I have mixed feelings about willpower and it’s importance in goal setting and achievement. The main reason is that if you have a clearly articulated goal, outcome or dream you want to achieve that really excites you, you don’t need any willpower to get it done.

Willpower to me is an excuse for impotent goal setters.

Without exciting goals you would need willpower to get motivated.

For example, I don’t smoke. It takes no willpower for me to avoid picking up a cigarette, cigar or pipe. The same is true for overeating. I value my vitality, health and wellbeing so much that I don’t overeat or abuse alcohol or other ‘substances’.

If you’re struggling with willpower and are trying to harness more of it – you’re probably heading in the wrong direction.

Focus on your goals, dreams and aspirations instead.

When you do, you’ll find an unquenchable thirst for achievement that will create relentless enthusiasm within you and you’ll be of the same point of view that willpower has no place in genuine and authentic achievement that is congruent with your life’s purpose.

Give it some serious thought the next time you think you’re lacking in willpower – or when you see someone with very little of it.

Share these thoughts with them because that’s what someone did with me when I was a teenager and it changed my life and perspective forever.

I know what you’re thinking… This is just another motivational play on words. It’s not. I mean it, I’m dead serious.

This is one of the most important time management lessons I learned early on in my career. When I got out of university and the whole world lay in front of me and my career was just starting, I wanted to ‘do it all’…

The problem is – there are only 168 hours in a week.

So what’s a driven, ambitious go-getter to do?

Simple: Apply the concept of Concentration Of Focus. Do one thing and only that one thing until you master it and can do it exceptionally well BEFORE you start something else.

Easier said than done when you have multiple interests and a lot of enthusiasm!

One of the strategies I use to ‘park ideas and concepts’ is to write them down and explore them in my journals. By writing them down and adding to them whenever I get a flash of inspiration helps me remain on focus with my current, primary goal or outcome.

I’ve achieved a lot by anyone’s standards and yes, I have achieved multiple goals simultaneously, but each one was accomplished with laser-focused discipline within the context of this philosophy.

I see it all too often, people flip flopping all over the place, trying to run a business, make money online, trading stocks, buying real estate with NO FOCUS OR DISCIPLINE.

They attend all the free weekend events and seminars hoping for the next big thing and off they go in 1, 2 or 3 different directions.

They are called DABBLERS.

I could go on and on about this, but I’ll save you the rant.

All I want to say is what’s in this blog post title – to get more done, you have to do less.

That means you need to cherry pick what you’re going to put your time and effort behind UNTIL you succeed at it.

What you’ll realise is that you might not be willing to do what it takes and you’ll need to switch to something else.

That will help you to better select your outcomes and goals.

One thing is for sure, if you don’t have Concentration Of Focus, you’re sub-optimising your results.

If you want more guidance on subjects like this, I offer a wide range of Business Coaching and Mentoring Services.

Motivation is one of the many subjects we discussed at the recent 1 Day Mini MBA event in Sydney. The list below is interesting because it dovetails into the discussion we had concerning motivational factors versus what Dr Herzberg refers to as hygiene factors (which can only serve to demotivate).

Most managers don’t understand the difference between simple concepts like this which is why they can be so ineffective as so-called leaders, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Today, I wanted to share with you a recent poll done by The Australia Wide Personnel group on LinkedIn.

Here is how engineering candidates ranked the 7 most important factors when considering a new job that was sent to me by Ray Keefe, one of our multi-award winning clients (and an engineer).

The  7 most important factors engineers consider
when assessing a new job offer

1. Work which requires imagination
2. Challenge of the role
3. Work environment
4. Salary & benefits
5. Employer’s reputation
6. Flexible work arrangements
7. Location

What do you think of the list?

Is it accurate or just what researchers want to hear?

Most management consultants promote asking for staff or employee feedback. You might want to re-think that advice after reading the responses obtained at an airline repair division. Remember, it takes a college degree to fly a plane but only a high school diploma to fix one.

After every flight, Qantas pilots fill out a form, called a ‘Gripe Sheet’ which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems; document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the Gripe Sheets before the next flight.

Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humour.

Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by Qantas pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers.

By the way, Qantas is the only major airline that has never, ever, had a fatal accident.

P: Left inside main tyre almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tyre.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit.

P: Dead bugs on windshield.
S: Live bugs on back-order.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That’s what friction locks are for.

P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you’re right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.
S: Took hammer away from midget.

You might have noticed a theme in the last few blog posts – toxic staff… You might think I am anti “employees”, but you’d be wrong. The problem does not lie solely with staff, but with who hired them in the first place.

Once someone has been hired, it’s increasingly harder to get rid of them, which is why you need to get rid of them as soon as you realise it’s the right decision. I see it over and over again – toxic staff destroying small businesses.

• Case #1: A software company had an unproductive ‘receptionist’ who didn’t want to handle a 50% increase in sales. Instead of moving her aside (and possibly getting rid of her), the owner CHOSE to keep her on. Within 12 months, sales went from a robust +50% crashing to an unprofitable -20%. The secretary was then happily doing less and getting paid more with her annual CPI-based raise. How does that make sense?
• Case #2: Service business needs to have field staff convert sales as part of their job description. Several field-based sales strategies and dedicated tools are developed tested and refined to maximise ROI on client call-outs. Over 6 months, these are  dropped by staff because they unilaterally decide they don’t want to be “in sales”. Sales plummet 40% and field staff go from full-time work to part-time schedules. Everyone loses.
• Case #3: Consulting company gets online strategies humming with more leads and contracts than ever, tripling sales. Now comes the challenge of delivery… No one steps up to take the lead. Consultant now working 80+ hours/week because she can’t find anyone willing to take up the slack and increase their salary by $50,000+ because they either have no drive or no time availability (external commitments she knew about when she hired them). Because she never hired for future growth, eventually sales slip back down to essentially a salary with marginal tax benefits. She should have kept her “real job” – at least then she wouldn’t be burdened with the administrative headaches!

What are the lessons to be learned from this?

• Hire the best who will get you from where you are to where you want to be.
• Once you hire them, train and develop them as much and as quickly as you can. Get their buy-in, don’t just give them FREE training, seminars and programs.
• Pay them according to their RESULTS, not the time and effort they put in, because that reinforces and rewards unproductive behaviour.
• Get rid of unproductive staff as soon as you can and hire BETTER replacements based on lessons learned.
• Have the courage to make the tough decisions – NOT making a decision is a decision made by someone else.

The saddest part of having poor (or terrible) staff is that they eventually leave and that’s when it hits home… How much damage they’ve done – by then it’s too late.

Today’s blog post is quick and easy. Letting someone go is never easy, but every once in a while, it’s necessary. Here is a quick way to know if you should let someone go.

Ask yourself this simple question:

“If I knew then what I know now about this person (all the good and bad), would I make them a job offer?”

If the answer is definitely “No!” then you have your answer.

Note to employee: If you are not sure of your current employer’s answer to this question, you’re on VERY THIN ICE. Shape up or ship out!

In future posts, I will delve into the cancerous implications of bad staff – something I usually avoid discussing, but is increasingly important when you adopt Exponential Mindset Thinking™ and Boundless Opportunity Thinking™. Neither can be fostered in a toxic environment of negativity.

More on that in the weeks and months to come.

For me, there are only two types of employees: Those who are assets and those who are liabilities. Wonder which one you are? Take this simple test:

When asked to do something, do you say “yes, then maybe, then no” or do you respond with “no, then maybe and then yes” (reluctantly)?

If you are predisposed to the first response, you’re a company’s greatest asset and if you’re the second, I hope your CV is current because I would fire you and suggest your boss fires you.

I see it all the time, small businesses with employees who are liabilities and obstacles to growth.

Employers, think about your staff – which category do they fall into?

You need to have the courage to get rid of the bad apples ASAP.

Otherwise stop beating yourself up if you’re working harder than ever, making less…

With no, maybe, yes staff, you’re dead in the water.

There simply is no room in today’s competitive environment to survive with a no-can-do attitude.

It’s like a cancer that kills you one response at a time.

Sorry to be blunt, but y’know what? Someone’s got to tell you.

Want to try to change someone from a liability to an asset – give it your best shot and then post a comment on this blog – I’d love to hear about it because it’ll be a FIRST in my 20+ years of coaching, consulting and advising.

Australia’s intelligence is dropping. Not the general intelligence, but a specialised type of intelligence that is essential for Australia’s economic and general prosperity.

It’s a drop in the natural and intuitive comprehension of technical systems. For years it has been implicitly assumed by educators that engineering students have this comprehension. Even though this is really no longer the case, there has been no major change in the education (primary, secondary and tertiary) system to compensate.

To many of us, this might not seem like a major issue. However, without well-trained engineers (and other technologists), Australia won’t be in a position to develop the new technologies that make it easier, faster and cheaper to do things. When it becomes easier to do anything (travelling through a city, making a product, building a house or sending information electronically, for example), it naturally becomes more affordable.

And those who know how to make it easier not only improve the wealth of society, but are soon in a financially better situation themselves. The value of engineering – and its effective education – to a country is obvious once you think about it.

Nevertheless, because of the drop in the average comprehension of technical systems within our society and no effort to account for it, we cannot hope to produce the quality of engineers that we once did.

This started more than a decade ago.  Clint Steele recalls a lecturer of his about to use a component of a car to explain a phenomenon, but then catching himself and making the comment that ”students don’t work on their cars the way they used to”.

It is harder these days to work on your car or to fix your appliances or garden equipment. These days things just aren’t made to be repaired.

Obviously, the typical exposure to the inner workings of technology that the average Australian can expect growing up is reducing.

In his article, Mr Steele reveals a division where the cars are made of paper. Their design is remarkable, but because the students build the car by simply putting the parts together, they gain insufficient technical expertise of how the car was actually engineered. In other words, they gain less technical aptitude because they are removed from the creative process of engineering.

Without exposure to technology and how it works, young Australians will neither develop an interest that will motivate them to pursue a related career or develop an intuitive understanding that will let us develop the excellent engineers that are so vital to Australia’s future.

For some time, we relied on country students (who gained the required insight from working on farm equipment) and the rare students who maintained an interest in Lego or Meccano to an age that some would consider unhealthy. But these students are becoming rarer.

This reduced interest means students don’t consider engineering until later in high school, and often don’t take the ideal subjects in their final years (physics, chemistry and mathematics). The result is that the entry standards for engineering courses are reduced, and exacerbate the problems already mentioned.

Teaching technical skills in engineering degrees is too late; without the early interest in technology, students just won’t develop the interest and motivation that will encourage them to select the ideal subjects for an engineering degree, let alone the intuition essential for excellent engineers.

If we don’t take this aspect of education just as seriously, Australia will struggle to remain competitive.

That’s why my blogs, programs and events are so vital for engineers to consider – to maintain and further develop the highly sought after skills that employers are willing to pay a premium for.

I come from a family that valued higher education, hard work and integrity. I can’t say that it’s all that common these days.

One of the foundational principles I was brought up with was the understanding of the hierarchy shown below. This Professional Mastery Blog is all about helping you migrate from having ‘just a job’, to developing a great career, accelerating in your profession and ultimately finding your calling – the reason you’re here and the only way you get to feed your spirit living the dream life you’ve always wanted.

It’s what I describe as

“living a life of revolution by design
rather than evolution by default
to avoid extinction by stagnation” — Dr Marc Dussault

From Just A Job To Finding Your Calling

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