Mindset and Motivation

4 Sep 2013

Turn Business Mistakes into Business Lessons

By |2017-04-03T11:26:22-06:00September 4th, 2013|Categories: Doug's Blog, Dream Teams, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation|

In business and in life you have a choice in how you frame failure.

"How much did that mistake cost you?" or "How much did that lesson cost you?"

The $100,000 Explosion

Transformer-business-learning-successBack in university one of our electrical engineering professors told us a story about a mistake when he was a young engineer working for a big company that built transformers.

The professor and another young engineer were tasked with stress testing one of those really big transformers.

Apparently, one of the calculations they performed was a wee bit off […]

7 Aug 2013

Illusions at Work and Business

By |2017-04-03T11:26:43-06:00August 7th, 2013|Categories: Books and Courses, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset and Motivation, Sales|

What you see as reality is not what I see. It is not just me or you.

It is everyone.

Everything you see, touch, smell, feel, hear or otherwise interact with is a construct and interpretation by your brain including the filters of your beliefs and world views.

The illusion of reality.

Illusions at Work and Business

Once you understand this and that everyone sees and interprets the world differently it becomes a lot easier to get along with others, sell your products and services, and create […]

30 Jul 2013

3 Ways You May Be Stealing Success From Your Business

By |2017-04-12T13:24:18-06:00July 30th, 2013|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset and Motivation, Sales|

No theft stealing focus business successWhen we spend time doing things that don’t add value and pretending it is work we are stealing. The only question is from whom?

The Law of Value states:

“Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.”

Bob Burg and John David Mann – The Go-Giver

Stealing From Your Employer

As an employee you are paid to deliver value to your employer that far surpasses the amount of money you take in payment. The more […]

22 Jul 2013

Underperforming in Sales: Check Your Beliefs

By |2017-04-03T11:26:58-06:00July 22nd, 2013|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Mindset and Motivation, Sales|

Are your beliefs holding you back in sales?

If you don't believe you can sell until…

  • You have a killer web site,
  • You have a flawless script,
  • You have a gorgeous glossy brochure and beautiful business cards,
  • You have been trained for countless hours,
  • You have 10,000 followers on Twitter and 5,000 page likes on Facebook,
  • Essentially, everything is perfect…

You won't!

Just like anything else you choose to do, it is extremely difficult to exceed your own expectations.

Sales starts with attitude.

If you are the only one selling, your business will die or at the very least, you will starve.

Positive mental attitude sales success […]

19 Jul 2013

Strategic Drivers

By |2017-04-03T11:27:13-06:00July 19th, 2013|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation|

Watching how people drive can tell you a lot about how people think. My hypothesis is that people tend to predominantly think a certain way across multiple areas of their lives. 

I am not talking about the ages old good versus bad driver. Most people consider themselves to be above average drivers and statistics say half of them are wrong.

This observation first hit me on the long drive from Calgary to Edmonton watching someone else drive. Much of the highway is two lanes in either direction and the speed limit is mostly 110 km/hour. The challenge is to maintain a constant […]

3 Jul 2013

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff – Attitude Matters

By |2017-04-03T11:27:35-06:00July 3rd, 2013|Categories: Current Events, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation|

Yesterday could have been a bad day.

An Apple A Day

I lost all of the contacts on my iPhone. I got distracted while connecting the phone to my computer to restore from backup and missed cancelling the automatic Sync and backup process.

I went to restore the contacts and the only options were backups from a few minutes ago with the corrupted data.

Not good.

Brief Rant: Seriously Apple, you should allow me to set how long I want to keep backups for (at least a week); I have lots of hard drive space. People don't always notice the problem right away and aren't technically […]

27 Jun 2013

The Flood of Knowledge Workers…

By |2017-04-03T11:27:45-06:00June 27th, 2013|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

I work in Calgary. On the evening of June 20th, 2013 and into the weekend, Calgary flooded. Many low lying areas along the Elbow and Bow rivers received a lot of damage. 10's of thousands of people were evacuated in less than 24 hours.

Calgary Flood 2013 Disaster RecoveryOn the 25th of June I decided to take the shuttle bus downtown to our office building (which fortunately was undamaged and had power). The Calgary Transit light rail tracks were damaged on the south line.

As […]

17 Jun 2013

Entrepreneurial Time Estimating Learned From My Father

By |2017-04-03T11:27:55-06:00June 17th, 2013|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation, Software Development|

With Father's Day just past I was reflecting on what I learned from my own father. Actually, I learned it from observation because I am pretty sure he was not intentionally passing on his wisdom.

If fact, like most entrepreneurs of the visionary bent, he was extremely optimistic in estimating effort for new ventures.

It usually went something like this.

"Doug, I am replacing the stairs on the deck and could use some help for an hour or so."

Deck construction time estimating businessNow if he said […]

6 Jun 2013

12 Success Attributes for an Ideal Coaching Client

By |2017-06-07T21:12:45-06:00June 6th, 2013|Categories: Doug's Blog, Go-Giver Coach, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Ideal Coaching Client Success Attributes

Are you a business coach wanting to find better clients or working with a coach and want to get more from the deal?

I was thinking about what an ideal coaching client would look like. Then I realized that the attributes of the ideal coaching client are that exact same attributes for:

  • Personal Success
  • Career Success
  • Sales Success
  • Leadership Success
  • Business Success

Yes, coaches want to work with clients who REALLY want to win, take action and apply what […]

28 May 2013

Suffering For Your Art (or Work or Business)

By |2017-04-03T11:28:33-06:00May 28th, 2013|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation|

I know quite a few artists.

Musicians. Dancers. Writers. Painters. Creative types.

In the broader sense of art that Seth Godin uses I know far
more artists. People making a big difference in the world by pouring themselves
wholeheartedly into what they do. Creating art.

Paintbrushes artist createSome artists suffer from pain (ranging from clinical, sensitivity,
to heartbreak) and practice their art as a release. It brings them respite, joy
and gives meaning to their world.

Some artists are struggling through the hard work of both
mastering their craft and finding enough people […]