When you get right down to it, nobody likes tired people. You cannot count on tired people. Tired people may not be there when you want or need their help. Tired people lower the energy bar…others tend to mirror their lack of energy…so when tired people enter the room the atmosphere becomes de-energized. Tired people may not finish the tasks at hand…they may run out of energy before the job is done. Tired people may quit too quickly, quit too easily…giving up before the goal is achieved…letting down co-workers.

There’s a long list of reasons why nobody likes tired people.

In addition, for a variety of reasons, Nobody Likes:

• Lazy people
• People who lie, cheat, or steal
• Loud people
• Greedy people
• Demanding people
• People who boast
• People who complain 
• Angry people
• Intolerant people
• People who know it all
• Disagreeable people
• Argumentative people
• Holier-than-thou people
• Smug people
• Condescending people
• Arrogant people

With a little more thought we could add a number of other off-putting personality traits/operating styles.

When you stop to think of it, there sure are lots of ways to annoy other people and put them off.

Putting one another off: that's part of the human condition.

This leads to two conclusions:

1. We need thick skin. We will, at least from time to time, exhibit off-putting behaviour. Others will be put off by our behaviour and they will make that clear to us by expressing criticism. We must be prepared for that. When it arrives, we must keep our ego in check. We must accept that as part of the human condition. We must focus on desired goals rather than undesired behaviour [on the route to those goals].
2. We need to fight the urge to criticize others. We are susceptible to Attribution Bias, which distorts our view of reality and our view of other people's frailties and errors. We cannot allow ourselves to get bogged down in petty-opinion conflicts. We must focus on goals...we must focus on the Why! We must help others perform the tasks that lead to successful performance.

That concept holds true if you want to be a successful business leader.

It isn't a question of patience. It's a question of competence. It's about what it takes to develop competence.

Competence is about 4 things: 

1. innate talent
2. opportunities to try, fail, & learn
3. specialized knowledge and
4. skills, gained through practice 

These 4 things define Strengths & Performance Mastery.

These 4 things require time: Malcolm Gladwell claims it takes 10,000 hours...that said, patience is a necessary ingredient...but patience is only a means to the end, which is competence.

And - it's about more than strengths and performance mastery [competence]. 

At the bottom line. it's about leadership, including: 

• attitude
• values
• vision
• strategy 
• tactics 
• influence and 
• inspiration

***

Inspire People

Influence Action

Grow Wealth!

Most people fail because they quit. 

Most people quit because they get frustrated. 

Most people get frustrated because they don't know how to measure success. 

Most people don't know how to measure success because they never took the time to think about how they might be able to accomplish that measurement.

Most people don't understand the value in breaking work down into bite-sized tasks, which can be measured.

When we break success into bite-sized pieces of action we can measure it. 

When we measure actions we can see small successes. 

When we see small successes we can celebrate them. 

When we celebrate small successes we self motivate. 

When we self motivate we increase our chances of future successes.

When we measure and understand our small successes we see they are accumulating and we gain confidence.

When we gain confidence we increase the likelihood of ultimate success...achievement of our long-term Goals...attainment of our Vision. 

This is the sort of logic that allows us to understand the value embedded in goals, specifically when vivid long-term vision is built upon measurable short-term actions.

first version posted on Oct 21, 2014