Sunday’s New York Times Business section featured an interview with Barbara DeBuono, CEO of Orbis International.  When asked what she looks for in an employee she answered..

“I’ve always been really struck by how many people in organizations fight what their organization needs.  They say, in effect, ‘I’m not going to do that job.  That’s not what I was hired for.’  And they say that even though the organization needs something else from them right now.”

Ms. DeBuono went on to say…

“It’s what’s really important to them.  Is the future of the organization , the success of the organization, important to them?  Or is really about them and their job and their paycheck?  That’s how I separate the wheat from the chaff.  If I get a sense that a person feels and knows that the organization is bigger than them, and they are really passionate about the organization, they’ll do whatever it takes.  And so if this is what the organization needs right now, they will do it.  I love when somebody even anticipates that – when I don’t have to tell them this is what the organization needs, and instead they’ve figured it out.  That’s the kind of person I want.”

I was struck by these comments because last week I heard something similar from another CEO.  I was interviewing Eric Harvey, CEO of Walk the Talk Company, a publisher of leadership and motivational books.  This interview was for my membership site, My Corporate Climb.  I do an interview of a C level executive every month for members of the site.  These interviews give them the perspective of someone who has “been there and done that.”  If you want to accelerate your corporate climb, go to http://www.MyCorporateClimb.com and check out what the site has to offer.

Anyway, in the interview Eric told me that the early career success he achieved came as a result of finding a need in his company (Johnson and Johnson) and volunteering to fill it – very similar to what Barbara DeBouno says she looks for in employees.

Tweet 63 in my career advice book Success Tweets says “Be visible.  Volunteer for tough jobs.  Brand yourself as a person who can and does make significant contributions.”  In other words, demonstrate that you know your company is bigger than you and you are willing to do whatever is needed to make your company a success.

Being visible is a great way to create positive personal impact and demonstrating your commitment to your company.  Volunteering for tough jobs is the best way to become visible.  Tough jobs usually come in two flavors: 1) things no one else wants to do; and 2) tasks in which success is not guaranteed.  Volunteering for both types of jobs will get you noticed in a positive way.  Trust me here.  This is good career advice.

Let me give you an example.  Several years ago, I was working for a very large company.  This company was committed to supporting the United Way.  Every year, they conducted a huge campaign encouraging all employees to contribute.  This was a job no one wanted to do.  Who wants to ask their coworkers for money?

One year, I volunteered to run the headquarters United Way campaign.  Actually, my boss suggested that I volunteer, so I did.  I ran a successful campaign, bringing in a higher percentage of donors and a higher absolute dollar amount than the previous year.  It was a lot of painstaking, detail work.  I also had to manage a group of other volunteers who were canvassing their departments.

What started out as something I felt I had to do, turned into a great experience.  I met several senior executives in the company.  I met several influential people in New York City.  And I demonstrated my ability to manage a large, complex project and bring it to a successful conclusion.  And, I felt good about myself when I visited a couple of the agencies who were receiving funds from my company’s contributions.

I ended up getting a promotion as a direct result.  One of the executives I met during the campaign liked what he saw in me, and offered me a position in his business unit.  I created positive personal impact (with her at least) by taking on a job no one wanted and doing a good job with it.  The only thing that I could have done better in this situation would have been to volunteer before being asked to do so,

Taking on a job in which success is not guaranteed is also a great way to demonstrate your commitment to your company.  I have a friend who took on a very difficult job when he was a Sales Manager.  His company’s CEO had a son who was a slacker.  He had a couple of jobs with the company and had failed miserably in all of them.  My friend was asked if he would fill one of his open sales positions with the CEO’s son.  Several of his friends advised him against this – telling him that the son was not a good performer, and never would be.

My friend took on the task.  He welcomed the CEO’s son to his sales team.  He worked with him extensively.  By the time he was finished, the CEO’s son was a good performer – not a great performer, but a good one.  My friend took on a tough job, one in which success was far from guaranteed, and succeeded in it.

He created such an impression on the CEO that his career success moved rapidly.  He went from District Sales Manager, to Regional Sales Manager, to VP of Sales, to the President of his business unit, in the space of six or seven years.  Some people said he was in the right place at the right time.  While that may be true, he took advantage of an opportunity that many people told him to avoid.

Stephen Covey suggests thinking of jobs in one of four ways.

• Not Important, Not Urgent
• Not Important, Urgent
• Important, Not Urgent
• Important, Urgent

Volunteering for tough jobs that no one else wants to do falls into the Important but Not Urgent bucket.  Important but Not Urgent tasks will give you the most payback.  We all tend to get trapped by urgency.  However, non-urgent tasks that are very important to your success can slip through the cracks if you don’t force yourself to spend time with them every day.

You don’t have to volunteer for every tough job that comes along.  However, by doing so on occasion you will be creating positive personal impact.  Creating positive personal impact is an important, but not urgent task.  You don’t have to be building your reputation every day, but if you never take on a job that will help you build it, you won’t achieve the kind of life and career success you want and deserve.

While it’s important to volunteer for difficult jobs, it’s also important to do the job with enthusiasm.

A while back, I read an article on enthusiasm by Judy Williamson, Director of the Napoleon Hill World Learning Center, at Purdue University Calumet.

“Enthusiasm is a powerful motivator when it is sincere and heartfelt.  It is a spirit that inspires us to move forward positively in a direction of our own choosing… Only the results of enthusiasm can be seen, not enthusiasm itself, because it is an abstract concept.  Love, faith, honor, loyalty, and beauty are also abstract concepts.  They cannot be perceived directly with the naked eye, but can be seen indirectly in the results that they cause to happen…

“A certain charisma develops within the enthusiastic person.  Crowds respond to the ‘electricity’ that this person generates when they walk into a room, address a crowd, deliver a speech, or just work for their cause.  Enthusiasm becomes a catalyst for change when it is sincere.  People jump on the bandwagon of an enthusiastic person because they want to feel the energy for themselves.  Greatness demands enthusiasm.

“To be enthusiastic, act enthusiastically.  Allow yourself to feel the energy and lightness of being that develops when you embrace the higher vibrations of your spirit.”

The “charisma” that Judy describes is what I call creating positive personal impact.  When you create positive personal impact, you are building your life and career success, because others will notice you, want to associate with you, help you and follow you.

Enthusiasm will help you create positive personal impact.  People respond to enthusiastic people.  When you’re enthusiastic about what you’re doing, you and other people feel that you can overcome great obstacles.  It will seem as if the entire universe is lining up to help you achieve whatever you have your heart set on achieving.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people create positive personal impact.  Visibility is a key to creating positive personal impact.  Showing that you care about your company and its success is a great way to enhance your visibility in a positive way.  Follow the career advice in Tweet 63 in Success Tweets.  “Be visible.  Volunteer for tough jobs.  Brand yourself as a person who can and does make significant contributions.”  Taking on tough jobs is an important, but not urgent task.  You don’t need to take on one after the other, but you do need to find places where you can shine and volunteer for the job.  If you never volunteer for tough jobs you will be losing the opportunity to create positive personal impact.  When you volunteer for tough jobs, do them with enthusiasm.  Enthusiasm will help you create positive personal impact and build your career success brand.

That’s the career advice I found in Barbara DeBouno’s thoughts on the importance of demonstrating your commitment to your company.  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, 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.

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.

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.

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.

Commitment to your career success is one the four success principles I discuss in my latest career success coach book Success Tweets.  Staying committed to your career success when things are going well is pretty easy.  Staying committed when things are going poorly can be more difficult.

Tweet 32 in Success Tweets offers this career advice.  “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, if you want to become a career success you need to be resilient.

Sam Parker of GiveMore.com has some of the best career advice on being resilient that I’ve come across.  Check it out…

Sam Parker’s 4 Point Career Advice on How To Be Resilient…

1) Focus on results. Embrace the fact that results are what we’re all really after. Effort and attempts are great first steps, but we need to act with commitment to delivering (just like we want people to do for us).

2) Make lessons of failures. Minimize the tendency to make a mistake anything more than a lesson on how not to do something. We need to learn from our experiences and accept them as tuition for future success. And yes… Our mistakes might put us in a bind at times and have some uncomfortable consequences but again, that’s real life.

3) Continue on. Smarter.

4) Reinforce. Support each other (and ourselves) by continually reminding and encouraging one another to deliver on the first three points.

You can learn more about Sam Parker and his approach to creating your life and career success on his website, http://www.givemore.com.  Be sure to check out Sam’s Pocket Cards.  They can help you on your journey to the life and career success you want and deserve.

Resilience is echoed in a lot of life and career success writings.  Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has this to say…

 “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” career advice is a cliché.  However, clichés become clichés because they have an underlying truth. 

The important career success point here 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.

Dr. Covey has another quote about resiliency that I really like…

“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 think the concept of carrying your own weather with you also is great career advice.  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 common sense career success coach point here is clear.  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 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 my take on Sam Parker and Stephen Covey’s career advice on being resilient.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my musings on life and career success.

Bud

Strong, mutually beneficial relationships are an important key to life and career success.  If you want to create the career success you want and deserve you need to become good at relationship building.  Tweet123 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Use every social interaction to build and strengthen relationships.  Strong relationships are your ticket to career success.”

Making regular deposits into the emotional bank accounts you have with those around you is a great way to begin building relationships.  I first became aware of the concept of an emotional bank account about 20 years ago when I read Stephen Covey’s great book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  Successful people make regular deposits to the emotional bank accounts they have with all of the people in their lives.

There are six ways you can make deposits to the emotional bank accounts you have with people around you.  These six tips will help you create your career success.

1) Make a sincere effort to understand other people.  Figure out what’s important to all of the key people in your life.  Make what’s important to them, important to you. 

2) Pay attention to the little things; because little things are big things in relationships.

3) Keep your commitments.  Every time you do what you say you’ll do, you’ll make an emotional bank account deposit.  Every time you fail to keep your word, you’ll make a withdrawal.

4) Be clear on what you want and expect from others.  When you’re clear on what you want, it makes it easier for others to give it to you.  When you take the time to gain clarity on what others want, it’s easier for you to keep your commitments.

5) Be honest.  Make sure your words and actions are congruent.  Remember what Mark Twain has to say.  “Always tell the truth.  That way you don’t have to remember anything.”

6) Apologize when you make a withdrawal from one of your emotional bank accounts.  Often, a sincere apology will be enough of an emotional bank account deposit to offset the withdrawal you made.  However, this works only for the occasional withdrawal.  You can’t continually break your word or miss your commitments and think that an apology will keep your emotional bank accounts full.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  It you want to become a career success make regular deposits to the emotional bank accounts you have with all of the important people in your life.  Keep your balances high.  You don’t ever want to be overdrawn on the road to career success.

That’s my career advice on building strong relationships by keeping your emotional bank accounts full.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts on this career advice by leaving a comment.  As always, thanks for reading. 

Bud

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

Today’s career success coach post is on Tweet 32…

Stuff happens as you go about creating a successful life and career.  Choose to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens.

It’s simple, really. Success is all up to you, and me, and anyone else who wants it. We all have to take personal responsibility for our own success. I am the only one who can make me a career success. You are the only one who can make you a career success.

Stuff happens: 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.  That’s why taking personal responsibility for yourself and choosing to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens to you is so important and is some great career advice.

I tell my career success coach clients that 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, 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 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 career advice from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People everyday. 

The daily reflection for September 24 goes directly to the career advice in this tweet, 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, thing 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.  It is great career success coach advice.Choosing to react positively to the negative people and events in your life is the best way to carry your weather with you– and to take personal responsibility for your life and career success.
 
The common sense career success coach point here is clear.  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 advice in Tweet 32 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.”  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 take on the career advice in Tweet 32 in Success Tweets.  What’s your?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

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

Today’s career success coach post is on Tweet 32…

Stuff happens as you go about creating a successful life and career.  Choose to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens.

It’s simple, really. Success is all up to you, and me, and anyone else who wants it. We all have to take personal responsibility for our own success. I am the only one who can make me a career success. You are the only one who can make you a career success.

Stuff happens: 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.  That’s why taking personal responsibility for yourself and choosing to respond positively to the negative stuff that happens to you is so important and is some great career advice.

I tell my career success coach clients that 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, 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 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 career advice from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People everyday. 

The daily reflection for September 24 goes directly to the career advice in this tweet, 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, thing 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.  It is great career success coach advice.Choosing to react positively to the negative people and events in your life is the best way to carry your weather with you– and to take personal responsibility for your life and career success.
 
The common sense career success coach point here is clear.  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 advice in Tweet 32 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.”  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 take on the career advice in Tweet 32 in Success Tweets.  What’s your?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud