Tag / proactivity

by Nathan Coumbe

You can’t expect crops if you didn’t plant seeds

It seems rather absurd to imagine a farmer standing out in his field, scanning the horizon, scratching his head, and wondering why his crop of corn didn’t come in. It’s rather obvious why…

He didn’t plant any corn in the spring.

Why do we think the same rules of farming don’t apply in our personal and professional lives? We expect a raise or a promotion without putting in any extra work or without doing anything extraordinary to earn it. We ask for a big gig or a huge project but don’t have a portfolio of work backing us up to show that we can handle it.

This is very similar to a message in one of my previous posts about preparation for the unknown opportunities that come our way. However, this is about the things that we know we want and are actively seeking out.

If you are a part time freelancer, you may have to create some work on your own time outside of your day job in order to back up what you say you can do. If you want to move up into management, you’ll have to start leading and developing other people before you get a leadership or management position. They don’t give you the role and then have you show that you can do the work; you have to start showing and doing in order to get the role.

We cannot ask for benefits, rewards, and extra responsibilities if we have not put work that shows we deserve them and/or can handle them. Employers and clients just don’t work that way. You still have to earn it.

by Nathan Coumbe

Irony

My reading today got me thinking about education and our attempts to fix it. A bunch of people who grew up in the industrial education system we know today are trying to fix and/or revamp the way we learn using the very education they seek to change.

I have hope, though. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, a lot of failures, and a lot of bravery on the part of us that seek to make it work. If we seek to push through and get it right, however, it will be worth every second.

by Nathan Coumbe

Resources for you

Today I felt like sharing some of the magnificent people and resources that have helped me along my journey to this point in life. I may turn this into its own page at some point as I am sure the list will grow.

Dave Ramsey – what can I say? He really hit me over the head with how stupid I had been for close to a decade. If you want to know how to handle your money and get on the path to becoming wealthy, his book The Total Money Makeover is a must-read. Dave also first planted in my mind the idea that I should find something meaningful in my life to do for work which led me to the person that I will now offer up as my next recommendation.

Dan Miller – writer, speaker, coach, entrepreneur, mentor, Dan is one of the kindest and most giving individuals I’ve ever known (and we’ve never even met in person). He truly inspired me to look inward to find work that is meaningful, purposeful, and profitable. 48 Days to the Work You Love is his masterpiece; it will completely change the way you view work and will put you on the path to doing what you love for a living. He also has the 48 Days Eagles community, an incredible group of people who are supporting each other in stepping out on their own as entrepreneurs. His book recommendations and his idea of investing 3% of my income back into myself led me to discover some of the most powerful learning I have ever experienced as taught by…

Seth Godin – quite possibly one of the most influential people I’ve ever encountered, Seth is a serial entrepreneur (as are Dan and Dave), a master of marketing, storytelling, business, leadership, and one of the greatest teachers from whom I have ever had the privilege to learn. His blog is brilliant, to say the least, and his many books and courses will change your life. That is not an exaggeration. His podcast is one of the most entertaining, thought-provoking, and enjoyable I have ever heard. I have never failed to learn something when I hear Seth speak. As an aside, he is also the reason I decided to get out of my own way and start writing and publishing my ideas.

I hope these resources will benefit you in some way. I will attempt to update them as I have more time and as I continue to put together my “best of…” lists.

by Nathan Coumbe

Prepare the way

I have been guilty many times in my life of sitting and waiting for things to happen for me. It is only recently, in the last couple of years, that I decided to be proactive and seek out opportunities for myself. 

How many of us have sat with the mindset of, “When [some random opportunity] happens, then I will start to learn/practice/develop [the skill needed to accomplish said opportunity]?” I will bravely raise my hand. Great opportunity may come to those who wait, but I think we’d all be better off if we started preparing for things while we wait. 

“Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation.”

– Zig Ziglar, See You at the Top

We cannot sit on the couch, twiddling our thumbs, waiting for the phone to ring with that new job offer. No one is thinking to themselves that they should call you with a gig or a show unless you have proven yourself by developing a following, building relationships, developing your skills, and making a ruckus in the world already. This idea is very similar to my previous blog post “Take your eye off the prize” in that sometimes you just have to work, learn, create, and do without thought of reward, without letting the notion of “What’s in it for me?” hold you back.

Be persistent, find out what you need to learn and do to get where you want to be, and start doing it. The opportunities will come, but you have to be prepared when they arrive. If you get an offer for the NBA, and you’ve been sitting naked on a bean bag chair eating Cheetos for 3 months, you aren’t prepared and will therefore fail in your opportunity.

If you want a job in marketing, you are going to have to learn it on your own time and start doing marketing, maybe for a friend while you hold down another job to pay the bills. If you want to make a living as an artist or a graphic designer, you are going to have to start doing work and putting it out into the world whether or not you get paid for it. People have to see you and know you before they will want you. You will have to sell yourself as an expert in what you do and that means you have to do the work, build a following, make noise in your little area of the world.

You are going to fail, probably more than once. That’s fine, just start another project, call another business, reach out to another person who might need your expertise. Just keep working.

“When you work and develop your skills and talents, your day will come…[and] if your day never came, you would still be the big winner. Inside you will be the knowledge that you’re doing your best with what you have.”

– Zig Ziglar, See You at the Top

I’m going to keep preparing myself so that I am ready when opportunity comes knocking. What about you?

by Nathan Coumbe

Rehearse

I had a dream last night in which a very unfortunate situation occurred, and I reacted very poorly. Then, an interesting thing happened – my brain gave me a “do-over.” Without ever waking up, I dreamed the same incident again, but chose a completely different response. I calmly and diplomatically expressed my disappointment in the situation and discussed how and why things had to change.

Of course this was just a dream, but in my conscious hours I have also been pushing myself to pause for just a moment before reacting to a situation and then choose how to respond. This works wonders for unexpected situations at work and at home. However, when you know that situations are going to occur, such as an angry customer, or a difficult task, or delivering bad news to a boss, you can be even more proactive than choosing a response in the moment.

When was the last time you had a dress rehearsal?

Musicians, dancers, actors, anyone who performs, regularly rehearse the material they will present to an audience. Why don’t we all? Each one of us is a performer during the day; whether we are dealing with a difficult person or a difficult task, we have to perform and show empathy and competence to get the job done.

Rehearse these situations when you have a little down time. You know you are going to have angry customers come to you when there is a long wait for service or something of theirs doesn’t work properly, so visualize how you will respond. Make it as real as possible – what sounds do you hear, how does your office smell, what emotions are you feeling in the moment, what are you doing with your hands, with you face? The same goes when you are delivering a presentation to your peers, or having a conversation with your leader about a raise or a new job. Rehearse them in your mind, rehearse them out loud with someone you trust. These are the same visualization techniques professional athletes and artistic performers use to prepare for “game day.”

You are no less of a performer than any athlete or artist, so practice your craft before you deliver it to the public.

by Nathan Coumbe

Make time for happy

I’ve been dealing with a most ridiculous, and at times comically awful, situation for the last month or so. Yesterday, things came to a head. I won’t go into the details here, but I do wish to share with you my reaction to the situation.

By the time all was said and done, I was absolutely furious. Rage was seeping from my pores; my body was on the verge of convulsion because of how badly I was shaking. I got in my car (slamming the door, of course) and sat and seethed for a few moments more. Then I began to think about how I was thinking and feeling.

Human beings are unique in this respect: we can think about how we think. Because of this, we also get to choose how we react in a given situation. (Read Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl or The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, and you can get more into this.) I had a choice – I could be mad, or I could let it go.

I chose mad.

I sat in my car, and I consciously decided, then and there, that I was going to be mad. This situation was so awful, so asinine, that I couldn’t just let it go! I had to be mad.

With a catch.

I gave myself a time limit (a trick I learned from reading the works of Zig Ziglar). It was 4:30pm – I needed to drive home and spend the evening with my wife. Now why would I make my wonderful wife miserable because I was having such a hard time? I decided I would be mad – for a period.

“Nathan,” I said aloud, “6pm. That’s how long you have to be mad. At six o’clock, you are going to let it go, and you are going to be spend a nice evening with your wife. Until 6pm you can be mad as hell.”

5:15pm

By about 5:15pm, I decided it was too exhausting to be mad. I told my wife what I had done, what I had decided, and she laughed. Her whole face lit up; it was as though a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders, not just mine. She thought that my whole monologue was hilarious, wonderful, and one of the best things that I could have done. We splurged and got pizza, ice cream, tater tots, and ended up having a nice evening together.

Be mad – with a catch.

Go ahead – react appropriately to the situations in your life. Sometimes they stink. Sometimes they really stink. Just don’t live in the garbage. Give yourself a time limit.