Check out a few of the great posts on the myGreenlight blog this week:

• The Secret to Making Even One Small Change -Keith challenges you with a mission to find an accountability buddy.
  
• The Greenlight Highlight: A Client Experience Director's Success with Relationship Mastery  - How a myGreenlight alum achieved relationship mastery.
  
• Turn Your Volume Up - Which version of yourself should you share with your office?

Enjoy!

0 comments // In Site News and Happenings

Any smart employer chooses substance over style. But the truth is, it’s a lot easier to master style – so why not give yourself an easy leg up?

I’m very particular with my suits and tailoring, but I’m not a fashion expert. So I asked the team at the online style consultancy Haberdasher to share some wardrobe tips.

Men:

1. Nothing is more important with a suit than fit, so get it tailored. Here’s the formula: the jacket should be large enough so as not to crowd the shoulders, yet when buttoned, be smooth against the stomach.
2. Pants: If they’re correctly draped, they should create a clean line, visually, from the top of the suit all the way to the bottom.
3. Color: a dark conservative suit in navy, charcoal, or pinstripe with minimal pattern and texture exudes power and authority. For a friendlier look, olive, tans, and medium gray shades work well.
4. Shoes: Keep your shoes shined. It's one of the biggest things people look for in men's dressing.

Women:

1. Tailoring is equally important for women, particularly for suits.
2. Avoid crazy color patterns and overly bright hues – they can be distracting.
3. Jewelry is a great way to express personality, but less is more: A statement necklace can add dimension to a sharp suit, or simply a great timepiece or gold cuff bracelet.
4. Shoes: Keep them simple, and make sure they’re in good shape. If they’re scuffed or have worn-down heels, take them to the repair shop. If they can’t be rehabilitated, buy new ones.

Haberdasher is offering those of you that live in Los Angeles or Orange County (they are in the process of expanding to other major cities) the first hour free for any of its personal styling services. They only work with men right now, but plan to change that soon. Simply enter the code “Keith” at check out at www.haberdasherstyle.com.

6 comments // In Personal Branding

Charisma and leadership expert Olivia Fox Cabane created this mission to help get you ready for your next key business meeting.

Researchers at MIT's Media Lab found they could predict the outcome of negotiations, sales calls, and pitches with 87 percent accuracy without listening to a single word of content, just by analyzing people’s body language. In this mission you'll improve your body language to greatly increase your chances of success in any interaction.

Your mission: Prior to your next key meeting, close your eyes and remember, in as much detail as you can, a moment of great triumph. Make the memory as vivid as possible: see, hear, feel the emotions. Now, visualize the meeting you’re about to have, and imagine it going as well as possible. Feel the satisfaction, the excitement, the triumph. When you do this, a remarkable change will sweep over your body language, and you’ll enter the meeting broadcasting positive signals from head to toe. Why? Because our brain can’t distinguish imagination from reality, it will accept as momentarily “real” anything you imagine: this is the power of visualization. Trick yourself!

Pick your key meeting NOW and copy this mission into the agenda so that you don't forget. Report back and let us know: did it work? What changed for you? Have you noticed a new confidence in your communications and the way others react to you?

11 comments // In Meetings

Kevin Eikenberry is an author, speaker, trainer, consultant, and the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group. His new book, co-authored with Guy Harris, From Bud to Boss – Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership launched on February 15th.-KF

Three Transition Challenges and Suggestions by Kevin Eikenberry

When you move from bud to boss, from being an individual contributor to a team to being the leader of the team, you face three transitions.

The Transition of Relationships – When you change jobs, relationships change. You have a new boss, and even if you knew the boss before, it is different. If you were promoted from within you have significant changes in the dynamics with your former peers.

The Transition of Skills - When you get a new role, new skills are required. While this might be most noticeable as you first become a leader or supervisor, it is true in all promotions. The new job places new expectations on you which require new, enhanced or advanced skills.

The Transition of Perspective or Mindset - When you get promoted, you are invited to new meetings, are privy to new information, and must, if you want to be successful, think about the world in new ways. Of the three, this one is most often neglected or ignored. It is a more subtle transition, and when recognized will bring the biggest jump in performance.

So what are some ways to deal with or overcome these challenges?

Read more →

0 comments // In Career

Almost all of you, I’m willing to bet, have a “morning ritual.” But how many of you have created one by design? This is so important to individual effectiveness, for everyone but especially for entrepreneurs who work independently or at home.

I first became aware of the idea when interviewing a pair of salesmen for Who’s Got Your Back. Together, they did an early morning gym session followed by a brainstorm, a process they called “day-righting.” After about a month of this routine, the team told me they saw dramatic improvements in their business and their lives.

So, what’s your version of day-righting? I travel so much and keep such an erratic schedule that my day-righting isn’t so much a morning process as a daily commitment to an hour-long workout, usually a social one, wherever I am.

But for those of you who start every morning at a fairly reliable time, I guarantee that designing a morning ritual will help you be more relaxed, more focused, and more productive throughout the day.

Here are some ideas to play with:

• Exercise: You may not be a “morning exerciser” or have time for a full session, but even 10 minutes of movement (a high-intensity run or a yoga session) can prepare you for solid thinking.
• Journaling: Spend 5 minutes reflecting in writing on the past day/night, and 5 minutes jotting down your expectations for today.
• Meditation: I never found meditation to be practical as a daily activity until I went to Thailand, where I learned how to blend meditation and pre-existing routines. (Read about that here.)
• Breathing: Breathe in deeply. Hold it in. Exhale. Hold it out. Repeat 10 times. This itself is a form of meditation.

Please share your tips and “day-righting” best practices with the rest of the community.

32 comments // In Personal Development

I thought I'd post an oldie-but-goodie today.

What is your biggest networking jerk pet peeve?

5 comments // In Business Networking

January is the perfect time for focusing on making real change in our wealth, family, and career. Health too, but for so many people, that resolve only lasts about two weeks!

So let’s talk today about wealth. Here’s the most common question I’m getting:

“How do I earn more money?”

Well, you know my broad answer: Success through relationships. Whatever it is you want to do, build the network of relationships that will make it happen, and success will be yours.

But I also want to introduce you to someone who’s more directly focused on how to generate new income. He’s a New York Times best-selling author, he writes for over 300,000 people every month, and I think he’s the sharpest mind on helping you earn more money -- ethically and using the skills you already have.

His name is Ramit Sethi and I asked him to put together something special for you -- including a 67-page e-book on earning more money in 2011, available through this link.

Now, here’s Ramit:

Earning more via freelancing isn’t just for writers and designers. And it’s not only about “trading your time for money.”

Begin by thinking of how your skills can solve other people’s problems right now.  Write down the top three skills you have that can solve other people’s real problems today.

I have a framework called the “Pay Certainty” technique, which helps you determine whether
people are willing and able to pay for the service you can offer with those skills.

Introducing The "Pay Certainty" Framework

The problem with having so many ideas is you're just not sure which one will pay off. And nobody wants to spend 9 months pursuing a futile idea -- only to discover you've made $0.46 in Adsense money -- so we get stuck before we even start.

When you apply the "Pay Certainty" Framework, you can quickly "score" ideas to see if they have any real possibility of ever paying off -- BEFORE you ever spend any time developing them.

To hear how it works, click through to the rest of the post on the blog. Or, click here to get Ramit’s great e-book, “Finding Your First Profitable Idea” and other free resources.

Read more →

8 comments // In Entrepreneurship

This is a four-part series sharing lessons in joy, success, and even fidelity, that I brought back with me from a 2-week service trip to Thailand and Cambodia at the close of 2010.

Lesson #3: Your fate is not controlled by the prejudice of others.

Happiness is in you and those you choose to hear. I was reminded of this while visiting an organization called Baan Gerda. In Thailand, there is still a huge stigma against those with AIDS. Baan Gerda was founded by a German chemical executive stationed in Thailand, and started out as a place to take care of orphans dying of the disease – to give them love, respect, and comfort in their last days. These kids’ parents had all died from AIDS, and passed the disease to the children at birth.  Their relatives had typically dropped them at mass centers where they would die untouched, unloved, and uncared for.

Then as new drugs came along, Baan Gerda’s mission changed to helping find a way for these children to live beautiful, productive lives.  And they do.  The story is amazingly told in a movie yet to premier. You can watch a trailer of the film and buy the DVD at the website www.livingwiththetiger.com. (If you have any way to help the movie maker bring the movie and story to the world, let us know.)

As I met with Baan Gerda’s director, Mike Thomas, I was struck as he told me about the children’s active decision to lead normal lives despite so much prejudice against them. Their decision to look to a future when they can marry and live productively among society. How did they find the strength, I wondered?

I think I saw the answer as I watched these children in their daily routines.  They are actively serving others – they volunteer to help the elderly and they care for new children entering their home, many of whom are very sick because medicine hasn’t been available.  At so many orphanages, I’ve seen children saving their food to give to others. Generosity is healing, even when we have almost nothing.

These children gave me hope that we can stand tall in the face of others who’d like to tell us who we are and what we can become. I'm the first one to advocate listening to feedback, but I'm also the first to support your right to listen or not if you feel you have been thorough in your own self-assessment. Then find those who will feed you toward the direction your heart knows you should go, as the kids at Baan Gerda have.

Check out parts one and two.

3 comments // In Philanthropy, Uncategorized

Whether you know it or not, you are creating a brand for yourself online. If you haven’t given any thought to what you put on the Internet this may sound like bad news. As the proverb goes, “in crisis lies opportunity.” You can start right now to shape your online brand so that your best foot is forward – all the time.

Kate-Madonna Hindes’ RMA Masterclass is the ultimate beginner’s guide to getting the real you across online. Small business professionals and solopreneurs, this one is especially terrific for you.

Here are three tips from Kate-Madonna to help cultivate an authentic virtual presence that screams, Connect with me!

1. Humanize: People don’t want to read a ‘how to.’ They want to read opinions and hear about experiences and passions. Bring your own voice.
2. Resonate: Once you find your audience, never stop adapting your material. This is your platform to broadcast WHO you are.
3. Originate: A successful presence is original and filled with anecdotes and wit. The only thing that sets you apart? YOU.

Question: How often do you Google yourself, and are you happy with what you find? If not,  how are you fixing it?

0 comments // In Social Media

A few weeks ago I was speaking at an event and two fans of our work shared their personal concern, and I could tell disappointment, due to a series of marketing emails that were sent in the run up to the launch of the Relationship Masters Academy. One lady said that Who’s Got Your Back had saved her life and she felt she had to come and see me in person to understand what was the truth – was the real Keith the one in the book or the one in the pushy emails?

That feedback came in the midst of a week of emails, blogs, and tweets echoing the same. I’ve been thinking about the situation ever since. First up, I need to say I’ve been listening. I am truly grateful for such vocal generosity in letting me know that I let you down. Exactly the behavior we all need to practice with those we care for.  Thank you for caring.

So let’s talk about how a guy who believes in authenticity, candor, and generosity above all ends up sending out a bunch of crazy-Eddie "act now or else" give away-style emails to his fans and clients.
I think the details will just feel like excuses and are frankly not that important for the purposes of passing on what I’ve learned.  But basically, we hired outside experts who have made a science of how to hit the numbers in email campaigns.  And our team, new and under pressure to succeed right out of the box in the online consumer space, thought we could control and customize their techniques to avoid messaging that wasn’t in line with my identity. The campaign was a financial success and at the same time we utterly failed.  And I am sorry.

As you guys were quick to realize, those emails were just not me. Ironically, even though I didn’t craft them myself, they had a voice and tone that was weirdly reminiscent of that kid I once was at Yale who, in unfamiliar territory, tried to fit in by working hard NOT to be himself. Thank God that back then, enough of me shined through for many to forgive my occasional lapses – maybe some even understood where they came from – and ultimately look to me as a friend and leader. Well, I'm hoping for the same again.

I’ve always said that marketing is really just another word for relationship-building at a distance.  With e-mails it’s in a virtual environment, but it’s all about figuring out what people need and offering value (by giving generously), confidently treating people with the utmost of respect (by speaking authentically and candidly) so they will listen to the story you have to tell (sharing deeply and intimately), and finally, making clear promises and then keeping them (by being accountable).

Together with my team, we put together a list of things we learned in the last month, which anybody can benefit from. I’m also hoping you’ll contribute your own rules and insights in the comments section to benefit others.
-KF

Six Rules for Building Relationships Online -- And Off

1. Define your values clearly, both to yourself and to others. The older I get and more success I experience, the more I believe that we win when we authentically believe in what we are selling (products, ideas…) and represent ourselves in a way that makes us proud.  That said, the tough thing is that you have to be self aware enough to know exactly what you care about, and then do your best to be true to that.  This can be especially challenging when you’re growing and developing your business, but you can’t let others bend who you are. Commit to an ongoing process of self-evaluation.

[Click thru for the next five rules.]

Read more →

41 comments // In Giving Feedback