Busy Weekend

My Faithful Readers:

The leadership lesson for this morning is to be straightforward with your team. I had a very productive weekend with the family. My oldest son played his first flag football game, then we went to a Cub Scout event. The side-effect of these events is that my allergies turned into a massive sinus cold / headache and I didn't get the blog post ready for the week like I normally do.

I will post a more in depth blog post tonight. Thank you and keep working toward your leadership goals!

- Matt

Dominos

Since I talked about Tetris earlier in the week, I came across this article:

Decisions are Dominos

Image courtesy of graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 Chris Brogan (the author) is Publisher and CEO of Owner Magazine, a business magazine helping you improve your worth by growing your capabilities and connections. In the article he talks about how your decisions can have compounding affects. You stay up late, so you have a harder time getting up to go to the gym, which may make you late for work, etc., etc., etc.  The question he asks in his write-up is: What decisions are you making without much thought?

It's a good question, and falls in line with the Tetris article. Mistakes stack, accomplishments disappear. Are your decisions, even the smallest ones, working towards accomplishments, or towards making mistakes?

If the answer is mistakes, then you need to start looking at the next falling block (Tetris or Domino), and plan ahead for it. Keep yourself from getting knocked over by the blocks. Adjust how they fall, even minutely, and you can change the course to something more beneficial to you. Enough little changes can net some big results.

The only one who can move the blocks is you.

Wacky Wednesday - Tetris

Since I mentioned Tetris earlier in the week (here), I thought it would be fun to share a video that I often think of when the game starts getting tough.

The Tetris Gods

From CollegeHumor on YouTube

Accomplishments Disappear...

There once was a game called Tetris. It was an evil and vindictive game, where the player would stack blocks into empty spaces and on top of each other. The intent was to use the blocks to create rows, and once you completed a row, that row would disappear and any blocks above the lines that disappeared would fall to the next level. Today there are many variations built on this concept, but Tetris is what I see when I close my eyes. Even the original game is still available at EA.com for your phone.

from EA.com

The problem with this game is that there would inevitably come a time where you needed a specific piece to appear, but it wouldn't, so you would fill the void with something and try to move on. Or you would make a mistake, causing a gap which you keep stacking on top of, while still tying to complete rows.

Wacky Wednesday - Conference Call

How often do you make conference calls during the week? Does this sum up your experience?

From Tripp and Tyler

A little too real, don't you think?

If Everything Is Important...

There's this great scene in The Incredibles (link to clip):

Dash and his Mom are in the car after leaving the principals office. They are discussing why he keeps getting into trouble, and Dash starts talking about how "Dad says our powers make us special."

Mom's Response: "Everyone's special Dash."

Dash: "Which is another way of saying no one is."

The jist of it is Dash's comment: that if EVERYONE is special, than NOBODY is. It's a common theme in the movie. There's another scene where Syndrome is speaking to Mr. Incredible about his plan to become a new "hero," and then eventually sell his inventions to everyone; and so then, when everyone is super, no one will be. 

It almost feels like a commentary on the "participation trophy" phenonemon going on with kids today. We can't have the kids feel left out, we can't hurt their confidence, or provide a little hardship that might help them grow, so here's the trophy:

Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

But what about the adult side of things? The leadership side? What happens in an organization when your team is told that:

Wacky Wednesday - Demotivational - Accomplisments

www.despair.com

The Palms...Never Again

For those of you unfamiliar with Las Vegas, the Palms is off the strip, near the Rio, and some consider it to be one of the better casinos in Vegas (our cab driver to the hotel actually said it is considered top three for customer service). I wish I could say our experience lived up to the reputation.

From oyster.com

Wacky Wednesday - Demotivational

You Never Know How Far You'll Go Until You...

from despair.com

WALK

Vegas Baby!

As many of you know, this past week I was in Las Vegas, enjoying the life of sun, shows, and ...

SPEAKING! 

Caught you didn't I? 

Yes I went to Las Vegas, and yes it was a great vacation, but the start of this whole escapade was Lady and the Champs.

 

A Speakers conference held annually by Patricia Fripp (the Lady) and several Toastmasters International World Champion Speakers: Darren LaCroix, Ed Tate, and Craig Valentine. Each of these professionals are known for their speaking and coaching prowess, and I've enjoyed their educational materials in the past, so I wanted to experience some face-to-face time with them (and 350 other attendees).