Make More of Your Job

Exercise to Improve Your Performance at Work

Scientists have long spoken about the importance of diet and exercise for those of us that want to live a long and happy life. It even seems like as time goes on, science is proving more and more that good diet and exercise have almost limitless positive affects on our lives. Last week, a Duke researcher even proved that regular exercise is just as effective on depression as medication is! While it goes without saying that eating right and staying fit should have a direct impact on our health, I’ve been shocked at what a considerable impact a little bit of exercise has on my ability to maintain a high energy level on the job.

When I hit my mid twenties, I noticed for the first time that my physical world was starting to change. It’s the same old story that most of us go through at some point: I would eat less and still gain weight. I wasn’t bouncing back as fast from illness or a night out as easily. My body was telling me that I wasn’t a kid anymore. It was even beginning to affect my work.

I’ve never required a great amount of sleep, but as I've gotten older, the more prone I've become to  listlessness at work at some point during the day. I tried sleeping more, to no avail. I even wondered if that was just the way I’d feel forever, if life really was just a slow downhill slide to the grave. Then I started to exercise.

It actually started out as a weight loss program, but long after I ended the diet, the regular workouts have remained a part of my weekly life. Within days of starting to exercise, I could feel a difference during my working hours. Not only was I back to my old energy levels, but I generally exceeded them. The amazing part to me was that I wasn’t participating in a comprehensive personal fitness program. I was just running a handful of miles per week and spending some time on the elliptical machine.

Over the years, I’ve figured out a bit more about what kind of activity level I personally need to keep energized throughout the day and even a few tricks to stay energized when time is limited. I can’t say I look forward to working out, but falling off the wagon every once in a while (often when I’m traveling a lot) is more than enough to remind me of the importance of exercise to my productivity. If I miss out on even a week of exercise, I lose about 30% of my steam during the day. When I finish up in the evening, all I want to do is relax and not work on other projects or even my hobbies. I don’t like feeling that way, so I inevitably head back to the gym to get back on track.

If you aren’t a regular exerciser, it may sound intimidating to think about making this change for your life, but it’s one you owe it to yourself to try. You don’t have to join a gym or even buy any expensive equipment. Just get moving. Walk the dogs, take a bike ride or even try 15 minutes of yoga in the morning before you head to the office. Whatever you choose, commit to 30 days of exercise and then compare your energy level throughout the day to what it was before. Not only will you be happier and healthier, you’ll get more done at your job and still have energy left over for your friends and family. All of that for just a few minutes a day of work. Now that’s a great return on investment!

Readers: what do you do to keep yourself physically primed for work?

Get More Done by Going Public

I love public transportation. I know, I’m probably the only person living in a major American city that would say that out loud, but it’s true. I’m not a big fan of dirt, stench or public drunkenness. What I am is a huge fan of making the most of my time, and in my life, public transportation is one of the greatest tools I’ve got.

I don’t live too far from my office, but in big city traffic, it can easily take me an hour to get to work when I drive. Public transportation takes me only about 40 minutes. You may be thinking that 20 minutes isn’t enough of a personal savings to make it worth while, but let’s take a look at some “lifestyle math” to see how much taking the train contributes to my life on an annual basis.

• Commuting 20 minutes each way is 40 minutes a day. With 5 work days a week, and about 50 working weeks a year, that boils down to 166 hours and 40 minutes (almost exactly one full week of waking hours) that I can spend with my friends and family, or doing things I love, instead of in a car white-knuckling it through traffic.
• My train ticket costs me $6.20 per day. Driving, I use 2.5 gallons of gas (at a $3 average that’s $7.50), plus between $15-20 a day for parking. That’s an average daily difference of $19. Again, multiply that by 5 work days, 50 weeks a year, and I end up with $4750 a year! If I invested that much money every year directly in the S&P 500 (using the last 30 years average growth rate), over a 40 year career I’d end up with an extra $2.3 million dollars at retirement. You read that right: $2.3 million!
• On top of just saving the 20 minutes a day in travel time, the 40 minutes I do spend on the train, I can spend reading - something you can’t (or at least shouldn’t) do in a car. It takes me an average of 4 hours to read a book (assuming about 350 pages), so with 80 minutes a day freed up for reading, I can read an extra 84 books a year or an extra 3,320 books over a 40 year working career. I know I read quickly, but even at a pace of a page every 2 or 3 minutes, the extra reading time freed up is amazing.
• Last, but not least: the difference it makes to the environment. By taking the train, instead of driving alone in a car I can help save about 2.8 tons of carbon emissions a year. It may not change the world, but it’s a simple way I can do my part to protect our environment.

Now do you see why I like public transportation so much? When I get on a train in the morning, even if it’s dirty or crowded, I’m not thinking about the downsides. I’m thinking about all the ways that taking that train contributes to my life. The goal of this post isn’t to make everyone rush out and start using public transportation (though that would be great), but to illustrate how a little flexibility in your life can create great value. We may not be able to wave a wand in our lives and create piles of money, or more hours in the day. But with a little agility and some creative thought you can make a huge difference in the quality of the live you live, and the world you live it in.

Winning the Career Lottery

I spent some time at a work event in Las Vegas last week, and during my time there I managed to hit a small jackpot on a slot machine while I was playing alongside some of my co-workers.  Nearly the second the machine hit the jackpot, one of them said, “Of course it would happen to you! You have to be the luckiest person alive.” Now, I don’t deny that I have an incredibly fortunate life.  In fact, I wouldn’t trade places with a single person that I’ve ever met. That being said, however, I’m not sure that the life I have is based entirely on luck. 

I love Las Vegas and go there multiple times a year. I truly enjoy gambling, and will play during almost every moment of downtime I get. It’s not that I expect to win, because I'm a realist. I simply view the money spent on gambling as entertainment cost, just as I would a concert ticket or dinner out.  One of the basic concepts of gambling, which is based on odds, is that if you play long enough, you’ll lose.  However, if you play long enough, you will also undoubtedly hit a jackpot or two along the way. It’s just the odds at work.  So the truth is, when I hit that jackpot (which just happened to be in front of other people), I wasn’t so much lucky as I was living up to the odds I had created for myself.

The reaction that this coworker had, assuming I was "the luckiest person alive," got me thinking about how often we ascribe luck to the actions of successful people in the workplace as well.  When we see someone make it big, move up quickly or even strike it rich in the corporate world, one of our first instincts is to call them “lucky." Just like in gambling, I've found that achieving such results is more about taking advantage of the odds, rather than leaving the results up to luck.

Is there some good fortune involved?  Probably.  Let me use another example from the world of gambling: the lottery. You can't win unless you buy a ticket, and you're very unlikely to win unless you buy a lot of them.  Successful people look at life as a controlled lottery, and their objective is to buy as many tickets as possible at every opportunity they get. When we suggest that these successful people are merely “lucky,” we’re letting ourselves off the hook. We're chalking others' wins up to luck, rather than considering the things that we could be doing to appear as lucky as them.

Here are a few areas where you can buy tickets in your own career lottery to increase your odds of winning:

• Working Hard: Are you always going above and beyond your duties?
• Constantly Learning: What skills are you attaining, both on the job and off?
• Opening Up: Are you always meeting new people and opening yourself up to new experiences and viewpoints?

So, what career lottery tickets are you buying right now?  Are you staying late to finish an important job when everyone else bails?  There's a lottery ticket.  Using a weekend to take a class that improves your skills?  There's another. Networking at a non-work function?  And another. The opportunities are endless.

If you really want to make more of your job, I suggest you start collecting those lottery tickets.  Of course, it's sometimes necessary to be in the right place at the right time. But if you’re always using your time, always growing and pushing, it's only a matter of time before the odds you've created for yourself reward you. You’ll guarantee that you’ll be in the right place at the right time in the not-so-distant future.  By always buying career lottery tickets, you will expose yourself to many more opportunities than you would if you just keep doing the bare minimum with your job or life. The more opportunities you expose yourself to, the better the likelihood you will have that you will find the right one.

Thinking back to what my coworker said, I now realize he's partially right. Some people can be very lucky, but it takes a lot of hard work to stay that way.

Make Your Job Feel New Again

Last Saturday night, I was invited to a restaurant opening, one of those “soft openings” where the kitchen and staff get to work out the kinks on a group of invited guests who might cut them some slack for the hiccups.  Dining out is amongst my favorite things to do in my free time, so I went expecting to enjoy the food, the drinks and the ambiance.  What I wasn’t expecting, however, was to be taught a great lesson about life, passion and work.

From the moment we walked in, it was clear that everyone working was excited to be there and anxious for the night to be a success. Over the course of the evening, there were a couple of little issues that you'd expect from a soft opening. However, the atmosphere was full of people enjoying the evening, whether they were working or dining.  Towards dessert I was trying to figure out what it was that contributed to the positive vibe of the restaurant. Was it the décor or the music? No. It was the fact that every single employee seemed happy to be there, happy to be doing their job.

This restaurant wasn’t the greatest I’ve ever been to - not even in my top ten dining experiences. What's more is that the restaurant wasn't pricey, so I wasn't expecting the attentive service that I'd expect from a fine dining establishment. Yet everyone seemed positive and passionate. It was the simple presence of total newness that had everyone keyed up, and the result was amazing.  As I looked around the room, I couldn’t find a single employee who seemed displeased, not one who looked like they’d prefer not the be at work. The effect as a diner was contagious: not only was it an enjoyable atmosphere, but you naturally forgave any minor imperfections because the entire experience was so enjoyable.

Since that evening, I’ve been thinking a lot about how different our attitude is when we’re doing something for the first time, and how much more productive we could be if we maintained that sense of newness and enjoyment when we were doing tasks for the hundredth time.  It wasn’t as if the jobs at this restaurant were magic. In fact, I bet that many of the servers and cooks, hostesses and bartenders had held the exact same job at another location only weeks before.  Something about newness, when we are hopeful about the possibilities and tolerant of the negatives, allows us all to work in a state of heightened optimism.  Here are a few tricks to help keep your job feeling new, and help keep you feeling positive:

• Meet many people – One of the perks of starting a new job is being able to meet a huge amount of new people.  Keep this vibe going by constantly networking in your role, both outside of your department and even with vendors and clients.  Even a difficult job, if it helps you constantly meet great people, is something to be happy about.
• Learn new skills – I've said it before and I'll say it again: always be learning. Not only will it help position you for more responsibility or even a promotion, but learning new skills helps keep your work experience fresh every day.
• Help new employees acclimate – Helping new hires will not only make your company a better place, it will also remind you how far you’ve come and help to re-energize you about your own job.

Through the Eyes of a Tourist

Last weekend, one of my best friends from childhood came to town for a visit.  It was the first time she had ever been to Chicago and it was a real treat to see the city I’ve called home for 12 years seen through the eyes of a tourist. Once you live in a given place for awhile, it’s human nature to stop noticing how special some of your city’s assets are.  Having someone who had never been here before reminded me of how much Chicago really does have to offer.

She reacted to with outright joy and awe to buildings, parks and restaurants that I’ve come to take for granted. But at the same time, she wasn’t at all affected by the parts of Chicago I’ve come to be irritated with.  Our transportation system was fine with her (after all, it did get us from point A to point B) and even our traffic seemed reasonable (we never arrived late anywhere). Seeing Chicago with my friend, I couldn’t help but think about how much better we might enjoy our working lives if we could manage to take some time to look at our places of employment the same way a tourist might look at our home city.

Once you get comfortable in your job or with your coworkers, it is easy to forget all of the great things about your every day work life and start to focus on the irritations.  After my friend came in for the weekend, I tried to think about the issues at work that rub me the wrong way and look at them through an unbiased lens.  Just like the Chicago traffic wasn’t as bad upon reflection, I realized that little irritants around the office would be the same (if not worse) everywhere.  At the same time I was looking at my company and coworkers from a fresh viewpoint and identified so many great points about my work experience that I'd come to expect.

I’m someone who has always felt incredibly positive about my job, coworkers and company. But even for me, looking at my experience like a tourist was tremendously reaffirming.  To maintain passion for what you do, it’s vital that we remain conscious of all the little daily perks we are thankful of, and aware of how insignificant the negatives are in the big picture.  So try looking at your job everyday through the eyes of a tourist. You’ll probably feel a lot better about your work life than you have in a long time.

It's Never Too Late to Show Passion

Some of you may have read about my less-than-passionate experience at a Corner Bakery recently while trying to grab a quick lunch. To make a long story short, my bad experience resulted in them refunding my money and giving me gift certificates for a return trip. I wrote an entry about the experience because it highlighted for me how dangerous it is (particularly for small businesses) to give away money or lose revenue because they fail to provide passionate service.  In my case, a little communication from the Corner Bakery store employees could have turned the whole situation around. I didn’t want free money, I just wanted lunch. So I thought telling the cautionary tale on the blog would be a great example on how costly little lapses in passion can be.

Much to my surprise, I was contacted by Corner Bakery not long after the post went up. I have to admit I was deeply curious what interest they had in contacting me.  In our modern world, companies tend to be super-protective of their image and I was intrigued to see whether they wanted to ask questions about what had gone wrong, or just save face or ask for the post to come down.

It took a few days, but I finally got in contact with Diana Hovey, VP of Marketing for Corner Bakery. In just over a few minutes on the phone, I was reminded of an important lesson: It’s never too late to show passion.

It was clear from the first sentence Diana spoke that she wasn’t calling to complain about the post or to defend Corner Bakery. She was calling because she was literally hurt by reading the story of my experience.  My tale was not compatible with the company she knew and loved, and she was committed to finding out how things could have gone so wrong.

For the duration of the conversation, Diana was amiable, interested and clearly intent on making lemonade out of lemons. I couldn’t help but notice the enthusiasm she had for Corner Bakery (notable by the ease and excitement with which she discussed their history and growth) and it was clear that hearing that even one customer had experienced a lousy time at on of their café’s was something that she took personally. As I've mentioned before, it's impossible for me to not take my own business personally, so I immediately identified with her point of view.

I will admit it tickled me when she said that the printout of the post had been passed around the whole headquarters, and that they were very upset. "I wasn’t enjoying it because the blog had been passed around, and I wasn’t enjoying it because my disappointment was being felt," she said. "I was enjoying it because it was something that would happen at my company, in my life!"

I know what it feels like to be hurt and deflated when we drop the ball as a company, and seeing that behavior in someone else’s company was very reassuring.  These people loved their company, and hearing about the ball being dropped (which happens to even the best of companies) was something they reacted viscerally to.

I shared with Diana the fact that many of my experiences with her restaurant have been great.  In fact, there is one in my office building that has frequently impressed me with their ability to serve hundreds of lunches during the noontime rush with speed and grace.  I also told her that I wrote the piece not to shame Corner Bakery, but rather to tell a cautionary tale about why passion is so important in any and every job.

By the conclusion of the call, I was convinced that Corner Bakery is run by talented people who are truly passionate about what they do. We all have a bad day every now and again, but the Corner Bakery team seemed committed to making those bad experiences fewer and farther between by always learning from their mistakes.  Diana reminded me that passion also requires humility, and a genuine interest in hearing about your failure so you can fix them going forward.

If people believe that you love what you do, your errors will almost always be completely forgiven. I was also reminded that as consumers, our voices and experiences matter.  When a company does a great or lousy job, take the time to let them know about it.  If they’re a company worth doing business with, they will take your opinions to heart and be better for the information.

For me, Diana’s passion for Corner Bakery made me an instant fan.  I may have had a rotten lunch, but it was just one lunch.  Going forward, I have much more important knowledge that every dollar I spend at Corner Bakery is going to an organization that is humble, passionate and committed to continuous improvement.  I had lunch at Corner Bakery again the day after my phone conversation with Diana.  Not only was it served quickly, but I was happy to pay for it after throwing out those gift certificates.  After all, I wasn’t hungry for free food, I was hungry for passion.

Balance Analysis and Reward

One of the greatest influences of my life was Coach Baker, a baseball coach that I had at summer camp for several years.  After every single game, as we walked off of the field, Coach Baker would say something to me like, “Great slide into second during the fifth inning! Tomorrow at practice, let’s work on some short hops. Good game.” 

Simple as that - in a few short sentences, he had both praised my successes and helped me identify areas that were still holding me back.  It contained both negative and positive feedback, but most importantly, it was productive feedback.

When I think about those quick assessments Coach Baker gave me long ago, I start thinking about what all of the the mentors from my youth have in common. The truth was shockingly simple: they all helped teach me how to balance analysis and reward.

Looking back, it hasn’t been the teachers who praised me the most that I remember, nor has it been the coaches that yelled the most when I failed.  The most influential forces in my life have always been the people that have helped me to find strategies for continual self improvement while being honest about both my strengths and weaknesses.  It is those people to whom I owe credit for all of the great things I’ve got in life.  The lesson of analysis and reward, for me, really has been the gift that keeps on giving.

As an adult I’ve found that I can apply analysis and reward to any task, no matter how big or small.  It guarantees that I’m not too self-congratulating or too self-critical. Instead, I am constantly focused on getting better.  After all, life really is a competition, but not always with others. Most of the time, the competition is about waking up every day with the desire to realize more of your potential, to always be moving towards your goals.  Every day, I compete with myself to be a better version of me, and the tactic of analysis and reward helps me to do that.

It’s such a basic concept, and yet one that has become the most powerful tool I have to drive my life.  When I go through any process, whether it be a project at work, a conversation with a client, or a weekend workout, I always spend at least a few minutes thinking about the highs and lows of the experience.  I don’t just beat myself up for the areas where I underperformed and I don’t simply pat myself on the back for the things well done. I try to balance both the analysis and the reward.

Communicating in the Same Language

This past week, I’ve been traveling internationally to several of my company's offices and, as usual with international travel, I’ve been reminded of the importance patience plays in good communication. When you’re in a country where you don’t speak the native language, your ability to communicate your exact intentions is sketchy at best.  Whether getting into a taxi or trying to arrange dinner reservations, your communication methods are shaky and require the grace and patience of those who you’re attempting to communicate with.

Throughout my international travels, I’ve found that nearly all human beings that I interact with are helpful and supportive when they realize that you’re trying to communicate without a language in common. However, there are those rare situations that illustrate what happens when patience is thrown out the window that truly illuminate how important patience is to communication.

In Stockholm, Sweden this week, I had just such an encounter.  Much of my family is from Sweden, and I’ve always found it to be a kind and accommodating country. It helps that a majority of the country speaks English to varying degrees. However, I got into a taxi the other night and suffered a major communication breakdown.

When traveling in countries where I don’t speak the language, I always take the time to write down the address of my destination before getting into a cab.  It keeps me from butchering pronunciations, which adds yet another barrier to communicating outside of my native tongue.  As I hopped into the taxi and showed the driver the address, he nodded and then rifled off a few phrases in Swedish.  I told him that I only spoke English. He clucked and threw his hands up in exasperation, but pulled away from the curb anyhow.

While his impatience with my language skills was discouraging, he seemed to know the address I was seeking, so I wasn’t too worried about it.  A few minutes later, however, my assumptions that the ride would be uneventful proved terribly wrong.

The cab pulled over on a residential street and the driver indicated that we had arrived.  Since I was looking for a restaurant, it was clear that we weren’t in the right place.  I tried, to no avail, to indicate this to the driver. To make matters worse, there was no street sign close, so I wasn’t even sure if we were on the right street.  I could see from the street numbers that we weren’t at the right address at all.  Several times, I tried pointing to the number on the closest house and pointing to the written address to indicate that it was wrong.  The cab driver quickly became irritated and kept pointing to the fare.  I stayed calm, but couldn’t find a way to get through to him.  After a few minutes his frustration escalated and finally got through to me with one of the few English phrases he seemed to know - "Get out."

On the street, I was dejected.  I didn’t see any other cabs coming by and wasn’t sure I was even in the right area.  I walked back towards where I'd come for a bit before I came upon a woman walking her dog.  I approached her and asked if she spoke English. No such luck. I’d managed to find one of the only other Swedes who spoke no English at all. 

This time, though, the situation was completely different. Right off the bat, she was kind and patient and seemed to be intrigued that I was American. After showing her the address, she motioned me to follow her.  She turned around in the opposite direction she was heading and walked several blocks to a main intersection.  She pantomimed “phone” handed me her dog’s leash and then popped into what must have been her home.  A few minutes passed and she was back out, cell phone in hand.  She mimed that she had called a cab, and touched her wrist (signaling "watch"), then held up five fingers.  The cab would be along in five minutes.

When the cab arrived, she leaned in the front window with my address and told the driver where to take me.  I thanked her and was off.  The driver, it turned out, spoke wonderful English, and told me that she had said that I was a visitor and he should take excellent care of me.

Finally I arrived at my location, a few minutes late, but much the better for the experience I’d had.  In just a few short minutes, I’d had two distinctly different interactions trying to communicate.  The first interaction was frustrating and made me feel powerless, the second was uplifting and reaffirmed my belief in the goodness of people.  I decided immediately to integrate those lessons into my life.

No matter how disparate the communication styles, it seemed there was no gap that patience couldn’t solve. As I’ve pointed out before on the pages of this blog, patience is not one of my strong points as an individual.  I’m constantly fighting the battle to balance my natural instinct for urgency with patience and not come off like a warlord. I committed to myself that I would try to never make someone feel the way that first cab driver had made me feel.

I thought about the times back home where I get short because I don’t understand someone’s point of view.  We may speak the same language, but that doesn't mean that we're communicating.  I thought about how much better I would be at my job if, instead of losing my temper, I tried to help the other person make their point, or even involved other parties (like my dog walker had the cab driver) to make sure the communication was complete. I never want someone to feel helpless, hopeless or useless when trying to communicate with me.  In the future, when communication issues arose, I would be more patient and more understanding of the way the other person must feel.

Ultimately, it took the kindness of a stranger in a foreign land to put the importance of patience in communication in such stark relief for me. For her, it may have just been an odd five minute engagement with a confused American.  For me, it was a lesson I will keep with me for a long, long time.

Patience is Virtue

I'll admit it, I'm not the most patient person in the world. But recently I've been getting a lot of opportunities to practice. About a week ago, I brought a new dog, Naya, home from a local animal shelter. And though every day has been wonderful, each one so far has been an ongoing exercise in patience.

The two most important things in my life are my career and my family, so I can't help but draw parallels between the patience required to integrate a new member into the family and the patience required to face the constant changes and developments of a great career. In both cases, you can plan for every contingency you can think up and you'll still inevitably be faced with challenges, frustrations, and puzzles that seem unsolvable. Though planning is important, it's really what you do when unexpected circumstances arise that really separates you from the pack. To have a great career, or a great home life, you need both preparation and improvisation. Only those of us that find a way to balance both sides of the equation will be able to maintain lasting results.

Here are a couple of lessons that I've learned since bringing Naya home that might help you stay balanced when trying to balance your life and career.

• Prepare for the worst-case scenario - I'm a complete optimist, but I always try to have a worst-case scenario in mind so I'm pleasantly surprised when things go better than planned. Naya is a rescue, which meant the shelter didn't even know her exact age (they think she's 10 months old) or whether or not she was housebroken. In order to prepare myself, I thought back to what our other dog, Narin, had been like as a pup. I remembered that a few "accidents" a day was the norm until he learned the rules. The good news is, it appears that did have some house training. but on the flip side, she's still a baby and we've had 1 or two slip ups a day. By being prepared for these, I don't lose my temper when the completely expected happens. When she has a good day, instead of assuming it's the norm, I'm thrilled.

Try the same tactic at the office. By preparing yourself for the worst-case scenario in any of your projects, you can really emotionally insulate yourself from overreacting when things go wrong.

• Stop living in the past - Things change every day, and focusing on how things used to be is totally unproductive. Narin, our first dog, who has always been quite calm, has grown more rambunctious and loves play-fighting and wrestling with his new sister since she came home. At first this was disconcerting, because it was behavior we were unfamiliar with, we worried that it might have been unhealthy or too aggressive, or one dog might get hurt. After a while I realized that were over-analyzing, they are dogs after all, and dogs like to play. It doesn't mean I'll stop watching to play it safe, but the equation has changed some, so the outcomes have changed as well.

This lesson is the same at the office when new people or responsibilities come into the picture. Be prepared that the introduction of something or someone new always has positive and negative on you and your coworkers. Don't spend your time trying to recapture what you had, because you can't. Start enjoying the good things and tackling the new challenges brought about from the new setup.

• Be understanding - Upon bringing Naya home, we had no idea what kind of life experiences have formed her thus far. Unfortunately, we suspect she was abused, but she's in decent health and mind. Over the first few days, she displayed some excessive shyness and aggressive protection of her food. Rather than push her to behave totally differently, we're adapting our game plan to bring her slowly around to our home's way of doing things. I'm well aware that the way we do it around here is probably strange to her, and quite frankly a result of the life experiences we have had.

I use this same strategy at work all the time. When I catch myself trying to make someone more like me, I take a step back and instead ask myself how and why they got to be like they are. You'll be amazed how much tolerance and patience you will gain from the process, you might even start to believe there are methods more productive than yours.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this process has been how much less daunting bringing a new dog home has been this time around. When Narin first came home, I had no idea what I was doing and everything seemed like a battle. This time, there are little hiccups, but most of the process has become old hat. With careful preparation, reasonable expectations, patience and adaptability, we'll manage to acclimatize to our new family dynamic pretty easily. That's another great benefit of staying patient and open to change - every time you work through a challenge, it's much easier to face, and conquer the next time around.

It's Your Company, Too.

I’ve talked on this blog before about how often I hear people complain about their jobs. While we all need to vent once in a while, what I’m constantly amazed by is how few of these complainers ever do anything about the problems they’re experiencing.

Much of my life is committed to trying to be the best at what I do everyday and making the most of my job. That doesn’t mean I don’t have complaints. But as someone who cares deeply about my job, my employees and my company, I am also committed to taking action when I think something is amiss. You see, I really do think of it as my company, and if I’m not willing to help things get better when they go awry, who will be?

Companies need employees who are beyond looking out for their own best interests. They should understand that their best interests will be served by watching out for the company. When I started at my current company years ago, we were small - fewer than 100 people. Today we’re more than 20 times as large, the leader of our industry, and expanding globally. Along with that growth come problems. But to me they aren’t the company’s problems, they’re my problems too.

As we grow, it’s natural that we run the risk of starting to act like a "big company." That may not sound like a problem, but in reality, it was acting like an underdog that got us where we are and it could spell disaster for us to lose that spirit. Now is no time to rest on our laurels. To stay number one it’s often important to act like you’re in dead last and are committed to moving up the ranks. So when I see “big company” behavior, I am the first to consider whether it’s smart, strategic or just the easy way out.

Occasionally we make mistakes, but when I notice that mistakes or being made or that we're heading in the wrong direction as a company, I don't have time to sit and gripe. I have to roll up my sleeves and help fix it. It’s always easier to point out, mock or complain about an issue than it is to try and solve one. But if a company has too many complainers and not enough doers, that company will be in real trouble in no time flat.

The closest comparison I can come up with is the person who complains endlessly about the effectiveness of an elected official, gripes about the corruption of government or moans about their taxes, and then doesn’t show up to the polls on voting day.

It doesn’t matter how you are informed you are about politics if you can’t be bothered to speak through your actions by stuffing your opinion into the ballot box. So vent your frustrations about your company, be critical about the actions you see developing around the office; but when something goes wrong, don’t stop at complaint. Do something about it.

After all, it’s your company too.