JustinMcCullough.com

Growth Catalyst, Leadership Development and Team Builder

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More On Subscribers Area

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For a long while, I looked at this “subscribers only” idea and how it could be a place to park some content that could act as lead generation. Hopefully it would surprise you with something you’d like.

This page, actually, was previously the “Dragon Slayers Club” area.

Shifting from the “Subscriber’s Only Area” into “The Dragon Slayers Club” allowed me to cast a vision of this area and see the real potential of what could take place here. It allowed me to great creative while also becoming more purposeful.

At the time, it was a pretty classic example of work vs passion.

But… It never quite fit.

I was trying to create a place with a name that I could envision – but somehow it never really sounded or felt right to me. Why Dragon Slayer? Mainly because I was in a tough place in my personal life – the kind of place were I was facing my own dragons daily. It made sense in the moment, but not for the long haul.

The idea was right, the name was wrong. Moving on…

So, until I figure out a better idea – it’s back to the subscribers area.

Are You Smart Enough To Get Smarter?

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For years, I thought I had a lot of things figured out. It wasn’t until I learned about a key ingredient all great leaders and professionals had, that I did not. I still remember the revelation clearly, it was the summer of 2005 in a large conference room.

That day in September marked a transforming experience for me while attending an advertising conference. On the last day of the conference, I heard the keynote speaker, Bryan Dodge, tell a story about “The Richest Man In Babylon”. According to Bryan, The Richest Man in Babylon is one of the best books most often recommended by professionals and executives for its principles on personal finances and it’s an absolute must read.

One of Bryan’s key messages that day, long ago in September of 2005, was that it’s up to us to bring good information in and educate and develop ourselves – no one else will, so we must. He also commented on how we were all in sales – selling people on our ideas, our children on the friends they keep and the books they read and shows they watch. The task of sales is a way of life, not a professional title.

Bryan then went on to explain how cheap the Richest Man in Babylon was to purchase, how small it was and how quick it was to read, how valuable and helpful the content inside was and how none of us attending the conference would actually read it, except for maybe one or two people.

Bryan said:
Right now, 500 of us in the group are actually listening, about 300 of us have written the name of the book down in our conference notepad and about half of us will decide to go to the book store to buy it and out of the 150 or so that decide to go, half of those people will run other errands first and never make it to the bookstore as planned. The remaining 75 of us would get to the store, but of that group, half of us would be distracted by the coffee, bargain books and magazines, and the remaining half would actually make it to the shelf where the Richest Man in Babylon sits. From there, some of us would get distracted and look at the other books next to it instead and only about 10 of us in the entire room would actually purchase the book – and sadly, 5 of the 10 owners of the book would never attempt to read the copy they purchased – opting for the osmosis approach, and 3 of us would start reading it but never finish… But 1 or 2 of us in the entire group of more than 500, would actually read the book entirely and set their course for a new life of knowledge seeking and book reading.

That day changed my life.

I made a commitment to increase my information sources and professional development beyond just attending conferences, seminars and reading on the web. That day I purchased his DVD and series of CD’s and audio workshops with $300 I didn’t have to spend.

Despite the hurricane that hit my area two weeks later, the relocation of my entire family as a result while my wife was 8 months pregnant and then having our first born child 200 miles from family, the loss of all my clients and closing down my company operations, I purchased and read the book.

I WAS the one person who completed the challenge Bryan foretold. The Richest Man In Babylon, in late 2005, became my first of many books. Bryan Dodge and that book are forever endeared as a turning point in my life as a truly committed professional and knowledge seeker.

As you might have guessed, I highly recommend you read The Richest Man In Babylon and make a commitment to read it and many more thereafter.

Click here to get my complete book list. 

Have you read the Richest Man In Babylon or have a must read suggestion? Tell me about it below.

An Alternate View of Personal Branding

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I’ve been considering an alternative approach to personal branding – one that is true to people instead of products and companies.

To me, a personal brand is easier to understand as the descriptors that fit you. Forget about the brand itself, but the “take away” feelings and emotional connection.

For me:
Human, Optimistic, Wise, True, Willing, Professional and Experimental.

While that doesn’t wrap up neatly in a unique positioning statement, I think it allows you to create a brand essence that makes sense to you, more so then the one I define for you.

Sharpen Your Edge

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What others are doing is irrelevant. Really. The real concern is you. What are you doing? That’s what matters most and it’s the only one thing you can control.

Edge Sharpening 101

  • Read books focused on emotional, spiritual and professional development. if you don’t read books, start reading for 10 minutes a day in a silent place. (increase to 60 minutes a day within 90 days – blogs and social media do not count).
  • Curb negative discussion. Everywhere. At home, at work, with friends. Eliminate it. Negative discussion drains your emotional strength and deflates your output. It also reinforces a negative mindset and thought process.
  • Push positive thoughts, actions, and discussion. Your mindset controls your actions. Coming to a challenge with a positive outlook is far better than coming to the same challenge in a negative, already defeated, mindset. Learn, yes learn to be positive.
  • Take action and do things. Make the call, write the letter, extend the olive branch, create the missing chapter, fix the broken process. Do it. And increase how often you do things. Nothing happens until you take action.
  • Network and reconnect. Most likely your lifelong friends, coworkers, and family members are of no use to a committed life of edge sharpening. It’s probable many of them are sheepwalking too. Do not go with their flow. Network and reconnect with people who are advancing emotionally, intellectually, spiritually and or physically. Find new friends to have healthy conversations that lift you up instead of pull/keep you down.
  • Turn off the noise (or at least change the channel). Talk radio and Pundit TV can be substituted with an audio book or paperback. Long chats with negative influences can be shortened and eliminated. The point is to see things that make you zone out, come down, or don’t give you joy or knowledge as an area to focus on and bring in a positive influence.
  • Stretch. Every day. The edge sharpening efforts are uncomfortable but they are fruitful. Lean into the challenge and expect to stretch a little. If you aren’t stretching, you aren’t growing.

No Kidding!

Don’t weasel out. These are things you can control and you owe it to yourself to have a healthier and happy life. These things are part of your basic tools to improve the 24 hour cycles you repeat daily. If you can pick one or two of these and start there, you’re doing better than most.

Promise me you’ll stop complaining and start doing. Promise you’ll start sharpening your edges.

Original photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/dionhinchcliffe/

Fear or Confidence – Unclutter Your Mind

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/stuant63/2255781557/sizes/z/in/photostream/

The mind is the most powerful computer in the world, but it’s vulnerable and hackable. If you are feeling overwhelmed or having problems “shutting off”, change the way you are thinking about things. Try running a personal defrag on your biological hard drive and separate your cluttered mind into black and white sectors – free up your mind for good.

The things on your mind are like the people in a crowded room, you can’t really think with all that noise, but you try. While you may feel like you have many things on your mind, most of it can be grouped into these 2 categories: Fear and Confidence.

The Looming Buzz of Fear:
Things that you fear will gnaw at you like a fly flitting around your food or a mosquito in your ear. These fear clouds tend to hover over you, raining on your actions, ideas, and goals often producing a double negative impact by locking up your mind and also interfering with the things you have confidence in. Your fear factory includes these things:

  • New ideas or concepts you don’t understand but want too
  • Problems (work, personal, intellectual) that you don’t know how to solve
  • Statements you want to say but are unsure or wish you said, or regret saying
  • Something you did or didn’t do that you regret

The Funhouse of Confidence:
Things you are confident in tend to be more like a pinball game in your mind often beeping, bumping, and bouncing around in constant action only limited by your time, energy and circumstances. It’s your confidence in these things that keeps your mind playing with them, juggling them until you can deal with them. These things are labeled as “easy” or “fun” items but often flood your mind and chew up brainwidth until you act on them. Your cockpit of confidence includes these things:

  • Tasks and to-do items of all shapes and sizes and priority
  • Problems (work, personal, intellectual) you have a solution for
  • Ideas you want to develop
  • Statements you want to say or will say in the future
  • Good intentions

Once you know that crowded room in your mind is really just full of fear clouds and pinballs of confidence then you’ll see that crowded room take shape to something manageable – very manageable.

Now that you have them in black and white, or rather categorized as fear of confidence, get them out! Process the demons, write the tasks, schedule the activities, move the ideas to goals and goals to task items and take action on the good intentions and things you want to say or already said.—- just start doing it – don’t think about it, get it in motion from inside of you to outside of you… This purge will free up your mind and make you more productive and more focused. I call it “buffering” once you move the simple stuff out – on paper, in a note, in an email, whatever, your brain no longer has to buffer it. Your mind can just let it go, trusting the note or activity of getting it out will be enough and it will move on to other things.

In short, brain dump on paper or the white board, or whatever is best for you as often as possible. That stuff, the stuff you are juggling, really doesn’t need to be stuck inside your head chewing up your brainwidth.

Take action – do it today and feel better and be better.

Project Management for Normal People

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Project Management for Normal People

While at SOBcon in Chicago, I was talking about project management with the folks at my mastermind table and I went on a quick riff about how I essentially project manage all my projects from book publishing to website launches and marketing plans to business plans and nearly everything in-between.

The discussion was quick, but it’s a great topic to elaborate on.

This article is about project management and includes:

  1. A video on what I believe makes a great project manager
  2. A basic outline of what a project manager does
  3. A few resources to really dig deep and learn about project management processes

This article is based on the past 15 years of launching websites, books, newspapers, magazines, and managing video and photography shoots as well as the management of advertising campaigns among other things link events, business plans, marketing plans.

NOTE: I am not a “Project Manager” by title.  I consider myself to be a Champion for the project and if you are trying to turn ideas or projects into a reality, you should be a Champion too.

This (almost) short video opens up on some of my fundamental ideas on Project Management and sets the tone well for the rest of this article. Watch it to learn about my thoughts on Human Capital.

What Makes a Great Project Manager from Justin McCullough on Vimeo.

In the video, that was not a direct quote from Seth Godin. In Linchpin, Purple Cow, Free Prize Inside (affiliate links) and his blog he talks about championing projects and shipping and I guess I just wanted to name drop :)

10 Things Great Project Managers Do:

1 – Champions the project.
This includes accepting the responsibility of success or failure of the project from the very beginning. Accept the responsibility right off the bat because you’ll be the first one blamed for it if there are problems or failure, so may as well own it from the start so its easier for you to deal with.

2 – Facilitates communication and becomes the info hub.
You will always be the center of the communication for all internal and external constituents.  Use good judgment and common sense in your communication, maintain a “can do” attitude and always be the first to check in or follow up.  Always be the keeper of current information and share it freely. It helps people understand what you are about and if you offer to help, not just criticize or enforce objectives, you’ll be a friend and ally to the project.

3 – Defines, interprets and shares expectations. Often.
Even the best and most talented minds can be paralyzed if they are unclear on expectations.  This includes responsibilities, process, timeline, tasks, deliverables, budget and PAYMENT for services.  Some of the biggest issues I’ve ever had with experts on a project have stemmed from their incorrect assumptions on when they would get paid or the intent of the project all because I trusted “they were the expert and would know what was expected”.  Appreciate the expertise, but honor the client and the project by clarifying the details and setting expectations.  Those connected to the project will appreciate you for it and know that you run a tight operation that sets the project on the path of success. We all want expectations, so give them.

4 – Asks questions and is not a no-it-all.
Great project managers don’t know the in’s and out’s of every job required to complete the project, but they do know the people involved know their job.  Great project managers ask the right “why” and “how” questions often in order to uncover real issues, real deliverables, real expectations etc.  The why and how aren’t asked so you can learn to do their job, they are asked so you can learn how they see themselves fitting their jobs into the project on time and on budget.  This is a key part of understanding the work to be done as well as the expectations or challenges of the people involved in the project.

5 – Knows the steps, what’s next, and where things are going.
To successfully champion any project you must always be aware of the deliverables, milestones, tasks and pinch-points or bottlenecks in the project.  While you might think “everyone” understands how important the project (the client, the budget etc) is, none of them will be married to the entire project end-to-end like you are, so always know who’s doing what, when, where, why, how and then what’s next.  When in doubt, remember that you are the map and if you don’t know what’s next it’s likely to cause a pinch-point that will cost time and money. Be the map and know what’s next.

6 – Inspects what is expected.
Plotting dates, budgets, milestones and tasks are essential.  Large projects will have many items – enough to warrant project management software, but regardless of size, the tools you use, great project managers inspect what they expect.  The tighter the project is on time and budget, the closer you have to be with your follow-up (inspection).  See, follow-up is a nice way to say it, so follow-up often.

7 – Eternally represents the solution not the problem.
The best project managers internalize the issues and problems and determine next steps and solutions to the problems. As a champion of the project it’s your place to find the solution proactively and keep the project moving forward.  It’s nice when it happens, but never assume someone else will jump in with a solution to bail you out. Again, you are the champion of the project so it is you who represents the solution so always represent that solution so the project can be completed.

8 – Owns the bad news, shares the good news.
Great project managers take the punches and share the successes.  That’s just the way it works so don’t throw your vendors, partners and employees under the bus to save face.  Always own the bad news personally and share what you are doing to fix it. And by all means, celebrate every victory, every win, everything good with the ones who did it – never take the credit for yourself.

9 – Cares.
Great project managers care about the client, the people involved, the project and it’s success.  If you care, it will be obvious.  If you don’t care, it will be obvious too.  When you care it’s much easier to get results.

10 – Knows how to ship.
You must be results oriented and the best project managers help things get unstuck and ship. Everything ships including the final project. Ship on time (or early) on budget (or under budget) and you’ll have a winning project and a remarkably important role in your organization, your ideas, and your success. Focus on shipping and you’ll do great.

Learn More About Project Management and the Process.

I personally try not to use project management software and I have never received formal training in project management which means there are a lot more skilled project managers (as in skilled in the craft, the software, and the formal process) than I am.

However, I have launched about 200 websites, several newspapers and magazines, several books and many many many advertising initiatives that have all gone well without project management software or certification as a project manager. I think you can too.  This is one area where a desire to succeed and learn means you don’t need to be certified in order to be great at it.

In my experience, most clients don’t care how you deliver on their goals and objectives. They only care that you meet and exceed their goals and objectives. In my opinion that’s all that matters too.  My hope is that this article will help you understand the core aspects required to champion a project and become a great project manager.

If you want to dig deeper into the formal processes of project management, here’s some good content to sink your teeth into.

My personal methods are something of a mashup between the Agile Method and 37 Signals approach mixed with SCRUM and Stage-Gate processes.  These techniques have been folded in over the last 8 years or so, but prior to that I was literally just learning as I went and still delivering so don’t get tied up on ingesting all this at once.

Good luck on your project management efforts and don’t hesitate to share your experiences or ask for help.

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