Vision

GET YOUR OWN DAMN DREAM!

GET YOUR OWN DAMN DREAM!

Stop following someone else’s plans and start training dreams.

Stop listening to what other people tell you and just follow your dreams.

Stop going through the motions and work through your dream.

Stop trying to be perfect and stumble your way deliberately through your dreams.

Stop starting and stopping and starting and just keep moving towards your dream.

Stop comparing yourself to everyone else around you and just follow your dream.

Stop believing that someone else’s formula can replace hard work and relentlessly follow your dream.

Stop avoiding what needs to be done and live your dream. Not someone else’s.

Stop learning what you need to do and start doing what you need to do. Follow your dreams.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of going through someone else’s motions — doing what everyone else tells you you should be doing in order to be successful.

You’re told that you need to have a strong social presence. That you need to build a following. That you need to write a book so that “people take you will take you seriously”.

You’re told so many things by so many people that it’s easy to get whiplash — flailing from tactic to tactic, hoping that this time for one bit of effort you might actually end up achieve success.

But that’s not how success works. Never has been. Never will be.

And unless you’re one of the lucky few who happen to get lucky doing one thing, one time, someone else’s get-rich-quick tactics (or doing whatever one else tells you you should be doing) aren’t the answer to achieving breakthrough. Dreaming is. Dreaming big dreams.

Not sleeping. Not thinking. Not procrastinating. Dreaming is different than that. Dreaming is all consuming. All empowering. It consumes every fiber of your being. Your dream is what gets you up in the morning. It’s your reason for existence. It’s your light when the day is dark. Your sunshine when the days is cloudy.

You can’t copy someone else’s dream. You have to have your own. And, while it’s easy to follow the tactics of someone else who happened to be successful using those tactics, don’t be fooled for a moment that any tactic is a replacement for audacious dreams.

Dream big. Live big. Fight big. Believe big.

From Edgy Conversations 3/18/14 by Dan Waldschmidt

Secret of Employee Engagement

Many organizations are trying to improve employee engagement. Unfortunately, almost all of them are starting with an invalid assumption. They try to engage employees through a variety of methods, but their underlying assumption is that employees should be passionate about helping the organization achieve its goals. Period. As if achieving the organization’s goals is actually the primary passion of each employee. If they were to try to sell their products and services to the customers using the same mentality, they would fail.

What actually works is this: have a representative group of people from all levels and functions of the organization jointly create a culture that values the employees’ passion and purpose as well as the organization’s mission and goals. To be really radical, the organization could be open to revising its vision and mission to integrate the passion and purpose of its employees into its products and services. Such an organization does not have to worry about “motivating” its employees, or “engaging” its employees. They will be fully engaged and powerfully motivated, because the organization reflects their own personal values.

What’s going on in your organization that’s causing engagement?  What’s going on that causes disengagement?  I’d love to hear from you.

Gary Langenwalter, Managing Partner

Portland Consulting Group