I was in New York yesterday where it was hard to escape the Super Bowl hype.  They had a great parade for the Giants.  As I reflected on the game and comments I heard from the Giants players and coaches after the game.  Most of them focused on the fact that the Giants are a very tight team.

There is some common sense career success advice here.  High performing organizations need people with good teamwork skills.  In today’s world, very little gets done without teamwork.  In honor of the Giants’ Super Bowl win and their team approach to football, I’ve put together a list of 21 characteristics of great team players.  How many are true of you?

21 Characteristics of Great Team Players

I have found that great team players have a lot in common.  Here are 21 characteristics of all great team players.  How many of them are true of you?

1. Technical Competence – You have to be good at what you do if you’re going to be able to contribute to a team.  Master your technical discipline.
2. Sharing Orientation – Be willing to share your knowledge, expertise and ideas.  The old saying, “Knowledge is power” is true only is you are willing to share what you know with your teammates.
3. Good Interpersonal Skills – You have to be good at building relationships if you want to be a great team player.  To build strong relationships think of the team and others first.  Ask yourself what you can do for the team and its members – not what they can do for you.
4. Responsible – Do your part.  Great team players do what they say they’ll do.  They contribute.  They ask for help only when they have exhausted all of their resources.
5. Positive – Stay up beat, even when your team is under the gun.  Visualize the thrill of success, not the pain of failure.  Help your teammates see the positive in the most difficult of circumstances.
6. Care About Stakeholders – Most teams have some external stakeholders who are depending on them.  Make sure that you understand what each of your team’s stakeholders want and need.  Do you meet to meet their needs.
7. Welcome and Use Feedback – Listen to your teammates.  Welcome their feedback on your participation.  Use what you learn.
8. Meet Commitments – Do what you need to do to help your team succeed.  If you can’t meet a commitment, let your teammates know right away.
9. Honest – Everybody wants to work with people of integrity.  Be honest with yourself and your teammates.
10. Initiative – Help the team move forward.  Make suggestions, think of new and different ways to accomplish the team’s goals.  Be willing to take the lead/
11. Trusting – Believe that your teammates want the team to succeed.  Trust them.  If you don’t understand why they did something, engage them in conversation.
12. Trustworthy – Keep confidences, do what you say you’ll do, put the goals of the team first.
13. Consensus Builder – Actively work to find solutions that meet the needs of all team members and stakeholders.  Use compromise as a last resort.
14. Own Team Problems – Take personal responsibility for the team’s success.  If everyone does this, the team is bound to succeed.
15. Empathy – See things through the eyes of your team members.  Do your best to understand their points of view.
16. Respect Others –You can disagree with a person’s ideas without demeaning him or her personally.  Respect the dignity of every human being on your team.
17. Resolve Conflict Positively — Look for positive ways to resolve conflict.  Find small points of agreement in disagreements.  Find creative solutions to disagreements that satisfy everybody.
18. Focus on Task and Process – Pay attention to not only what the team does, but how it does it.  If you find the team getting bogged down, make suggestions on how to get past the bottleneck.
19. Humble – Take your share of the credit, but remember you’re part of a team.  Give credit to others where it is due.
20. Supportive – Be there for your teammates.  Help them succeed so the team can succeed.  Share your knowledge and wisdom to help others grow and succeed.
21. Flexible – This is the most important characteristic of all.  Be willing to suspend your point of view to learn about what others think.  Be open to changing your mind.

The career success coach point her is simple common sense.  Branding yourself as a team player can help you create the life and career success you deserve.  If you listened to their post-game comments, the New York Giants — who won the Super Bowl on Sunday –  are a group of team oriented guys.  Teamwork is as important in business as it is on the football field.  Teamwork requires flexibility.  Flexibility requires that you be willing to suspend your point of view to learn about what others think.  Be open to changing your mind.  Be a great team player.  Be flexible.

That’s the career advice I found in the New York Giants Super Bowl victory.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  After all, we’re all on the same team here.  This blog is about helping all of us create the life and career success we all deserve.  Comments encourage discussion.  Discussion facilitates teamwork and career success.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I appreciate you for being on my team.

Bud

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

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

I was in New York yesterday where it was hard to escape the Super Bowl hype.  They had a great parade for the Giants.  As I reflected on the game and comments I heard from the Giants players and coaches after the game.  Most of them focused on the fact that the Giants are a very tight team.

There is some common sense career success advice here.  High performing organizations need people with good teamwork skills.  In today’s world, very little gets done without teamwork.  In honor of the Giants’ Super Bowl win and their team approach to football, I’ve put together a list of 21 characteristics of great team players.  How many are true of you?

21 Characteristics of Great Team Players

I have found that great team players have a lot in common.  Here are 21 characteristics of all great team players.  How many of them are true of you?

1. Technical Competence – You have to be good at what you do if you’re going to be able to contribute to a team.  Master your technical discipline.
2. Sharing Orientation – Be willing to share your knowledge, expertise and ideas.  The old saying, “Knowledge is power” is true only is you are willing to share what you know with your teammates.
3. Good Interpersonal Skills – You have to be good at building relationships if you want to be a great team player.  To build strong relationships think of the team and others first.  Ask yourself what you can do for the team and its members – not what they can do for you.
4. Responsible – Do your part.  Great team players do what they say they’ll do.  They contribute.  They ask for help only when they have exhausted all of their resources.
5. Positive – Stay up beat, even when your team is under the gun.  Visualize the thrill of success, not the pain of failure.  Help your teammates see the positive in the most difficult of circumstances.
6. Care About Stakeholders – Most teams have some external stakeholders who are depending on them.  Make sure that you understand what each of your team’s stakeholders want and need.  Do you meet to meet their needs.
7. Welcome and Use Feedback – Listen to your teammates.  Welcome their feedback on your participation.  Use what you learn.
8. Meet Commitments – Do what you need to do to help your team succeed.  If you can’t meet a commitment, let your teammates know right away.
9. Honest – Everybody wants to work with people of integrity.  Be honest with yourself and your teammates.
10. Initiative – Help the team move forward.  Make suggestions, think of new and different ways to accomplish the team’s goals.  Be willing to take the lead/
11. Trusting – Believe that your teammates want the team to succeed.  Trust them.  If you don’t understand why they did something, engage them in conversation.
12. Trustworthy – Keep confidences, do what you say you’ll do, put the goals of the team first.
13. Consensus Builder – Actively work to find solutions that meet the needs of all team members and stakeholders.  Use compromise as a last resort.
14. Own Team Problems – Take personal responsibility for the team’s success.  If everyone does this, the team is bound to succeed.
15. Empathy – See things through the eyes of your team members.  Do your best to understand their points of view.
16. Respect Others –You can disagree with a person’s ideas without demeaning him or her personally.  Respect the dignity of every human being on your team.
17. Resolve Conflict Positively — Look for positive ways to resolve conflict.  Find small points of agreement in disagreements.  Find creative solutions to disagreements that satisfy everybody.
18. Focus on Task and Process – Pay attention to not only what the team does, but how it does it.  If you find the team getting bogged down, make suggestions on how to get past the bottleneck.
19. Humble – Take your share of the credit, but remember you’re part of a team.  Give credit to others where it is due.
20. Supportive – Be there for your teammates.  Help them succeed so the team can succeed.  Share your knowledge and wisdom to help others grow and succeed.
21. Flexible – This is the most important characteristic of all.  Be willing to suspend your point of view to learn about what others think.  Be open to changing your mind.

The career success coach point her is simple common sense.  Branding yourself as a team player can help you create the life and career success you deserve.  If you listened to their post-game comments, the New York Giants — who won the Super Bowl on Sunday –  are a group of team oriented guys.  Teamwork is as important in business as it is on the football field.  Teamwork requires flexibility.  Flexibility requires that you be willing to suspend your point of view to learn about what others think.  Be open to changing your mind.  Be a great team player.  Be flexible.

That’s the career advice I found in the New York Giants Super Bowl victory.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  After all, we’re all on the same team here.  This blog is about helping all of us create the life and career success we all deserve.  Comments encourage discussion.  Discussion facilitates teamwork and career success.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I appreciate you for being on my team.

Bud

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

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

This is not a post Super Bowl blog post.  You’ve probably seen enough of those. The giants won by the way.

Instead today’s post covers some great career success advice from one of my frineds. Chrissy Scivicque is the coauthor of my book Success Tweets for Administrative Professionals.  She runs a great site called Eat your Career: Helping You Create a Nourishing Professional Life.  I check in with her site regularly – so should you.

The other day, Chrissy posted a very interesting article: “4 Reasons to Love the Boss You Hate.”  In this article she shows how learning how to deal with a tough boss — while painful in the short term – can have long term career success benefits.

Chrissy is a pal.  She lets me repost her articles here.  This is one you really want to check out…

4 Reasons to Love the Boss You Hate
Chrissy Scivicque

I’m not a big fan of the word “hate” but let me be honest: I’ve definitely felt some very, VERY strong negativity toward a few of my superiors in the past. Hey, I’m only human. This is probably one of the most common challenges I hear from professionals.

Working for someone you don’t like is the absolute worst. And yet, it can be a great learning experience if you approach it with the right attitude.

Here are 4 reasons you should love that boss you hate:

1. Personal Insight

You can actually learn a lot about yourself in a situation like this. Consider the following questions:

• Why does this person get under your skin?
• What values are being stepped on here?
• How are you possibly contributing to the situation? (Ouch! Don’t skip this question; it will give you amazing insight.)
• What do you really want from a boss? Are you, perhaps, expecting too much?
• What kind of leader would YOU be?

2. Practice

Look, the business world is full of jerks. Consider this great practice for the future. You’re exercising patience and your ability to not take things personally. With practice, it gets easier.

3. Future Wisdom

After working for someone with whom you don’t click, you’ll be on the lookout for a better match in the future. Next time you’re interviewing for a new position, you’ll be more aware of the impact a supervisor has, and you’ll have more understanding of what you want in a boss. Perhaps you’ll see red flags you might have missed before.

4. Opportunity

I know this sounds a little nutty, but that jerk of a boss is giving you a great opportunity. You have the chance to adapt, to implement new strategies and, ultimately, build a bridge in some fashion. It might never be the perfect relationship, but there’s always a chance you can improve things. So don’t give up! Look for openings to strengthen your partnership. Use your relationship building skills and develop new ones. There is room for growth here.

Chrissy is right on here.  I’ve had my share of bad bosses over the years and I’ve learned that a bad boss can be a blessing in disguise.  As Chrissy points out, bad bosses provide great learning opportunities.  Learning how to work well with a difficult boss will help you learn how to deal with all sorts of difficult people.

Tweet 133 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Resolve conflict positively.  Treat conflict as an opportunity to strengthen, not destroy, the relationships you’ve worked hard to build.”  In other words, when you’re dealing with a difficult boss, look for ways to manage your conversations in a way that will enhance your relationship with him or her.

Successful people resolve conflict in a positive manner.  No matter how interpersonally competent, or how easy-going you are, you will inevitably find yourself in conflict.  This is especially true if you have a difficult boss.

I know a little bit about conflict resolution.  It was the topic of my dissertation at Harvard.  Way back in the 1970’s, Ken Thomas and Ralph Kilmann developed an instrument to measure a person’s tendencies when in a conflict situation.

They came up with five predominant conflict styles: Competing, Collaborating, Compromising, Accommodating and Avoiding.  Their research suggests that all five are appropriate depending on the situation.

As a career success coach however, I have found that the Collaborating style is the best default mode – and is especially good for dealing with a tough boss.  When you collaborate you’re your boss to resolve your differences, you are focused on meeting both your needs and his or her needs.  I like this style because it helps you bring together a variety of viewpoints to get the best solution.

When you collaborate, neither you nor your boss will be likely to feel as if one of you won and one of you lost.  Also, collaborating with a tough boss creates the opportunity for you to work together to build a solution that best addresses both of your concerns.  It’s a win-win.

When you have a tough boss focus on your similarities, not your differences.  This will help you create a bond that gets you through your conflicts, but helps strengthen your relationship.  And a good relationship with your boss is important to your life and career success.

This may sound counter-intuitive.  By definition, conflict is a state of disagreement.  But try it out.  When you’re in conflict with someone – especially your boss – focus on where you agree with him or her, instead of on where you disagree.

Look for any small point of agreement and then try to build on it.  I find that it is easier to reach a larger agreement when I build from a point of small agreement, rather than attempting to tear down the other person’s points with which I don’t agree.

Most people don’t do this.  They get caught up in proving their point.  They hold on to it more strongly when someone else attacks it.  If you turn around the discussion and say, “Let’s focus where we agree, and see if we can build something from there,” you are making the situation less personal.  Now the two of you are working together to figure out a mutually agreeable solution to your disagreement.  You’re not tearing down one another’s arguments just to get your way.  Try this.  It works.

This is a great way to not only resolve conflict in a positive manner, it helps strengthen your relationship.  Conflict often leads to a deterioration of relationships.  This approach is a no-brainer.  First, you resolve conflict positively.  Second, you strengthen your relationship with your boss.  Third, you improve your chances of becoming a life and career success.

When you come together with the people with whom you disagree by identifying some small point on which you agree, you are putting yourself in the position to begin building a resolution to the conflict – one that is likely better than either side’s opening position.  And, by working together, you’ll be strengthening your relationship.  This will facilitate even more effective conflict resolution down the road.  Look for common ground.  When you find it, build on it.  You’ll find that this is a great way to resolve conflict in a manner that enhances your relationship with your boss.

There are two career success coach points for dealing with a difficult boss here.  Both are common sense.  First, take responsibility for yourself.  Tell your boss how you feel.  Don’t let him or her do things that make your life unpleasant.  Second, stand up for yourself in an assertive, non-aggressive way.  Follow the career advice in Tweet 133 in Success Tweets.  “Resolve conflict positively.  Treat conflict as an opportunity to strengthen, not destroy, the relationships you’ve worked hard to build.”  Conflict can destroy relationships – and it can strengthen them.  When you find yourself in conflict with another person – especially our boss — choose to see it as an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with him or her.  The career advice here is simple.  Resolve conflict with your boss by acting in a positive, proactive and assertive manner.

That’s my career advice on learning to love the boss you hate. What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  I’m especially interested in hearing stories from people who have successfully built a strong relationship with a difficult boss.  As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

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

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

This is not a post Super Bowl blog post.  You’ve probably seen enough of those. The giants won by the way.

Instead today’s post covers some great career success advice from one of my frineds. Chrissy Scivicque is the coauthor of my book Success Tweets for Administrative Professionals.  She runs a great site called Eat your Career: Helping You Create a Nourishing Professional Life.  I check in with her site regularly – so should you.

The other day, Chrissy posted a very interesting article: “4 Reasons to Love the Boss You Hate.”  In this article she shows how learning how to deal with a tough boss — while painful in the short term – can have long term career success benefits.

Chrissy is a pal.  She lets me repost her articles here.  This is one you really want to check out…

4 Reasons to Love the Boss You Hate
Chrissy Scivicque

I’m not a big fan of the word “hate” but let me be honest: I’ve definitely felt some very, VERY strong negativity toward a few of my superiors in the past. Hey, I’m only human. This is probably one of the most common challenges I hear from professionals.

Working for someone you don’t like is the absolute worst. And yet, it can be a great learning experience if you approach it with the right attitude.

Here are 4 reasons you should love that boss you hate:

1. Personal Insight

You can actually learn a lot about yourself in a situation like this. Consider the following questions:

• Why does this person get under your skin?
• What values are being stepped on here?
• How are you possibly contributing to the situation? (Ouch! Don’t skip this question; it will give you amazing insight.)
• What do you really want from a boss? Are you, perhaps, expecting too much?
• What kind of leader would YOU be?

2. Practice

Look, the business world is full of jerks. Consider this great practice for the future. You’re exercising patience and your ability to not take things personally. With practice, it gets easier.

3. Future Wisdom

After working for someone with whom you don’t click, you’ll be on the lookout for a better match in the future. Next time you’re interviewing for a new position, you’ll be more aware of the impact a supervisor has, and you’ll have more understanding of what you want in a boss. Perhaps you’ll see red flags you might have missed before.

4. Opportunity

I know this sounds a little nutty, but that jerk of a boss is giving you a great opportunity. You have the chance to adapt, to implement new strategies and, ultimately, build a bridge in some fashion. It might never be the perfect relationship, but there’s always a chance you can improve things. So don’t give up! Look for openings to strengthen your partnership. Use your relationship building skills and develop new ones. There is room for growth here.

Chrissy is right on here.  I’ve had my share of bad bosses over the years and I’ve learned that a bad boss can be a blessing in disguise.  As Chrissy points out, bad bosses provide great learning opportunities.  Learning how to work well with a difficult boss will help you learn how to deal with all sorts of difficult people.

Tweet 133 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Resolve conflict positively.  Treat conflict as an opportunity to strengthen, not destroy, the relationships you’ve worked hard to build.”  In other words, when you’re dealing with a difficult boss, look for ways to manage your conversations in a way that will enhance your relationship with him or her.

Successful people resolve conflict in a positive manner.  No matter how interpersonally competent, or how easy-going you are, you will inevitably find yourself in conflict.  This is especially true if you have a difficult boss.

I know a little bit about conflict resolution.  It was the topic of my dissertation at Harvard.  Way back in the 1970’s, Ken Thomas and Ralph Kilmann developed an instrument to measure a person’s tendencies when in a conflict situation.

They came up with five predominant conflict styles: Competing, Collaborating, Compromising, Accommodating and Avoiding.  Their research suggests that all five are appropriate depending on the situation.

As a career success coach however, I have found that the Collaborating style is the best default mode – and is especially good for dealing with a tough boss.  When you collaborate you’re your boss to resolve your differences, you are focused on meeting both your needs and his or her needs.  I like this style because it helps you bring together a variety of viewpoints to get the best solution.

When you collaborate, neither you nor your boss will be likely to feel as if one of you won and one of you lost.  Also, collaborating with a tough boss creates the opportunity for you to work together to build a solution that best addresses both of your concerns.  It’s a win-win.

When you have a tough boss focus on your similarities, not your differences.  This will help you create a bond that gets you through your conflicts, but helps strengthen your relationship.  And a good relationship with your boss is important to your life and career success.

This may sound counter-intuitive.  By definition, conflict is a state of disagreement.  But try it out.  When you’re in conflict with someone – especially your boss – focus on where you agree with him or her, instead of on where you disagree.

Look for any small point of agreement and then try to build on it.  I find that it is easier to reach a larger agreement when I build from a point of small agreement, rather than attempting to tear down the other person’s points with which I don’t agree.

Most people don’t do this.  They get caught up in proving their point.  They hold on to it more strongly when someone else attacks it.  If you turn around the discussion and say, “Let’s focus where we agree, and see if we can build something from there,” you are making the situation less personal.  Now the two of you are working together to figure out a mutually agreeable solution to your disagreement.  You’re not tearing down one another’s arguments just to get your way.  Try this.  It works.

This is a great way to not only resolve conflict in a positive manner, it helps strengthen your relationship.  Conflict often leads to a deterioration of relationships.  This approach is a no-brainer.  First, you resolve conflict positively.  Second, you strengthen your relationship with your boss.  Third, you improve your chances of becoming a life and career success.

When you come together with the people with whom you disagree by identifying some small point on which you agree, you are putting yourself in the position to begin building a resolution to the conflict – one that is likely better than either side’s opening position.  And, by working together, you’ll be strengthening your relationship.  This will facilitate even more effective conflict resolution down the road.  Look for common ground.  When you find it, build on it.  You’ll find that this is a great way to resolve conflict in a manner that enhances your relationship with your boss.

There are two career success coach points for dealing with a difficult boss here.  Both are common sense.  First, take responsibility for yourself.  Tell your boss how you feel.  Don’t let him or her do things that make your life unpleasant.  Second, stand up for yourself in an assertive, non-aggressive way.  Follow the career advice in Tweet 133 in Success Tweets.  “Resolve conflict positively.  Treat conflict as an opportunity to strengthen, not destroy, the relationships you’ve worked hard to build.”  Conflict can destroy relationships – and it can strengthen them.  When you find yourself in conflict with another person – especially our boss — choose to see it as an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with him or her.  The career advice here is simple.  Resolve conflict with your boss by acting in a positive, proactive and assertive manner.

That’s my career advice on learning to love the boss you hate. What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  I’m especially interested in hearing stories from people who have successfully built a strong relationship with a difficult boss.  As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

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

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I define the word “purpose” as follows…

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

This isn’t always easy to discover. 

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

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

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

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

Here is my purpose…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is your life purpose mighty?  I hope so.

The common sense career success coach point of here is simple.  Successful people ground themselves in a mighty purpose.  Tweet 3 in Success Tweets says, “Think of your purpose as your personal mission; why you are on this earth.” Tweet 4 says, “The mightier your purpose, the more likely you are to succeed.  It will give you a strong foundation when the winds of change shift.”  Take this advice to heart.  Ground yourself with a mighty purpose — and live it every day.  As the old saying goes, “It’s better to aim to high and fall a little short than it is to aim too low and reach your goal.”  Or, as Mario Andretti once said, “If you’re in complete control, you’re probably not going fast enough.”  I’m sure there were plenty of times during his run to becoming a Super Bowl winning coach when Mike McCarthy felt a little out of control.  But in the end, he and his team triumphed.  His mighty purpose saw him through.  Here’s a tip of my hat from one Pittsburgh guy to another Mike.  Enjoy your victory.  You’ve earned it.

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

Bud

I’m really enjoying writing this series of posts further explaining the ideas in my latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I hope you’re enjoying reading them.  I’m pleased to say that Success Tweets is now in its second printing.  You can pick up a copy at your local book store, or online at Amazon.com.  Better yet, you can download the eBook for free at http://www.successtweets.com.

Today’s career advice comes from Tweet 100.  It is the last tweet in a series on becoming an outstanding performer.

Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.

The NFL begins play next week.  If you read this blog regularly, you know that I am a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan.  I grew up in Pittsburgh.  My dad had Steelers season tickets for many years.  He gave them up only because he moved to Florida.  He learned to use the internet at age 70, so he could follow the Steelers on line.  He really cares about the Steelers.  I’m not that much of a fanatic, but there is no professional sports team more near and dear to my heart than the Pittsburgh Steelers.

On Sunday February 1 2009, Steelers won the Super Bowl.  On Monday February 2 2009, Mike Tomlin, their coach noted that because the Steelers were in the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl, he was “a month behind getting ready for the 2009 season.  We’ve got to be thoughtful in how we prepare our football team.”

Some may say, “Chill Mike, savor what you’ve just accomplished.”  However, Mike Tomlin knows that outstanding performers don’t rest on their laurels.  They care about what they do, and they care about their life and career success.  High performers always set higher goals and look towards greater achievements.  The Optimist Creed urges us to “Press on to the greater achievements of the future.” 

That’s what Mike Tomlin was doing the day after he won the Super Bowl, and that’s what all outstanding performers do.  They care about their life and career success.  They set high goals and meet them.   Then they set higher goals and meet them too.  Pay attention here.  This is some important career advice.

Mike Tomlin was 36 years old when he won the Super Bowl.  He is the youngest coach to win a Super Bowl.  That’s pretty impressive.  But not to Tomlin.  Because he cares deeply about winning he says he expected that kind of success and expects more.  On the other hand, he is humble.  He realizes that football is a team game.  Coaches don’t win Super bowls on their own; neither do players.  They need one another…

“I’m an unrealistic dreamer sometimes.  I’m blessed, extremely blessed.  I’ve been around some great people – coaches, players, ownership – and I’m a product of that.  That’s my story.”

And a great story it is.  It shows the power of caring about what you do.

I care about helping people create the life and career success they want and deserve.  I care a lot.  That’s why I wrote Success Tweets and I give it away for free.  That’s why I am writing this series of blog posts explaining each of the 141 tweets in more detail.  I care so much about helpingyou achieve the life and career succes you deserve that I’ve committed to writing 700 or 800 words every day for 28 weeks.  I’ve also committed to doing a podcast on each of the tweets.  I do this because I care.  I care a lot about helping you.  And I know that this caring will pay off — for you and me.  The thinking and writing that goes into this work will help me become an even better career success coach – somebody who gives really great career advice.

When you care you do your very best.  This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of one of my favorite books To Kill a Mockingbird.  There is a passage in that book that has always stuck with me.  It’s in Chapter 11 and spoken by Atticus Finch, the father, played by Gregory Peck in the film.  He’s speaking to Scout, his daughter…

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

It takes courage to care. Because when you care, you put yourself out there.  You do your best.  And doing your best can be a scary thing.  When you care, when you consciously do your best and fail, it is heartbreaking.  But at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you did your best.

I remember when I applied to graduate school at Harvard.  I decided that I was going to demonstrate to myself how much I cared by writing the very best application I could.  I wasn’t going to let myself off the hook if I didn’t get accepted by saying “I could have written a better application, but I just didn’t spend the time I should have.” 

When I put my application in the mailbox – we still did quaint things like that back in the old days – I was proud of what I had written.  I knew it was the very best I could do.  I was also frightened because I knew that my best might not be good enough.  After all, both of my other degrees were from state schools.  Who was I to think that those kind of credentials would get me accepted at Harvard?

I cared about the quality of my application, so I did the very best I could.  The story in this case has a happy ending.  I was accepted and got my degree.  Even if I had not been accepted, I would have been proud of myself because I cared enough to write the best application I could, and I dared enough to admit it to myself.

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

That’s my take on the career advice in Success Tweet 100.  What’s yours?  Please care enough to take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud