Are you having an old static company web page, did you hire expensive web designers to create a publish system that you just can’t figure out? If you are considering an offer from a web design company ask about social media strategies. If they are just giving you fancy design and no interaction with your customer, stand up and leave. Go for a blog, a twitter account, live chat and a facebook profile and find someone who knows what those things are.
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If you believe, you can make it happen. Positive thinking is so powerful and at work it is an almost necessary tool to possess for success. But what is positive thinking and what makes it work? I would like to draw the line and connect positive thinking to positive action. Let’s start by looking at how the brain works. The brain is a learning center; everything you do is based on knowledge and experience. If you touch a hot plate once, chances are that you will not touch one ever again. If you have never experienced a hot plate, well all kids are doomed to sooner or later touching a hot plate. If you as a teenager find one pick up line that works, you will end up making a personal slogan. The brain learns from experience, so to make your life great, you’ll need to teach your brain the right way to act.

For instance, I am a chocoholic, I have tried for years to quit eating chocolate. But the only way for me to manage that is to experience a successful way to not be eating chocolate. I have been spending months thinking that I do not like chocolate, and why do I eat chocolate when fruit is so much more tasteful? I have been thinking and thinking for months and suddenly I could manage to go days and weeks without it. I am still training my brain to avoid the cravings each day. When I eat salad for lunch at work I am thinking about the great flavors and its magnificent tastes. I am looking at my pure glass of water and enjoying its cold refreshing taste that no other liquids can provide. I am not dieting, so losing weight is not the goal, I am trying to change one habit at the time.

That was personal, and not very work related, but the concept is the same. So if you fail at work, tasks that you just can’t get the hang of, or never makes it within timelines. Most likely you hate this task, and have never experienced success with this task. Remember when performing a task there is only two outcomes, either you make it or you won’t. But if you do not make it, you are not failing, you are just mind mapping ways that do not work, and you are getting an experience. Why is it failing? If you manage to learn, and stay positive you might find one way of not performing this task. Spend time thinking, reflect and ask why it went wrong. You are learning. Keep trying and correcting if you need to. You need to picture success in your head. Teach your brain to know what success looks like. Is it timing? Is it prioritizing? Is it knowledge? What does it take?

The mind trap.

As you do fail, your mind will try spare you. It will make up excuses and explanations to why you are failing and it will make barriers to prevent you from doing this again. Do not let your brain build barriers. “I do not get a date because I am so shy” – Your mind will persuade you to never try again to protect your feelings, and if you do not ask, you will not get any answers. If your boss yells at you and you are being called into the office a week later, your stomach will be in turmoil and you’ll be all sweaty and nervous. Are you a psychic? Do you know what the meeting is all about? No, this is your brain working with experience and trying to prepare you for what might come. Your mind has a few basic functions, learn, act and anticipate. Based on earlier experience your brain will try to tell you what is up ahead. When it comes to doing the boring tasks at work that you always fail at, remember your mind is already anticipation your failure. You need to set it straight. The good news you can.

I am being a bit personal again as I have a fresh example in my head. I have several times tried to quit my sugar addiction and my mind was always craving chocolate from I woke up until I fell asleep. I once managed 21 days without chocolate and I was in hell every single day. Today I have not eaten chocolate in 12 days, and I have only had a bad craving once. But I do not like chocolate anymore, I am telling my mind that I hate the bad feeling it provides. I am remembering and programming how bad this is for me. And at the same time I am praising my tasteful salad replacement. I am mind mapping the great taste, the great way it makes me feel. And sitting here close to bedtime, I am starting to crave some salad.

At work I have yet not found the winning formula for holding a group meeting without queuing up the phone lines. We need group meetings once in a while and holding it outside opening hours is not a solution. I need to divide my staff in half and hold two meetings during the day. I have failed at this before. I have learned that it is not wise to hold such a meeting at a day with high traffic. I have learned that I should ask for help from other departments taking some load of the remaining employees. I am still going to hold a great group meeting without anything failing. I am very result oriented so if the meeting is causing one customer waiting, I will consider it a failure. So I need to figure it out what it takes to achieve success.

But figuring out what you are doing wrong, might be hard, so do not be afraid of talking about your challenges as it might only provide helpful input. Ask about what others do to succeed instead of talking about what you are doing wrong. You are still putting your hand on a hot plate; you’ll need to figure out how to turn off the heat. Why is someone always getting greater sales results? What do they do? And keep a positive mind. Failures are a chance of learning, process the learning and store it in your brain. Think about what worked out great.

This is just some few practical pointers. You should also provide positive actions in your life. Smile, make other people smile, do some volunteer work, make other people happy. Your role in life should be to make it easy on everybody while making them smile and enjoy their day. As you teach this thinking to other people around you it will come back with interests. This is positive thinking, and positive actions. It is about learning, sharing, caring.

Are you looking for a way to find meaning in life? Not the meaning of life, but making some sense out of what you do? I am going to try to share my life philosophy with you. If you have read my blog for a while you might be familiar with the illustration I am using today. I made it first for another blog post a while back which you can read here – Since then I have had this graphic as my desktop background, learning to appreciate it every single day as a reminder and map of my life and it makes sense. Read more… »

I had a pleasant call today from a fellow that was hiring one of my former employees. He was asking for my opinion about him. I get those calls from time to time and I was thinking I could share what these future employers ask about. In this way I hope I can give you a great motivation for why you should do your best at your current job. Everything you do at your current job is directly related to the next job in line. Let’s face it, not many people work crib to grave at the same place anymore, so the chances for you changing jobs is humongous. Read more… »

I understand that Mondays can be a dread. And you might think that the weekend is a far far away place that seems impossible to reach. I am going to provide you with a day to day guide on how to make your week more fun and interesting. Start by looking in the mirror in the morning and decide that this week is going to be great!
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(Short comment from me: I needed to re-post this as I managed to delete it, do not ask me how…)
I can’t say it too often. You are hired to provide value at work. You are not hired to make money or to have an relaxing life. You are hired because the top management can’t make all the money by them selves. So here is the deal. I will pay you to make more money for me. At least make more value than I invest in you. That is the basic reason why anyone hire anybody.

So this brings me to how you can provide value at work.
I do believe that most people like to work hard, feel appreciated and they like to feel like a part of something bigger. The problem is that you will not be part of anything unless you give something in return. I have two small illustrations that I use over and over again when I try to make people understand how to provide value at work.

As you can see from this illustration even doing a good job, might not provide value to the company, or growth for you and your fellow co-workers. A lot of people work in this way today. “I won’t work harder until I get more pay”. “I do a lot more around here than Pete, why is he making more money?” “Finally five of clock. I am going home” – Sorry lads, I am not impressed.

How to really make a difference
So what is a hard working Homo Cubicle Sapiens need to do around here to get some attention? To be adding some value you need to add and share. Take a look at the illustration below

You need to refuel with new knowledge, new abilities and skills, you need to get inspiration from somewhere. You need to insert some goals into your “mind-drive”. When you have learned something you will be able to do one of the most meaningful things in the world, you can share and teach others. You can mentor, you can inspire. You have the power to influence other people. Imagine that you learn how to motivate people to increase productivity, and you increase productivity 5 % among all your 20-40 co-workers? You can produce 10 % less, and still make more money for the company because you increase the productivity among the others. That is why Pete gets more pay than you. Yes he completes less tasks, but he makes everybody else produce more. And when you do share, teach, inspire and want to make the best out of people, you suddenly care about others.

The best way to lose weight is to help other people lose weight. You might fail to diet on your own, but if you decide to help someone else diet, you will feel more committed. You will more likely succeed. At work it is just as simple, become an engaged employee, help others and experience that you will start to love your job.

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