Category: Decisionmaking

Things To Give Up To Be Successful: Give Up The Need To Impress Others

Post author By Dave Guerra
Post date July 23, 2016

Things To Give Up To Be A Successful Leader

Give Up The Need To Impress Others

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Why do we impress others?
Easy for me to say. I am a writer, a videographer, a photographer, and many other things.

Why do I do them? For those that do not know me or only live in a shallow will believe that I do this to impress others. I do it because I can, I want to, and most of all when I set my mind to something I do it.

There have been many people in my life that see what I do and believe what to do is being a show off. However, they are entitled to their opinion of me. That is all up to them but there are just some things that I have done that do not justify what they believe.

I wanted to join the US Army and be an infantryman and I did. I waited before starting a family and I did. I started a business and I did, several of them as a matter of fact. I wanted to write a book and I did, six of them so far. Do you see where I am going with this?

All of the things that I did for myself, I did because I want to leave a legacy for my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. I did these things mostly because I wanted to, so I challenged myself and I did it.

Sure, my younger self was all about impressing my parents, my friends, my family, my bosses, my teachers but eventually you start to figure out that you can only write checks you can cash.
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Why do we need to give up the need to impress?
Have some respect for yourself. Impressing others gets you nowhere. However, impressing yourself gets you everywhere.

Have respect for others, as no one likes a show off. Trying to impress others minimizes your impact on others. They will never be certain on just how authentic you really are.

Get rid of that uncertainty by going with your instincts and not the facade that comes with trying to impress others.
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How To Impress Others Without Actually Trying To Impress Others.

Be Authentic. By being real, that comes through and those that see you out will do so because of your authenticity.

Be Yourself. As the saying goes, “Be Yourself Because Everyone Else Is Taken.”

Just be yourself and the place that will take you, will most certainly astound you.
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What do you do when others are trying to impress you?

Before you do anything rash, find out why they are trying to impress you.

If they are trying to impress you for selfish reason. Let’s say they are name dropping, remember in this social media age, EVERYONE is just one mouse click away. Ask yourself and them what purpose does name dropping serve?

However, if they are trying to impress you for selfless reasons, hear them out. Then give them feedback.

Then make certain to let them know the next time to not work too hard to impress. Let them know to just be themselves.

It works for you, it will work for them.
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The Only Person You Need To Impress Is Yourself.

I firmly believe that we must challenge ourselves daily as that is the only way we are going to overcome our need to impress others. By challenging ourselves we make ourselves better people.

My mantra is “Be Better Than You Were Yesterday.” What’s your mantra?

Whatever, that mantra is it should be one that serves your and acts as a motivator to get you to where you really want to be.

Challenge Yourself Constantly. Out do yourself constantly.

When you are constantly challenging yourself, you have absolutely no time to worry about others and what they think or believe. Most importantly, you have no time to worry about whether or not they are impressed by you and what you do.

Keep your challenges up-to-date and changing. Because when you stop changing, you are more apt to fall back into MEDIOCRITY.

You know what happens when you fall back into mediocrity and what it leads to: TRYING TO IMPRESS OTHERS

So embrace change and give up the need to impress others! Challenge yourself to impress ONLY yourself.

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David G. Guerra, MBA

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#TrainingThursday 16 – Business Ethics

Post author By Dave Guerra
Post date July 7, 2016

Training Thursday (#TrainingThursday) #16

BUSINESS ETHICS

Today I want to talk about Business Ethics. Now you and I know that Business Ethics cannot be taught in one or two or three seven to eight minute videos. Business ethics is one of those topics that takes years to learn
and a lifetime to master.

However, what I want to present to you is a brief overview of business ethics, what they are and what they mean to an organization.

A lot of the business ethics you will experience in the modern workplace are from a set of standards, policies and procedures that have been in place since day one of the organization’s operation and refined over time.

Before moving on, I want to address what is BUSINESS ETHICS. The BOUNDLESS BUSINESS website Boundless(dot)com offers one of the best definitions of business ethics I have ever seen:

“Business ethics, also called corporate ethics, is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that
examines the ethical and moral principles and problems that arise in a business environment. It can also be defined as the written and unwritten codes of principles and values, determined by an organization’s culture, that govern decisions and actions within that organization. It applies to all aspects of business conduct on behalf of both individuals and the entire company. In the most basic terms, a definition for business ethics boils down to knowing the difference between right and wrong and choosing to do what is right.

There are three parts to the discipline of business ethics: personal (on a micro scale), professional (on an intermediate scale), and corporate (on a macro scale). All three are intricately related. It is helpful to distinguish among them because each rests on a slightly different set of assumptions and requires a slightly different focus in order to be understood.”

Let’s look at this line in that definition “business ethics boils down to knowing the difference
between right and wrong and choosing to do what is right.” Most ALL organizations choose to behave in a manner that fits this line. They know they can choose how to behave, act and perform their business
duties and responsibilities. It is those that know something has gone wrong and refuse to act on it and that is when the problems begin.

However, when they get out ahead of the problem and work hard to correct the issue that their comeback is all be ensured and welcomed. For example, let’s look at the recent BLUE BELL Famine of 2015. It all started when someone forgot to wash their hands after using the facilities.

Next thing you know there is Listeria all over the place and the ice cream plant shuts down to begin fixing the problem. Then when things start to look up, another infection of listeria is found in the ice cream making machines. Now the return date to the shelves for the ice cream is unknown. Eventually, Blue Bell worked hard to take care of its staff while operations were offline and they worked hard to get the machinery back online and
producing ice cream.

Fast forward to the summer of 2016 and Blue Bell Ice Cream is fully entrenched in the store refrigerators and all is good with the world. Who knows World Peace might just break out.

Now if the Blue Bell organization had decided to press on and ignore the trouble well we can only imagine what the outcome might have been.

So with that being said. Business ethics are a critical part of the overall operations of the modern work place. However, knowing what is right is one thin line from doing the right thing and doing the right thing is an even
thinner line from doing what is wrong or not doing anything at all. So let’s be careful out there.

Thank you for your attention.

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Making Regret A Thing Of The Past

Post author By Dave Guerra
Post date July 7, 2016

MAKING REGRET A THING OF THE PAST

I want to take a moment to talk about something that I have been thinking about after I posted, on Facebook, the meme about forgetting to place a cake order and wrote on top “Next time, don’t get caught swimming in regret.”

REGRET

Seems that regret, while a completely normal human function, is something that most people do not want to be called on or admit to anyone, let alone admit to themselves. That is all right.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we all have regrets. I am here to tell you that I am full of regrets.

I regret not spending more time with my family. I regret not being a better husband. I regret not being a better father. I regret not being a better friend. I regret not doing something about an injustice or two that I witnessed in my life. I regret not holding on just a little longer with a friend. I regret holding on too long with others. I regret not defending myself when I should have. I regret listening to the wrong people. I regret not listening to the right people.

See the list just goes on and on. Yet, there is a beauty to regret, yes, there is beauty in regret. In the past couple of years, I have grown, moved forward and freely admitted those public regrets, as well as my private regrets (to myself, of course). While most people announce their regrets while on their deathbed, when it is too late. I chose not to.

While we will never truly know the day and time of our expiration, I choose to do something about those regrets, right now instead of when it is too late.

Sure, some can do something about those regrets now but most people will wait until they can no longer do something and complete their time on earth full of regret and anger. Anger because they chose to waste their time holding grudges, internalizing their pain, lashing out at people, putting the wrong people or things above their family and true friends. They would rather spite loved ones because they think they can and are entitled to. They would rather belittle those that are not present because they believe it makes them look cool.

Yet, deep down they know they are hurting because of the regret. Regret based on knowing right from wrong yet choosing wrong because it is a quick fix, a temporary Band-Aid. Instead of working hard to make life better for themselves by fixing those regrets. Admitting regret can be a bitter pill to swallow.

At this point of my post, you are asking yourself, “Who does Dave think he is?”

Please ask that if you have not done so already. You are asking because now you are thinking about the regrets you have. You can choose to be offended. I know at least one individual will be offended. It might be someone whom I do not know or it can be someone that I have known for a very long time. Being offended is good, because sometimes those things that strike a nerve do so to get us thinking.

When we start thinking, we can start acting and when we start acting on our thoughts, we start getting results. Results that lead to minimizing regrets. Once our regrets are at a minimum we have grown as individuals.

Now to answer the question: “Who does Dave think he is?”
I am the person that regrets not writing this much sooner.

Thank you for your attention.

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