Book: THE LEADER WHO HAD NO TITLE: The New Way To Win in Business – and in Life
Leaders without a title know that whether they have a title or not, they have power to:
• see opportunity amid crises
• drive positive change
• encourage everyone on their team
• step into the person they’ve always longed to be
You do not need a title to be a leader. You can be a leader and make a difference TODAY, whatever you are doing.
It is in your attitude, approach and perspective.
There is a great summary – read more: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=116652405016576

Christy Geiger, Executive Business Coach & Trainer, Minneapolis, MN

Now go back and notice the antennas on the cars. While there may be less cars with antennas today, I would get you did not notice the antennas the first time you looked.. As you look again, do you see the antennas?

What we look for is what we see and it becomes our reality. Notice your story and your premises that you are caring on life, people and work. Are they really what you want to be focusing on? Are they what you want to be seeing? In order to see something different, you have to look for something different.

Try to put your premises and stories about others and the world away today, and see what “new” things you notice and see. (my favorite filter is to “put the best construction on everything” as you do that, how does your reality change?)

While everything in life is not positive and a “bowl of cherries”, there is little value that comes from griping, complaining and excuses. Look for the opportunities and silver linings, there is usually one there.

Christy Geiger, Executive Business Coach & Trainer, Minneapolis, MN

2. Business Cards  Take 100 business cards and pass out along the way. You never know who will be so thankful that your paths crossed. A great habit is to pass out 5 cards a day, and while you are on vacation let your journey take your card distribution into new territories!

3. Cd’s and Tapes  There are so many motivational and educational tapes you can listen to as you drive, fly and relax. This is a great time to soak in new information or review old information. You are on vacation, so don’t act on it; just savor it!

4. Books  Take one book and really get it read! Rather than packing five that you “hope to get to,” be serious about one and enjoy reading it.

5. Ideas  Before you go, pick something you would like to discover or get new ideas about. Take the questions with you as conversation starters and gather information from those around you. Pick their brains. They have great ideas and you might be able to glean new resources and information that will be greatly applicable when you return.

6. Perspective  Look at your business from a new perspective. Look at your business from the framework of relaxing on the beach, enjoying the breathtaking mountains, etc. What is possible here? What can you take from this view and apply to or bring into your business?

7. Explore  Look at phone books, ads, posters and businesses around you. Check out the needs and saturation of your market. Is your vacation spot your next target area?

8. Focus  Evaluate your goals and progress. Where have you been and what do you want? Revise your goals and set new ones. While you are away from the office it is a great time to do some longer “thinking” activities that you do not have time for when you are in the chaos and rush of normal schedules and business life!

9. Journal  Spend some time just writing down and capturing your ideas. What are you learning and noticing? What do you want to do differently when you get back? Brainstorm something new. Write a top ten to keep your mind sharp. Writing is powerful. Even if you never look at the entry again, there is an amazing connection in the act of writing thoughts down and remembering them later!

10. Keep Motivation Pieces  Look for an item (postcard, picture, souvenir, etc.) that is motivational to take back with you into your working day. Bring your trip and the inspiration from it back with you!

Christy Geiger, Executive Business Coach & Trainer, Minneapolis, MN

Below is a fun story I read about a tough day at work… enjoy the levity and remember to be thankful for what you have!

Next time you have a bad day at work think of this guy:
Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers in Louisiana. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister. She then sent it to radio station 103.2 on FM dial in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won!

Hi Sue,
Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you’ve been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it’s not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job. As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It’s a wet suit. This time of year the water is quite cool.

So what we do to keep warm is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I’ve used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wet suit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It’s like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch…

So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my butt started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened. The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit.

Now, since I don’t have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn’t stick to it. However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate. When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my butt. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically.

Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet.

As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn’t poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut.

So, next time you’re having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be.
Now whenever you have a bad day, ask yourself, is this a jellyfish bad day?
May you NEVER have a jellyfish bad day!!!!!