Project: Staying Grounded When You’re on The Top

The top. What does it look like to you? Is it a picturesque lifestyle that can be described in one sentence? One word? Does the top signify smooth sailing, carefree spending and minions (not of the Universal Pictures variety, of course)? Does the top look closer than ever to you?

Does the top signify success to you? Here're six tips on how to stay grounded and be yourself as you reach for the top this new year…

•    Remember the people who helped get you there – It’s never a one-man show. There are people who believed in you, pushed you, pulled you…did whatever you required of them so you could be the best version of King/Queen of your hill.

•    Constantly work towards another goal – While Journey may have beseeched us to never stop believing, it’s important to never stop achieving. At one point or another, we set up a goal for ourselves. Once achieving that, it’s integral not to stop there. Success is a journey. It’s not just an object or milestone. It’s progression. It’s different for everyone, but it doesn’t stay if we don’t keep moving.

•    Create community togetherness – Find a second passion. Pursue something that feeds your heart while feeding the community and wellbeing of others. If you see a need, resolve it. Too big for you to fix? Collaborate with others who can help and you’ll plant roots deep enough that when you get to the top you have a lot of strength to pull from.

•    Make room for others at the top – The things you do today, right now, heavily impact everyone around you. It’s not just engineers and inventors who influence the next generation’s trends; it’s the entrepreneurs and risk-takers. The risks you take, others will take after you. Ensure you are making not just bold decisions but decisions that will encourage the next generation to seek a path that has purpose.

•    Live [and love] the everyday – Don’t get caught up in the big picture so much that you miss out in the little details that matter most to living. Whether it’s breakfast, family vacations, movie nights, sports kick-off traditions, missing out on the downtime and watching others grow alongside you devalues the momentous rise of your own, making it much less significant.

•    Reevaluate your top – Plans change. You can recalculate, reroute and make U-turns if you must, so long as they align with the above statements and fulfill your vision and heart. Give yourself a gut check every few years to ensure you are doing what you need to do to stay on the journey of success and find your way to your own version of the top. The top isn’t higher than everybody else. The top is beating your self-doubts and reaching many milestones.

Here’s to a happy and safe climb!  

-The Green Couch

Project: Three Ways To Show Appreciation To Your Community This Thanksgiving

From the Plymouth plantation to Pinterest, we’ve come a long way to learn creative ways on how we can show our appreciation during the season of thankfulness. 

In one short month of 30 days we not only stuff a turkey and our face but we come up with clever ways on how we can catch a customer’s attention on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

How can we increase our net worth from in the red to in the black? (Sorry Santa, but black is the new red this Christmas! How we wish we could say!)

So, is Thanksgiving then just a myth when all we focus on is sales rather than giving thanks? How, as a corporation, can we make a bigger impact in the community? How can we give back other than giving sales? How can we show our neighborhood that we appreciate our clients and/or those that are near us?

Here are a few things that we’ve learned over the years that have changed the way we think and have warmed the hearts of many:

Volunteer: While others are scarfing down food we’ve been cutting, wrapping and sealing scarfs for local charities so others can keep warm during the cold weather. And it is warmed our hearts as well!

Care for Your Clients: Surprise visits can have a negative or positive outcome but when you come bearing cookies or other edibles, it is pretty much a guarantee success for happiness. And delivering them in person is the icing on the cake!

A Day Off: So Black Friday is equally a tradition to Turkey Day, but over the past few years the trend has become accepted as normal for stores to be opened on Thanksgiving. Over the past few weeks, however, stores have begun announcing their hours or lack thereof, for November 27th, 2014.

The CEO for DSW (Designer Show Warehouse), Michael R. McDonald shared the following:

“This holiday season, you’ve probably seen or read about all the retailers opening their doors as early as 6:00pm on Thanksgiving Day. We have decided not to follow that trend. Instead, we believe family comes first, and you should be home celebrating with them on this special holiday. This means none of our stores will be open on Thanksgiving Day. In addition, no stores will be open before 7:00am on Black Friday.”

So how can you show appreciation to your community this Thanksgiving? How will you achieve impact vs. profit?

-The Green Couch Project

Project: How to Be Creative In a Corporate World

It is easy to lose sight of "you" in a universal system. Even in the name of solidarity, there has to be a way to find a way to capture a sense of solitary refinement; a way to create a space that is singularly yours.

Here’s how we get in touch with our space and add a touch of our taste:

• Color: We are in love with Poppin: now this is a company with an array of bold colors. Their vast supply of office accouterments can help liven up many sections of any office – both on the go, in or on the desk, supply closet and even actual furniture pieces.

• Casual Fridays (or Fiesta Fridays): While some may be finding it hard to shake off Taylor Swift’s Shake it Off, sometimes you need to shake off the stress and start off the weekend early. De-stressing at work and ensuring that you’ve established an ambiance that encourages friendship, communication and a little bit of liberation can be found in creative business clothes and some zesty food!

• Extracurricular Activities: Who said your co-workers cannot be friends? Whether it is 5ks or soup kitchen volunteerism, it is important to strengthen your relationship and build more than your company community. You are a leader in your neighborhood; respected and admired - when you step outside of the concrete walls, explore the avenues to find additional ways to be a resource. It will feel amazing to be seen as a team and feel awesome to work as a team.

• Wall Art: Whether it is post-it notes, whiteboards or chalk drawings, our hero’s quotes are the fuel to our emotional and mental fires. It can be a satisfied client, a historic fictitious character or esteemed politician or poet. Daily reading of positive words is like a personal testament to our struggles or our success similar to displaying a trophy for all to see.

Sometimes you just need to see a little bit outside of your space. Just like fine dining and acquiring new tastes, explore ideas outside of your own cubicle and see what you can find around your own box. Think what could compliment your style and take baby steps towards that goal and go beyond.

The corporate world is a necessary place - it keeps us aligned, but it is the dotted lines that tell us where we can cut, and we all like to keep a pair a scissors handy, do we not? (Good thing Poppin sells them, eh?) So find your dotted line, get creative, cut it and show off your personality in your workspace!

-The Green Couch

Project: It Takes Gutsy To Be A Good Leader, Part II

For every good leader I can reference, you can point out 2.5 misleading pop culture leaders and five poor examples that you have encountered in life. It is true, isn’t it? I mean, you probably have pulled out your trusty finger calculators as we speak trying to configure whether or not that is true. (Which is why I created my statistical number under 10 as, yes, I often find myself resorting to using my fingers.)

For me, these numbers are quite correct – and not just because I generated this statistical factoid off the top of my head. As much as I love you, Michael Gary Scott; The Office, NBC your leadership qualities are unorthodox and sorely lacking.

If you are going to be a leader you might as well do it right, and do it right on the first try right? Unfortunately, it is not always that easy. That is probably one of the first lessons a leader will learn: The lesson of humility. So while you are down there in your humble stance, here are a few other ways your employees are seeking out for you to…

•    Lead By Example, Not By Exclaiming:

Start by being in the presence of your employees. The mentality of being the first one there, the last to leave is an honest approach to setting a standard of showing up to work and investing in a company with heart and soul. A good leader is never too afraid to get their hands "dirty." They never ask of their employee what they would not do. You celebrate the accomplishments; offer constructive criticism when others would offer destructive criticism. In essence, they will show, not tell. That is leading.

•    Lead By Pushing, Not Pulling:

Sometimes you have to get behind your people. There are times your team will not believe in themselves. So if you are pulling them along they cannot see where they are going. You have to get behind them and their dream to help them see and understand their purpose and their power. So sometimes a little kick in the rear is good for the morale!

•    Lead By Logic, Not Leverage:

There are moments when it is easier to speak down to people. You are an authority figure, probably have a higher salary figure (if you are cutting their paycheck you should know this) and in the presence of others it is human nature to want to show your dominance and achievements by exuding the charm of a slightly egotistical superior. It is in all of us. Whether we are taller, older, excel academically or athletically - it is how we cope. However, a leader respects the intelligence of their "inferiors" (and I use that term for illustrative purposes) instead of using their superiority as leverage; as a mechanism; a method of manipulation to “motivate” others into doing what needs doing, they use logic. Sit down, have systematic conversations, have performance reviews and find a way to understand each other.

•    Lead By Confidence, Not Cowardice:

There will be conflict, and there will be rivalry, there will be times you have to downsize, and there will be times you have to fire without the reason of downsizing. Leadership is about short and long term decisions. It is about living the mission statement and trusting yourself and your instincts. Those around you will take their cue from you and as a leader you cannot hide behind the excuse of, “I want to hear what your thoughts are on this," so as not to have to make an executive decision. It is about responsibility, taking a vision and confidently and effectively delegating and putting it into action. 

So will you? Will you put your vision into action?

It takes gutsy to be a good leader. Do you have what it takes?

-The Green Couch

Project: In The Know For On-The-Go Networking

You were given an in-depth course last week regarding networking etiquette. While we did not cover what to wear and whether the Donald Trump comb over (or would that be comb forward?) is a necessity to make an impressionable entrance for a business maneuver, you should now know the 5-Ups to networking. 

(As I write this, I realize there may just be a rather frivolous number 6 to the Line Up, and that is never to show up to a meeting with a 7-Up can.)

Regardless, the rules are simple: Stand Up, Follow-up, Keep Up, Show Up, Grow Up.

That may sound harsh when written out, but if you missed the last Project Blog, check it out before you continue on because today, as promised, we address three hotspots where you can successfully network.

We are going to approach formal and a few informal styles that will help give you that edge that keeps everyone talking. It is a venue where business cards are key and the touch keys on your cell phones, for just a few hours, can get a break.

Chamber of Commerce: a great place to get to know your community as a local business owner and to understand its needs. Become aware of those whom you can help, those who can help you grow and in turn understand and refine your target audience through insight from small mom and pop shops to the pros. This is a proactive way to get your voice heard not just for networking but on behalf of all enterprising dreams across the nation.

https://www.uschamber.com/members/join-chamber

BNI: (Business Networking International) a local business collaboration with global outreaches. Each chapter has a “one of each” motto. It is not a competition within your own niche. No two companies within the same regional chapter can represent the same field, or business. You send referrals to one another, demonstrate and elaborate upon the kind of clients for which you are looking. This professional atmosphere encourages entrepreneurs, helps them build long-term quality relationships and all through word-of-mouth.

http://www.bni.com/FindaChapter/tabid/53/Default.aspx

LinkedIn: you will not need your business card here, but this replicates your online business card, resumé and public profile. This is where you connect with colleagues and how you get endorsed. Yes, endorsed. It may not be the way Gatorade endorses star athletes, but it has the same affect for your job performance. People whom you have or do associate with can recognize your work and endorse you for those skills. That impact will lead to promotions, referrals and additional connections. So, maintain your LinkedIn account with relevant information to your field – for example dress for the job you want? Post material with that same mindset: This is not Facebook. So don’t post, How Southern Are You or What Disney Frozen Character Do You Most Resemble?

There’s over 300 million professionals that are logged in, the way we can link our name to hundreds if not thousands to them are unimaginable.

https://www.linkedin.com

We are always on-the-go, and now you are in the know. Networking is an entrepreneur’s ally. Getting someone to believe in your dream, to see just a glimpse of what you see, could just happen at or through one of these avenues.

-The Green Couch