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Tip 122 – How Accountability is Helping Me Kick Professional ADD
Have you joined my Tip of the Week? Here's a teaser from this week's installment:
"Having trusted advisors who hold you accountable is essential to success – sometimes they see what you can’t see. And they’ll keep you honest, because you won't want to disappoint them by blowing off your goals.
In my case, I have an advisor named Greg Seal who has helped me identify – and overcome – a personal fault that I now realize has often held me back: lack of focus..."
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Posted by Keith Ferrazzi on June 13, 2008 | Permalink
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Hey Keith,
I have a friend who's 24 and he's the most ambitious guy I know. However, he has a focusing problem. He comes up with an idea he likes, puts his time and energy into it hoping it will prove successful but if after a few weeks pass and he doesn't see real results, he'll move on to something else, never giving enough time to actually see results. I constantly remind him that successful people didn't become successful overnight and it can take many months or years to actually see results but it never registers.
Posted by: Isaac | Jun 13, 2008 11:08:09 AM
Keith, Professional ADD, I love it. As a business professional with actual ADD, I have can totally relate to the excitement of a new project. New projects are always sexier than whatever it is I'm working on and really should do. I used to drive my team crazy with my taking on new projects left and right. Here are 2 steps that have assited me in kicking my habit:
1. Goals. Oh yeah, new projects are so much more fun than goals right! We all know better but... So after all these years I have realized that a simple goals printed out keep me focused on what really most important. I found that gazelles 1 page stragegic plan works very well. http://mygazelles.com/one-page_new.html
I have 1 page on my desk at all times staring me in the face as to my goals and priorities for the quarter. It's hard waste time with new projects when I can see what projects that I need to concentrate on.
2. New project binder. I allow myself 10-30 minutes max to check out the next new cool projects or trends I think I need to work on. After that I take my notes whatever printouts I've created and put them in my new project binder. When I update my quarterly work goals, I can go back to the binder but rarely is there something better than my existing goals and projects.
Keith thanks for the reminder to watch out for getting off track with new projects.
Chuck Helsel
Mortgage Mensch
858-657-1054
www.chuckhelsel.com
Posted by: Chuck Helsel | Jun 13, 2008 11:26:23 AM
I have been in an advisor role to my friend Chuck for seven or eight years. (He calls me "coach.") He has a training and consulting business and is great at his craft. A few years ago, he and another friend, Jim, began work on a book. They wrote, they tinkered with it, they wrote some more, but the book didn't get finished. At the end of 2006, I firmly told Chuck that the book had great potential, but he and Jim needed to get it done. No excuses.
Since then, they have published and sold more than 4,000 copies of "The Sad, Mad, Glad Book: The Anatomy of Your Attitude" which is geared toward K-Grade 2 kids. It is one of the best works I've seen for kids, and helps them develop a strong foundation and attitude. The guys have devoted a great amount of time and capital to get this book out and I'm proud to have been there to keep the fire lit (and turn up the heat a little).
Posted by: Joseph Jones | Jun 13, 2008 11:47:16 AM
I started school about two months ago, filled with the excitement of accomplishing a goal that had developed right after high school, and after experiencing life. This desire got put on the back burner slowly but surely due to the lack of focus I’ve always manage to have. My most important goal in life is to become a Forensic Psychologist. One day after a lot of intense research and a lot of soul searching I took the initiative to go back to school.
In a very short time I met awesome people, with great direction and purpose in life. However, a month down the road I began to loose focus and felt scared for some reason. I slightly began to loose track of why I had returned to school, and began to ponder on all the time and sacrifices I would have to endure. It got so bad that it truly began to overwhelm me, and I began to doubt my move.
Well, talk about relationship building. I became friends with an extremely awesome person, who I truly respect and admire for his persistence, passion and love for life. His name is Michael Edwards. Thanks to Mike, and his good nature in making a difference in someone else’s life. He was able to hold me accountable on a weekly basis, to the point where I did become a lot more concern in keeping up with what he expected of me than what I expected of myself. His reverse psychology really worked and thanks to him I’m still here more focus and more determined than ever before. I’m a strong believer that success comes from within, but it sure does make a difference when someone else takes the time to challenge you some more.
So, Thank you Mike!
Posted by: Tania | Jun 13, 2008 12:44:00 PM
For the past thirty years I've always participated in various "mastermind" groups, for support, accountability, inspiration, etc.
Anyone can do this for free, yet the ROI is priceless.
Posted by: Alan Allard | Jun 13, 2008 2:03:05 PM
Focus comes in many forms. One can lack focus. One can blog and lack focus in what you might be trying to say in text. Listen to Rush's - Caress of Steel album. Total lack of focus, yet they were able to pull it all together with the 2112 recording sessions, a year later. Its all about focus.
Posted by: rich | Jun 13, 2008 5:52:02 PM
Hey Keith,
just wanted to share a brief story again regarding people who help you in the self-reflection process by being fully honest with you.
I had troubles finding such "personal advisors" while trying to "recruit" them amongst some of my friends who share the same enthusiasm in business, entrepreneurship and achieving great things as I do. All of them were unable to reflect honestly, despite the common mind-set we shared.
Then, I started meeting some people who are the total opposite of mine. People who don't care about career, who live for the day, people who normally can't stand super-motivated people like me, people who work as clowns, supervise Kindergarden kids, etc. Turns out, they give the most honest feedback, just straight to the point, about issues that really matter.
They can (and will) instantly tell you when you're losing focus on the important things in life. Someone who is too focused on their own career likely fails to notice other people's problems (they're mostly not even interested, to say the least).
So my tip would be to look out for folks who you normally don't hang around with. They're everywhere but be warned: they are often as reluctant as you yourself are when establishing a connection with someone not from their usual circle of friends. But it pays off, jumping that gap.
I have to add that by receiving constant, true reflection and feedback, I was able to make more true friends, those of the real kind. Those which were so hard to find before. People who don't care how much I earn, that I was in the newspapers or that I wrote a book. They only care if I meet them for dinner as I promised a long time ago or if I re-schedule them again because of some conference call. This is where you learn important things.
Roman Mittermayr
www.mittermayr.com
Posted by: Roman | Jun 14, 2008 5:39:59 AM
A man who is deeply interested in your success! and that's a personal advisor.
That's nice and lovely.
I want to also be in mastermind group(s).
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Posted by: Stafxdss | Jun 14, 2008 8:10:51 AM
Hi Keith
Actually I am having the same problem that you have mentioned here. The thing is I have a friend who can keep me focussed on the things which are correct but I have a deeper issue and need your advice on that.
I am in the same technology group as he is (and entered the group due to a recent re-org) but the thing is I dont like this job anymore. Everything is correct here but I have found that I am more of interested in things outside engineering and infact have my mentors in other areas. I have been working with them also. But now the problem I am facing is, I am not able to focus correctly on my work as I know this is not "love of my life". Suggest me how to tackle the issue.
Posted by: Vikas Dhawan | Jun 15, 2008 11:18:25 PM
Great advice Keith. I think that Professional ADD is more than a caveat and should be taken seriously in all professions and lines of work.
Posted by: Karla Yee | Jun 18, 2008 4:19:47 PM
For another perspective check out Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher. Focus is one tool--"scanning" is another. Both useful for different things.
Posted by: Terri | Jun 20, 2008 11:33:13 AM
Mirror mirror on the wall, who has the most ADD of all.
Keith and I work together and he's right on about how distracting and disruptive ADD can be.
He's also right on about selecting someone whose respect you would not want to lose to and who cares enough about you to hold you accountable.
In fact the more difficulty you have asking such a person to hold you accountable, the more you don't want to change.
That's a challenge I am facing myself.
Thanks Keith for being vulnerable and enabling us to be that way, too.
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