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The Executive Letter By Dan Miller "I operate on the principle that the mass media will never be accurate. They never have been. When did yellow journalism begin? After all, their basic principle is, simplify and exaggerate." Michael Crichton, best selling novelist February, 2005 Listen Up: It'll Be a Great Year If you are exposed to the press on any remotely regular basis, you've likely had a pretty challenging past few months. Every day it seems we trudge our way to the office only to be psychologically beaten by the maelstrom of bad news the media chooses to present. Just this morning, Monday, January 21, 2008, I saw the following headline on the Yahoo's finance home page: "Stock Markets Plunge Worldwide", followed by a number of dramatic subtext headlines, all of them predicting impending doom. Add the current real estate market dynamics, and you'll be likely to have the weight of the world on your shoulders before you finish your first cup of coffee. Soon enough, we'll see headlines like "Just Give Up, The World Ended Yesterday" or "Presidents and Prime Ministers Worldwide: No Hope for Humanity", for those of us who prefer our journalistic messages to go straight to the point. Ask the average person on the street, and most Americans think the current "situation", whatever that may be (real estate market, stock market, recession, unemployment, global warming, etc.), is helpless or at least pointless. Not true. Practically every single person alive has had an experience in which the odds were stacked against them, and through will, luck, determination, effort, and the right attitude, they achieved a result which may have seemed impossible. Although markets fluctuate, conditions present themselves, and difficulties arise, with the right set of strategies and efforts, most of us have the ability to accomplish our desired results if given the right amount of time and energy. It mostly boils down to what we are willing to do, how we keep our attitude and the attitudes of those around us focused on the things we can impact, rather than the beliefs, agendas and commentary of others we cannot. I don't profess to be any kind of hero when it comes to my attitude, but I can tell you that every investment I've ever made in staying positive has yielded direct results. Over the past year, I've picked up a few things which have helped me when I'm feeling less than sunny and I've tried to apply on a daily basis to keep our staff and clients moving forward. I hope these tips are at least somewhat helpful to you. Keep in mind that positive energy turns to action which becomes results; negative energy turns into excuses which only justify inactivity. In the absence of positive energy pointed towards an objective, people do what they want. Given the amount of negativity out there right now, that isn't likely to do much good. Use a few of the ideas below to bring up the level of performance in your company immediately. Stop the madness. Turn off the news and turn up the tunes. Whatever else you do, monitor the messages you put in your head. You can't control media programming, but you can control the web addresses, television stations and radio frequencies you tune into. Almost NOTHING good can come from surrounding yourself with bad news. So don't participate. Listen to a book on tape, your favorite music, or just bask in some silence - anything is better than subjecting yourself to negative messages every moment of every day. The military has a word for beating people with negative messages - torture. Stop doing it to yourself. Be sure every single person knows exactly how they can contribute to your company's goals every single day. Too often we try to keep people focused using generalities. Goals like "make more money" or "be profitable" aren't helpful to the average person. Be sure that each individual knows their personal financial goal (close $45,000 of resale revenue, for instance), the order counts associated with that goal (e.g. open 75 orders), and the daily activities which will most contribute to the goal (ask for one referral and one order from every existing client, or call three people I don't currently do business with). If you have clearly established all three of these items with each person in your organization, good work! Now go on to number two. If not, make this your first step to a more profitable year. Write a weekly "good job" newsletter and email it to your staff. Using the goals identified above, (financial, numerical and activity), send an email update of progress to all of your direct reports every week. Focus on the positive progress and the rest of it will speak for itself. Be sure to be as specific as possible and to praise the individuals who have clearly achieved their goals. Encourage activity with enthusiasm and follow up. Check in with your direct reports in the morning and ask them what they are going to do to get closer to their goals today. Follow up at the end of the day and see how they did, being careful to praise their progress. "Inspect what you expect" and "manage by walking around", as the sayings go. In doing so, you'll have the chance to give input, raise awareness around the most important activities, and get people moving. Devote time every day to business development. If you want to turn your gloom into a boom, make sales calls to people who don't work with you. The best business people in history, including Andrew Carnegie, Warren Buffett and others, all spent or spend a great deal of time developing new customers. Even if you aren't a billionaire, you can take a page out of the billionaire manual by following in their footsteps and keeping your energy devoted to sales activities. Give yourself a break. When I'm not traveling, I work out at lunch three days a week, no matter what else is going on. I've found that I always return to the office more focused, less stressed, and in a better mood than when I left. Moreover, I keep myself fit and my heart pumping, both of which can't be bad. Whatever you do for yourself, find a way to reward your activity every day. Focus on things which can help you get your head "straight". Your attitude is directly reflected by the attitudes of those around you. Get out and talk to other business people. I can't tell you how much this has positively affected both my attitude and my pocketbook over the course of my lifetime. Put yourself in situations that can increase your knowledge, your connections, and your opportunities by simply taking an important local business person to coffee on a regular basis. You'll get to know some really important people, get new business and feel better about the world in general. In spite of what you've heard in the media, 2008 is going to be a great year. The truth is, the only reality that matters is your own - a reality that you have a whole lot more control over than you may think. Employ a few of the ideas in this correspondence and you'll find yourself moving in the right direction, no matter what the media wants your mood to be.

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