Take the pain out of the job

Most people start a new job with great enthusiasm but change within a few months when they have settled in. They become familiar with the environment and get used to the culture. They have left the primary need zone and now they want more than being able to feed, clothe and shelter themselves. A new set of eyes open and they soon start seeing the negatives of the job and the environment. All of a sudden the attitude and management style of the boss is so bad they will take the next opportunity to leave. At this point, performance stagnates or begins to drop. You know you have been there.

Well this is not exactly surprising at all as most people choose jobs simply because they want to meet an immediate need. The need for survival means they will work in any environment and even accept a low salary ignoring all the warning signs that kept screaming; “you will be unhappy in this job”. They literally walk into “trapportunistic” jobs. This is the downside of working for money only. I am not about to reecho the ever popular “do what you love”. In fact I think it is getting boring; although it is the single most useful advice anyone can give you. Also, many people set dead-end goals. An example of which is simply to get a certain job or join a certain profession. Jobs and professions are vehicles (means) to be used to achieve something specific(end). It is this something specific that must drive the choices we make regarding occupation. This kind of motivation is of the intrinsic kind. When you are motivated from inside, the bad boss, low salary, and time spent commuting to work, your unfriendly colleagues all fade into the background and the most important thing really is what you do and how it makes you feel. In fact if you can get what you do right, it will fix all the so- called problems you have that affect your performance as you will engage wholeheartedly ignoring everything else. Nobody ever did a good job half-heartedly.

So what can one do when they are already in a job they hate? Reverse the do what you love idea. Well you already skipped the opportunity to do what you love. love what you do is the only way out. No; I won’t tell you to quit because that can be a problem in itself. You do that by finding all the possible good things about your job no matter how small and believe me they exist. Since you function by your lower needs, allow your mind to start seeing how this job feeds, clothes and shelters you. Balance that against how your life will be if you didn't have the job. Think about how it helps you to indulge in something you really like doing-- now that’s a healthy bridge to build. Your performance should be influenced positively.

Why this works is simple: your thoughts create feeling which triggers behavior. This exercise will help improve your feeling and that will improve your attitude towards your work.  You will soon see; that your boss may be bad but really not the worst one in the world. In fact you might learn that you two actually have something in common and that his wife probably went to the same high school as yours. Whiles this may improve your performance, it is only a temporary measure as you will never be happy and fulfilled in any job unless you are made for each other. What you need is a job that doesn’t require effort just to engage and you need to do it for a reason that is more inspiring that feeding and clothing yourself.

So now you know what to do if you are trapped in a job you chose without thinking: build a bridge between where you are and a place you want to get to. Create a transition plan. You cannot be your best when you are unhappy with what you do or people you do it with or for. You can’t change the people or the environment but you can change how you think about them. Of course there are many other factors that come to play if you want to be your best. In the meantime read “try true love” . Have a high performing day.

Answering the following questions is a great way to start.

How does your current job make you feel?

What could be different if you actually loved your job?

What needs to happen to improve your affection for your job?

What do you dislike about your job the most and why?

Is this a solvable problem and who’s responsibility is it?

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Funny Face vs. David Oscar |Performance

Who is doing and who is being?

In a Skype conversation with a lady friend, she made a remark about how funny I was. She thought I belong on stage. That was good news because I had been deliberately trying hard to make her laugh. Well… I have heard somewhere that if you can make a woman laugh you can get her to do anything. Forget it! I am not going to tell you what I wanted to get her to do once I had succeeded in making her laugh enough to do anything I want.

The truth is that maybe when she has done what it is I want her to do; she might find out later that I am not a funny guy after all. It will be literally impossible to continue what I had started because I am simply not a funny guy. I am in fact one of those serious guys who sits behind a computer with either a blank face or a weird frown all day. Sexy- I know. Unless I have succeeded in making the woman on the other side of Skype laugh of course- that always brings a smile to my face. Anybody can tell a joke if their life depended on it. And we all try the funny guy thing with the ladies although not all of us are lucky. Nowadays you can pick up a great joke from the internet and Ghananise it for your personal use. No big deal. After all you paid for the internet… or did you?

But when my lady friend literally begged me to replace David Oscar on the VIASAT1 comedy show; laugh a minute, it suddenly dawned on me that I was not the only one who is not digging the guy and his work. I mean this guy won a national comedy competition didn't he? A feat that will make anyone with enough grey matter expect more from him than he is giving. He is after all the best we have. Or is he? Seriously if there was an international comedy competition, are we going to choose David Oscar to represent Ghana? I knew your answer before you said it.

I honestly do not recollect laughing at anything he has said or done.  More often than no I think he and his jokes have been involved in place swapping or maybe that’s just me. The company that gave us David Oscar has the biggest comedy and entertainment stages in the country and they have never featured David. They also have an entertainment channel that doesn’t feature David Oscar. How about that for the regular dose of irony needed to make an article complete. It makes it hard to explain why is on VIASAT 1.

I ran a little survey on my facebook wall. Not that the sampling was great but at least it confirmed my suspicion. Funny face is almost everyone agrees is doing a wonderful job by our not good enough comedy’ standards. Whiles he makes a lousy actor on his TV3 chorkor trotro and frankly I do not watch the show, he had done marvelously well at hosting events and stand-up comedy. Most people agree he is light years ahead of David Oscar who seems to be struggling with the whole comedy thing. Hey I have nothing against the guy… actually he seems like a really nice chap.

David Oscar graduated from the school of performing arts, a highly respected faculty in our nation’s premier university where the great Martin Owusu is in charge. Whiles I am not sure what Oscar’s major was, he is certainly in the wrong job unless he’s got some surprises coming. Somehow I doubt that. Funny face however (judging from his limited English vocabulary- an ailment I can claim I also suffer from) is a high school graduate. So what’s making all the difference? Talent! Pure natural talent!  

 

I have had the opportunity of hosting a wedding with funny face. I didn't know who he was then but the suit he wore on the day had struggling artist written all over it. That wedding would have been a complete disaster if funny face hadn't showed up. I told you before; I am just not that guy. He had everybody laughing and there was no script. I gave him a lift after the wedding and he barely said a word till he got off. The guy seemed very disciplined and incredibly focused. The next time I saw him, he was on the biggest comedy stage in the country with the best from Nigeria and he was the only one wearing a suit made by Gucci featuring Louis Vuitton and he did not disappoint. So let’s face it the guys got talent or he won’t be hanging with KSM.

These days Funny face is everywhere. Is he the new face of Ghana Comedy, I think so. Nobody seems to be paying David Oscar any attention. Oscar however seems to be doing well in an acting role in the TV3 series peeps. Of the two, Funny face is performing better in terms of the stand-up comedy but I will hand the acting over to Oscar. I mean… I have to give the guy something.

When funny face peaks, great things will happen but he has to continue in an upward trend. My little research on YouTube was showing the same jokes all the time. The Sampson and Delilah/Adam and Eve thing must go. Funny face may be the best thing since Waterproof, Fritz Baffour and the super versatile trend setting KSM but he has not hit is peak yet. If he is not lucky he will be stuck where when he has a lot of space above him is. Most people who get to this level don’t realize that this is where the work really begins. They chill and fade out.

We are a nation of pretenders- Fact! That is why so many people are in places they shouldn’t- Fact! Hey I have nothing against anybody. I am just the guy who is interested in a better performing nation. If you are going to do something, do it right. So I guess my point is made. There is a lot of hope of David Oscar. All he needs to do is find his true calling- It may involve some comedy but it is certainly not standup.

As a performance coach and advocate, I know how easy it is to believe you are gifted for something when in fact you belong somewhere else. Believe me; I have been there myself. David can be fixed and funny face can be upgraded. I am the guy who knows how. That’s another fact.

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The last time I wrote something with names in it. I got a “danduruwa shege” in return for my good intentions. It was about people with talent dropping their skirts on national television. But that’s ok. Even Jesus was crucified… lol. For a guy who writes terrible grammar with a myriad of typos, how can I complain? Feel free to have a go at me and my work. Frankly I will be honored. J Keep laughing.

 For some great ideas on how to take your performance to the next level, read my blog. http://revupblog.blogspot.com/

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The blurred line between walk and talk

Any kind of mismatch is discord- the absence of harmony and the result is always negative. After the talk, there must be a walk and the two must match each other or output will suffer. Between the two however, the line can be very blurred for some. An alignment of the two makes full power performance possible. It is the presence of integrity which is the manifestation of a powerful structure.

You may be familiar with the phrase “talk is cheap”. Perhaps it should be followed by “walk is expensive”. Not everyone who talks the talk, walks the talk and there is a reason why. It appears though that everyone understands the importance of the talk. But a misapplication of the talk is to seek to create an image that cannot be backed by the walk that must follow. Read through a few resumes and you will see that everyone is highly efficient and willing to learn. They are all adoptive and have great interpersonal skills.  They are all great achievers and have done something wonderful for their last employers. They all have the wonderful intention of making a mark in the new job. They are all interested in helping the company achieve its goals. Of course this is what employers want to hear but does it happen when they get the job?

The case is not different when you read through corporate profiles and websites. The promises companies make hoping to entice the new client are interesting. Whether they keep these promises when given the opportunity is another story altogether. Somehow we all know what the right language is. These days you can even copy it from the big firms who have the cash to employ top experts to do their communication. It is not that hard to get the language right. The brief case businessman can sound as good as the multinational but that’s just the talk. When they get the chance to walk the talk, then there is a misalignment. The consequence for this is extremely damaging. But of course the reason behind this is the lack of understanding of the self and its capabilities. Those who hire us for a job whether we are staff or contractors want one thing-- high performance.  And since we know this we promise them that only to deliver average and less than average most of the times.

A person who wants to maximize their existence must deliver what they say and even exceed it. The reason is that to maximize our lives we need to maximize the opportunities it presents to us. To do this the integration between what we say we are and what we really are must be seamless. The line must begin to blur into nonexistence. Walk and talk are not love and hate. The talk must come from the walk. And when the two match, you deliver on promises and you have enough room for going the extra mile. Get that right and you won’t need a resume for your next job. The job will find you. When the internal you is aligned with the external you, an extremely potent force emerges- that’s what you need for full performance.

It is possible for everyone to walk the talk but the talk must start with a careful assessment of what we are truly capable of. We must build the talk around that and find exactly who it is that has a need for our true capability.

The following questions help check your levels.

Are there any gaps between your talk and your walk and how can it be addressed?

What do you think can be done to align the internal you and the external you into one powerful force?

Explain what you understand about the internal and external you?

How does it relate with the external you?

What will others who have experienced your performance say to others about you and how does that match what you say about you?

Do you really believe what you say about you?

Email the answers to  info@csdafrica.com to join our no-obligation,  one month free performance coaching program.

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Beat expectation in 15 minutes

Output is the result of your engagement in activity- performance. But Duty, usefulness and Standards are the means by which we can determine if we are performing well enough. Without them we are in a vacuum  It is a question of what we are giving out and how useful it is- especially to others. It is also the maximization of the opportunity of the larger spectrum of life itself through the maximization of the micro-opportunities that are made available to us everyday.It is not only what we expect of ourselves but also what others expect of us- and YES that counts a great deal. What others expect of us is a very complicated issue that is addressed in more detail in my work people dynamics in the SPiD-UP®  book series.

It starts with first understanding what is possible for us to be and taking the right steps in order to reach it. Peak performance is concerned with being of use- not to only  ourselves but to others as the means by which we can be happy. Indeed we can be our happiest when we are at our best but it is our duty to others that gives us the opportunity to be our best. Hence our happiness has everything to do with others. A man who goes through thick and thin and succeeds in providing the needs of his family sleeps well with satisfaction  He has fulfilled his obligations to others. It is the same when he is at work. When he leaves work at the end of the day knowing that he has done a great job, and his superiors, colleagues and customers are happy, he goes home with a good feeling. He might even attempt to meet that same standard the next day.

The feeling will be almost opposite if he knew he didn't meet the standards. People are involved in different task and outputs are not the same for everyone. However each task has a purpose and an objective: there is a reason why a specific person is chosen to do it. When one performs a task for themselves it still has a purpose and in most cases it will be a question of duty and responsibility. I get a good feeling when I am able to clean my house. Frankly it is not something I like doing but I do occasionally manage to create the right mindset to get it done because it needs to be done.

It is an obligation to myself and to others. But does it meet the standards? If I was paying someone to do my cleaning, how would I feel if they gave me the same standard I was giving myself. The answer to that and is not positive. In fact I had a lady friend walk in and ask me when I was going to clean up barely an hour after I had been cleaning. It takes an emotional intelligence guru not to take offence at such comments.  

It is important to find ways to measure what is coming out of the activity in terms of  quality and quantity but that is another story for another day. Our performance will be a waste of time if it was only about ourselves. Our scope of usefulness will be limited to ourselves and so will our influence. When others feel we are not meeting the accepted standards or not fulfilling our obligation, there is negative feedback. This negative feed back affects us whether we want to admit it or not but it is only an indicator of the effect of what we are or not doing. It affords us the opportunity to make the changes that are needed.  

Generally speaking however, positive feedback fuels performance  Being told you have done a good job generates the feeling you need to do more. To get that however, you have to ensure that you meet the standard making your output useful to others. Your objective as a peak performer however is to beat the standards and the exceed the expectation. Your own expectation and that of others. Something referred to as going the extra mile.

Expectations are driven by duty, responsibility  and usefulness and when output is alienated from these, we get the feedback we don‘t want. However, we can process the feedback we don't want into performing better so we can get the feedback we want and then use it to accelerate performance. For those who are in the right occupation this must happen without difficulty. It is the same with those who are with the right spouse. #spidup

Some questions you can use to check your levels. Email the answers to  csd.ghana@gmail.com to join our no-obligation,  one month free performance coaching program.

How can your performance today be better than that of yesterday?

How would you rate your performance at work and home with regards to duty and standards?

Are there shortfalls and how in your opinion can things be improved?

Describe the quality of your output in relation to the expectations of your colleagues and superiors?

How does the feedback you get from them affect your performance and how can things be improved?

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The inconsistency of inconsistence |REV-UP®

Consistency ensures that you are powering at full capacity. Every cycle adds to the power being generated by your activities. Whiles one cycle may not seem like much compared to the power you are looking for, it is the fundamental building block needed to reach your full capacity. When one cycle is missed therefore, you are one cycle short – that’s not your full power.

Take the engine of a car for the example. The pistons move up and down in the cylinders in order to generate the power the vehicle needs to move. The more cycles completed the more power generated. When one cycle is missed, the vehicles power is reduced. The more cycles missed the less power the vehicle will generate. Eventually the vehicle will stop and not reach the intended destination.

Your life is not that different. The cycles of your life are the crucial blocks that make up your entire life. Seconds becomes years through cycles. When a minute is one seconds short, it is not a minute. You may not consider some cycles very important yet they have a say in your final output. At work you are expected to come to work every day and spend an agreed number of hours doing something in particular.  Your work adds to the overall output of your team and organization. A single day or hour missed will affect the performance of the organization but not before it has taken away from your own performance- You are one cycle short.

Every single cycle no matter how small is important. They are the micro components of the macro life that you live and if you are to maximize your life, you must first maximize the small cycles that make it up. Imagine having a computer that decides for itself when it will work and when it won’t. My guess is you will get rid of it as soon as you can- for a more reliable one. That explains why you get fired when you don’t show up for work regularly. What about spouses and colleagues.  

My favorite fried yam seller is not there half of the time. I don’t particularly like walking all the way down there just to find out she didn't show today. That has happened one too many times so I gave up on her.  Yet she complains about not making enough money in her business. She doesn't seem to consider it important to be consistent in her work.  One customer short can hardly be described as being her best and the number of days she didn't fry any yams has everything to do with the poverty she complains about. A close friend of mine is contemplating dumping his girlfriend. As he put it…”Well she is never there when I need her”.

I don’t think I have said anything new here. Everyone knows what it means to be consistent and how it can be beneficial for one’s performance. But why then are many people so inconsistent even when they really want to be consistent. INTEREST and MOTIVATION and their effects on choice!  When interest and motivation are weak you find one of the waiting millions of reasons not to be there. To get the most out of yourself, you have to be there all the time. Not some of the time. You have to be at full power all the time not some of the time. One cycle short is not full power. |REV-UP®  

Some questions you can use to check your levels. Email the answers to  csd.ghana@gmail.com to join our no-obligation,  one month free performance coaching program.

When the last time you missed work was and what reason did you give?

Did your reason match the truth?

What is the real reason why you do what you do where you do it?

Do you find it hard to be consistent at anything at all in your life?

Give an example

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For Performance, Try True Love

If your life was a house, love will be the mortar that holds the bricks together. With that, it cannot be very hard to see that without love your life will fall apart. It is the very essence of your being and also the most efficient fuel for your performance. To get the best out of yourself therefore, you must inject love into all aspects of your life. The more love you inject the better results you will get from work, relationships and the entire spectrum of your life. Ultimately, love has everything to do with your performance.

If you have been reading my other works, you are probably already familiar with the ultra-performance model of powering your life with your occupation- the one thing that takes most of the short time you have on planet earth. Love comes in very handy in terms of powering your occupation and that’s the focus of this article. 

Anybody who is good at anything has a very significant amount of love for what they do. It is the only reason they will spend more time doing that thing than anybody else. It is just like falling in love with another person and wanting to be around them all the time. If you truly love this person they will not have to beg you to be around them. The feeling you have even when you think about them can make you smile for no apparent reason. Now that feeling is a powerful force that when managed and applied the right way can catapult your performance to the peak.

Because true love is a mutual thing, your vocation will give you something back in return for all the time and attention give it. But for this to be possible you need to understand that you do not only choose the person you want to be with. This person must choose you too or there will be imbalance. When one person is pretending in the relationship, it is a matter of time before it shows and it can only lead to discord. Love is harmony between two people (or perhaps at this point I should use the word entities) but only when it is mutual.

The more you love it the more it will love you back and give you its rewards. When the feeling is right, you will spend so much time with this vocation that you will learn its secrets. The depth of your knowledge will certainly set you apart from the rest of the crowd. Soon everyone thinks you are the best at it. Just like a human, the more time you spend with somebody there more you know about them. So when others want to know something about this person, they must ask you. This is what makes you important.

Love is a positive force that produces positive results. If you have been to a home where there is a lot of love, you will feel it as soon as you walk in. It has the power of transforming negativity into positive.  To be the best that you can be, you must ensure that the relationship between you and your profession is love and that it chose you as much as you chose it- making your relationship a mutually beneficial and harmonious one. You must ensure that you and your profession understand each other in detail and you know how to treat her better than anybody else. The extent of the love you put into the relationship will determine how much you will get out of it. But be careful, when love trips over, it becomes obsession. Believe me; you do not want that.

Some questions you should ask yourself. Email the answers to  csd.ghana@gmail.com to join our no-obligation,  one month free performance coaching program.

How did you choose your current occupation?

What is the nature of your relationship with your current occupation?

What percentage best describes how much you love your occupation?

What do others think about your performance in your occupation?

What is the nature of the gap between you and the best people in your industry?

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The Love-Logic of performance

Regardless of what we are involved in, it is the quality of your relationship with it that determines the quality of the outcome. When a person has a bad relationship with their spouse, it reflects in how they treat them. A bad treatment from a spouse might affect the entire family. In the same manner, a bad relationship with an item you possess is reflected in the state of the item itself. The principle applies to an occupation as well. Give your work the best you can give it and it will return the love. However this might seem an impossible thing to do if you don’t love it enough.

When a man does not treat his car very well, it is only a matter of time before the car registers its displeasure. It is a simple question of not servicing your car as regularly as is required to keep it in shape. When this becomes something you forget and or cannot be bothered with because you have more important things to do, the quality of your relationship can be called into question and the state of the car will reveal the real state of affairs. Cars do not understand excuses. Not giving your car the best you can give it then forces the car to not give you the best it can give you. This is all based on your input and when your car begins to fail you, all other aspects of your life begins to suffer.

The role of relationship in performance is great indeed. There is a relationship between you and the occupation you are involved in just as there is with your spouse. The nature of this relationship is reflected in how you think about the occupation. How you think about anything determines your behavior towards that thing. This is true even for your spouse. It will in the long run determine if they love you back or not. To get the best out of an occupation it must see that you truly love it and not just pretending because of what you can get out of it. It then chooses you. YES chooses you! To get involved in an occupation, you must register your interest and when it sees that the interest is genuine and that you indeed have what it needs, it accepts your application. The unity is then created and the performance is high because you have the double impact of you and the occupation working in harmony. After that you must maintain and service this relationship by continuous improvement- finding better ways in which you can show your more love. You must contribute to the industry and not just take from it. You must profess it and show others its beauty. You must genuinely love it with all your heart. 

It then continuous to give you better rewards in return. Remember the more you put in, the more you will get out of it and when the love is true, this will require very little effort. A person who is the best at something has a deep relationship with that thing and understands it in a way that nobody else does. They can tell you things about it that you would never have found out for yourself. They spend more time with that thing than anybody else does. But it must be a mutual relationship.  If you have seen the relationship between a master craftsman and his tools, you already know what I am trying to say.

I woke up one day and realized that a shirt has been lying on the floor for a few days. I asked myself what will happen if it stayed there much longer. How does the shirt feel about the whole situation? How would I feel if I was lying on the floor for a few days and being stepped on occasionally? What will it take for me to pick up the shirt and put it in a place where it will be happier? Can an unhappy shirt make me happy? Does this explain why I am always badly dressed? Will I eventually lose my shirt because I didn’t treat it well? Should I do something before the shirt leaves the realm of usability? Truth; I was not loving the shirt enough…. I began to think about how this shirt came from the best shirt I had and to the one the spends days on the floor

I remember the woman I used to love telling me that I did not move heaven and earth for her. I think she meant that I was not sacrificing enough for her and that obviously brought my so called love for her under scrutiny. A few months down the line, she had left me. I used write computer software until a few years ago. In those days I spent a lot of time learning other people’s methods and even occasionally copying codes which I modified to create my own applications getting some applause here and there. I made some money whiles I was at it but not like Bill Gates. The quality of my relationship with programming was nowhere near what bill had. There are programmers out there writing codes for the fun of it; posting them on the internet for people like me to copy. They wrote tutorials and post them for others to learn and be better. The industry loves these guys because they are contributors. They are the chosen ones. Not surprising they know all the secrets. Me I just took from it and gave very little back. I learnt only what others taught me and never really discovered much on my own.  But don’t just take from it, contribute to it. If you find in your occupation that you are unable to do so… something is wrong.

In my software writing days some thought I was a genius; I did not feel that way about myself. In time I did not want to do it anymore. It was not true love and like all false things, they don’t last forever. The countless seemingly impressive hours I had spent with her was all for taking and my personal gratification. So I can look like a genius. So I can make money. So I can get all the applause and I did get some but only for a while. When I finally broke down, it was other people’s fault. It will take three years before I will find my true love. When it happened, I just knew everything was right. In a short period I am contributing more to her than many who have been on the road longer than me. I don’t even have to try. And even though she continues to test my commitment, I have no problem passing the test all as I genuinely love her. When I get applause now no matter how small, it feels incredibly right! This is not an unusual case. Most people are caught in such situations with many doing jobs they should not be doing out fear of losing security. Some just want to belong and they work very hard at this.  The lack of real love make living their life a great challenge and they are never really above average in the things they work so hard at. They have not developed the right relationship with their occupation or I should say they are not a match made in heaven. 

Take any aspect of your life you are not happy with. Or even a possession that is in a bad state. Take a close look and you will realize it is in a bad state because of your treatment of it. Love cannot be faked for long. In fact hate often masquerades as love- fake love. So if you are pretending to love your occupation, you actually hate it and it knows. To find and do what you love is a blessing to your performance. A good relationship with your occupation is very efficient fuel for your performance. This idea is based on LOVE-LOGIC.

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