Posts Tagged ‘Success’

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Thursday’s Thoughts on Leadership: The Success of the Outlier

By Gino Blefari | April 26th, 2012 0 Comments

This week I just had to talk about this extremely stimulating and intriguing book that I read a couple years ago: Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell.  You may remember him from his other works such as Tipping Point and Blink.

First off, a definition:  What is an Outlier?  The Encarta Dictionary states that an “Outlier is a separate part of a system, organization, or body that is at some distance from the main part.”  In this case it refers to someone who, for one reason or another, are so accomplished and so extraordinary and so outside of ordinary experience that they are puzzling to the rest of us.  This is the topic of Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers.

In the book, he dives into a successful person’s background: where they are from, their culture, their family, their generation, and the experiences. He looks at the surroundings that influenced them to become the way they are today.  Other analysis of success you might read are about the character and personality of the person, this book goes beyond that and into the neighborhood of a person’s childhood, the resources that they had growing up, their parent’s upbringing; anything that could attribute to their success. “For example, one of the chapters looks at the fact that a surprising number of the most powerful and successful corporate lawyers in New York City have almost the exact same biography: they are Jewish men, born in the Bronx or Brooklyn in the mid-1930’s to immigrant parents who worked in the garment industry. Now, you can call that a coincidence. Or you can ask—as I do—what is about being Jewish and being part of the generation born in the Depression and having parents who worked in the garment business that might have something to do with turning someone into a really, really successful lawyer? And the answer is that you can learn a huge amount about why someone reaches the top of that profession by asking those questions” (gladwell.com).

This view really forces you to look at the world a little differently, focusing on the opportunities a person has to make them achieve greatness.  It makes the statement “it takes a village” so much more truthful.

More about the book: Gladwell.com

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Morning Mojo: Embrace the Pain

By Tom Tognoli | January 16th, 2012 0 Comments

Embrace the pain…it is where the growth and success are hiding.

It was the end of 2004 when she walked into my office with tears in her eyes. She had tracked me down for an interview. I had recruited her from a smaller firm where her business was not going all that well. When she joined our firm I gave her a list of what I call “success activities” and told her that if she put them in her schedule and did them every day sun or shine she would be one of the top agents in our company. She has 2 small children and a husband who works full time, but she had an amazing work ethic. She would literally get up at 4:30 or 5 every morning, come in to the office and work until 7am. Then she would go home, get her kids up and ready for school and then come back to the office and bust her butt all day doing the activities. At about 6pm she would leave to go pick up her kids from school, bring them home, have dinner and then go back to work until about 8pm to 9pm. And she did work a lot of weekends as well. She was a woman on a mission. But after probably 6 months and only 1 deal, she was on the verge of quitting and going to get a “real job.” She literally broke down in my office and told me she was not sure this job was for her. She even considered being someone’s administrative assistant. Well, after an hour or so of encouraging her and telling her not to quit, she walked out, got back on her horse and kept going. A year later she was one of the top producers in the office and today she is one of the top producers at Intero. Today she is a success,but if she had quit when the going got tough she would have failed.

If you lift weights or run or do almost any kind of training you know that nearly all of the benefit happens in the last 10% of the exercise…it is in the 12th rep of a 12 rep exercise…is the last 1/2 mile of a 7 mile run. Improvement happens when the pain is at its peak and we think we can’t take it anymore…that is how we get better. Up until that point everything is mostly just maintenance and only helps us keep what we’ve got. But if we can push through the pain even when we think we can’t take it any longer and do just a little bit more, that is where all the gain and opportunity lies. The same thing applies in business and life. So many times we see that super successful person and think they got all of the breaks…everything went their way. I can tell you that is almost never the case. There were set backs and fear and a lot of pain along the way in almost every success story. The difference between those who have massive success and the rest is not only their amazing work ethic, but their ability to push through the setbacks and pain, when most “normal” people quit. Like exercise and fitness, success at anything in life requires discipline, accountability, resiliency and doing “it” when everyone else is sleeping and/or calls it quits. It’s showing up an hour earlier and staying an hour later than everyone else. It is that last rep when lifting weights and your arms feel like they are about to explode. It is showing up and doing it again and again even when you feel like you can’t take it anymore. Push through the pain, don’t quit, and get the reward of Success.

So, who is this Success I am talking about you ask? It is Sophie Tsang in our Cupertino office.

No pain…no gain!

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Thoughts on Leadership: Great by Choice

By Gino Blefari | January 5th, 2012 0 Comments

For the past few weeks, I have been listening to the book GREAT BY CHOICE: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins. This book is that good and powerful. It’s also my second time reading it. Jim has authored and co-authored six books that have sold in total more than ten million copies worldwide. They include: the international bestseller Good to Great, translated into 35 languages; the classic Built to Last, a fixture on the Business Week best seller list for more than six years; and How the Mighty Fall, a New York Times bestseller that examines how great companies can self-destruct.

For the next several weeks I would like to share the book Great by Choice and Jim Collins’ insight on how the choices we make determine our success.

Jim Collins is a student and teacher of enduring great companies – how they grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good companies can become great companies. He has invested nearly a quarter of a century of research into the topic.

His most recent book Great by Choice, co-authored with Morten Hansen, shares the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times. Based on nine years of research, it answers the question: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?

Great by Choice distinguishes itself from Jim’s prior books by its focus not just on performance, but also on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today.

With a team of more than twenty researchers, Collins and Hansen studied companies that rose to greatness – beating their industry indexes by a minimum of ten times over fifteen years – in environments characterized by big forces and rapid shifts that leaders could not predict or control. The research team then contrasted these “10X companies” to a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to achieve greatness in similarly extreme environments.

The study results were full of stimulating surprises such as:

  • The best leaders were not more risk taking, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons; they were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.
  • Innovation by itself turns out not to be the trump card in a chaotic and uncertain world; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline.
  • Following the belief that leading in a “fast world” always requires “fast decisions” and “fast action” is a good way to get killed.
  • The great companies changed less in reaction to a radically changing world than the comparison companies.

Great by Choice is classic Collins: contrarian, data-driven, and uplifting. He and Hansen show convincingly that, even in a chaotic and uncertain world, greatness happens by choice, not chance.

Stay tuned for next week’s Thought on Leadership which will cover Chapter 1: Thriving in Uncertainty.

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Morning Mojo: Merry Christmas

By Tom Tognoli | December 19th, 2011 0 Comments

Can you believe it? Christmas is only six days away.

I would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and thank you for the wonderful gift. Thank you for the gift of opportunity to share Monday Morning MOJO with you.

By having to think, research and create ideas to share every week it has forced me to reaffirm what is important to me in my life.  By writing Monday Morning MOJO I have also attracted into my life more of the things which are important to my family, my friends, our company and me.

As we have discussed in past Monday Morning MOJO’s, one of the best ways to get more of what you want in life is to help others get more of what they want. I hope I have been able to help you do just that – you have certainly helped me. You have been my best accountability partner in 2011.

So, don’t forget to get more of what you want next year – help others get more of what they want. You have to give to get!

So, what do you want Monday Morning MOJO to provide you for Christmas?

I have been sending out Monday Morning MOJO now for nearly a decade and I thought I would ask you what you are struggling with in life, what breakthroughs are you wanting to accomplish but just can’t quite seem to make it happen? What questions do you want Monday Morning MOJO to help with? Do you have an inspirational story to share – one that you think can make a difference for the thousands of people who receive Monday Morning MOJO?  It’s the stories of real experiences that truly make the difference and have the largest impact.

My gift to you today for Christmas is MOJO. What exactly is MOJO you ask?

MOJO defined is:

  • A magic charm or spell
  • The art or practice of casting magic spells
  • An object, as an amulet or charm that is believed to carry a magic spell
  • MOJO is me sending you success, health, and happiness.

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

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Thoughts on Leadership: The GIFTS that Leaders Give

By Gino Blefari | December 15th, 2011 0 Comments

This is the time of year when many people exchange gifts and messages of gratitude for the things we do for each other. As a leader, the gift you bring to your organization is important in many ways. “Gifts” take on a whole new meaning, as they aren’t material things you can hold in your hand, but qualities that you bring to the table to lead a team to success.

Here’s what we mean by G-I-F-T-S from great leaders:

G: Generosity

A leader’s generosity will spread quickly through a company. Being generous often means understanding that most people want to feel that they are part of something bigger and that what they do matters.

I: Inspiration

Leaders always make us feel we can do more than we’re currently doing. In order to inspire, a leader needs to show by example rather than tell others to be inspired.

F: Focus

Good leaders provide clear, consistent communication to all. There is no mistaking the goal and what needs to happen to achieve the goals. Bottom line, there’s power in the alignment effort that comes from focus.

T: Teamwork

Good leaders take us from “me” to “we.” The leader will model positive behavior and encourage people to work together to achieve success. There is indeed a connection between people and cross-functional communication.

S: Success

It’s the power of “we” that achieves great things. The greatest outcome is to see how someone can step up and lead a group to accomplish together what seems unattainable on our own.

A good leader brings these gifts to an organization wrapped in his or her own unique style. These contributions tend to have a lasting impact, pushing a team to success.

What are the gifts your leadership style brings? Embrace the principle of G-I-F-T-S and you will find that you and your team can go further and perform at a higher level.

As we close out the year and open a new one, we challenge you to examine the kind of gifts you give to others throughout the year. Be mindful with your contributions and you will no doubt become a superior leader in your business.

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Morning Mojo: 21 Gun Salute

By Tom Tognoli | December 5th, 2011 0 Comments

People measure success by the money they make, houses they own, cars they drive, toys they have, or title on their business card. The true measure of success is none of that stuff. The true definition of success in life is how much you have loved and been loved.

He was a great leader, father, and friend to many. With hundreds of people in the room he was honored with tears, smiles and laughter. One of his best friends, Roger Malech, gave him what he called his 21 gun salute at the memorial. He shared with us the 21 most important things he taught him. Based on the number of people in attendance at his memorial I think he taught them to us all. This past week we honored the life of one of Intero’s original Founders, Kevin Moles…a man who defined success. Kevin unexpectedly passed away at the age of 55 a few weeks ago, this is his 21 gun salute.

1.      Cowboy boots go with anything – even a Tuxedo.

2.      It’s okay for a man to smell good, I mean really good. No man smelled as good as Kevin. I remember more than once my wife would come home and I would say, “Why do you smell like men’s cologne?” and she would say “I saw Kevin today and he gave me a hug”

3.      There’s no situation so bad that a little Beach Boys won’t help.

4.      A party is not a real party unless Hank shows up. And we all know he was talking about Hank Williams Jr.

5.      It is possible to pass another car on a freeway on-ramp. I learned this first hand because I was with him when he passed Kristi Pritchard on the Leavesly on-ramp.

6.      The top speed on 101 between the Dunne and Cochrane exits is 130 MPH.

7.      It’s completely acceptable to take 2 hours off in the middle of the work day and see a movie, even if it’s just the movie “Joe Dirt” and it’s playing in Kevin’s family room.

8.      The best way to solve a problem is to start by putting your feet on your desk.

9.      The worst day selling real estate is better than the best day picking strawberries. Kevin had this fantasy of loading up all the agents on a bus for a mystery play day. He wanted to take them all to a strawberry farm on a summer day and have them pick strawberries for 4 hours. He was convinced that this was the way to stop the whining about how difficult selling real estate was. We never did that but I can’t pass a strawberry farm to this day without being thankful that I am in the business I am.

10.  In the term “Independent Contractor”, the word “Independent” is greatest, by far.

11.  You never know what the tide will bring in. This is from the movie “Castaway” and it references when Tom Hanks is hopeless and can’t get off the island but is looking out to sea and notices a piece of an old port-a-potty floating in the surf. He eventually uses it as a sail to get off the island. When Kevin would tell me “You never know what the tide will bring in”, he was offering hope. It was his way of saying keep going. Keep looking to the surf. Don’t give up. Life may give you a port-a-potty but you can use it to sail to freedom. Kevin really believed that.

12.  The most important recruiting technique is to keep the people you have happy.

13.  The second most important recruiting technique is to be attractive to other agents.

14.  If you treat a group of people with respect and love, give them what they need, and then leave them alone, they will follow you anywhere. This was proven 9 years ago when 42 of us left the company we worked for and joined the first Intero office here in Morgan Hill. We didn’t know what Intero meant, we didn’t know what to expect, and we didn’t even know what our commission splits were going to be. None of that mattered because we wanted to be with Kevin. Last week I was talking to Ira Marshall, a financial planner that Kevin used. He told me that every time he met with Kevin, Kevin would share concerns about the agents. He would talk about them by name and asked Ira if he could meet with them and help them. Ira told me “Kevin had a love affair with his agents. He really did care about them. It wasn’t just about business.”

15.  If the term “generous to a fault” were true, Kevin was the faultiest man I’ve ever known.

16.  Real men can kiss and hug each other.

17.  Real men can say “I love you” to each other. Often times, including the last time I saw him, Kevin would ask me “Who loves you baby?” I would say “Ummm you?”

18.  Real men admit their mistakes. One day, after his divorce, Kevin and I were having a heart to heart and he said “I really screwed up Rog. Tesha is the best woman I’ll ever know.”

19.  Yesterday is a cancelled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is legal tender, spend it wisely.

20.  God can use us, however flawed we might be, to have an incredible impact on others. I am not the same man I was as before I met Kevin. He was a friend, a brother, and a mentor. He will not be forgotten because I feel like I owe him a debt that can never be re-paid. He was instrumental in helping me get sober 15 years ago and I dedicate the rest of my days of sobriety to him.

21.  You can’t outrun God. Kevin wrestled with God his entire life and we had many discussions about spiritual things. The last time I saw him it was very evident that his wrestling was over. He had made peace with God and told me He had committed his life to Jesus and had been baptized. That doesn’t mean his troubles were over but it does mean that I will see him again. I look so forward to that and I can’t wait until we can both share a glass of wine (without the burden of addiction) with Jesus and I will hear those familiar words “Who loves you, baby?”

We love you Kevin and we will see you in Heaven.

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Thoughts on Leadership: Christopher Columbus’s Leadership Qualities

By Gino Blefari | November 3rd, 2011 0 Comments

My 10-day tour of Europe concluded in Barcelona Spain where I was taking time to visit with my daughter Alex before returning to the states – an eleven hour voyage that got me thinking about a fellow countryman who 500 years prior, took a similar, although longer journey from Spain to North America that in so many ways changed the course of history – Christopher Columbus.

Italian explorer and navigator Christopher Columbus left Spain on August 3, 1492, in search of a seagoing route from Europe to Asia with the vision of creating a trade route for spices, silk and more. But as history shows, navigational errors took him further north than he anticipated discovering instead the islands of North America.

He wasn’t the first to make this discovery but his voyages led to the widespread awareness (and eventual colonization) of “the New World.”

Discoveries and errors aside, what made Columbus special was his leadership skills and his attention to the six qualities every leader must have to ascend to greatness.

They are:

Execution. Columbus believed the earth was smaller in circumference than most did. This belief led him to the logical assertion that he would reach his destination in a shorter period of time than what others believed. While he was wrong, he built his plan based on his belief and never wavered despite the ridicule and disbelief that surrounded him. Leaders don’t think along the lines of good ideas versus bad ideas. They cling to one belief and focus their energy on execution.

Allies. No one can accomplish greatness on their own. And without followers and supporters, a leader cannot lead. Columbus’s greatest accomplishment was selling his plan to Ferdinand and Isabella as well building a team of partners as well as a crew willing to follow him into the unknown.

Resolute. Columbus found the Bahamas rather the trade route he sought. This was not his desired outcome. Rather than give up, he continued sailing again and again. Four voyages in all that each took him to a new place and a new discovery.

Adaptable. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Leaders dodge that stereotype. Rather than view his discoveries as a failure, he adapted his vision by recognizing the value of his new discoveries and applying the same clear vision, belief and persistence.

Planning. Columbus didn’t just charm Queen Isabella by sitting around the palace one day and spinning idea yarn. He planned. Researched. Perfected. Iterated. And perfected again. He sold her on a grand vision from beginning to end.

Big ideas. In 1492, spices could be acquired from Asia through an overland route. Before Columbus’s voyage, the only sea route was across the tip of Africa. Columbus thought bigger. He believed he could shorten the trip and make it more cost effective by sailing west. He untied himself from conventional wisdom. He thought bigger.

The leadership skills Columbus exuded 500 years ago apply today. More than ever especially since Columbus has very few if any competitors.

At Intero, these are the things that we apply to our every day along with the questions we ask ourselves that lead us to applying our ideas and visions.

Remarkable leaders are continually learning and practicing the leadership lessons and qualities of Columbus. Apply these skills to your approach to success and you will then become the extraordinary leader you aspire to be.

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Morning Mojo: Success has to be an obsession

By Tom Tognoli | October 10th, 2011 0 Comments

How bad do you want it?

Success…how bad do you really want it?

So many of us say we want to be successful, but we really don’t want it bad enough and that is why we don’t have it. We only kind of want success. We don’t want it as bad as we want to be cool. We don’t want it as bad as we want sleep. We don’t want it as bad as we want to hang with our friends. We don’t want it as bad as we want to play grab ass. Heck, we don’t want it as bad as we want to watch TV.

And that is why we struggle. You have to want it so bad that you are willing to do whatever it takes to get it. Because until you get to the point where all you want to do is be successful and nothing else matters, success will elude you. It has to be an obsession.

Check out this video. Turn it up and listen to the words. Make sure you show this to your friends, your family, your kids and your grandkids. Help them to understand what it takes and the sacrifices required to be successful. Once you have helped them to understand, then you will understand.

http://vimeo.com/27933991

We have to want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe!!!

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Thoughts on Leadership | Leaders Know How to Attract Attention

By Gino Blefari | September 1st, 2011 0 Comments

To accomplish anything in life as a leader, you’re likely going to need help from other people. Regardless of how talented or accomplished you are, you can’t always assume that you can count on attracting and retaining the attention of others. It will be more and more challenging and rewarding to hold onto the attention of those who matter to you.

Attention provides leverage. The more people leaders can attract and motivate to join them on a challenging quest or initiative, the more impact they are likely to achieve. So, what are effective ways to attract and retain the kind of attention that helps leaders to address the challenges they face? Here are four steps that build on each other.

1. Embrace mystery - Frame the more difficult problems that are relevant to you and need to be solved. Help people to understand why these are such significant problems and why so many people have been unsuccessful in trying to solve them. It probably will not attract the people looking for easy answers, but it can attract those who are naturally curious and looking for stimulating challenges.

2. Focus inquiry – Don’t try to suggest answers. Frame interesting questions instead. Help people gain perspective by posing questions that intrigue and motivate them to start investigating the mysteries that lie ahead.

3. Excite the imagination – Provide some “what if?” scenarios to illustrate the possibilities that await those who manage to come up with creative answers. Paint the pictures but make it clear these are only pictures. Stimulate people to pursue the questions with a lot of energy and creativity.

4. Be authentic – If you are not genuinely engaged in addressing these problems yourself, you will not be able to sustain the attention and effort of others to come up with creative solutions. On the other hand, if you are on a quest yourself, leading by example, you could have a contagious effect and the encounters you have can help both sides to learn from each other.

Do these techniques actually work? Well, think of how Martin Luther King excited and mobilized a broad group of people to tackle some very challenging social problems. On a completely different level, one leading tech company in Silicon Valley regularly attracts the attention of the venture capital community by sharing its most difficult technology problems and suggesting that they would buy the start-ups that come up with creative solutions to these problems. Or look at the way professional astronomers have mobilized a global network of passionately engaged amateurs to learn more about the vast universe beyond this planet.

This kind of attention is priceless and powerful. All leaders need to find ways to generate it and harness it. This is not just an opportunity, but increasingly an unavoidable obligation. Leaders are all experiencing increasing economic pressure as individuals and institutions. In this kind of environment, leaders not only need leverage, but also need to more rapidly improve their performance.

Leaders get better faster by working with others. To do this, they first need to attract their attention. If they fail to attract that attention, they will not get better faster in an increasingly competitive global economy, and they could be overlooked. That is why attention is becoming more valuable at the same time that it is becoming rare.

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Monday Mojo: Tell me to kiss off, but don’t blow me off

By Tom Tognoli | August 15th, 2011 0 Comments

Earlier this month my close friend, who is a VP for a company here in Silicon Valley, and I went with our families on vacation together to Maine. While on the trip, I was talking with my buddy about some of the keys to being successful in life. We decided that if you want to know one sure fire way to completely sabotage your growth and success in business it would be to blow people off.

One of the biggest things that drive successful people crazy is when people blow them off or give them the old “well…maybe” brush-off. What makes successful people successful is they are DESISIVE and they hate it when they leave someone an email or a voicemail (sometimes 2 or 3 of them) and it is like their messages vaporize into space. It is why most people have hundreds or in some cases even thousands of emails in their inboxes. These types of people don’t want to deal with situations that may be uncomfortable so they blow the sender off instead of just dealing with it. If you want to make a simple job seem a lot harder then just keep putting it off. Most people are people pleasers and they may not have the courage to deliver bad news directly. They will duck dive around the issue at hand instead of just saying NO. They will just reply with” maybe”, “I will get back to you later” or they will blow the matter off all together. I am here to tell you that procrastinating your decisions in life is a death wish for your business and relationships.

If you want to make more money, be more successful, create not only better but also lasting relationships, be more respected, and downsize the amount of stress in life, find the courage to just say it like it is. Don’t avoid it. The person you are dealing with will not always like your answer, but trust me, even if your answer is NO, they will appreciate not being put through the ringer and they will respect you more for it. Tell them “yes” or tell them “no”, but do not tell them “maybe” or worse yet, don’t blow them off just because you don’t have the courage to say NO.

My message is simple this week. Be decisive and have the courage to communicate your decision. I promise it will have a huge positive impact on your life and business.

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