Posted on

It is Not How You Start But How You Finish

This story touched me this morning. I hope it inspires you as well.

Joseph "Gabe" Sonnier used to clean up after everyone at Port Barre Elementary in Port Barre, La. Now, the former janitor is the principal at that school. The journey to his promotion began in 1985 when Port Barre's then-principal pulled Sonnier aside, CBS Evening News reported.

"He said, 'I'd rather see you grading papers than picking them up,'" Sonnier told the station.

Sonnier had dropped out of Southern University in 1979, according to the Advocate. His mother, a housekeeper, was struggling to support his four siblings and pay for his education, so Sonnier began working to help.

 

Read more at the Huffington Post

Posted on

Why I Work So Hard and Even Harder

Like many of you, I have been saddened by the death of Nelson Mandela. While I looked for ways to speak about what his life and his struggle meant to me, I came across this quote from his grandson Zwelabo. Zwelebo Mandela is a student at Johnson C. Smith University, which is actually within walking distance from my house. So, I felt somehow connected to him. It was this young man's words that moved me. In fact is it the reason I work so hard.

[callout]"When I'm just talking about my grandfather, removing the titles and all the work that he's done, there's basically what he's instilled in my life, and that's a hard work ethic as it pertains to education," said Zwelabo Mandela.[/callout]

I don't work hard so that you can give me accolades. I don't work hard so that I can be known by men. I work hard so that when I die, I will have left my children and my children's children and inheritance. Not an inheritance of money - but one of integrity, wisdom, and a good work ethic. [Tweet "I work hard so that when I die, I will have left my children and my children's children and inheritance."]

If you strip my titles will my life have meant anything to the ones I love. If the answer is yes. Then my living has not been in vain. So I work hard and even harder.

 

Posted on

The College Life – A Real World Guide to Success

As many of you know I have 2 boyz headed to college this year, and a ton of their friends. I have had time to talk to most of them about the perils and opportunities of college. In fact, I just finished a manual on how to create a digital portfolio. This booklet describes how to maintain a stellar digital profile, how to get rid of those party pictures on social networks, things of that nature.

That got me to thinking. We need a college survival handbook. So I pose this question to you. What advice would you give your college bound student? In fact, what are the lesson(s) you learned in college? I want to crowd source a handbook to give to students to make them successful. So go ahead. The comment section is open.

 

Posted on

4 Pillars of Success

This morning while taking my wife to work, we listened to the Steve Harvey Morning Show. Today's segment was the Ask Steve Segment. This young male caller asked the question "Steve,How Do You Maintain Focus." Steve answered him with what he called the 4 pillars of success. Now I had been practicing this concept for years just never had put a name to it. But just as as the pilars are important the order is just as important.

1. God - If you keep God First, then your motives for what you are doing will at least start in the right place. The Bible says to acknowledge God is all things and He will direct your path.

2. Family - Everybody needs a backbone. Your family is that backbone that holds you up. If you invest in this area you will reap great harvest. Family has to be cultivated. It is the area, as a man, that we usually lack in cultivating. But that is another post.

3. Education - Although education in this pillar can mean academic, it also means educating yourself in what ever you are trying to be successful. If you want to be successful at home are you reading books on this subject.  Are you putting yourself around positive people that can help you achieve your objectives.  To educate yourself means that you are updating your information daily.  There should be an element of education in your day everyday. I am constantly in a learning frame of mind.

4. Business - Once you have done the above three, you are ready to make your business successful. We are just not talking about a small business or entrepreneurial endeavor. Your business is whatever you do to make money. If you are in a 9 to 5, if you look at your position as as business within a business you will be more successful.  A business is nothing more than a set of systems operating to make a organization more successful and profitable.  Do you see how this pillar can permeate your life?

As stated earlier - the order is as important as the pillars themselves. If you get these out of order there will be problems. I am a living witness to this fact. Whenever I have gotten out of order there has been absolute chaos in my life.

How have you used the pillars in your life and what has been your results?

 

Posted on

Why I Choose Transparency

The question was posed to me, Was I afraid that I would lose business because I talk about my "struggles" on social media and on my blog?

I have to be completely honest about this. In the beginning, I was very afraid that transparency would kill my business. I was worried that because I am a fixer, not being able to some times fix my own issues would cause people not to pick up the phone to either call me or answer my calls.

But, as I went along, I realized that the upside to this transparency was actually good for me; And what is good for me personally supersedes what is good for my business.

whyichoosetransparencyI just want to clarify a few things.

1. I don't post everything that happens to me and or my family on social media.

2. I am incredibly closed with my feelings and my life. In fact, I was once asked if I was even human. Posting simple things that happen in my life helps to push me to be more open.

3. I am a living witness that you can be successful and still be depressed.

4. You can be successful and still not be sure of yourself.

5. It was the public declaration of a well-known pastor about his bout with depression that got me to recognize my own depression. This allowed me to seek help and start to live my life over again.

6. The business only focused posts get 47% fewer views/comment/interaction than my "transparent" life posts.

7. I am not that moved by money. I have been blessed to have a lot of different revenue streams. Therefore I do not have to rely on any one stream. I have also accomplished most of my dreams. I am living on gravy right now.

8. The majority of my clients are clients because of me, not my company persona.

9.  I personally only work with clients I like. So it is important that they know what they are getting: Genius but Crazy.

10. If I can save someone from committing the same mistakes or help them through the areas I have struggled with, then any business I have lost is worth it.

The truth is my business is thriving. Like any business there are ups and downs. How you handle both of those seasons - will ultimately determine the success of your business. In life there are ups and downs -- and how I handle each determines my happiness. I want my happiness to thrive as much as my business.

So I post about the ups and the downs and how I handle each. At the end of the day, balance is more important to me than bottom line.

#ByrdOlogy -- it isn't a science -- you won't find it in a book -- Just some things I have learned in my years of business and relationships.

 

Posted on

Paring Down: Multiple Email Addresses is the Road to Madness

You’ve probably worked with a client or two who has a separate email address for everything. Twitter@mydomain.com, facebook@mydomain.com, paypal@mydomain.com, info@mydomain.com, support@mydomain.com…The list goes on and on.
While on the surface that might look like a great idea, what often ends up happening is that emails get misdirected and the whole system breaks down. You buy an ebook and the seller adds your paypal@ email to his or her mailing list, where you continue to receive updates and other important information. Or you receive an inquiry from a potential customer to your support@ email. When he or she turns into a retainer client, he continues to use this email.

Or even worse – you accidentally respond to someone from the wrong address, moving the entire email trail into a mailbox in which you would never think to look for it. You’ll waste hours searching for some bit of information, just because it’s in the wrong inbox.

A Better Solution
One email address. Two, at the most.
Now before you get all tangled up in how you might accomplish this feat, consider how much simpler would your life be if every email came and went from the same address. For most people, that would significantly simplify their lives.
So think about which emails get the most traffic, and which you could conceivably do away with. Rarely used addresses, or those used only for third-party notifications can simply be deleted. You’ll just need to update your notifications email at Twitter, Facebook, and other services.

Addresses that do receive email can easily be forwarded right from your hosting account, so you can collect all your email in one spot.

Gmail_logoGmail’s Answer to Multiple Email Addresses
If you’re not comfortable ditching all those extra addresses just yet, Gmail has an answer for you. Your Gmail account comes built with the ability to send and receive email from up to five other POP3 accounts. That means that you can use a single Gmail interface to collect all your mail, and you can even set it up to reply to those messages using the same email address that received them. So you won’t confuse your clients by responding to their email from sookiebear@gmail.com instead of your.professional.name@gmail.com.

This is especially helpful if you set up an email for every domain you own, but the email address itself gets very little mail. Or if you like the idea of having a PayPal address for accounting purposes, but don’t want to have to log in to yet another email server (such as WebMail).

Even if you do decide to go the Gmail route, it’s still a good idea to pare your emails down to the bare necessities.
When you started your online business, it probably seems like a good idea (and maybe even necessary for organization) to have lots of email addresses. Now that you’re busy, though, all those mailboxes can easily become more of a pain to deal with than you ever imagined. And when it comes to getting your email under control, the first step is often deleting those unnecessary addresses.

Posted on

Never Limit Your Vision

I came across this post on my Brendon Burchard's Facebook page. It was so enlightening to me and it solidified why consider bringing to be one of the geniuses of our day. I just wanted to share this with you and please please please go visit his website. It is worth it.

Brendon writes: "Never limit the vision you have for your life based on your current circumstances or competencies. I found this picture of me back when I was bankrupt, having lost it all trying to figure out how to share my message with the world, sitting in my girlfriend's apartment where I had moved because I was broke and busted, the fold-out 'desk' borrowed from my mother's old sewing room, the dwelling so small that the bed was my only real working space and always piled high with bills and notes and fears.
 I had no reason to believe that I could one day live my dream as a writer and trainer; no reason to believe, I suppose, except that my heart told me it was my path, except that my mind invented dreams that felt so real, that faith said all the struggle and the hardship and the toil would be worth it. One night I watched my girlfriend walk into the bedroom and, trying not to disturb me or my papers, quietly slip beneath the covers.
 I saw my woman sleeping under the weight of my bills. I decided to get more committed in every area of my life; I decided to stop letting my small-business make me small minded; I decided to marry that girl. Years later there would be #1 New York Times bestsellers, stages with world leaders, millions of views and subscribers, and, finally, no more cheap noodle dinners.
 Please, my friends, believe in your heart and your voice and your mission no matter what, no matter how small it all feels now.
 Growth and greatness often come from those seemingly endless, fruitless days of discipline. Keep working, keep at it, believe."
 Brendon's  story sounds so much like the story of my life. Again go find him and  don't ever limit your vision.
Posted on

Organizational Values

Today I am spending some time creating organizational values. Essentially, what is it that my organization values. So many times in an organization there is what we call an undercover culture. A culture that has developed but does not really align itself with the values of the organization. This usually happens because the leader has not taken time to really define the values of the organization. Although it seems daunting the process is simple.  Here is how I do it.

1. Grab a White Board.

2. Sit with my team - and ask these questions. What is most important to you for this company? What are your "not going theres" ? what do you admire most about the work we do?  What do you want our clientele to take away from this organization?  What do you want employees to take away from this organization?

3. Write everything down - It is important that you record all the ideas.

After following this process, I will let the suggestions sit on the board for a few days. This allows it to really get deep in the psyche. I then sit with the suggestions and craft a values statement. Once we agree it becomes the Organizational Values. Now this process works for me and the companies/ministries I have consulted. Do you have Organizational Values? How do you set-up your Organizational Values?