General Attitude

5 Tips To Survive The Holidays For the Work Addicted

/ Lorian Lipton / Leave a comment

Do you dread sitting hour after hour socializing with family and friends when there is so much work to be done?  I do. Holiday time is stressful, especially for those of us driven by delivering outcomes daily. In a work culture that can be all encompassing,  pushing for more of our time and energy every minute of every day, many of us suffer from a work-life imbalance. The good news is that the holidays are a perfect time to practice taking back control and learning how to relax.

I find turning my head off, shutting down before all my work is complete, leaving things on my desk (or in my inbox), delaying project tasks, almost physically painful. And holiday celebrations, many in the middle of the work week, can make me sweat when I think about how I am going to get everything done.

Do you feel lost if you are not being productive?  You are not alone. Work Addiction is a common problem for those of us in the project management profession. Psychologists have studied this condition and, though it is the most societally acceptable of obsessions, it still needs to be managed. Work Addition is grouped with other addictions, like drugs, and gambling. It’s called Adrenaline Addiction: being addicted to stress, in this case, work stress.

Signs of Work Addiction

  • Feelings of guilt when idle
  • Obsessed with things that are left undone
  • Strong compulsion to always be doing something
  • Afraid something will go wrong if you don’t do it personally

Steps Toward Management of Work Addiction

Fill in the blank: It is not always easy for me to step away from _______ (WORK, SMARTPHONE, FACEBOOK, etc).

First, you have to believe you deserve to be happy outside of work. According to Dr. Tom Muha, a psychologist practicing in Maryland, “if you really feel that you deserve to have a good life, then decide to make that the main gift you give to you and your family this year.” Give them the gift of your time and presence.

Second, is really hard. You need to face the discomfort that plagues you when you’re not being productive. You might have to fool yourself at first, but here are some things that can help:

  1. Get some exercise first thing in the morning.
  2. Plan your day around pleasurable activities.
  3. Engage in conversations chock-full of curiosity.
  4. Ask other people what would make their day terrific, and then do whatever you can to help make that happen.  (This works really well with kids.)
  5. Pay attention to what you’re seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, and feeling.  Be in the moment.

I am going to do my best to fight my ‘must finish everything before I leave for the day’ drive this holiday and focus on having a good time over these next few weeks with my co-workers, friends, and family. I challenge you to do the same.

May the joy of the holiday season be with you and may you keep up the good attitude. See you in 2018!

3 Spring Training Tips For Business Coaches

/ Lorian Lipton / Leave a comment

Coaching-Cloud-Image

It is great to see all the coaches out there with the kids on the fields now that it is spring in the east.  All the little sweaty people running back and forth trying to build up stamina for the big game to come.  Drills and drills and laps and more drills. Practice, practice, practice.  It made me think about my role as a leader and how I coach other people to their personal best.

The word ‘coach’ brings to mind sports heros like, Knute Rockne and Vince Lombardi.  And, when I think of a sports coach, I think of someone who is focused on one thing: winning.  Even though the great coaches care about the players, everything they are doing is to drive the team to the win at the end of the game.  Vince Lombardi, Head Coach of the Green Bay Packers, said “Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all-the-time thing.”  He accepted nothing less than first place and said that second place was the ‘first loser.’

Here is an example of the most driven coach in history:

I learned a great deal studying sports coaches, and one of those things is that organizational coaching is completely different.  The goal for organizational coaching is about the individual and what they learn through the process. “Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.” (John Whitmore, Coaching for Performance).  There is a lot to be learned from the sports analogy but in the workplace, coaching is about the relationship between me and the person I am coaching.  There are several things that are important from my side as the coach:

coaching-e13078629095151.  I must be fully engaged with the process and make sure that I am pushing my protege in such a way as to get them to be moving forward.  Too many times people wait until the other person brings them problems.  When I coach, I set up an agreement with the protege upfront and have defined things that s/he is working on.  This relationship is about challenging the other person to improve, to develop new skills or new capabilities.  The responsibility to figure out how to get them going sits with me.

2.  I must be an active listener and come prepared with the right questions to engage the protege.  Sometimes it is hard with all the distractions around, especially when 90% of my coaching is over the phone and on-line, but the other person deserves my undivided attention.  If I am not paying attention, then why am I doing this and who is it benefiting.  I make sure to block off sufficient time in my calendar to focus on the protege and the challenge.

3.  Coaching for me is also about providing guidance that the other person could not get on their own (or at least not easily). I am here to teach them to fish, not to fish for them.  My goal is to provide my protege with tools that they can use going forward that will enhance their abilities, help them make decisions and solve problems, so that over time, they can be self sustaining.

Do you Coach? Do you have a Coach?  If you could only give one piece of advice to your next protege, what would it be?

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Keep up the good attitude. See you next blog.

– Lorian

Email: thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorianlipton/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorianL

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDigitalAttitude

 

Free PDU’s @ International Project Management Day

/ Lorian Lipton / Leave a comment

I just got back from a great meeting with International Institute for Learning in New York City.  They are a global leader in training, coaching and customized course development.  On November 7, 2013 they will be holding a free full day event for INTERNATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT DAY.

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Register for free  (how easy is that!!!!)

You can earn free PDU’s if you are a PMI PMP –  but more importantly, there is an impressive group of really good speakers and sessions.

animationfinalSee you there.

– Lorian

Email: thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorianlipton/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorianL

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDigitalAttitude

Self-Doubt? Get Over It!

/ Lorian Lipton / 5 Comments

lipsLately I am feeling a little handcuffed by my self-doubt.  I know that I learned a lot of lessons over the years and have a lot to share, but I have this nagging voice in my head filling me with worry.  I am a successful person, but I have also had my share of failures.  What is it that makes the negative voice loud and the positive voice quiet now that I have been laid off?   Why is it that I keep thinking about all the things that could go wrong?

  • Will people actually buy services directly from me instead of a big corporation?
  • Will people respond well to what I write on the blogs?
  • How embarrassed will I be if I can’t get any clients?
  • What will I say to the critics that I know will come forward when I put my thoughts out on the internet?
  • Who do I think I am to advise people on their programs and business anyway?

The self-doubt tape keeps running through my head.  It is like a soft wave eroding my sandy beach of confidence.  I have always held myself to very high standards.  Is that the problem?  I know that there are always set-backs in any career, but for some reason, my self-confidence is being shaken by the negative messages.  Old tapes seem to be getting in the way of my focusing on the positive ones to help me move forward.

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What I realize is that most of my fears are related to what (I think) other people think, about me.  Though I have tried to change, I am very sensitive to what people feel (empathetic, I think they call it).  I am driven by my need for people’s approval.  (Read my post on Self Worth Starts With These 5 Steps).   And, I think this is getting in my way of reinventing myself.

Dr. Tom Muha, a practicing psychologist and writer in Annapolis, Maryland, says negative self-talk like this “exemplified how people keep themselves from making meaningful contributions.”  He goes on to say that people “allow a toxic combination of self-criticism and comparisons to others to prevent them from taking a risk and putting their creative offerings into the public eye.”  (The Capital Newspaper, Sunday, August 4, 2013)

Everything I am reading and finding on the internet says that I just have to jump in with both feet and give up this self-doubt.  You can’t win the game, if you never even play.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”     ―     Theodore Roosevelt

When I think about it, I have been in the game for years.  Why does the fact that the audience has changed (no longer the corporate family) bring up so much fear and trepidation?  As an innovator and thought leader in Project Management and Learning Solutions, I had many of my ideas criticized and even shot down over the years at IBM.  It never stopped me before from finding new ways to get the job done.  What makes this any different?  What makes being outside the corporate structure so scary?  Criticism stings and it may set me back (it may even feel overwhelming at times), but not moving forward because of the fear would be the saddest thing I could do.

Are you dealing with self-doubt?  How are you getting through it?

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Keep up the good attitude. See you next blog.

– Lorian

Email: thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorianlipton/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorianL

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDigital

(All the Social Butterfly’s views are her own)

Thanks for the Attitude: Turning a Page

/ Lorian Lipton / Leave a comment

surround-yourself

The Previous Chapter

You know when you finish reading a great chapter in a book and you can’t wait to get to the next one because there is so much more you want to know about the story?  My departure this week from IBM, after 17+ years, is definitely like that.

IBM and I have grown and changed in so many ways.  As a global thought leader on multinational teaming, and complex program management, and an expert on developing project leadership, social project management, and digital eminence, I am so excited to have the opportunity to now take my story in a new direction.

The Acknowledgments

There are so many people who have influenced me over the years that it is impossible to thank them all by name. It was the people who I interacted with, both in and outside IBM, that made all the difference.  They will always be family.

I have been lucky enough to work with global teams almost all of my time at IBM and the places I’ve been and the people who I have worked with have all taught me so much and have left their marks on the memory of my total recall forever.

Thank you to my first IBM family at Amtrak.  As an IT Architecture consultant in Washington, DC, on local and wide area networking and program management, they taught me how to navigate the complex waters of a huge corporation and how IBM worked with the Federal government. Coming from being a private consultant into this very different world took some major shifts for me, and they were gentle.

Thank you to my HealthVillage Team. As a loaned project executive in Global Industries to healthcare clients, leveraging my background as a network architect and engineer, I got the opportunity to be on the ground floor of what IBM was calling at the time ‘Network Services’ (then e-business and today social business). What a great team we had creating one of the first healthcare web applications with our new family at Lotus, and being one of the first to use IBM’s newly built Atlanta Innovation Center for Web development.  Hey, guys, I still have the coffee mug from our launch.

Thank you to the IBM Project Management Center of Excellence and the Curriculum Steering Committee.  I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the perfect time as Lou Gersner, IBM’s CEO at the time, strategized to ‘projectized’ IBM.  Using my computer training experience, my technical capability, and my passion for people, it was awesome to help build the award-winning Project Management Curriculum.  I will never forget our fantastic curriculum development meetings with members from all divisions and all countries of IBM.  And thanks to all my friends on the PM Certification Board and the PM Professional Development Board.

How blessed I feel to be one of the first people to work with Standford University’s Center for Professional Development and IPS Learning to turn their classroom courses into e-learning for IBM’s advanced knowledge need.  Thank you to all the co-authors, curriculum developers, trainers, and pilot students, who made the work so interesting.  And to all my colleagues who have come and gone creating the Project Management Center of Excellence, if Carol Wright were still alive she would be very proud,

Thank you especially to Debi, Chrys, Sandy, Shirley, Scott and Steve, in the States, and Toula in the Outback.  It is not so hard to leave the work, but it is, the people. And thank you to Liam, Theresa, and Som in Dublin, knowing that you will carry on the good fight.

Thank you to all my PMI volunteers: Over a decade ago, I say the need for IBMers to have a low-cost and time effective way to study and pass the PMI Project Management Professional exam without taking a week-long class.  The PMP is mandatory for IBM certification.  This drove me to create the very successful PMI Exam Study Group.  I designed and produced a 55 page website complete with a full study guide programs, originally for US Public Sector, but today worldwide, through which over 6,000 IBMers have studied the PMBOK in 5 different languages.  Thank you to all the volunteer facilitators who did an outstanding job over the years, many of you still holding groups year after year.  Keep up the good coaching.  (And thanks to many of you for the nice notes on my way out the door.)

Thank you to my global project teams. Through the years of advising global clients on project leadership, professional development, organizational effectiveness and maturity, as well as implementing internal performance measure systems (like my PM Match which was reported all the way to the Chairman), I was humbled to learn first hand how challenging it is to implement a consistent competency process across 199 countries.  My team in India is outstanding and rose to every curve ball that I could throw them.  Thank you for all your efforts, Mohan, Soumitra, and Yamuna.  You will do great things.

To all the people that I have mentored, coached, and just plan prodded through their project management professional development over the years, you have made me a better human, please do link up with me on the outside.  And to my mentors and coaches over all these years, I am, who I am today because of your support.

And finally, a thank you to the incredible people in IBM doing fantastic things in the area of social collaboration and social project management.  They know that the great thing about the social web is that even though I am outside of the IBM Firewall, I am still as loud and social as I ever was.

I could go on and on, but you know who you are, and hopefully you know what you all mean to me.

The Next Chapter

Of course, I will continue blogging on The Digital Attitude and on my petblog, DogDaz.com.  I love writing the blogs and it is just such a great way to summarize knowledge and share and collaborate with others.

newroad I am in the process of starting up my own consulting company. It will take me some time to package my diverse experience and passions into a consulting practice, but I know that I have several things in my bag of knowledge to help client’s solve critical challenges. Look for the launch of THE DIGITAL ATTITUDE Consulting coming soon.

I plan to continue speaking at conferences and events, both national and international, especially on the topics of Social Project Management, Global Teaming, and Digital Eminence.  I am trying to put together a calendar for fall and winter and will share it as soon as I can.  If you would like to contact me about speaking at an event contact me at:  thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

Personally, my adjunct teaching at Anne Arundel Community College will continue in the fall with a monthly series I just created focused on women in business.  And my work on the executive board of the Anne Arundel County Commission for Women is always fulfilling.

But first, the family and I are off to the beach, because, it is always, always, about the people.

Thank you for keeping up with my attitude.

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See you next blog.

– Lorian

Email: thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorianlipton/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorianL

(All the Social Butterfly’s views are her own)

Self-Worth Starts With These 5 Steps

/ Lorian Lipton / 6 Comments

confidence

I am a people pleaser.  That’s right – I admit it.  Right here – in front of all of you.  I spend waste a great deal of time worrying about what other people think of me.  My parent’s told me that I should always play nice and then people would like me. Winning approval from others is was important to me; partly because of how I was raised, and partly because of how I am wired.  It took me many years to realize that I was basing my self-worth on what other people thought of me instead of what I thought of myself.

“Self-worth comes from one thing – thinking that you are worthy.” Wayne Dyer

When you make choices based on other people’s expectations (sometimes explicit and sometimes assumed) most of the time, you regret them because they are not coming from inside you. You probably know someone who has made important choices like where to go to school, what career to pick, even who to marry, not for their personal benefit really, but because they wanted the ultimate approval from their ____________ (choose one or many) parents, spouse, friend, business associate, etc.

Living up to someone’s image of you instead of your own makes you invisible.  In the end it erodes your feeling of personal value – of self-worth.  There are many people who do not value their own self-worth and this shows up in their work, in their level of happiness, and in their brand.  If you build your personal brand with no self-confidence, it is like a house of cards, it will fall as soon as the wind blows.

Here are 5 things to work on to improve your view of you:

1.  You can’t please everyone all the time.  This is a hard pill to swallow for us people pleasers, but it is reality.  The sooner you stop wasting time trying to make everyone happy the better you will start feeling about yourself.  Someone is always going to not like something, so just be true to yourself and don’t waste time trying to fix it.  “I am thankful for all of those who said NO to me. It’s because of them I’m doing it myself.” – Albert Einstein

2. We all make mistakes.  One of my favorite quotes is by Mary Pickford: “If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.”  The past, is gone.  Free yourself by leaving the past, in the past.  My daughter rode horses when she was little, and when she fell off (which you always will sooner or later), I picked her up and put her back in the saddle.  We all fall off from time to time, it’s how you continue the ride that makes the difference.

cat.lion3.  Find what inspires you.  Only you know what makes your heart beat a little faster when you think or talk about it.  Listen to yourself.  Self-worth is not a one time thing, it’s about constantly improving who you are, about continually reinventing yourself.  The more you tap into the things that make you feel fulfilled, the greater your self-confidence will be.  “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” – Steve Jobs

4.  Take responsibility for who you are.  You are in control of your attitude, how you react to situations, and your sense of self-worth.  Eleanor Roosevelt said, “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent,”  so don’t let them.  It is your job to prove to yourself that you matter.  We can not always control the things that happen to us, but we can control how we handle them.

seuss5.  Value yourself. “Self confidence is the most attractive quality a person can have. how can anyone see how awesome you are if you can’t see it yourself?” – Unknown   I bet you could write out a nice list of all your faults right now, but what I want you to do is write down your skills and abilities.  A big part of valuing yourself is stopping the negative internal talk and focusing on the positive things.   Everyone is good at something – be real with yourself.  Just name even one or two things that you enjoy doing.

Walk tall because, as Dr. Seuss said, ” you have brains in your head – you have feet in your shoes – you can steer yourself – any direction you choose.”

What have you learned about your self-worth?  Have you reinvented yourself lately?

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Keep up the good attitude. See you next blog.

– Lorian

Email: thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorianlipton/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorianL

(All the Social Butterfly’s views are her own)

References

Laid Off? 5 Attitude Adjustments To Make

/ Lorian Lipton / 12 Comments

change“To up the odds of survival, leaders at all levels, must become obsessive about change.”  “Change must become our norm, not a cause for alarm.”- Tom Peters, Thriving On Chaos, 1987

These were the opening lines of a speech I gave in 1988 on Change.  Funny, I must not have been listening to my own words.

I pride myself on being an innovator, a thought leader: of seeing where transformations are needed and helping others through their change process.  But, I, like so many of my colleagues, have gotten caught in this whirlwind of economic downturn.  I could rant here and say “why me?”  But, truthfully, it is not about me.  It is… just business as usual.  An expected norm.

Tom Peter’s said that being excellent is no longer enough; that companies people (my word change) need to be perpetually ready to innovate. They must be willing to make continual improvements because the business environment is so competitive. Rather than focusing on cost-cutting efficiencies, these improvements must stress providing customers with value. He predicted, in 1987, that this rapidly changing world – fueled by new technology – would be unpredictable, so companies people must learn how to “thrive on chaos” to survive the turbulent times ahead.  And he was right and these are those times.

As I have just learned on Wednesday, even when you do the ‘right’ things, make those constant improvements, show your value, and keep innovating, you can still get caught up in the undertow of corporate unpredictability.  So this Social Butterfly, me, has now been tossed aside, or given freedom, depending on how I chose to look at it, from my corporate parent after almost 18 years of service.  Ah, the lessons.

Though a constant change agent in my work, I question maybe I was not bold enough, loud enough, social enough, or something, to be of right value to the corporate machine.  Every day, in every way, I challenged my coworkers, my company, and myself, to move forward, just like Peter’s told me too. But the truth is, it had very little to do with me.  I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Once the shock and the fuzziness of being laid off subsides (it has only been a couple days but I am not the wallowing type so I hope it is soon), I will get grounded and get going. So, let’s look at several steps I plan on taking over the next week:

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1.  Don’t lose focus

Remember that ‘it is just business, to them.’  Yes, it ticks me off!  But it is true. In most cases, when laid off, it is not personal. (That sounds so stupid doesn’t it? Because it sure feels that way right now.)  In my case, I think it is about the stock price and how they balance bad sales numbers – they’ve cut and cut everything else, so now all that is left to cut are the workers. There is absolutely nothing I can do about a corporate strategy from where I sit.  It is what it is. My job moved to a lower cost country and now, I need to move forward for me.

I need to really get down to the nitty gritty activities that are going to move me into my future and not wait until the dust settles.  I think that the key to staying focused is to create a very detailed ‘to do’ list that provides me with practical details and priorities.  Spending time every day designing my future is now my priority.  That IS my job (and shame on me, it always should have been.)

2.  Talk about it

That’s right.  It may be embarassing, but I can’t get caught in what the psyhcologist’s call “the dance of denial.”  Luckily, I have some trusted friends to listen to me.  It is important to engage in conversations with others in similar situations (heck, we don’t know the real numbers but there are about 6,000 of us just this week).  Be social. Seek out support both on and off line. (30 Websites to Visit When You Get Laid Off)  Find ‘healthy’ vehicles for catharsis, whether exercise, gardening, walking the dogs (that is mine).  I think it is best to focus on MY feelings about the lay off and not rant on about the ‘bad’ company (though that is easy to fall into).  This needs to be about me – not them.  Burning bridges, because of being upset or angry, is not the best path to the future – especially when you are a blogger.  Having an outlet is critical to moving on though.  This is a loss, it takes time to get over that: anger, fear, depression even, are all normal reactions.  I need to be gentle with myself (which isn’t easy for me).

3.  Let go of the past as quickly as possible

Generate small, success assured activities, even if it is just grocery shopping.  Right now, my self esteem is rocky.  I need to know that I can get stuff done.  I just read in some magazine that Sheryl Sandberg (Miss Lean In) writes down her  ‘to dos’ on a sheet of paper and then when done, tears it out of the notebook and throws it away.  I like that, because it is a physical act that celebrates completeness.  It is important to create rituals and celebrate closure on things so that I can start to embrace a new future.  Just keep putting energy into the future state (this may be a ‘fake it, until you make it’ statement, but I can do it, I have to do it!)

4.  Push the limits

Truthfully, I just lost my job and things (other than health) don’t get much worse than that for bread winners.  So why not experiment.  Identify next steps and go for them.  I need to find my moxie, my guts, and push myself to envision that which I really want.  Now is the time that I have to forge in a new direction: go back to school or maybe get The Digital Attitude consulting business off the ground ?  If not now – when?  If not me – who?  This could be a great gift – right?  As Dorie Clark says in her book Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future, ” To survive and thrive, you have to reinvent yourself and move on.”  Which takes me to my last point…

Shift-Happens-You-Are-The-Key-To-Change-300x2335.  Reflect and then move on

The one thing we know for sure is change is going to keep coming.  I will look back for a moment, do my lessons learned and move on.  Integrating this experience into the fabric of my life.  Give myself the time and space to reflect and review all the things that got me here and then articulate my vision for what will get me there.

How have you dealt with some of life’s major changes?  Any advice?

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Keep up the good attitude. See you next blog.

– Lorian

Email: thedigitalattitude@gmail.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorianlipton/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LorianL

(All the Social Butterfly’s views are her own)

References

Thriving On Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution, Tom Peters, Harper Books, 1987

Life Changes: A Guide to the 7 Stages of Personal Growth, Adams and Spencer. Paraview Press (November 12, 2002)

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, Sheryl Sanberg, Knopf; First Edition edition (March 11, 2013)

Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future, Dorie Clark, Harvard Business Review Press (April 9, 2013)

What Are Your Reading This Weekend?

/ Lorian Lipton / 1 Comment

Sir Winston Churchill said, “So little time, so much to do,” but I must modify that to “…so much to read!”

girl_reading_school_book_sm_wht_31368I may be on the laptop for hours and hours reading articles and blogs and teleworking all day, but there is something about paper under my fingers, and walking into a real brick and mortar book store that just fills my heart. There are so many books that I have been wanting to read, so I thought I would go pick some up last night (literally).  Here is a list of several books, some which I have read, some I am reading, and some I am going to read this year.  I compiled this short list from personal experience and researched reviews to help on this journey to understanding self, brand, and how to take a place in relationship to the new social paradigm. I hope you add some to your stack and feel free to add some to mine.

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READ:

Dale Carnegie – How To Win Friends And Influence People: Written in 1936, I have my fathers original (he dated it 4-9-37). Dad was a dress salesman in New York City.  I have read this book a zillion times since I was young.  It still is one of the best business books you can read because it is all about the art of the relationship, the network, and good old communications. (Post script:  My Dad was born in NYC in 1912, and has been gone 15 years last month.  He went from nothing (literally) to owning his own dress manufacturing business in the ’50’s.  Thanks Dad for setting me in the right direction.)

Arbinger Institue – Leadership and Self Deception: I recently read this for a leadership class and I thought it was an interesting way to look at how we box ourselves into believing our own story (whether good or bad) and then swirl people around us into our own self deception.  A good airplane read that will make you look at your internal conversations and how they affect your relations to others.

Spencer Johnson – Who Moved My Cheese: This little story helps you look at how you deal (or don’t deal) with change.  Change is the only constant we know, but the only one that likes change is a baby, they scream for it.

Richard Bolles – What Color Is Your Parachute?: The first time I read this was in college in the 70’s.  I just had my step-daughter go buy the newest edition, since she just graduated college, and the self examinations and practical guidance is a great tool to help you hone in on what it is that you really would like to be doing for your career and what you are best suited for.  Self-knowledge is what the brand of you is all about.   This is a good starting point.

ON THE NIGHT STAND: 

Marshall Goldsmith – What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There:  This is really pushing me to look at how I take what I know up a notch.  I’ll let you know how it turns out when I am done.

Reid Hoffman – The Start Up of You:  On the night stand, waiting for me to finish “What Got You Here”

WAITING TO READ:

Seth Godin – Permission Marketing Turning Strangers Into Friends and Friends Into Customers

Malcolm Gladwell – The Tipping Point 

Simon Sinek – Start With Why 

Dave Kerpen – Likeable Social Media

Jim Collins – Good To Great

Partrick Lencioni – The Three Big Questions For A Frantic Family

Sheryl Sandberg – Lean In 

Ben Zander – The Art of Possibility

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Please let me know what you think, and comment with any adds and ‘don’t bother to reads.’ 

What are you reading this weekend?

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Keep up the good attitude. See you next blog.

– Lorian

(All the Social Butterfly’s views are her own)

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Today’s Attitude: Baby Steps

/ Lorian Lipton / 4 Comments

womanatdesk.gifTruthfully, creating and maintaining personal digital eminence is a lot harder then I ever thought. Developing eminence for a product or service seems like a piece of cake compared to self promotion.  But wait… I am the product now.  I am “The Digital Attitude,” the brand called “Lorian.”

For those of you that are following along with my journey, I realize that there is a tremendous amount of work to do, so I am going to need to do it in baby steps.

My first 24 hour’s attitude adjustment included:

(1) Reading the following stuff; Luis Suarez’s Blog – ELSUA.net.  Luis is an IBMer and his main focus is living social and working without email (It’s a cool concept, don’t you think), and, I am reading everything I can find by Chris Brogan.com , a guru on everything social and successful author.

cropped-summer122.jpg(2) I spruced up my LinkedIn profile (more on how in a future post), including a new picture.    My LinkedIn Adviser, a wonderful British gentlemen named Social Ben (Ben Martin), told me that profile pictures look best with a BLUE TO WHITE GRADIENT background.  Blue says ‘trust’ and White says ‘purity.’ I don’t have a professional business picture and I could not find one with a light background, so I am hoping this one works for now.  I guess I may have to invest in a professional shot.

What do you think?  Would you trust that face? –>

(3) I have been learning a great deal about tagging and keyword control.  I plan on blogging about that very soon.  I went and tagged my profile with a whole bunch of relevant keywords so that people can search me better.  If people can’t find me based on key words, then my profile is kind of meaningless. (I looked at what some other people had on their profile to get an ideas.)

(4) I went and endorsed a few of my colleagues for their skills on LinkedIn, so that I can help them adjust their digital attitude a little too.

If I have any time before I go to sleep I am going to try and follow a few strategic leaders, like Ginni Rometty (remember I’m an IBMer), and start to comment on what she discusses (if I have something relevant to add).  Comments help you build more eminence day by day.  (I think I am getting the hang of this.)  I also am going to take a deep look at my lack of network connections on both LinkedIn and Tweeter.  (I have a lot of work to do.  I think this week, I will make an Attitude Adjustment Plan, so I know where I am going.)

Doing all this stuff really is starting to set me off balance with my work/life things, and I know there must be a smarter way to incorporate social into my schedule. Are you with me?  Are you starting to make an Attitude Adjustment Plan to build your digital eminence? Are there topics you think I should explore?

Thanks for taking the journey with me.

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See you in the Cloud – Lorian

(All views are my own)