.”

These guys are right!  Activity and persistence will make you an outstanding performer.  And they are the key to putting the advice in Success Tweet 97 to work.  Activity – even 1% more than you currently do – and persistence – fighting through problems and setbacks – will yield positive results in the long term.  But you have to commit to them.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people commit to taking responsibility for their life and career success.  They do whatever it takes to achieve their life and career success goals.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 97 in Success Tweets.  “Today, do the things others won’t do; so tomorrow you can do the things they can’t.”  Be willing to put in the time to prepare so that you can create the life and career success that you want and deserve.  Be active and persistent.  The law of inertia says that a body in motion tends to stay in motion.  That’s why activity is so important.  Once you get moving, it’s easier to stay moving towards your goals.  And it’s easier to persist in the face of problems and setbacks.  To paraphrase Muhammad Ali: “Inside a ring or out, ain’t no shame in going down.  It’s staying down that’s shameful.”  Persistent people don’t stay down; they get back up and keep moving.  Make activity and persistence your watchwords.  You’ll amaze yourself with how much you will accomplish, and the life and career success you will create.

That’s my career advice for today, prompted by New Zealand’s win in the 2011 Rugby World Cup.  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 on career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

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

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

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that I am a VIP guest at an event in LA this week. All of the VIPs were invited to create a flyer to be included in the participant package.  I took the invitation literally, and put together a nice front and back four color flyer.  I was pretty proud of it.

Then I saw Pete Treloar’s welcome package insert.  It was an envelope with a hack-e-sack — you know, one of those little balls you kick around.  It came with a card that said, “Still licking around the idea of having your own fully automated local, national or global coaching and training program?  Visit us at the Online Coaching Systems booth to find out how.”

This was cool.  Pete stood out from all of the other VIPs because he was willing to break and few rules.  He didn’t prepare a flyer – he prepared a small gift in an envelope.  By so doing, he branded himself as a creative guy.  Tweet 65 in my career success book Success Tweets says, “A good personal brand highlights your uniqueness.  Be unconventional.  Break rules.”  That’s exactly what Pete did.

I love the movies.  I was really pleased when I was asked to review a book called The Big Picture: Essential Lessons for the Movies.  Authors Kevin Coupe and Michael Sansolo do a great job of discussing the life and career success ideas in over 200 movies.  This is a very thoughtful book.

Kevin and Michael make some great points about how life and career success ideas pop up in some unlikely movies.  For example, they use the movie Babe to make the point that it’s important to be different – and break some rules — if you want to get recognized and succeed.  Babe is a pig.  He succeeds because he doesn’t act like a pig is expected to act.  In fact, he acts exactly the opposite.  His brand is the anti-pig.  Your brand is important too.  A unique personal brand is an important key to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.

Here’s some of what Kevin and Michael have to say about Babe…

“Babe is a simple story, but it contains an important lesson.  Think of how many businesses have stuck to the way things always are and completely missed the opportunity to become something entirely new, bigger and better.

“MTV didn’t invent video or records, but pulled them together in an entirely new cable channel.  CBS, in contrast, owned a television network and a record company, but missed the chance.”

I experienced another rule-breaking moment several months ago.  I was in a local bookstore looking for a book on fitness.  As you can imagine, there was no shortage.  As I opened various books to check them out, I found Tamba Mbawa’s business card in every one of them.  I purchased one of the books and took it home.  When I got there, I went to Tamba’s website to see what he is about.  Not surprisingly, Tamba is a personal trainer and fitness coach.

Just like Pete’s hack-e-sack, this was a great example of breaking the rules and personal brand building.  Tamba spent the time to go to a local Barnes and Noble and place his card in every one of the fitness books they have on the shelf.  He was getting his name in front of a very targeted audience: people who purchase books on fitness.  Pretty cool idea.  And one that is a perfect manifestation of what Kevin and Michael have to say about breaking the rules to get recognized for your uniqueness.

When I first started blogging, my dad read a few of my posts and said, “You’re giving away some of your best ideas.  You shouldn’t do that.  You need to be selling your advice, not giving it away.”  At the time, content-rich blogs ran counter to the rule of jealously guarding your proprietary information.  I told my dad that I’m happy when people read my blog and find ideas they can put to use.  More power to them.

I also told him that people who find my ideas helpful are more likely to look to me for career advice when they run up against a problem they can’t solve on their own.  I was breaking a rule to build my brand.

Interestingly, giving away solid useful information is the new rule.  Ask any Internet marketer or marketing guru.  They will all tell you to build a relationship and establish credibility with your target audience by providing them with useful information at no cost.  Funny how things change.

George Bernard Shaw is my favorite playwright.  There is nothing so good as a well-performed Bernard Shaw play.  He also had something to say about breaking rules and how broken rules can become the new way of doing things…

“All great truths start out as blasphemies.”

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

So go ahead, break a few rules.  Be a little unreasonable.  Be unconventional, make your brand uniquely you.

One last story.  Tim McKernan had one of the most unique personal brands I have come across.  He was The Barrel Man.  You might say that Tim was a superfan of the Denver Broncos.  For 30 years and in all kinds of weather, he attended every Bronco home game wearing nothing but an orange barrel with a Broncos logo and a cowboy hat and boots.

He wore his costume for the first time in 1977.  He had a $10 bet with his brother.  He bet that the costume would get him on TV.  He won that one, and was on TV every time the Broncos were for the next 30 years.  John Madden always mentioned him when he was doing a game in Denver.

Tim’s unique brand got him inducted into the Visa Hall of Fans at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  He passed away in 2009.  He was in the stands for both of the Broncos’ Super Bowl victories.

You don’t have to go to the lengths Tim McKernan did when building your brand.  But I encourage you to think like Tim – or Tamba – or Pete.  Being a little outrageous, like wearing only a barrel to football games in December in Denver, can help you stand out from the crowd and get recognized.  Placing your card in all of the books on fitness at a Barnes and Noble can help you get recognized.  Giving away a hack-e-sack when everybody else has a one page flyer helps you stand out from the crowd.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people build personal brands that are unique.  Breaking a few rules is one way of building a unique brand.  By breaking the rules, I don’t mean doing something illegal or unethical.  I mean thinking outside of the box and not being constrained by conventional wisdom.  In the movie “Babe,” Babe the pig succeeds because he doesn’t act like a pig.  He is friendly and mannerly – characteristics not usually associated with pigs.  Pete Treloar broke a rule when he included an envelope that contained a hack-e-sack in a welcome package that was supposed to be for flyers.  What rules are holding you back from building a great personal brand?  How can you break them to demonstrate your uniqueness?  Follow the career advice in Tweet 65 in Success Tweets.  “A good personal brand highlights your uniqueness.  Be unconventional.  Break rules.”  Don’t do anything that will land you in jail, or get you fired.  But think outside the box, find ways to create a Cherry Garcia brand, not one which is plain vanilla.  Think of new ways to combine ideas.  An iPod after all, is nothing more than a hard drive with a set of headphones.  Figure out how you can become the iPod in your work team.  Create a brand that shows how unique and fascinating you really are.

That’s the career advice I took from Pete Treloar’s hack-e-sack gift.  What do you think?  What is your brand?  What have you done to make is stand out as different and unique?  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, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

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

Here’s some career advice that comes from the young NFL season.  I live in Denver.  People here love the Broncos.  I’d go as far as saying that people in Denver love the Broncos almost – but not quite — as much as people in Pittsburgh love the Steelers.

We are in the midst of a quarterback controversy in Denver.  The coaches and players think that Kyle Orton is the best quarterback on the team.  He is the starter.  Many of the fans think that Tim Tebow, a second year player who won the Heisman Trophy when he played for the University of Florida, should be the starting quarterback.  Neither Orton nor Tebow have  commented publicly on the situation.  But a whole lot of fans and reporters have.

The sports talk shows are full of Orton/Tebow discussions.  People write letters to the editor of the Denver Post about it.  Sportswriters all seem to have their position on the issue.  Last Sunday, a columnist who doesn’t write about sports devoted his column to it.  That one got me.  I asked myself, “Why would people bother with this?  What difference does it make who the Broncos quarterback is?”  Then the answer hit me.  They bother because they care.  They care a lot.

And that’s where today’s career success advice comes in.  Tweet 100 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.”  Bronco fans who care so much that they call talk radio shows and write letters to the editor are outstanding fans.  If they bring that same passion and caring to their jobs, I’m sure they are outstanding performers and on the road to life and career success.

If you want to become a life and career success, you have to care about what you do.  You have to be passionate about it.  I’ll use myself as an example.

I am passionate about helping people create the life and career success they want and deserve.  I care a lot.  That’s why I wrote Success Tweets and give it away for free.  That’s why I wrote a series of blog posts explaining the shorthand career advice in each of the 141 common sense tweets in Success Tweets in more detail and turned it into a career advice book called Success Tweets Explained.

I care so much about helping people create the life and career success they deserve that I’ve committed to writing a 700 or 800 word blog post five days a week, 50 weeks a year.  Besides that, I’ve created a membership site called My Corporate Climb to help people create their corporate career success.  I also do webinars and speeches.  I am really passionate about being the very best career success coach out there.

I do all of these things because I care.  I care a lot about helping you achieve the kind of career success you deserve.  And I know that this caring will pay off in me becoming an outstanding career success coach – somebody who provides his clients with really great career advice.

When you care you do your very best.  2009 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.  In this case, the story 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.

What about you?  Do you really care about what you do?  Do you dare to admit how much you care?

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

That’s my career advice on caring about what you do – a lot.  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, you can download a free copy of the companion piece to Success Tweets, 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.

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

I’m a lucky guy.  Cathy, my wife, and I were out on Saturday.  She said, “We’ve got to get home.  I want to watch the NFL Hall of Fame induction ceremony.”  How many guys can say something like that?  I love football and so does Cathy.  We got home in time to watch and I found some great career advice in what the inductees had to say.

While I’m a Pittsburgh guy and love the Steelers, I live in Denver and follow the Broncos.  I was especially pleased when Shannon Sharpe the Broncos’ great tight end got selected to the Hall of Fame.  Shannon was a great player.

In his speech he talked about his dream of playing in the NFL…

“People often ask me how does a small town kid from Glennville, Georgia, who went to Savannah State College now Savannah State University, who won three Super Bowls and at one time owned all significant receiving records for a tight end? I want all you young people to listen to my answer. It’s called the three D’s: Determination, Dedication, and Discipline. Three traits that translate in any generation and any job setting. There is a reason they called it chasing your dreams and not walking after them. Don’t hope someone gives you an opportunity, create one for yourself.

“When I left my grandmother’s home in 1986 headed to Savannah State with two brown grocery bags filled with my belongings, nothing was going to keep me from realizing my dreams. When people told me I wasn’t going to make it, I listened to the one person who told me I was, me. You may not know this, but I was never supposed to be a Hall of Fame tight end or any kind of tight end, or even a Hall of Fame player. I’m here today for a lot of reasons. Some have everything to do with me. Some have absolutely nothing to do with me and everything to do with the kindness and patience of all the people that guided me through my life.”

That part of Shannon Sharpe’s speech reminded me of the career success advice in Tweets 31 and 40 in my career advice book Success Tweets.  “Plan how you will achieve your goals.  Then do whatever you have to do, not want or feel like doing, to achieve them.” (31)  “Vision without action is a daydream.  No matter how big your plans and dreams, they’ll never become a reality until you act on them.” (40)

Your goals won’t get done just because you’ve set them.  Common sense career advice says that you have to workto achieve your goals.  There are two steps here.  First, plan how you will achieve each of your goals.  Second, work your plan.  You can have all of the good intentions in the world, but if you don’t plan how you will achieve your goals and then work your plan, you will not achieve the life and career success you want and deserve.  Just ask Shannon Sharpe – you need dedication, determination and discipline.

Gary Ryan Blair, The Goals Guy, and author of a great book called Everything Counts makes an important point about the importance of working your goals…

“Good intentions, while honorable, are of little use when you let weeks, months, and years of potential and possibility slip by.”

Gary has a weekly ritual of reflecting, reviewing and updating his goals.  He said that this ritual has allowed him to continue to grow and make significant performance gains for twelve straight years without missing a beat.

Check it out.

Every Sunday night, or Monday morning, isolate one goal and ask yourself the following five questions:

1. What are my current year-to-date results in relation to this goal?
2. What has gone right so far this year?  Why?  Identify strengths and strategies to repeat.
3. What has gone wrong so far this year?  Why?  Identify weaknesses and strategies to drop.
4. What corrective actions will I immediately implement to remain on target?
5. What will I commit to doing this week to ensure that I will meet or achieve this goal?

I love this exercise.  I have committed to doing it every Monday morning.  I did it this morning.  As a career success coach, I encourage you to do the same.  Give this exercise the time and attention it deserves, and as Gary says, “you will have positioned yourself for having a breakthrough week.”

The most important part of tweet 31 in Success Tweets is the part that says “do whatever you have to do, not want or feel like doing, to achieve them.”  Gary Ryan Blair, the Goals Guy, provides a great exercise to help you stay on target and move ahead toward achieving your goals.  Even if you don’t feel like reviewing one of your goals every week, I suggest you do it.  This is solid, common sense and great career advice.  The more you focus on your goals, the more likely you are to achieve them.

I got the inspiration for tweet 40 in Success Tweets from a Japanese proverb…

Vision without action is a daydream.  Action without vision is a nightmare.

No matter how big, your goals, plans, thoughts and dreams will never become a reality until you act on them.  You have to commit to taking personal responsibility for achieving your goals and for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  And action is the single most important word when it comes to demonstrating your commitment.  Just ask Shannon Sharpe or any of the people in the NFL Hall of Fame.

In his speech on Saturday, Deion Sanders said much the same thing…

“I made a pledge to myself that I don’t care what it takes, I don’t care what it may take, I’m not going to do anything illegal, but my mama would never have to work another day of her life.”

Neon Deion had a dream.  NFL success would allow him to take care of his mother.  I loved wht he had to say about dreams…

“If you’re dream ain’t bigger than you, there’s a problem with your dream.”

Deion’s dream was bigger than him, it included his mother.

You have to have dreams to focus your action.  Action without vision truly is a nightmare.  You’ll never get where you want to go if you don’t have a clear idea of exactly what you want to achieve.  That’s why you have to set goals.  Your goals are your vision for the career success you will create.

Goals give you direction and focus.  Action makes your goals a reality.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people, like NFL Hall of Famers Shannon Sharpe and Deion Sanders, followed a path similar to the career advice in Tweets 31 and 40 in Success Tweets.  “Plan how you will achieve your goals.  Then do whatever you have to do, not want or feel like doing, to achieve them.”  (31) “Vision without action is a daydream.  No matter how big your plans and dreams, they’ll never become a reality until you act on them.” (40)  Your dreams and goals are the foundation of your life and career success.  You need to do two things to make them come true.  First, create a plan.  Second, implement your plan; do whatever you have to do to achieve your career success dreams and goals.  Gary Ryan Blair, The Goals Guy, suggests focusing on one of your goals every week.  Figure out how well you’re doing on this one goal.  Then commit to doing the things necessary to move you closer to achieving it.  If you rotate through your goals, one week at a time, you’ll be moving in the right direction.  You’ll be on the road to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  This technique works.  Take it from a career success coach who uses it.

That’s the career advice I found in Shannon Sharpe and Deion Sanders’ NFL Hall of Fame induction speeches.  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.

Bud

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

I’m a lucky guy.  Cathy, my wife, and I were out on Saturday.  She said, “We’ve got to get home.  I want to watch the NFL Hall of Fame induction ceremony.”  How many guys can say something like that?  I love football and so does Cathy.  We got home in time to watch and I found some great career advice in what the inductees had to say.

While I’m a Pittsburgh guy and love the Steelers, I live in Denver and follow the Broncos.  I was especially pleased when Shannon Sharpe the Broncos’ great tight end got selected to the Hall of Fame.  Shannon was a great player.

In his speech he talked about his dream of playing in the NFL…

“People often ask me how does a small town kid from Glennville, Georgia, who went to Savannah State College now Savannah State University, who won three Super Bowls and at one time owned all significant receiving records for a tight end? I want all you young people to listen to my answer. It’s called the three D’s: Determination, Dedication, and Discipline. Three traits that translate in any generation and any job setting. There is a reason they called it chasing your dreams and not walking after them. Don’t hope someone gives you an opportunity, create one for yourself.

“When I left my grandmother’s home in 1986 headed to Savannah State with two brown grocery bags filled with my belongings, nothing was going to keep me from realizing my dreams. When people told me I wasn’t going to make it, I listened to the one person who told me I was, me. You may not know this, but I was never supposed to be a Hall of Fame tight end or any kind of tight end, or even a Hall of Fame player. I’m here today for a lot of reasons. Some have everything to do with me. Some have absolutely nothing to do with me and everything to do with the kindness and patience of all the people that guided me through my life.”

That part of Shannon Sharpe’s speech reminded me of the career success advice in Tweets 31 and 40 in my career advice book Success Tweets.  “Plan how you will achieve your goals.  Then do whatever you have to do, not want or feel like doing, to achieve them.” (31)  “Vision without action is a daydream.  No matter how big your plans and dreams, they’ll never become a reality until you act on them.” (40)

Your goals won’t get done just because you’ve set them.  Common sense career advice says that you have to workto achieve your goals.  There are two steps here.  First, plan how you will achieve each of your goals.  Second, work your plan.  You can have all of the good intentions in the world, but if you don’t plan how you will achieve your goals and then work your plan, you will not achieve the life and career success you want and deserve.  Just ask Shannon Sharpe – you need dedication, determination and discipline.

Gary Ryan Blair, The Goals Guy, and author of a great book called Everything Counts makes an important point about the importance of working your goals…

“Good intentions, while honorable, are of little use when you let weeks, months, and years of potential and possibility slip by.”

Gary has a weekly ritual of reflecting, reviewing and updating his goals.  He said that this ritual has allowed him to continue to grow and make significant performance gains for twelve straight years without missing a beat.

Check it out.

Every Sunday night, or Monday morning, isolate one goal and ask yourself the following five questions:

1. What are my current year-to-date results in relation to this goal?
2. What has gone right so far this year?  Why?  Identify strengths and strategies to repeat.
3. What has gone wrong so far this year?  Why?  Identify weaknesses and strategies to drop.
4. What corrective actions will I immediately implement to remain on target?
5. What will I commit to doing this week to ensure that I will meet or achieve this goal?

I love this exercise.  I have committed to doing it every Monday morning.  I did it this morning.  As a career success coach, I encourage you to do the same.  Give this exercise the time and attention it deserves, and as Gary says, “you will have positioned yourself for having a breakthrough week.”

The most important part of tweet 31 in Success Tweets is the part that says “do whatever you have to do, not want or feel like doing, to achieve them.”  Gary Ryan Blair, the Goals Guy, provides a great exercise to help you stay on target and move ahead toward achieving your goals.  Even if you don’t feel like reviewing one of your goals every week, I suggest you do it.  This is solid, common sense and great career advice.  The more you focus on your goals, the more likely you are to achieve them.

I got the inspiration for tweet 40 in Success Tweets from a Japanese proverb…

Vision without action is a daydream.  Action without vision is a nightmare.

No matter how big, your goals, plans, thoughts and dreams will never become a reality until you act on them.  You have to commit to taking personal responsibility for achieving your goals and for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  And action is the single most important word when it comes to demonstrating your commitment.  Just ask Shannon Sharpe or any of the people in the NFL Hall of Fame.

In his speech on Saturday, Deion Sanders said much the same thing…

“I made a pledge to myself that I don’t care what it takes, I don’t care what it may take, I’m not going to do anything illegal, but my mama would never have to work another day of her life.”

Neon Deion had a dream.  NFL success would allow him to take care of his mother.  I loved wht he had to say about dreams…

“If you’re dream ain’t bigger than you, there’s a problem with your dream.”

Deion’s dream was bigger than him, it included his mother.

You have to have dreams to focus your action.  Action without vision truly is a nightmare.  You’ll never get where you want to go if you don’t have a clear idea of exactly what you want to achieve.  That’s why you have to set goals.  Your goals are your vision for the career success you will create.

Goals give you direction and focus.  Action makes your goals a reality.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people, like NFL Hall of Famers Shannon Sharpe and Deion Sanders, followed a path similar to the career advice in Tweets 31 and 40 in Success Tweets.  “Plan how you will achieve your goals.  Then do whatever you have to do, not want or feel like doing, to achieve them.”  (31) “Vision without action is a daydream.  No matter how big your plans and dreams, they’ll never become a reality until you act on them.” (40)  Your dreams and goals are the foundation of your life and career success.  You need to do two things to make them come true.  First, create a plan.  Second, implement your plan; do whatever you have to do to achieve your career success dreams and goals.  Gary Ryan Blair, The Goals Guy, suggests focusing on one of your goals every week.  Figure out how well you’re doing on this one goal.  Then commit to doing the things necessary to move you closer to achieving it.  If you rotate through your goals, one week at a time, you’ll be moving in the right direction.  You’ll be on the road to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  This technique works.  Take it from a career success coach who uses it.

That’s the career advice I found in Shannon Sharpe and Deion Sanders’ NFL Hall of Fame induction speeches.  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.

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.

They played the Super Bowl yesterday.  The Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers by a score of 31 – 25.  This killed me because I grew up in Pittsburgh and am a huge Steelers fan.  Oh well, maybe next year.

There is a lot of career advice to be found in a championship sporting event like the Super Bowl: focus, determination, hard work, commitment, attention to detail.  World class athletes demonstrate all of these career success characteristics.

In this post, I want to focus on an important, but often overlooked, piece of career advice that can be found in the stories surrounding yesterday’s game – the importance of clarifying your purpose and direction for your life and career success.  Tweet 3 in my latest career advice book Success Tweets says, “Think of your purpose as your personal mission; why you are on this earth.”  Tweet 4 says, “The mightier your purpose, the more likely you are to succeed.”

Mike McCarthy is the Head Coach Green Bay of the Green Bay Packers.  In one of the little ironies you find in sports, he is a Pittsburgh native.  He grew up as a big Steelers fan.  Early on, Mike realized that his purpose in life – his personal mission — was to be a football coach.  And for him, this was a mighty purpose.

Mike McCarthy’s purpose of becoming a football coach was so powerful that he took an unpaid job at the University of Pittsburgh as an assistant coach.  He worked all night as a toll taker on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to pay the bills.  He quickly became a paid assistant coach at Pitt and then moved on to a series of assistant coaching positions in professional football before becoming the Green Bay Head Coach.  Yesterday he coached his team to a victory in the Super Bowl.  Mike McCarthy’s mighty purpose has taken him to the pinnacle of his profession.

As a career success coach, I’m here to help other people succeed in creating the life and career success they want and deserve.  I think this is a pretty mighty purpose for my life.  I may help someone who someday may become President, or a Supreme Court Justice, or find a cure for cancer, or just be a loving and caring parent.  This purpose anchors me.  It keeps me going when I get frustrated, or when I feel like quitting, or when I start to feel that it’s OK to be “good enough,” not great.

I define the word “purpose” as follows…

• Your reason for existing. 
• Your mission in life.
• Your passion.
• Why you are on this earth.

This isn’t always easy to discover. 

If you’re young and still trying to figure out your purpose, don’t worry.  It takes time.  That’s why I always tell people to be open to new ideas and thoughts, as you never know what you might pick up.

If you told me when I was in high school that my purpose mission would be to help others create their life and career success, I would have laughed.  It took several courses in college and a year of service as a VISTA Volunteer for me to figure it out.  That’s when I began my career in the human development field.

Your purpose needs to come from deep inside you.  It is unlikely to change over the long run.  I’ve had lots of different jobs in lots of companies and have been self employed for over 20 years. 

Through all the changes, one thing has remained constant – my desire and passion for helping others create the life and career success they deserve.  In my heart of hearts, I know that I am on this earth to help others navigate the ambiguities of life in order to reach their goals and create their career success.

Here is my purpose…

To help others achieve the life and career success that they want and deserve by applying their common sense.

It hasn’t changed since I was 23 years old.  This purpose reflects who I am and why I get up every morning – even on mornings after my team has lost the Super Bowl.  It’s what’s right for me. 

What’s right for you?  What is your passion?  What is your reason for living?  Why you are on this earth?  What is your purpose?

You have to begin your career success journey by clarifying your purpose in life.  Why are you on this earth?  What are you meant to do?  I believe that the more mighty your purpose, the more you are likely to succeed.  A mighty purpose gives you that strong foundation.
 
Brad Swift of the Life On Purpose Institute (www.lifeonpurpose.com), makes a great point about clarity of purpose…

“Taking a bold stand for living on purpose starts by knowing your purpose with crystal clarity — knowing it so well that if someone woke you up at 3:00 in the morning and asked you what your life purpose is, you’d be able to tell them.  And if someone who knew you well heard what you said, they’d realize that your life was a true, authentic reflection of that purpose.”

There are two common sense piece of career advice on which I want to focus here.  First, your purpose should be so big, so mighty, so important to you, that it is deeply ingrained in your psyche.  It has to be part of who you are.  Second, you have to live your purpose 24/7/365.  This takes commitment; commitment to determining your life’s purpose, and commitment to living it.

If you were to wake me at 3:00 in the morning, shine a light in my face and ask me for my life’s purpose, I’m sure I would say, “Helping people create their life and career success.”  It’s that much a part of me.  My elevator speech begins, “Hi, I’m Bud Bilanich, the Common Sense Guy; I help people create their life and career success applying their common sense.”

For me, this is a mighty purpose.  I’m helping other people create their life and career success – and fulfillment in their lives.  That’s important work in my book.  I take immense satisfaction out of seeing others learn, grow and succeed.  In another life I might have been a teacher or athletic coach.  In this life, I help people create the life and career success that they want and deserve.

If you woke Mike McCarthy am 3:00 am and asked him his purpose, I bet he would tell you, “being a football coach.”  This purpose is so mighty for him that he began his coaching career as an unpaid coach, learning the ropes while taking tolls on the graveyard shift to make ends meet.

Is your life purpose mighty?  I hope so.

The common sense career success coach point of here is simple.  Successful people ground themselves in a mighty purpose.  Tweet 3 in Success Tweets says, “Think of your purpose as your personal mission; why you are on this earth.” 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.”  Take this advice to heart.  Ground yourself with a mighty purpose — and live it every day.  As the old saying goes, “It’s better to aim to high and fall a little short than it is to aim too low and reach your goal.”  Or, as Mario Andretti once said, “If you’re in complete control, you’re probably not going fast enough.”  I’m sure there were plenty of times during his run to becoming a Super Bowl winning coach when Mike McCarthy felt a little out of control.  But in the end, he and his team triumphed.  His mighty purpose saw him through.  Here’s a tip of my hat from one Pittsburgh guy to another Mike.  Enjoy your victory.  You’ve earned it.

That’s my career advice on finding a mighty purpose to help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.  What do you think?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading my musings on life and career success.

Bud

Career advice based on baseball may seem to be a little strange this time of year.  The college football season ended a couple of days ago when Auburn beat Oregon for the National Championship – although I think the folks at TCU might beg to differ about who is the national champ.  The NFL playoffs are in full swing – not to mention that basketball and hockey are in mid season.

However, I came across something interesting about a baseball player over the holidays.  Cathy and I were visiting her mother in Carlsbad NM.  As it turns out, Cody Ross is from Carlsbad.  If you’re wondering who is Cody Ross, he was the MVP of the National League Championship series, and a member of the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants. 

The town of Carlsbad gave him a parade and inducted him into its sports hall of fame.  It was a great day for him and his family.  But it wasn’t always so great for Cody.  In his major league career he has been traded several times, suffered quite a few injuries and was cut by the Florida Marlins in early September.  He was told over and over again that he was too small and too slow to be a real major league baseball player.

The Giants signed him after he was cut by the Marlins and he really helped them in the playoffs.  He hit safely in 10 consecutive games, hit five home runs and had three game winning RBIs.  Cody Ross went from being almost out of baseball to a World Series champion in the space of two months.

I’m telling you this story because Cody Ross is persistent, a career success characteristic.  In the speech he made the day of the celebration in Carlsbad he said…

“Never, never, ever let anybody tell you that you can’t do something you dream of doing.  I had a lot of people through the years tell me I would never make it professional baseball…Some of these people we even coaches and friends.  Let me be proof that if you set your mind to do something and you believe in yourself anything – I mean anything – is possible.  Dream big.”

Besides being persisitent Cody Ross is tenacious.  I talk about tenacity in Tweet 10 in my career advice book Success Tweets, “Find your purpose and pursue in tenaciously.” 

Tenacious people commit to three things.  First, they take personal responsibility for their life and career success.  They embrace the fact that they are responsible for their own life and career success.  They are willing to do the things necessary to succeed.  Second, tenacious people set high goals — and then do whatever it takes to achieve them.   Third, tenacious people know that stuff happens as they go through life.  They realize they will encounter many problems and setbacks.  Tenacious people choose to react positively to the negative stuff that happens and move forward toward their goals and their career success.

Playing professional baseball is Cody Ross’ purpose.   Cody exemplifies the third point about tenacity.  He suffered through several setbacks – the most serious being cut by the Marlins in September.  He could have quit.  He didn’t.  Quitting would have meant giving up on his career success dreams.  He caught on with the Giants and helped them become World Series champions.

As I frequently say to my career success coach clients, “Stuff will happen as you go through life – good stuff, bad stuff, happy stuff, sad stuff, encouraging stuff, frustrating stuff.  However, it’s not that stuff that happens that’s important, it’s how you react to it.” 

You can’t control the people and events in your life.  You can control how you react to the people and events in your life.  That’s what Cody Ross did.  That’s what you need to do if you’re going to create the life and career success you want and deserve.

Cody Ross chose to react positively to the people and events in his life – especially the bad stuff, sad stuff and frustrating stuff that happened to him.  He chose to tenaciously follow his dreams.  That was his message to the people of his home town who honored him last December.  I urge you to be like Cody Rodd and do the same if you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve.

I know this isn’t always easy.  In fact, it’s seldom easy.  But the harder you find it to react positively to negative people and events, the more important it is for you to do so. 

Don’t blame people or circumstances when things go wrong.  Instead, take responsibility for your career success.  Choose to be tenacious and learn the lesson behind every less than successful event in your life.

When you look for the lesson behind problems, setbacks and failures you are being tenacious; you are taking responsibility for your life and career success.  Find the lessons in the bad stuff that happens and then do something to put those lessons to work.  Commit to taking responsibility for yourself, your life and your career success. 

Put yourself in the driver’s seat.  Don’t let events and people stop you from achieving your goals and career success.  Be persistent.  Be tenacious.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people commit to taking personal responsibility for their life and career success.  Heed the advice in Tweet 10 in Success Tweets.  “Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.  Find your purpose and pursue it tenaciously.” 

Only you can make you a career success.  You have to take personal responsibility for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  Tenacity and persistence are the hallmarks of people who are committed to taking personal responsibility for their life and career success.  Tenacious and persistent people keep going; even in — no especially in — the face of difficulties and problems.  Promise yourself that you will commit to taking personal responsibility for your life and career success.  Be like Cody Ross.  Be persistent.  Be tenacious.  Keep at it, and you will reach your goals.

That’s my career success baseball story in the middle of the NFL playoffs.  What do you think?  How tenacious are you?  If you have a personal stories about when your tenacity paid off please share them with us by leaving a comment.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

While this is a career advice blog, I cover a variety of topics.  Sports can teach us many life and career success lessons.  So today, I want to discuss an NFL game that happened last night.

If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I’m a Pittsburgh guy, a big American Football fan and an even bigger Pittsburgh Steelers fan.  Last night, the Steelers played the Baltimore Ravens.  It was a tough, brutal game. 

The Ravens broke Steelers quarterback, Ben Roethlisberger’s nose the first time the Steelers had the ball.  The report from the bench during the game was the Big Ben’s nose wasn’t broken, just bloodied.  Having broken my nose five or six times during my rugby playing days I thought, “Who are they kidding?  I know a broken nose when I see one.” 

After the game, the coaching staff admitted that Big Ben’s nose was indeed broken.  It’d difficult to play with a broken nose.  It hurts and it’s hard to breathe.

But Big Ben isn’t the focus of this post and today’s career advice.  Troy Polamalu is.  Troy Polamalu is the Steelers strong safety.  He won last week’s game against Buffalo with an interception late in the game, and he won last night’s game by causing a Ravens fumble that led to the Steelers only touchdown that allowed them to win 13 – 10.

Tweet 138 in Success Tweets, my latest career success coach book says, “We all make mistakes.  Own up to yours.  You’ll become known as a straight shooter, honest with yourself and others.”  If you don’t already have a copy of Succes Tweets, you can download one for free at http://www.SuccessTweets.com

Point 7 of The Optimist Creed, one of my favorite writings on career success says, “Promise yourself to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.” 

Sometimes the mistakes of the past can be but a distant memory.  Sometimes they can be but a few hours.

Troy Polamalu is a great player.  But even great players make mistakes.  Last night, Troy Polamalu made a big mistake early in the game.  He lost the man he was guarding in the end zone, allowing him to score a touchdown – the only one Baltimore would score all night.

But he kept playing hard.  And late in the game he caused the fumble that won the game.  Writing on ESPN.com, James Walker said, “Polamalu’s well-timed blitz could be the biggest play in Pittsburgh’s regular season…Many players can make plays.  But very few can make them consistently when the game is on the line…That is the rare category that Polamalu is in.”

But even great players make mistakes.  One of the reasons Troy Polamalu is a great player is that he forgets his mistakes, and as The Optimist Creed says, “press on to the greater achievements of the future.” 

Ann Landers, the famous advice columnist once said…

“If I were asked to give what I consider to be the single-most useful bit of advice for all humanity, it would be this: expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye, and say ‘I will be bigger than you.  You cannot defeat me’.”

I like what Ann Landers has to say here because it is a bit of reality check.  She’s right, trouble – and setbacks and failure – are an inevitable part of like.  Self confident people look trouble squarely in the eye and move forward.  They are not cowed by their failures, rather they embrace them and use them to move towards their goals.  They also own up to their mistakes.  In this way, they become widely trusted.  And trust is the glue that holds together all relationships. 

Last night, Troy Polamalu held his head high, looked trouble squarely in the eye and didn’t let it defeat him.  He made a terrbile play early in the game, and a great play later that won the game.  His teammates trust him.  One of them said, “He watches film like no other player.  In practice, you can see that he knows exactly what to do. And when you see him flying around in practice, you just know he’s going to do it in the game.”

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  The Pittsburgh Steelers won a game last night because one of their star players followed the career advice in point 7 of The Optimist Creed, “Promise yourself to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future,” and in Tweet 138 in Success Tweets, “We all make mistakes.  Own up to yours.  You’ll become known as a straight shooter, honest with yourself and others.” 

Successful, self confident people realize that mistakes are part of life.  They learn from their mistakes and they build on this knowledge to create their career success.  Owning up to your mistakes is great career advice.  First you have to own up to them privately.  This is the only way to get past them and move forward to career success.  Second, you have to own up to your mistakes publicly.  Admit them to your colleagues and coworkers.  Take responsibility when you let down others.  You’ll build strong relationships by being forthright.

That’s my take on the career advice we can take from last night’s Pittsburgh Steelers win.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading.  If you want a copy of The Optimist Creed that you can frame and hang in your office, just like me, go to http://BudBilanich.com.optimist.

Bud