Happy Labor Day to readers of this career success blog in the USA.  Labor Day was big in our house when I was a kid.  We were a very strong union family.  I remember standing in line at the union hall to get free food during the steel strike of 1959.  Those were tough times.  My father put two kids through college working in a union job at American Bridge.

Labor Day was also the end of summer.  When I was a kid, we began school on the Tuesday after Labor Day and ended the day before Memorial Day.  Times have changed, kids get more breaks during the year and start later and go longer than we did.

Because this is a holiday – and I’m planning a long bike ride — this will be a relatively short post.  It begins with a cute story that’s been around since I was a kid – and it’s a great play on words.  But if you read it and take it to heart, you’ll see that it contains some great career advice.  Check it out…

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it.  Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job.

Everybody knew Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done

As we move into  the last four months of the year, I urge you to be Somebody – the person who does what everyone can do, but nobody (or very few people) actually does.

Tweet 21 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “You’re in charge! Commit to taking personal responsibility for creating your life and career success.”  In other words, be somebody, be the person who does what others won’t in order to create the career success you deserve.  Tweet 33 in Success Tweets echoes that thought.  “No one is going to do it for you.  Adopt the motto, ‘If it’s to be, it’s up to me’.”

When you take personal responsibility for your career success, you eliminate blame, stop complaining, and stop being a victim.  You take charge of your life.  You become somebody.  You can demonstrate your commitment to taking personal responsibility for your career success by responding positively to the people and events and events in your life – especially when they are less than positive.  I frequently offer this advice to my career success coach clients.

You also demonstrate your commitment to your career success – to yourself and to the world – by doing three things.  First, take personal responsibility for your career success.  Only you can make you a career success.  You must be willing to do the things necessary to succeed.  Second, set high goals – and then do whatever it takes to achieve them.  Third, stuff happens; as you go through life you will encounter many problems and setbacks.  You need to react positively to the negative stuff and move forward toward your goals, dreams and career success.

George Bernard Shaw is my favorite playwright.  I love what he has to say about taking personal responsibility for your life and career success…

“I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.  I rejoice in life for its own sake.  Life is no ‘brief candle’ for me.  It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

I know that I want my life to be a splendid torch that burns long and brightly.  That’s why I choose to commit to taking personal responsibility for my life and career success.  This Labor Day this career success coach is here to tell you that reveling in hard work is the best way to create the life and career success you want and deserve.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people commit to taking personal responsibility for creating the life and career scareer uccess they want and deserve. Follow the career advice in Tweet 21 in Success Tweets. Be somebody. Set high goals – and do whatever it takes to accomplish them. React positively to the people and events in your life – especially the negative people and events. Relish the days when you have a lot to do, and then go on and do it. Take great satisfaction from working hard and seeing the results of your labor. Take personal responsibility for your life and career success.  No one else will.  Adopt the motto, “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.”  When was the last day when you were truly busy?  How did you feel at the end of it?  If you’re an achiever – someone who is committed to your life and career success – I bet you felt exhilarated and ready to go the next day.  When you commit to taking personal responsibility for your career success, you react positively when life throws those inevitable curve balls your way.  You choose to move forward.  You find ways around life’s little problems.  These positive choices will put you on the path to the career success you want and deserve.

That’s my Labor Day career advice on being somebody and doing whatever it takes to create the life and career success you deserve.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.

Bud

PS: I opened my new 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 book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb.  You can find out about the membership site and get your free copy of I Want YOU by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.com.

Dan Robey is a friend of mine and a very smart guy.  He has contributed several guest posts to this career advice blog.  Dan is the author of The Power of Positive Habits, a great life and career success book.  If you don’t already have it, I suggest you pick up a copy as soon as you can.

The other day, Dan posted a great article on the word “choose.”  He has graciously allowed me to post it here.  Check it out…

Think about the word “choose.”  It may be the single most important word in your life.

Why?

Let’s look at what the dictionary says about the word “choose”

1. To select from a number of possibilities; pick by preference: Example: She chose Sunday for her departure.
2. To prefer or decide (to do something): Example: He chose to run for election.
3. To want; desire.
4. To make a choice: Example: He chose carefully.
5. To be inclined: Example: You may stay here, if you choose.

Let’s look at #3 first, “to want, to desire.”  We all have wants and desires, you can “choose” to love or not be loved. You can choose to seek after that which you desire, or simply hope it will magically come to you someday.

Look at #1 “to select from a number of possibilities.”  WOW, this is powerful. A number of possibilities, I would say this is almost unlimited.

Here are some examples:

You can choose to live a sedentary life or an active life.

You can choose to imagine your life as successful or believe that success will never come your way.

You can choose to believe in something when all those around  you say you should not believe in it.

You can choose to take “action” or not take action.

You can choose to gain knowledge by reading newsletters like this one as well as books and magazines that will empower you with life changing information, or you could choose to watch more TV.

Look at #2 from the dictionary listing above.” To prefer or decide” (to do something): Example: He chose to run for election.  Every President the United States has had first choose to seek and/or accept the job.

You see, it is YOU that chooses, YOU have the power to choose the direction of your life.

You can choose to seek success.

You can choose to have a healthy body by choosing what you put in it and what you do with it.

You can choose to use the power of attraction (as discussed in The Secret) by creating a movie in your mind of you succeeding and believing that the success you are visualizing is already yours!

You can choose to take that new job in another city.

You can choose to forgive.

But here is the bottom line.

It is YOU who must choose, no one else can choose for you.

Here is an important question……What will you choose?

Make no mistake about it, even if you choose not to choose you have chosen a direction for your life……that is POWERFUL!

So I challenge you today to look at your life and CHOOSE!

Choose success.

Choose unconditional love.

Choose health.

Choose to take the time to teach your children what you have learned about choosing.

The career success coach advice here is simple common sense.  As Dan Robey points outs, the word “choose” is important to your life and career success.  You can choose a lifetime of happiness, joy, fulfillment and career success.  You can also choose a lifetime of frustration, sadness and no career success.  Tweet 21 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “You’re in charge!  Commit to taking personal responsibility for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.”  Once you choose to commit to taking personal responsibility you are on your way to career success.  Making the choice is the all important first step.  Choose life and career success.

That’s my career advice on what Dan Robey has to say about the importance of making positive choices in your life.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for choosing to read my daily thoughts 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.

Dan Robey is a friend of mine and a very smart guy.  He has contributed several guest posts to this career advice blog.  Dan is the author of The Power of Positive Habits, a great life and career success book.  If you don’t already have it, I suggest you pick up a copy as soon as you can.

The other day, Dan posted a great article on the word “choose.”  He has graciously allowed me to post it here.  Check it out…

Think about the word “choose.”  It may be the single most important word in your life.

Why?

Let’s look at what the dictionary says about the word “choose”

1. To select from a number of possibilities; pick by preference: Example: She chose Sunday for her departure.
2. To prefer or decide (to do something): Example: He chose to run for election.
3. To want; desire.
4. To make a choice: Example: He chose carefully.
5. To be inclined: Example: You may stay here, if you choose.

Let’s look at #3 first, “to want, to desire.”  We all have wants and desires, you can “choose” to love or not be loved. You can choose to seek after that which you desire, or simply hope it will magically come to you someday.

Look at #1 “to select from a number of possibilities.”  WOW, this is powerful. A number of possibilities, I would say this is almost unlimited.

Here are some examples:

You can choose to live a sedentary life or an active life.

You can choose to imagine your life as successful or believe that success will never come your way.

You can choose to believe in something when all those around  you say you should not believe in it.

You can choose to take “action” or not take action.

You can choose to gain knowledge by reading newsletters like this one as well as books and magazines that will empower you with life changing information, or you could choose to watch more TV.

Look at #2 from the dictionary listing above.” To prefer or decide” (to do something): Example: He chose to run for election.  Every President the United States has had first choose to seek and/or accept the job.

You see, it is YOU that chooses, YOU have the power to choose the direction of your life.

You can choose to seek success.

You can choose to have a healthy body by choosing what you put in it and what you do with it.

You can choose to use the power of attraction (as discussed in The Secret) by creating a movie in your mind of you succeeding and believing that the success you are visualizing is already yours!

You can choose to take that new job in another city.

You can choose to forgive.

But here is the bottom line.

It is YOU who must choose, no one else can choose for you.

Here is an important question……What will you choose?

Make no mistake about it, even if you choose not to choose you have chosen a direction for your life……that is POWERFUL!

So I challenge you today to look at your life and CHOOSE!

Choose success.

Choose unconditional love.

Choose health.

Choose to take the time to teach your children what you have learned about choosing.

The career success coach advice here is simple common sense.  As Dan Robey points outs, the word “choose” is important to your life and career success.  You can choose a lifetime of happiness, joy, fulfillment and career success.  You can also choose a lifetime of frustration, sadness and no career success.  Tweet 21 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “You’re in charge!  Commit to taking personal responsibility for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.”  Once you choose to commit to taking personal responsibility you are on your way to career success.  Making the choice is the all important first step.  Choose life and career success.

That’s my career advice on what Dan Robey has to say about the importance of making positive choices in your life.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for choosing to read my daily thoughts 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.

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.

I got the inspiration for today’s career advice in three very disparate places – a book about an Australian woman’s experiences in India; a conversation I once had with a Native American Shaman, and the poem, Desiderata.  All three reinforce a point about finding a way to live in harmony with your current situation.

In the book Holy Cow, Sarah MacDonald an Aussie, tells the story of living in India.  It’s a funny, sad, touching and frustrating book.  I liked it.  At one point Sarah meets an Indian man who tries to explain to her why even though many live in poverty Indian people seem to be happy and why “white people are not happy.”

“We Indian people, we look at the people more poor, more low, more hard that us and we be thanking God we are not them.  So we are happy.  But you white people, you are looking at the peoples above you all of the times, and you are thinking why aren’t I be them?  Why am I not having that moneys and things?  And so, you are unhappy all of the time.”

This reminded me of a conversation I once had with a Navajo shaman.  He was discussing the difference in Native American and white American culture.  He said, “When there is a drought, the white man prays for rain.  The Navajo prays for the ability to live in harmony with the drought.”

Then there is Desiderata.  I did a blog post on it recently.  You can see it here.  One of the stanzas echoes the thoughts of the Indian man and the Native American shaman.  Check it out…

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

The life and career success advice I took from these three bits of information is pretty simple – and common sense….

There will always be circumstances beyond your control – the circumstances of your birth, the weather, where you begin your career success journey.  It is wise to find a way to be in harmony with your current situation.

That said, you don’t have to remain in your current situation.  If you want to improve your current situation – make more money, a better job, a nicer place to live, more life and career success – take personal responsibility for doing so.  Tweet 21 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “You’re in charge.  Commit to taking personal responsibility for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.”

Yes, you (and I) are in charge of creating our own life and career success.  As I’ve said, it’s important to get into harmony with your current situation.  But if you don’t want to remain in your current situation, do something about it.  Take personal responsibility for changing your situation: eliminate blame, stop complaining, and stop being a victim.  Take charge of your life and career success.

You demonstrate your commitment to taking personal responsibility for your life and career success by responding positively to the people and events and events in your life – especially when they are less than positive.  I frequently offer this advice to my career success coach clients.

I had an opportunity to test myself on this one a couple of months ago.  I got up very early to post my blog.  When I got to my office, my computer was frozen.  I could move the cursor, but could not actually open a document – or do anything else for that matter.  My machine needed to spend some time with the Geek Squad getting a tune up.

I had been meaning to read a couple of novels I had picked up the week before.  I figured my computer problems presented an excellent opportunity to spend that day doing just that.  However, in the middle of all this, I realized that I was being presented with a challenge to see if I could walk my talk when it comes to reacting positively to the negative events in my life.  Reading novels instead of working would not be demonstrating my commitment to taking personal responsibility for my career success – even if no one else knew I’d blown off a day and a half.

I knew that I couldn’t do everything I wanted to do with my backup computer.  But there were things I could do.  I chose to figure out what I could accomplish without the use of my main machine and set out doing it.  I could still write blog posts.  I could still do a lot of things.  And that’s my career success coach advice to you – when you run into problems, don’t complain about what you can’t do, figure out what you can do and then do it.

Stuff happens as you go through life: good stuff, bad stuff, frustrating stuff, unexpected stuff.  Successful people respond to the tough 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.  That’s why taking personal responsibility for yourself and choosing to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens to you is so important.

Personal responsibility means recognizing that you are responsible for your life 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 and career success, 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 life and career success.  Stephen Covey’s first habit in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is, “Be proactive.”  I have a little book called Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People, also by Stephen Covey.  It is one of the most-read books that I have.  I like it because it provides a little snippet of advice from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People every day.

The daily reflection for September 24 goes directly to what I’m talking about here and it gets to the heart of personal responsibility and life and career success.

“It’s not really what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.  Of course, things can hurt physically or economically and can cause sorrow.  But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all.  In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.”

Dr. Covey provides some great career advice here.  We can’t always choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we react to both the positive and negative experiences we have as we go through life.  Successful people choose to make lemonade out of lemons.  Unsuccessful people choose to complain about the bitter, tart taste of the lemons they are handed.

I know the “lemons into lemonade” line is a cliché.  However, clichés become clichés because they have an underlying truth.  The important point is that human beings are blessed with free will.  As such, we can choose what we do and how we react to the world around us.  We can choose a positive, productive path, or we can choose a path of self pity and inaction – and hurt only ourselves in the end.

The 7 Habits advice for September 25 carries on in the same vein…

“Proactive people can carry their own weather with them.  Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them.  They are value driven; and if their value is to produce good quality work, it isn’t a function of whether the weather is conducive to it or not.”

I love the concept of carrying your own weather with you.  Choosing to react positively to the negative people and events in your life is the best way to carry your weather – and to take personal responsibility for your life and career success.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people know that they need to live in harmony with the situations in which they find themselves.  They also know that they can choose how they respond to their situation as well as everyone they meet and everything that happens to them.  They know that they are the only one who can create their life and career success.  They know that “the devil made me do it” is never an accurate statement.  They also know that no one can “make” them mad.  They follow the career success advice in Tweets 21 and 32 in Success Tweets.  “You’re in charge.  Commit to taking personal responsibility for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.” (21)  “Stuff happens as you go about creating your life and career success.  Choose to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens.” (32) If you want to create the career success you deserve, remember Stephen Covey’s advice.  Carry your weather with you.  In this way, whether it rains or shines on the outside, it will be sunny on the inside.  Choose to react positively to the negative people you meet, and the negative things that happen to you.  When you do, you’ll find that you’ll have less negative things happening and fewer negative people entering your life.

That’s my career advice on accepting your present situation and taking personal responsibility for changing it if you want to.  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.

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 got the inspiration for today’s career advice in three very disparate places – a book about an Australian woman’s experiences in India; a conversation I once had with a Native American Shaman, and the poem, Desiderata.  All three reinforce a point about finding a way to live in harmony with your current situation.

In the book Holy Cow, Sarah MacDonald an Aussie, tells the story of living in India.  It’s a funny, sad, touching and frustrating book.  I liked it.  At one point Sarah meets an Indian man who tries to explain to her why even though many live in poverty Indian people seem to be happy and why “white people are not happy.”

“We Indian people, we look at the people more poor, more low, more hard that us and we be thanking God we are not them.  So we are happy.  But you white people, you are looking at the peoples above you all of the times, and you are thinking why aren’t I be them?  Why am I not having that moneys and things?  And so, you are unhappy all of the time.”

This reminded me of a conversation I once had with a Navajo shaman.  He was discussing the difference in Native American and white American culture.  He said, “When there is a drought, the white man prays for rain.  The Navajo prays for the ability to live in harmony with the drought.”

Then there is Desiderata.  I did a blog post on it recently.  You can see it here.  One of the stanzas echoes the thoughts of the Indian man and the Native American shaman.  Check it out…

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

The life and career success advice I took from these three bits of information is pretty simple – and common sense….

There will always be circumstances beyond your control – the circumstances of your birth, the weather, where you begin your career success journey.  It is wise to find a way to be in harmony with your current situation.

That said, you don’t have to remain in your current situation.  If you want to improve your current situation – make more money, a better job, a nicer place to live, more life and career success – take personal responsibility for doing so.  Tweet 21 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “You’re in charge.  Commit to taking personal responsibility for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.”

Yes, you (and I) are in charge of creating our own life and career success.  As I’ve said, it’s important to get into harmony with your current situation.  But if you don’t want to remain in your current situation, do something about it.  Take personal responsibility for changing your situation: eliminate blame, stop complaining, and stop being a victim.  Take charge of your life and career success.

You demonstrate your commitment to taking personal responsibility for your life and career success by responding positively to the people and events and events in your life – especially when they are less than positive.  I frequently offer this advice to my career success coach clients.

I had an opportunity to test myself on this one a couple of months ago.  I got up very early to post my blog.  When I got to my office, my computer was frozen.  I could move the cursor, but could not actually open a document – or do anything else for that matter.  My machine needed to spend some time with the Geek Squad getting a tune up.

I had been meaning to read a couple of novels I had picked up the week before.  I figured my computer problems presented an excellent opportunity to spend that day doing just that.  However, in the middle of all this, I realized that I was being presented with a challenge to see if I could walk my talk when it comes to reacting positively to the negative events in my life.  Reading novels instead of working would not be demonstrating my commitment to taking personal responsibility for my career success – even if no one else knew I’d blown off a day and a half.

I knew that I couldn’t do everything I wanted to do with my backup computer.  But there were things I could do.  I chose to figure out what I could accomplish without the use of my main machine and set out doing it.  I could still write blog posts.  I could still do a lot of things.  And that’s my career success coach advice to you – when you run into problems, don’t complain about what you can’t do, figure out what you can do and then do it.

Stuff happens as you go through life: good stuff, bad stuff, frustrating stuff, unexpected stuff.  Successful people respond to the tough 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.  That’s why taking personal responsibility for yourself and choosing to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens to you is so important.

Personal responsibility means recognizing that you are responsible for your life 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 and career success, 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 life and career success.  Stephen Covey’s first habit in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is, “Be proactive.”  I have a little book called Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People, also by Stephen Covey.  It is one of the most-read books that I have.  I like it because it provides a little snippet of advice from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People every day.

The daily reflection for September 24 goes directly to what I’m talking about here and it gets to the heart of personal responsibility and life and career success.

“It’s not really what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.  Of course, things can hurt physically or economically and can cause sorrow.  But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all.  In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.”

Dr. Covey provides some great career advice here.  We can’t always choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we react to both the positive and negative experiences we have as we go through life.  Successful people choose to make lemonade out of lemons.  Unsuccessful people choose to complain about the bitter, tart taste of the lemons they are handed.

I know the “lemons into lemonade” line is a cliché.  However, clichés become clichés because they have an underlying truth.  The important point is that human beings are blessed with free will.  As such, we can choose what we do and how we react to the world around us.  We can choose a positive, productive path, or we can choose a path of self pity and inaction – and hurt only ourselves in the end.

The 7 Habits advice for September 25 carries on in the same vein…

“Proactive people can carry their own weather with them.  Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them.  They are value driven; and if their value is to produce good quality work, it isn’t a function of whether the weather is conducive to it or not.”

I love the concept of carrying your own weather with you.  Choosing to react positively to the negative people and events in your life is the best way to carry your weather – and to take personal responsibility for your life and career success.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people know that they need to live in harmony with the situations in which they find themselves.  They also know that they can choose how they respond to their situation as well as everyone they meet and everything that happens to them.  They know that they are the only one who can create their life and career success.  They know that “the devil made me do it” is never an accurate statement.  They also know that no one can “make” them mad.  They follow the career success advice in Tweets 21 and 32 in Success Tweets.  “You’re in charge.  Commit to taking personal responsibility for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.” (21)  “Stuff happens as you go about creating your life and career success.  Choose to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens.” (32) If you want to create the career success you deserve, remember Stephen Covey’s advice.  Carry your weather with you.  In this way, whether it rains or shines on the outside, it will be sunny on the inside.  Choose to react positively to the negative people you meet, and the negative things that happen to you.  When you do, you’ll find that you’ll have less negative things happening and fewer negative people entering your life.

That’s my career advice on accepting your present situation and taking personal responsibility for changing it if you want to.  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.

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.

Most of the comments I receive on this career success blog, my tweets and my Facebook posts are very positive and complimentary. 

However, last week I received a response to one of my career advice tweets that was somewhat cynical.  I responded, asking the person who sent it what I could do to help him.  He sent me back a fairly angry email telling me that he has not had a great measure of life and career success and that “140 character statements telling him to listen” won’t help.

I responded by offering him a free hour of  career success coaching.  I did this because I believe in the power of paying it forward, and because this guy seemed to be in a bad place.  I was hoping that I could help him get moving in a positive direction.

The next day, I received an automated message saying that he had unsubscribed from my email list.  That was OK.  I can’t please everybody, and he has the right to seek career advice from people who he thinks can help him.  Obviously, he thought that my thoughts on life and career success were not helpful.

On the other hand, I was kind of sad.  Here is a person who is struggling.  He is over 40, has two degrees and has never made more than $30,000 a year.  If I were in that situation, I might be frustrated and angry too.  But I know that I would accept help wherever I could find it.  It appears to me that this guy would rather wallow in his anger than accept some free career advice.

Tweet 32 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Stuff happens as you go about creating a successful life and career.  Choose to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens.”  I get the impression that quite a bit of bad stuff has happened to the guy in my story.  And I feel bad about that.

On the other hand, you have to take personal responsibility for your life and career success – no matter what happens along the way.  Tweet 33 in Success Tweets says, “Take personal responsibility for your career success.  No one is going to do it for you.  Adopt the motto, ‘If it’s to be, it’s up to me’.” 

When you take personal responsibility, you eliminate blame, stop complaining, and stop being a victim.  You take charge of your life.  You demonstrate your commitment to taking personal responsibility for your career success by responding positively to the people and events and events in your life – especially when they are less than positive.  I offer this advice to my career success coach clients.

I had an opportunity to test myself on this one a couple of months ago.  I got up very early to post my blog.  When I got to my office, my computer was frozen.  I could move the cursor, but could not actually open a document – or do anything else for that matter.

I was the first guy in line when the Geek Squad opened at 8:30.  My buddy Nate was there.  I showed him the machine and explained the problem.  He found a minor virus, deleted a few files and said I was good to go.  I went home, and the machine worked – for about a half hour.  I went back to the Geek Squad and Nate worked on the problem for the second time.

When I got back to my office, I was able to post the blog.  Then it happened again.  Completely frozen, unable to read the blog post or open any other program.

I called Nate and told him I would bring the machine in for a full diagnostic – and pay the 24-hour service premium.  I got back in my car, drove to the Geek Squad and dropped off the computer.

I had been meaning to read a couple of novels I had picked up the week before.  I figured my computer problems presented an excellent opportunity to spend that afternoon and the following day doing just that.  However, in the middle of all this, I realized that I was being presented with a challenge to see if I could walk my talk when it comes to reacting positively to the negative events in my life.  Reading novels instead of working would not be demonstrating my commitment to taking personal responsibility for my career success – even if no one else knew I’d blown off a day and a half.

I knew that I couldn’t do everything I wanted to do with my backup computer.  But there were things I could do.  I chose to figure out what I could accomplish without the use of my main machine and set out doing it.  I could still write blog posts.  I could still continue developing learning modules for my soon to be released membership site.  That’s what I did those days.  And that’s my career success coach advice to you – when you run into problems, don’t complain about what you can’t do, figure out what you can do and then do it.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people commit to taking personal responsibility for their lives and for their career success.  They choose to respond positively to the people and events in their lives – especially the negative people and the unexpected and uncontrollable problems.  They keep moving forward.  They don’t get distracted in their quest to create the life and career success they want and deserve.  They accept help when it’s offered. 

Follow the career advice in Tweets 32 and 33 in Success Tweets.  “Stuff happens as you go about creating a successful life and career.  Choose to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens.”  (Tweet 32) “Take personal responsibility for your career success.  No one is going to do it for you.  Adopt the motto, ‘If it’s to be, it’s up to me’.”  (Tweet 33) Have you committed to taking personal responsibility for yourlife and career success?  How do you react when life throws those inevitable curve balls your way?  Do you choose to move forward, finding ways around life’s little problems?  As a career success coach, I hope so, because that’s the choice that will put you on the path to career success.

That’s my career advice on taking personal responsibility for your life and career success.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to 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.

Most of the comments I receive on this career success blog, my tweets and my Facebook posts are very positive and complimentary. 

However, last week I received a response to one of my career advice tweets that was somewhat cynical.  I responded, asking the person who sent it what I could do to help him.  He sent me back a fairly angry email telling me that he has not had a great measure of life and career success and that “140 character statements telling him to listen” won’t help.

I responded by offering him a free hour of  career success coaching.  I did this because I believe in the power of paying it forward, and because this guy seemed to be in a bad place.  I was hoping that I could help him get moving in a positive direction.

The next day, I received an automated message saying that he had unsubscribed from my email list.  That was OK.  I can’t please everybody, and he has the right to seek career advice from people who he thinks can help him.  Obviously, he thought that my thoughts on life and career success were not helpful.

On the other hand, I was kind of sad.  Here is a person who is struggling.  He is over 40, has two degrees and has never made more than $30,000 a year.  If I were in that situation, I might be frustrated and angry too.  But I know that I would accept help wherever I could find it.  It appears to me that this guy would rather wallow in his anger than accept some free career advice.

Tweet 32 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Stuff happens as you go about creating a successful life and career.  Choose to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens.”  I get the impression that quite a bit of bad stuff has happened to the guy in my story.  And I feel bad about that.

On the other hand, you have to take personal responsibility for your life and career success – no matter what happens along the way.  Tweet 33 in Success Tweets says, “Take personal responsibility for your career success.  No one is going to do it for you.  Adopt the motto, ‘If it’s to be, it’s up to me’.” 

When you take personal responsibility, you eliminate blame, stop complaining, and stop being a victim.  You take charge of your life.  You demonstrate your commitment to taking personal responsibility for your career success by responding positively to the people and events and events in your life – especially when they are less than positive.  I offer this advice to my career success coach clients.

I had an opportunity to test myself on this one a couple of months ago.  I got up very early to post my blog.  When I got to my office, my computer was frozen.  I could move the cursor, but could not actually open a document – or do anything else for that matter.

I was the first guy in line when the Geek Squad opened at 8:30.  My buddy Nate was there.  I showed him the machine and explained the problem.  He found a minor virus, deleted a few files and said I was good to go.  I went home, and the machine worked – for about a half hour.  I went back to the Geek Squad and Nate worked on the problem for the second time.

When I got back to my office, I was able to post the blog.  Then it happened again.  Completely frozen, unable to read the blog post or open any other program.

I called Nate and told him I would bring the machine in for a full diagnostic – and pay the 24-hour service premium.  I got back in my car, drove to the Geek Squad and dropped off the computer.

I had been meaning to read a couple of novels I had picked up the week before.  I figured my computer problems presented an excellent opportunity to spend that afternoon and the following day doing just that.  However, in the middle of all this, I realized that I was being presented with a challenge to see if I could walk my talk when it comes to reacting positively to the negative events in my life.  Reading novels instead of working would not be demonstrating my commitment to taking personal responsibility for my career success – even if no one else knew I’d blown off a day and a half.

I knew that I couldn’t do everything I wanted to do with my backup computer.  But there were things I could do.  I chose to figure out what I could accomplish without the use of my main machine and set out doing it.  I could still write blog posts.  I could still continue developing learning modules for my soon to be released membership site.  That’s what I did those days.  And that’s my career success coach advice to you – when you run into problems, don’t complain about what you can’t do, figure out what you can do and then do it.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people commit to taking personal responsibility for their lives and for their career success.  They choose to respond positively to the people and events in their lives – especially the negative people and the unexpected and uncontrollable problems.  They keep moving forward.  They don’t get distracted in their quest to create the life and career success they want and deserve.  They accept help when it’s offered. 

Follow the career advice in Tweets 32 and 33 in Success Tweets.  “Stuff happens as you go about creating a successful life and career.  Choose to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens.”  (Tweet 32) “Take personal responsibility for your career success.  No one is going to do it for you.  Adopt the motto, ‘If it’s to be, it’s up to me’.”  (Tweet 33) Have you committed to taking personal responsibility for yourlife and career success?  How do you react when life throws those inevitable curve balls your way?  Do you choose to move forward, finding ways around life’s little problems?  As a career success coach, I hope so, because that’s the choice that will put you on the path to career success.

That’s my career advice on taking personal responsibility for your life and career success.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to 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.

Eric Harvey is a friend of mine.  He is the CEO of Walk the Talk Company and the author of several great leadership, life and career success books.  His latest is The 10 Commandments of Leadership, coauthored with Steve Ventura, another friend of mine is terrific. This is a great book to add to your career success library.  You can pick up a copy at http://www.walkthetalk.com.

Eric and Steve believe that courage is an essential characteristic of all leaders.  I agree, and go one step further.  Courage is an essential characteristic for creating your life and career success.  According to Eric and Steve, courage can be defined as…

• Following your conscience instead of following the crowd.
• Taking action again hurtful or disrespectful behaviors.
• Sacrificing personal gain for the benefit of others.
• Taking complete responsibility for your actions…and your mistakes.
• Following the rules – and insisting that others do the same.
• Challenging the status quo in search of better ways.
• Facing setbacks and disappointments head on — without losing your drive and spirit or adopting a victim mentality.

Pretty good list.  How many of these statements are true about you?

I really like Eric and Steve’s last point.  Tweet 32 in my career advice book, Success Tweets says, “Stuff happens as you go about creating your life and career success.  Choose to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens.”  In other words, face setbacks and disappointments head on.  Don’t lose your drive and spirit.  Don’t become a victim.

Here’s how I see it, and it’s simple common sense.  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 life and 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.

Stuff happens as you go through life: good stuff, bad stuff, frustrating stuff, unexpected stuff.  Successful people respond to the stuff that happens in a positive way.  We 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.  That’s why taking personal responsibility for yourself and choosing to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens to you is so important.

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

The concept of personal responsibility is found in most writings on life and career success.  Stephen Covey’s first habit in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is, “Be proactive.”  I have a little book called Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People, also by Stephen Covey.  It is one of the most-read books that I have.  I like it because it provides a little snippet of advice from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People every day.  Sometimes I open it to the correct day.  Sometimes I open it at random.

For example, the daily reflection for September 24 goes directly to the career advice in this tweet, and it gets to the heart of taking personal responsibility for your life and career success.

“It’s not really what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.  Of course, things can hurt physically or economically and can cause sorrow.  But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all.  In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.”

Dr. Covey provides some great career advice here.  We can’t always choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we react to both the positive and negative experiences we have as we go through life.  Successful people choose to make lemonade out of lemons.  Unsuccessful people choose to complain about the bitter, tart taste of the lemons they are handed.

I know the “lemons into lemonade” line is a cliché.  However, clichés become clichés because they have an underlying truth.  The important point is that we human beings are blessed with free will.  As such, we can choose what we do and how we react to the world around us.  We can choose a positive, productive path, or we can choose a path of self pity and inaction – and hurt only ourselves in the end.

The 7 Habits advice for September 25 carries on in the same vein…

“Proactive people can carry their own weather with them.  Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them.  They are value driven; and if their value is to produce good quality work, it isn’t a function of whether the weather is conducive to it or not.”

I love the concept of carrying your own weather with you.  Choosing to react positively to the negative people and events in your life is the best way to carry your weather – and to take personal responsibility for your life and career success.  It’s raining here in Denver as I write this, but I have a smile on my face and it’s sunny in my heart because I’m doing something I love–  writing about life and career success.  Even though the weather outside is nasty, my personal weather is sunny and pleasant.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people know that they can choose how they respond to everyone they meet and everything that happens to them.  They know that “the devil made me do it” is never an accurate statement.  They also know that no one can “make” them mad.  In short, they follow the career advice in Tweet 32 in Success Tweets.  “Stuff happens as you go about creating your life and career success.  Choose to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens.”  If you want to create the career success you deserve, remember Stephen Covey’s advice.  Carry your weather with you.  In this way, whether it rains or shines on the outside, it will be sunny on the inside.  Choose to react positively to the negative people you meet, and the negative things that happen to you.  When you do, you’ll find that you’ll have less negative things happening and fewer negative people entering your life.

That’s the career advice I find in Eric Harvey and Steve Ventura’s thoughts on courage in their new book The 10 Commandments of Leadership.  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.