This week’s Dirk Schlimm quote:

“The fact is that many powerful people successfully overcome conventional wisdom and have the resources to keep their initiatives alive. Most important, one must accept as fact that outright dismissal of the genius is rarely an effective strategy for dealing with their ideas.”

Why?

Why can many powerful people overcome conventional wisdom, keep their initiatives alive, maintain concentration and focus, muster enough energy and ultimately succeed in achieving their lofty goals?

There is no quick, easy & simple answer to this question. However, given enough time most intelligent people can obtain the knowledge required to identify many of the components of the answer. And, if people read Dirk’s book then they will save themselves a lot of research and thinking as they come up with those components of business-leadership success.

Here are a few examples of the components:

Persistence/Perseverance: here’s a thought post on this topic

The Eighth Step Toward Riches - or - The First Mental Trap?

Energy/Drive: here’s a thought tweet on this topic

Energy is primal. Your energy is your gift. How are you making the best use of it? 

Goal/Achievement Orientation: here’s a thought post on this topic

5 Thoughts About Achievers & Achievements

Pleasing [enough] Personality: here’s a thought post on this topic 

Prevailing Moods & Gauging Character

Technical Competence: here’s a thought tweet on this topic

There's a reason the words confidence and competence have a similar ring to them.

For a month now, I have been writing short thought posts sharing quotes from Dirk Schlimm, who will be CFFB's special guest and keynote speaker on April 26th.

This week's quote from Dirk's book:

“And the fact is that powerful people are often desirous and capable of a large spectrum of contribution; they are not just a “genius”, but a genius universalis.”

So, the powerful people Dirk is talking about are universal geniuses...geniuses with broad and deep capabilities.

Over the years, I have written about such people. Here are a couple of examples, which shed light on the value we will obtain when we understand the wisdom Dirk will share with us on April 26th: 

• Entrepreneurs have an innate talent: moving back and forth between narrow and wide focus, identifying opportunities and digging deeply...this thought post talks about the rare gift of seeing the big/strategic picture and specific details of how to address opportunities and problems at the same time. This rare gift is possessed by all successful entrepreneurs.

• When we see these gifted entrepreneurs/powerful people in action, we have choices on how we interact with them. For example, we can accept their unique strengths and choose to help them. Or, we can criticize their shortcomings and choose to undermine their efforts and even fight them. I favour understanding powerful people's strengths and complementing their strengths with our strengths. To accomplish this, we must control the 'littlenesses in our natures'. Here's a thought post with more details - 'Controlling the common littlenesses of human nature'.

Here's another quote from Dirk Schlimm:

“The genius, who sees opportunity with outside-the-box ideas, gets easily frustrated if he or she feels surrounded by others who only see obstacles. A powerful person with a big idea is likely to feel that he or she is right and will grow impatient with naysayers.”

This quote triggers some questions...

Do you know many people who think of themselves as innovative/creative thinkers? Do you know people who consider themselves out-of-the-box thinkers while you see them under dimmer lighting?

Do you know many people who get frustrated when other people inject obstacles? How do you feel when others naysay when you raise what you believe to be good ideas?

Spirited Leaders have a philosophy that can be summed up in 5 words: People Don't Like Receiving Criticism. We also say, "Constructive Criticism is an Oxymoron".

Now, we know some thick-skinned people can accept and respond well to criticism...for these rare few, constructive criticism is not an oxymoron. However, implicit in Dirk's quote, it is highly unlikely people who possess and exhibit a level of genius - powerful people - will respond well to naysaying. So, when you find yourself facing such a powerful person consider better strategies than voicing criticism that will likely be received poorly.

If you must voice criticism then plan its delivery carefully.

Dirk explains how this can be done in his book.