Get out your calendars to mark in the upcoming must-attend seminar for 2010! My signature workshop Strategic Project Management Made Simple will save you time, money, and effort in all your projects. You’ll learn powerful thinking tools and step-by-step process for designing executable action plans for strategies at any level. The Seattle seminar is August 9-10th, there are others this fall. Click below for the brochure and details of other public as well as custom in-house seminars. As a newsletter recipient, you are eligible for professional discount, so contact me.
Highlights of this Issue
Guest Article – You never know when you may be stranded at the airport like Professional Speaker Dan Janal recently found himself. His article shares tips on how to cope with changes to your schedule at a time when you can’t get to a change of clothes.
Project of the Month – Whether you’re in job transition or anticipating you may be, it’s smart to refresh your career strategy. Dan Edds recently used the LogFrame to map out his own career plan, and his plan can offer insights to you.
Self-Mastery – How you handle unexpected situations often determines the quality of your emotions, your business, and your life. This article will raise your awareness concerning what types of responses you make when the unexpected arises.
Book of the Month – With the challenges we all face today, let’s bring in some good old-fashioned humor and visit the lighter side of life. A Prairie Home Companion® joke book called Pretty Good Joke Book with an Introduction by Garrison Keillor does just that.
Laugh Out Loud – As a former engineer, I can appreciate some engineering humor without taking it personally. We may be a strange breed at times, but engineers make the world a better one.
Professional Speaker Dan Janal was recently stranded in Baltimore after his flight was delayed twice and then finally cancelled. As a result, he missed all of his scheduled appointments. Making lemonade from lemons, Dan chose to be proactive and generate practical tips for what to do if (or when) it happens to you. Thanks, Dan!
Here's my Number One Tip: Be extra nice and courteous to the counter people. They get a lot of grief from 99 percent of the people in line. If you greet them with a smile and a pleasant attitude, they will move mountains for you.
- Carry the toll-free numbers of all your travel partners, i.e. airline clubs, car rentals and hotels. You'll need to call them to make plans. Don’t want to be delayed even longer because you can't find those numbers (especially when you are stressed out).
- Call the toll-free hotline. If you are a member of the airline club, you'll get priority. The folks answering the phone do the same things as the folks at the counters, but you'll avoid waiting in line behind 200 other people.
- Be patient. The folks on the phone are doing the best they can. They might be searching through many options to find the best flights. Be upbeat and cheerful.
- Get the names of people who make promises to you, i.e. there's a room at the hotel; or you can bring your car in later than printed on the contract without penalty.
- Ask for anything you can get. For example, ask for free meals, free hotel rooms, free ground transportation, or upgraded seats. Sometimes you can get these. Sometimes you can't. But if you don't ask, then you never will. I got a free hotel night and vouchers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
- Keep your daily planner with you. If you need to cancel or rearrange client appointments for the next day, you'll be glad you did.
- Keep your meds and essentials with you. Don't pack them in the checked luggage.
- If you don't have to check luggage, then don't. If you have your bag with you, you have more options to change planes at the last minute. I waited about an hour to retrieve checked bags and had to scramble around the airport to do it.
- Recharge your cell phone and laptop whenever you can. You never know when you'll find your next working electrical outlet. Many outlets in airports don't work! Look for charging stations. They are great!
If you follow these tips, you will make the best of what could be a very bad situation.
Dan Janal is a very successful entrepreneur, professional speaker and marketing coach who helps clients build their businesses by improving their strategy for using publicity, marketing, Internet marketing, e-commerce and sales. For more information, go to http://www.prleadsplus.com
LogFrame Frames Workshop as a "Project" Itself
More than ever before, it's essential to actively manage your career because this is both a time of great career risk as well as opportunity. Here is an example of how to apply the Logical Framework in Refocusing Your Career. Thanks to Dan Edds for sharing his strategy!
How well do you handle the unexpected? Sometimes we can have the most thorough plan down to the very minute details and then "life happens."
The good news is that even though you can’t always control what happens (or doesn’t happen) in life or in business, you can manage how you handle your response. Here are a few scenarios and a few options to examine how well you manage yourself when the unexpected shows up:
Scenario #1 - Your flight is canceled and you have a long delay that scuttles your entire appointments –
Which Self-Management Option do you choose?
- Option A: I remain calm and in control because I apply all the tips Terry’s Guest Article outlined about how to survive being stranded at the airport.
- Option B: I am upset and blame the airline because if they managed their business better, there wouldn’t have been a delay.
- Option C: I look at it as another chance to finish up on some work while I sip a latte.
[Best Practice: Option A]
Scenario #2 – You just get a call that your project may not be as fully-funded you were once led to think after you and your team spent all weekend finalizing the strategic plan.
Which Self-Management Option do you choose?
- Option A: In frustration, you tear up the strategic plan and start from scratch.
- Option B: You keep your cool as you listen to the details about what parts will be funded and which parts will not so you can find ways to make the project move ahead anyway.
- Option C: You toss the phone across the room so you don’t have to hear anymore.
[Best Practice: Option B]
Scenario #3 – Your PowerPoint stops in the middle of a high-stakes presentation.
Which Self-Management Option do you choose?
- Option A: Reschedule the entire presentation.
- Option B: Bang on the computer to see if it will start working again—and keep banging harder on it until it does.
- Option C: Seamlessly switch to the hand-out version of the PowerPoint that you have provided everyone.
[Best Practice: Option A]
No matter what the situation, you always have options. By being aware of the situation and your desired Outcomes you are more likely to be able to manage how you masterfully handle life’s unexpected bumps.
Do you listen to Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion©? If so, you may have heard some of the pretty good jokes found in the Pretty Good Joke Book. Some are funny whether in print or spoken on the radio in the format they were originally delivered. While reading them, I can sometimes even hear Garrison Keillor’s voice.
The text inside the book’s dust jacket does such an excellent job of summarizing it that I decided to just quote verbatim for you:
"Each April, people across the country tune in to A Prairie Home Companion’s annual Joke Show and laugh themselves silly.
"The jokes are the kind you used to hear a lot of but don’t hear much of anymore. The kind that won’t make you blush or squirm. The kind you can share with your spouse, kids, coworkers, neighbors, even the clergy. (Well, mostly.)
"This book gathers the best of the best so far: hundreds of jokes from four great years of Joke Shows.
"You’ll find old standbys, one-liners, and puns. Knock, knock jokes, light bulb jokes, and insults ("Yo’ mama..."). Jokes about lawyers, the IRS, musicians, and more. Regional jokes, gender-related jokes, and assorted howlers and groaners.
"In short, this book is just what you need to brighten your day. Or someone else’s.
"On July 6, 1974, about twelve Minnesotans filed into an auditorium in St. Paul to watch the first live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion. Almost a thousand broadcasts later, the show is heard every Saturday night across the United States. Millions of people each week enjoy its signature blend of music, humor, skits, hilarious "commercials," and the latest "News from Lake Wobegon."
"The first Joke Show aired on April 27, 1996. Since then, it’s become an annual tradition. Host Garrison Keillor and guests delight audiences with jokes old and new, many submitted by listeners. Each airing creates a flood of requests for copies of favorite jokes – including the knee-slappers and side-splitters gathered here, all audience tested and certified Pretty Good."
I’m a former aerospace engineer who enjoys engineering humor, the more absurd the better. Here are some stories that can help you understand the engineers in your life, too.
Two engineering students were walking across a university campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?"
The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want."
The first engineer nodded approvingly and said, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit you anyway."
To the optimist, the glass is half-full. To the pessimist, the glass is half-empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with those guys? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes!"
The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such inept golf!"
The priest said, "Here comes the green-keeper. Let's have a word with him."
He said, "Hello George, what's wrong with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"
The green-keeper replied, "Oh, yes. That's a group of blind firemen. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime."
The group fell silent for a moment.
The priest said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight."
The doctor said, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist colleague and see if there's anything he can do for them."
The engineer said, "Why can't they play at night?"
What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?
Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.
The graduate with a science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with an arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"
Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.
The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you for one week and do ANYTHING you want." Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.
Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess and that I'll stay with you for one week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"
The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."