TEMPTATION is always lurking

Come on, just one more bite.  You can do it, just watch one more episode of your favorite show, you don’t need to exercise.  Have another drink, your fine.  It’s going to be just me and the guys/girls, you can trust me.

Do these all sound familiar?

That is just temptation calling you and temptation is everywhere.  You don’t need that extra bite, you need to exercise, you don’t really need that drink, and a night on the town with the guys/girls has potential to end up in a strange place you have no business being at hanging around people with all sorts of bad intentions.

You have to maintain your high level of discipline so you don’t get out of control and out of sync with the things you want to accomplish in life. If your goal is to lose weight, then you have to maintain the discipline to not let temptation get the best of you regardless of what everyone else is eating.  If you goal is to write a book, then sitting around the house watching the television all day is not going to get that book written on it’s own.  And, I can assure you that drinking will lead you nowhere but down a long, slow road to problems that will still be there once you sober up.  Now hanging out with friends and family is a different thing, but you need to ask yourself “is the company that I keep in sync with my goals, or do I need new friends”?

If you answered “no” to the previous statement then I suggest you surround yourself with different people that will lead you in the right direction instead of tempting you into things that are not in sync with your goals and dreams .  Remember, temptation is lurking everywhere but you can avoid it by remaining vigilant, focused, dedicated, and most important of all disciplined enough to not fall for it’s grip on you from achieving personal and professional success.

 If you enjoyed this message then get my #1 Book for personal and professional success.  Now available in PAPERBACK.  Get it now at https://www.createspace.com/4195536

Take time and let it grow

(an excerpt from my upcoming book soon to be released)

TAKE TIME AND LET IT GROW

When you are looking at a beautiful garden full of fruits, flowers, and vegetables do you just want to dive right in and start picking all of its bounty right away or do you want to continue to let it grow into a more fruitful harvest? There are benefits to picking early and letting it grow some more but it all comes down to the perfect timing when all its goodness is at its peak. You don’t want to pick too early and you don’t want to wait too long. With knowledge and experience you can tell when the right time it is to pick and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Take time to build the foundations you hold dearly in your life. Sometimes things just need a little more time to mature before they are ready. Don’t be in such a big rush to get it all done now. You are not in a hurry, it’s not a race. Have self-discipline in everything that you do so that you don’t cut any corners and miss anything. It’s fine to have goals, hopes, dreams, aspirations, and so forth but you don’t have to achieve it all at once. Take the time to cultivate what needs to and let it grow. Let your relationships grow, let your knowledge grow, let your experience level grow, let your influence grow, and then ultimately watch your impact grow.

Visit my Author’s Page to get my latest book at http://amazon.com/author/terrythompson/

A pep talk

Do you need a motivational lift? From time to time we all need words of inspiration that will lift us and take us to higher places when we feel low. There have been many times I just didn’t feel like doing something and all it took was a simple someone calling out my name and it perked me right up. In other words, I was motivated by something extremely simple but produced maximum results.

Point blank, there are going to be times in your life where you need just a little pep talk to get you going in the right direction and I have provided that pep talk in Daily Fuel with Terry Thompson. For more Daily Fuel, click link below and inspire yourself to personal and professional success.

How to motivate your employees to accomplish more through direct engagement

How to motivate your employees to accomplish more through direct engagement

Do you want to motivate your employees so they can be happier at work and accomplish more?  The idea is to make your employees want to work, want to be at work, and want to accomplish things for the organization instead of having to do all those things.  A Leader can inspire his/her employees through several tactics, techniques, and procedures.  However, the most important thing you can do as a Leader is to get to know your employees by interacting and engaging with them directly.  When employees are happy, they will give everything to their work and will be able to produce a much better workflow and product than an unhappy employee.  So get out of your office, engage with your employees, and find out how you can get the very best your employees have to offer out of them on a consistent basis.  The following tips, techniques, thoughts, and ideas will help you motivate your employees to give their best and create an environment within the organization that will make everyone happy to be a part of the family/team/organization.

Get to know your employee’s knowledge and experience – Approach each employee as a valuable resource with something to offer.  It’s up to you as the Leader to find out what that knowledge and experience is and use it.  If you use the right employee on the right task it will lead to better accomplishment of the task, and employee satisfaction in the sense that they are doing something they know and enjoy.

Know what is needed to accomplish daily tasks, and provide it – An employee, team, or organization that has all required training, supplies, and resources to accomplish a task, will.  Nothing is worse than needing something to accomplish a task and you don’t have it.

Maintain an open door policy – The most important thing you can do while engaging with an employee is to listen to them.  You must allow for easy and direct access for your employees to talk to you if they have problems or issues.  As a Leader, you want your employees to bring their problems and issues to you.  This is accomplished through trust and confidentiality.  When your employees trust you they will open up to you and this will lead to a better work environment when an employee can feel safe in a trusting environment.

Face to Face time – You must get out of the office and engage directly with each employee in their workspace environment to fully understand what it is that they are going through from their perspective.  This will help you identify first hand if there is anything that you can change, help, or influence.  The more you know about what your employees are going through on their grounds, the better you can understand their needs and requirements when they request it.  You can also have good face to face time by eating breakfast or lunch with your employees.  –   By eating a meal together this relaxes everyone in a remote setting and allows for everyone to open up and discuss things while having a meal together.

Clearly defined objectives – When an employee knows what, when, where, how and more importantly why they are doing something, you will get the very best out of them and they will accomplish the organizations expectations, leading to organization success.  You should also share company goals, philosophy, values, and vision to give the employee the overall big picture when things are done the way they are.

Social Organization Day’s – Nothing relaxes people and creates an atmosphere for bonding and socializing better than a stress free, fun filled, social gathering in which the organization’s employees can bring their family members and get to know everyone.  One great idea is to have a bring your own dish contest in which all recipes go into a cookbook, the winner gets the cookbook for free, and everyone else can pay for the cookbook.  These funds can go back into the company for funding of future organization days.

Start volunteer programs – Get your employees fired up by volunteering to help the local community.  There are many organizations that will allow you to volunteer to help them or allow you to work through them to help your organization.  Suggestions are:  a local car wash, bagging groceries, a bake sale, provide day care for a family night out.  One of the best volunteer opportunities I personally ever participated in was thanksgiving dinner at a retirement home.  All the employees in my organization got dressed up, went to a local retirement home, and had thanksgiving dinner with the residents.  After we ate, we had a live DJ to play music and we had an old fashioned dance with them.  This was extremely entertaining and created some fun memories for everyone involved.

Team Building/Professional Development Activities/Team Retreats – This can be as simple as setting up in the organizations conference room for a casual game night and playing team building games such as how well do you know each other.   This game is played in which you draw names from a hat, you then engage with that person, get to know everything you can about him/her,  and then you have to stand up and tell what you know about that person.   This can also be as elaborate as taking a team retreat trip to a remote location, having a catered dinner delivered there, and having a guest speaker motivate everyone with his/her words of wisdom on a pre-planned subject.

Hail and Farewell’s – This is an event that can be held once a month at a local restaurant or conference center.  The idea behind this that the organization welcomes all new employees, says farewell to those retiring or leaving the organization, and to present awards to recognize the accomplishments of those within the organization.

After Action Reviews (AAR) – Anytime that an event is conducted, the organization must hold an After Action Review (AAR) to cover what was supposed to happen, what happened, and what the team can do to make it better next time.  This time allows everyone involved in the event to discuss his/her thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions.

FINAL THOUGHTS

That wraps it up for this edition of The Tank.  I thank you for allowing me to fuel your tank with tips, tools, techniques, and resources that will make you a better Leader .  I hope that you have enjoyed reading my newsletter, gained some valuable insight on Leadership, and continue to read next month.  Continue to check back often at Leadertank.com for updates and new material as I am working hard to get new products finished and posted all the time.  Also, don’t forget to watch LeadertankTV on YouTube, check out my blog, drop me a line to let me know what you think, join the Leadertank mailing list, add us me as a friend on facebook, and follow me on twitter.  Keep “fueling your tanks” and be the best Leader you can be.

Sincerely,

Terry W. Thompson

Leadertank.com

Teen Idol Leaders

I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s and worshipped a lot of the musicians and actors of my time just like any of the kids do exactly the same today.  Sure, I never really got to meet any of them and only got to see or listen to them if and only if they were on the television or radio station I was listening to at the time and was lucky enough to have a blank vcr tape or cassette tape ready to hit record, otherwise I missed it.

Today, it is much different from when I grew up.  With the ever expanding wave of media formats that are exposing today’s “Teen Idols” to more people in more countries brings a revolution in Leadership opportunities and influence for these young artists to make an amazing impact on our children’s lives and culture.  Justin Bieber is one such “Teen Idol” that could make a huge impact.  Instead of just tossing his name and face on watches, cologne, posters, lunch boxes, and the plethora of many other products that industry is looking to make a dollar off his image, why don’t some organizations use him as a public service representative to speak to kids about things?  It makes me wonder, are there any positive organizations out there trying to use these “Teen Idols” to make a worldwide influence on something other than mommy and daddy’s wallet.

I believe that would be amazing if someone like Justin Bieber was to put on miniature “free” shows at High schools, churches, and other organizations with a positive message that will motivate, inspire, and more importantly influence kids to be something greater than they could possibly ever dream.  The concept would be to go from “Teen Idol” to “Teen Leader” and lead a revolution of young minds to a future of amazing possibilities.

Visit Leadertank.com for more motivational and inspirational messages just like this one.

Be a class act ! ! !

Daily Fuel from Leadertank.com

“Be a class act”

Be a class act by offering to help even when it is not needed, it shows the amount of class you have. Anyone can just stand around and watch others struggle or work. And, for the most part there are people that don’t ask for or even require your help/assistance. But it’s up to you to show how much of a class act you are by at least offering anyway.

 

Join the conversation and let me know your thoughts.  I would love to hear from you.

Visit Leadertank.com for more Leader tips, tools, techniques, and resources.

Love thy neighbor ! ! !

Join the conversation and tell us your tips to “welcome a new neighbor”.

Visit Leadertank.com for more Leader tips, tools, techniques, and resources.

Thinking Negatively

Daily Fuel from Leadertank.com

“Thinking negatively cannot change what has already happened.” 

How often have you made a mistake and spent the entire day wallowing in your own guilty self pity? When you do this you are draining yourself of valuable time and energy that could be spent on something you have positive influence over instead of something that has already come and gone. 

By getting upset, you will not accomplish anything anyway, so don’t get bent out of shape over something that has already come and gone. When you do make a mistake it is good to learn from it so that it does not happen again. When you get upset over something that you have no affect on after the fact you waste time and energy over things that are no longer important. 

So, instead of beating yourself up over something you no longer have influence over, learn from your mistake, be aware that it has the potential of happening again if you are not vigilant, and move on to the things you can have a positive influence over.

Visit Leadertank.com for more leadership tips, tools, techniques, and resources. Download The Tank, our FREE Leadership Newsletter. Connect with me by subscribing and joining the mailing list for a more interactive experience.

APPLY and ADAPT

Daily Fuel from Leadertank.com

“APPLY and ADAPT so that you can have control over your destiny”

How often have you heard people complain about their job, friends, family, co-workers, employees, money, traffic, and other people or situations. I am here to tell you that you have control over your destiny if you APPLY and ADAPT.

APPLY your knowledge and experience to situations you have control over so that you can influence and add value others. Be open minded and flexible in order to ADAPT to the situations in which you have no control.

Through positive influene you can make a difference not only your life, but in the lives of others. My challenge to you is APPLY and ADAPT where you can to control a destiny.

Visit Leadertank.com and connect with Leadership tips, tools, techniques, and resources. Join the Leadertank Mailing List and SUBSCRIBE to my updates for a more interactive Leadership experience.

Don’t defeat me, complete me ! ! !

“If a leader finds a shortcoming in an employee, it is better to teach them than to judge them.”

Have you ever had a boss or supervisor that would just identify every fault you ever had or made?  I have had a few and found that their judgmental preaching was destructive instead of constructive. When trying to build or develop your team, it is better to complete your team members with positive re-enforcement than it is to defeat them with negativity.  As a leader you need to learn to be empathetic in order to by sympathetic.  By putting yourself in the shoes of the employee you can then begin to understand that there are many things that could have prevented the employee from putting forth their best effort in any given situation.  

Below are some tips and suggestions that will help establish or maintain effective team building.  These concepts will prove to be beneficial not only to the individual team members but the organization as well.

• Giving your employees the benefit of the doubt that maybe they didn’t understand the intent of the task by not being too good to repeat the task or restate the intent another way so that it is understood 

• Developmental counseling sessions that identify overall strengths and weaknesses to develop a team member positively into the employee you want them to be and the success they want to be

• Start a Junior Leadership Program in which you give everyone a chance to be a leader and learn from those experiences.  This proves to be an effective system that enables leader growth and development by giving your employees the knowledge, insight, and most importantly the confidence to lead in any given situation.

These are just a few.  Join the conversation by sharing your thoughts and ideas with the group.