People often ask me, “So Bud, what’s so special about you and your coaching?”

That’s a great question and one you should ask if you’re considering working with me.

I’ve spent my entire working life in the people development field – the first 15 as a trainer for some very large US companies and the last 20 as a success coach, motivational speaker and author and blogger.

I’ve built a million dollar business from scratch.  I’ve written five books on personal success and four on how to run a successful business.  I received an EdD (Doctor of Education) from Harvard.

I’ve coached all kinds of people at different stages of their careers: C level executives, Vice Presidents, Directors, Managers and individual contributors.

Most important, I’m passionate about helping other people achieve the personal and profession success they want and deserve.

I’ve been studying success and successful people for over 20 years.   During that time, I’ve developed my recipe for success.  It has four main ingredients.

• Clarity
• Commitment
• Confidence
• Competence

Clarity

Clarity of purpose and direction is fundamental to your professional success.  It all begins with a clear picture of how you define professional success.

When I was 25, if you asked me what I wanted to be doing when I was 50, I would have told you, “Running a one person consulting, coaching and speaking business from my house.”  Guess what?  I have been running a one person consulting, coaching and speaking business from my house every since 1988.  My clarity of purpose propelled me toward my goal.

I have a friend who is a serial entrepreneur.  He started a software business when he was 27.  He built it up and sold it to a major computer manufacturer by the time he was 35.  He has since started and sold four other companies.  His clarity of purpose lies in the challenge of creating something new, building it into a viable, sustainable business and then moving on.

I have another friend who recently retired as the Executive VP of Human Resources for a Fortune 50 company.  We were chatting a few days ago.  She told me that when she was in college, she decided that she was going to join a good company and work her way up the ladder.  She took an entry level HR job with a company she liked.  It took her over 25 years, but she eventually became the most senior HR person in that company.  Her clarity of purpose and definition of success was different from mine, but she reached her goal.

My second friend told me that her son has yet a different definition of success.  He is not interested in climbing the corporate ladder, or in being an entrepreneur.  He wants an interesting job where he can contribute, but he doesn’t want to spend inordinate amounts of time at work.  He wants to spend as much time with his family as he can.  His definition of success is different from his mother.

All four of us are professional successes – according to our clarity of purpose.

There is no one correct definition of professional success.  There are as many definitions as there are people in this world.  Your definition of professional success is what’s right for you – not anyone else.  I would not have been happy building and selling a number of businesses in succession, climbing a corporate ladder or working for a large company in an individual contributor position.  However, as you can tell from the stories of the three people above, they were.  They knew what they wanted and they went after it.

That’s why defining your clarity of purpose is so important.  Your clarity of purpose provides both a foundation and launching pad for your professional success.  The old saying, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t know when you get there” is a cliché but true.  Getting clear on your personal definition of profession success is the first step to becoming a career and life success.

In my coaching, I can help you define your clarity of purpose.

Commitment

It’s simple, really. Success is all up to you, and me, and anyone else who wants it. We all have to take personal responsibility for our own success. I am the only one who can make me a success. You are the only one who can make you a success.

Stuff happens: good stuff, bad stuff, frustrating stuff, unexpected stuff.  Successful people respond to the stuff that happens in a positive way.  Humans are the only animals with free will.  That means we – you and me – get to decide how we react to every situation that comes up.  That’s why committing to taking personal responsibility for your personal and professional success is so important.

Personal responsibility means recognizing that you are responsible for your life and the choices you make. It means that you realize that while other people and events have an impact on your life, these people and events don’t shape your life. When you accept personal responsibility for your life, you own up to the fact that how you react to people and events is what’s important. And you can choose how to react to every person you meet and everything that happens to you.

The concept of personal responsibility is found in most writings on success. Stephen Covey’s first of the seven habits of highly effective people is, “Be proactive.” My friend John Miller’s book QBQ: the Question Behind the Question asks readers to pose questions like, “What can I do to become a top performer?”  John really believes that taking personal responsibility for your life and career is the key to professional success.

The other two keys to success – confidence and competence — work only if you are willing to take responsibility for your life and career. Commitment to personal responsibility is the foundation on which this model is built.

Personal responsibility means using this material once you learn it. I’ve written this book to provide you with useful information and knowledge on becoming a professional success.  But, as the U.S. Steel pencils my Dad brought home from work used to say, “Knowing is not enough.”

When I was a kid, I was really fascinating and puzzled by these pencils. “Knowing is not enough – what the hell does that mean?” I used to think. I spent hours struggling with that idea. I was too stubborn to ask a grown-up.

When I got to Penn State, I took Philosophy 101 my freshman year. We had to read Johann von Goethe. One day, as I was plowing through an assignment, I came across this quote: “Knowing is not enough, we must do. Willing is not enough, we must apply.”

Boy was I glad I took that course! It solved one of the profound mysteries of my childhood:  “Knowing is not enough.” As I take it, you have to take what you learn and use it, or what you’ve learned isn’t very valuable. That’s part of personal responsibility, using your knowledge to achieve your goals.

I will challenge you to take personal responsibility for your own success.

Confidence

I love stories. I think they are a very powerful way of making important points. Here’s one of my favorites about self confidence.

The business executive was deep in debt and could see no way out. Creditors were closing in on him. Suppliers were demanding payment. He sat on the park bench, head in hands, wondering if anything could save his company from bankruptcy.

Suddenly an old man appeared before him. “I can see that something is troubling you,” he said. After listening to the executive’s woes, the old man said, “I believe I can help you.”  He asked the man his name, wrote out a check, and pushed it into his hand saying, “Take this money. Meet me here exactly one year from today, and you can pay me back at that time.” Then he turned and disappeared as quickly as he had come.

The business executive saw in his hand a check for $500,000, signed by John D. Rockefeller, then one of the richest men in the world!  “I can erase my money worries in an instant!” he realized. But instead, the executive decided to put the uncashed check in his safe.

Just knowing it was there might give him the strength to work out a way to save his business. With renewed optimism, he negotiated better deals and extended terms of payment. He closed several big sales. Within a few months, he was out of debt and making money once again.

Exactly one year later, he returned to the park with the uncashed check. At the agreed-upon time, the old man appeared. But just as the executive was about to hand back the check and share his success story, a nurse came running up and grabbed the old man.

“I’m so glad I caught him!” she cried. “I hope he hasn’t been bothering you. He’s always escaping from the rest home and telling people he’s John D. Rockefeller.”  And she led the old man away by the arm.

The astonished executive just stood there, stunned. All year long he’d been wheeling and dealing, buying and selling, convinced he had half a million dollars behind him. Suddenly, he realized that it wasn’t the money, real or imagined, that had turned his life around. It was his newfound self-confidence that gave him the power to achieve anything he went after.

As nice as this story is, I doubt if it is actually true. However, like a lot of fables, it makes a great common sense point about personal and professional success. If you believe in yourself and your success, you are likely find ways to make that belief come true. Think about it.

If you want to become self confident you need to do three things.  1) Become an optimist. Learn from, and then forget yesterday’s mistakes.  Focus on tomorrow’s achievements.  2) Face your fears and take action.  Action cures fear.  Procrastination and inaction compound it.  Failure is rarely fatal.  Do something, anything that will move you closer to achieving your goals.  3) Surround yourself with positive people.  Build a network of supportive friends.  Jettison the negative people in your life.

I can help you build your self confidence.

Competence

If you want to succeed in this life, you have to be competent.  You need to develop a universal set of skills.  These skills are:

• Creating Positive Personal Impact,
• Performing in an Outstanding Manner,
• Communication,
• Interpersonal Competence.

Let’s take a look at each of these skills sets…

Positive Personal Impact

All successful people create positive personal impact.  Positive personal impact is like charisma, only more so.  People gravitate towards people with positive personal impact.  When you create positive personal impact other people want to be around you.  They want to work with you.  They want to be your friend.

People with positive personal impact develop and nurture their personal brand.  They are impeccable in their presentation of self.  They know and follow the basic rules of etiquette.  If you master these three keys, you’ll be able to create positive personal impact.

I have a model of customer service that I use with my consulting clients. It begins from the premise that after any interaction your customers rate you. The people in your life R.A.T.E. you too. You can use your R.A.T.E.ing to build positive personal impact.  It works like this…

• R stands for Responsiveness;
• A stands for Assurance;
• T stands for Tangibles; and
• E stands for Empathy.

If you notice, only one of the four points in the model – tangibles – is what you actually do for or deliver to the people in your life. The other three are the emotional measures by which people judge you. These emotional measures are at least as important as the tangibles you deliver, especially when it comes to creating positive personal impact.

You have to deliver the tangibles. You must produce results. That’s the cost of a ticket to the personal and professional success sweepstakes.

However, you have to pay attention to the other three factors – responsiveness, assurance, and empathy – if you’re going to make a positive personal impact while you’re performing. Let’s look at each of these three in detail.

Responsiveness — You have to ensure that the people in your life see you as someone who is willing to help, someone who understands what needs to be done and is willing to do it. Other people need to think that you will give them what they want, when they want it, and in a manner that they can use it.

Assurance — You have to be able to convey trust and confidence. People need to feel that you are going to deliver. To do this, you must be very knowledgeable about the people in your life and their needs and wants. You need to be clear on what you can offer them to help them meet their goals. You need to ensure that they are confident that you will do what you say you will do.

Empathy — The people in your life must perceive you as an individual who understands, cares about, and pays attention to their needs. To do this, you need to be willing to walk a mile in your customers’ shoes. You have to demonstrate to them that you are aware of and sensitive to their unique and individual needs.

The common sense point here is simple. To make a positive personal impact, you must do more than deliver results, look good, and act graciously. You have to be seen by others as a person who is responsive to their requests. You have to build trust with these individuals, and you need to demonstrate that you understand their needs and issues.

Outstanding Performance

All successful people are outstanding performers.  It’s the price of admission to the success club. However, don’t make the mistake of thinking that performance alone will get you where you want to go.  Performance is but one of the seven characteristics of successful people.  Performance is important, but it alone will not guarantee your success.

There are several common sense points associated with outstanding performance.  First, become a lifelong learner.  Keep learning and growing.  Second, set high goals – and then meet or exceed them.  Use milestones to breaking your goals into manageable chunks.  They’ll be easier to achieve this way.  Third, get organized.  This will help you manage your life, time and stress.  Figure out an organizing system that works for you and stick with it.

When it comes to outstanding performance, one of my favorite quotes comes from Louis Pasteur, the inventor of the pasteurization process and widely considered the father of modern microbiology. I really like what he has to say about tenacity: “Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.”

Here’s a story about a tenacious person who is very close to me. My wife, Cathy, is a volunteer reading tutor at one of Denver’s public schools. She’s been doing this for several years now. She enjoys the children, and she feels that she is making a difference through her volunteer work.

As August turns into September, she always gets excited about another school year and another group of kids. One year, the school where she volunteers lost its Volunteer Program Coordinator, so they were a little slow getting volunteer assignments done. This didn’t stop Cathy. She made a few phone calls to the school asking when they wanted her to begin. She got some vague promises but nothing definite. Finally, she went to the school and basically arranged her own assignment. As usual, she loved the kids and was happy to be back at “her school.”

The common sense point of the Pasteur quote and Cathy’s tenacity in her volunteer work is simple. Outstanding performers are tenacious in pursuing their goals. They do what it takes to be successful. In Cathy’s case, it took driving to the school and being willing to seem like a bit of a pain in the butt to an administrator. However, she was willing to do that because her desire to succeed as a reading volunteer was strong. The third graders with whom she reads are better off for it.

Remember Cathy’s story the next time you run into a frustrating obstacle. Be tenacious. You’ll be surprised at how often you’ll reach your goal.

The Dali Lama has some interesting things to say about outstanding performance.  “ One can be deceived by three types of laziness: the laziness of indolence, which is the wish to procrastinate; the laziness of inferiority, which is doubting your capabilities; and the laziness that is attached to negative actions, or putting great effort into non-virtue.”

I really like this quote because it drives home an important point about taking personal responsibility for becoming an outstanding performer. The Dalai Lama doesn’t let us off the hook by saying, “I didn’t think I could do it.” Instead, he says that doubting our abilities is a form of laziness. That’s some tough love!

And, if you think about it, he is right. All too often, we let ourselves off the hook by saying, “I’m not going to try that, because I don’t think I can do it.” This is being lazy. “I can’t do it, so I won’t even try.” As I read these words out loud, they sound pretty lame. Agree?  If you do, you’ll stop using lack of self confidence as an excuse for not doing the work it takes to become an outstanding performer.

Dynamic Communication

The life of a business traveler, especially one like me who travels to New York City regularly, appears glamorous at first glance. People always ask me if I’ve eaten at famous restaurants like 21 or the latest hot spot they’ve read about in Travel and Leisure.

Most often when I’m in New York and don’t have a business dinner, I dine on Chinese food delivered to my hotel room from the Cottage Noodle Shop. I’ve never even been in this restaurant, even though I have eaten their food at least 100 times. I am particularly fond of the Cottage Noodle Shop’s Hot and Sour Soup, Vegetable Dumplings, and Lo Mein. If you’re ever in New York, check them out. They’re in the 40s on Ninth Avenue.

Once when I ordered from the Cottage Noodle Shop, my fortune cookie read, “Your talents will be recognized and suitably rewarded.” I was happy with this fortune, but it made me think.

My talents, your talents, everyone’s talents will be recognized and rewarded if we develop and use our communication skills. There are three types of communication skills critically important for career and life success: 1) Conversation skills; 2) Writing skills; and 3) Presentation skills.

You need to develop each of these skills if you want to have your talents recognized.

There are a few common sense points associated with becoming a dynamic communicator.  Become a good conversationalist by listening.  Take an active interest in other people and what they’re saying.  Show them you’re listening by asking appropriate follow up questions to what they say.  Write in a manner that communicates well.  In general, this means, being clear, concise and easily readable.  The best way to make sure your writing is readable is to read it aloud before sending it.  Finally, preparation is the most important key to doing a good presentation.  If you follow the five steps I’ve laid out above, you’ll be able to develop and present great talks.

Communication skills are not just for entrepreneurs. Here’s an example of how my communication skills helped me get noticed when I was working for a very large company in the 1980s.  One day I happened to get on an elevator with the president of the largest and most profitable division in the company. I was going to be conducting a workshop at his division’s upcoming national sales meeting. I introduced myself to him and told him that I was looking forward to his sales meeting. We chatted briefly in the elevator and for a few minutes when we got to the lobby. He invited me to his office to talk some more. As a result of that conversation, I became a leadership consultant to him and his leadership team.

Dynamic communication skills are also important for building your professional network. Networking is an important but often overlooked communication skill. It is helpful when you are looking for a job, but it is even more important when you are happy with your situation. All people who are professional success build and nurture a strong networks.

Networking is an important skill. Successful people have large networks. They have people they can call to help them. They know they can call on these people because these people know they can call on them.  That’s the real secret of networking – look to help others, not just to find out how they can help you.

Writing is another necessary tool that helps get your skills noticed. When I was in high school, I was the editor of my yearbook. To raise funds to cover the cost of our yearbook, we sold ads. There were a lot of factories in the town where I grew up. In the past, the yearbook staff had never approached these factories to place ads in the yearbook. I wrote sales letters to all of the plant managers. We got several full page ads from those letters.

One of the plant managers wrote back, asking if I would come to see him. I got dressed up in my one and only suit and went to his office at the appointed time. When I arrived, his secretary buzzed him to let him know I was there. I heard her say, “No, sir, he sent a student.” When I walked in to his office and introduced myself, he was surprised. He told me that my sales letter was so well written that he thought I was the teacher who was the yearbook sponsor.

Two years later, I was looking for a summer job after my first year of college. The market was tight. I called this man. He remembered me, and I got a job.

Presentation skills may present the biggest opportunity for getting your talents noticed. As I have always worked in training and development, I had to develop and hone my presentation skills at a young age. This wasn’t too difficult for me because I never suffered from stage fright. I used to compete in speech contests when I was in high school. I was the emcee for my high school talent show. I was on the radio in college.

Just a few months ago, I did a talk for a local chamber of commerce. As it so happens, the Sheriff’s department is a member of this chamber. The Sheriff himself happened to be there that day. He liked my talk. About a week later, I got a call from his training office. The Sheriff asked him to get in touch with me to conduct some supervisory training for their sergeants. I never would have gotten this business if it weren’t for the notice I received from a talk at that chamber meeting.

Interpersonal Competence

Interpersonal competence is the fifth key of career and life success.  No matter how self confident you are, how good you are at creating positive personal impact, how great a performer or dynamic a communicator you are, you will not succeed if you are not interpersonally competent.

Pat Wiesner is a friend.  He is the publisher of Colorado Business. A while back he wrote a great column entitled “The Biggest Management Sin of All: How to Lose Your Job or at least Deserve to Lose It.”

The biggest sin?  Demeaning people. Pat says, “My belief is that if we get caught shouting at people, demeaning them in any way, we should be fired. On the spot.”

I agree. And this holds for everyone – not just people in leadership and management positions. Raising your voice and demeaning people is not only poor leadership, it is one of the hallmarks of interpersonally incompetent people.

Belittling, intimidating, or otherwise demeaning people is not only nasty, it is destructive to their self esteem and self confidence. Pat says, “Once you have made someone feel really negative about himself, how long would it take to reverse that feeling?  Pretty tough to do.” Interpersonally competent people help others build – not destroy – their self confidence.

Interpersonally incompetent people often seem to feel that the best way to feel good about themselves is to make others feel bad about themselves. That’s why they often engage in demeaning and bullying behavior.

This is simply not true. The title of one of the first self-help books I ever read – published by Thomas Harris in 1969, I’m OK, You’re OK – says it best. Interpersonally competent people come from an “I’m OK, You’re OK” place. Bullies and demeaning people come from an “I’m OK, You’re Not OK” place.

Interpersonally competent people realize that we’re all OK. They work hard to meet people where they are and to build strong relationships with all of the people in their lives.

Treat people with kindness and respect. Help them enhance their feelings of self esteem. Do what you can to build their self confidence. If you do, you’ll be known as an interpersonally competent person – and interpersonally competent people are welcome wherever they go.

Interpersonal competence will help you create rich relationships that last a lifetime.  In The Little Black Book of Connections, Jeffrey Gitomer offers the best piece of common sense advice I’ve ever seen when it comes to relationships:

“Everyone wants to be rich. Although most people think being rich is about having money, rich is a description for everything but money. Rich relationships lead to much more than money. They lead to success, fulfillment and wealth.”

As you probably expect there are a few common sense points associated with interpersonal competence too.  Understand yourself.  Think about what makes you tick.  When you are working with someone else, think about what makes him or her tick.  If he or she is different from you, decide what you need to do to be better able to communicate with him or her.  Second, do things for other people – and don’t keep score.  Good things will come your way, often from unexpected sources.  Build relationships by be willing to do for others whether or not they are willing to do for you.  Finally, when you are in conflict, look for where you agree with the other person.  Use these small places of agreements to build a mutually acceptable resolution to your conflict.

I can help you develop the competencies you need in order to become a personal and professional success

That’s my four ingredient secret success sauce.

• Clarify What Success Means to You
• Commit to Taking Responsibility for Your Success
• Become Self Confident
• Get Competent
  • Create Positive Personal Impact
  • Become an Outstanding Performer
  • Become a Dynamic Communicator
  • Become Interpersonally Competent

As you’ve seen, it’s applied common sense.  The secret in creating your own success sauce lies in how you combine these four ingredients into a zesty, robust concoction that will lead to your professional success.  I can help you create your personal and unique success sauce.  I’ll bring the ingredients; you bring a burning desire to succeed.  Together we’ll whip up a kick ass sauce that will put you on the road to personal and professional success.

If this common sense approach to career and life success appeals to you please get in touch with me for a free, no obligation coaching session.  I’ll spend some time answering your questions.  You’ll get a chance to see if I am the right coach for you.