I want to publicly thank you, Zig Ziglar, for the positive impact you have had on my life over the past 32 years.

My faith, family, fitness, focused contributions, and finances have been influenced by your  example, wisdom, and encouragement.

Here are a few fun facts about Zig

• One of America’s most popular and respected motivational speakers.
• The 10th of 12 children.
• Served in the Navy during World War II.
• Given his famous nickname, “Zig” in his Mississippi Elementary school.
• Ends virtually every session with, “If you will do these things, then I will see you – and yes I do mean you – at the top.”
• Published over 48 works and has appeared on the Today Show, 20/20 and 60 minutes.

 Here are a few of my
favorite quotes from Zig

“Your attitude, not your aptitude,
will determine your altitude.”

“You do not pay the price of success,
you enjoy the price of success.”

“People often say that motivation
doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing
- that’s why we recommend it daily.”

“You can have everything in life you
want, if you will just help enough
other people get what they want.”

As we celebrated Valentine’s Day, I was reminded of how we should show love to all the people around us on a daily basis, especially our co-workers.

This leads us to a book, by Donald Clifton and Tom Rath called How Full Is Your Bucket? , that encourages all of us to say and do things that increase people’s positive emotions.

The book builds upon a Gallup Survey that delivers staggering results from 4 million people in 10,000 different business units.

Employees that receive regular recognition and praise…

     …Improve Productivity

     …Increase Customer Satisfaction               

     …Enhance Engagement Among Co-Workers 

…All from being praised and recognized (loved) on a regular basis.

Here’s a quick exercise to frame your communication when praising/recognizing a co-worker.

Tell them:

• what they did. (Be specific.)
  
• why you appreciate it. (Be specific.)
  
• how it helps your organization. (Be specific.)

“The #1 reason people leave their jobs: they don’t feel appreciated.” ~Clifton and Rath

Show Them the Love…

 My experience in working with businesses around the world has shown that effective organizations create their own futures through the planning process.

 The One Hour Plan for Growth allows you to stop and pause for three things that are important (but unfortunately, never urgent): (1) introspection (defining what’s important to you); (2) insight (understanding what’s happening around you); and (3) imagination (visualizing what’s possible for you).

 One of the fundamental problems in organizations is a lack of buy-in and engagement. As people mature in their own lives and take on greater meaning, they want significant involvement. Without involvement, there is no commitment. Involvement leads to creative contributions and employee loyalty. The involvement process is just as important as the final written plan.

 The One Hour Plan for Growth encourages and allows for every employee to participate meaningfully and constructively. Our world is moving at an ever-increasing speed. People want quick answers and quick fixes. But what people need are real answers and lasting solutions. This book meets people’s wants and needs. The One Hour Plan for Growth provides a quick introduction to a lifelong leadership tool.

That’s the beauty of this book—it makes planning simple and fast. In an hour or so, you can create a draft of your Business Growth Plan, including your Vision, Mission, Values, Objectives, Strategies, and Priorities that fits on a single sheet of paper. An effective plan will not only improve the quality of life for all of your stakeholders, it will allow you to develop leaders throughout your organization. Most importantly, it will help you grow your business by better serving your customers, employees, and business owners.

I worked with Joe Calhoon for many years at Franklin Covey Company as we developed leaders around the world. Joe was one of our most requested consultants and highest rated keynote speakers. In the past decade since going out on his own, Joe has developed a methodology that helps business leaders plan more efficiently and effectively. The system has proven successful with hundreds of different businesses in dozens of industries.

Most businesspeople, including your competitors, don’t take the time to plan well. It’s a weakness for them—and an opportunity for you. They are rightly concerned that a strategic plan will take days or weeks to develop—and who has that kind of time? Joe’s book solves this problem by capturing the essence of the planning process in a way that takes about an hour of your time.

The Regus study found that the #1 reason people wanted to quit their jobs was a lack of communication and involvement by top management.  Here’s a powerful leadership principle- No involvement, no commitment. Lots of involvement, lots of commitment.

Growing a profitable business and stimulating job creation requires employees who are engaged in your enterprise. Unfortunately, only 28% of the workforce is engaged (they go the extra mile), 54% are not engaged (they put in their time), and 18% are actively disengaged. These are the people who brighten up a room, just by leaving it. These people are invited to leave the bars at five o’clock, so they can get happy hour started. It’s true, misery doesn’t love company, it insists on it. According to James Harter, chief scientist with Gallup, people who are actively disengaged destroy their organizations and the people around them.

So, how do you engage the best efforts of your team? It all starts by getting your team on the same page.

Imagine you have a mountain to climb. That mountain represents the highest hopes and aspirations for your organization.

Your team needs to know the answer to these six questions to achieve at the highest levels.

• What mountain are we climbing? (Vision)
• Why are we climbing it? (Mission)
• How will we treat each other along the way? (Values)
• How will we measure our progress? (Objectives)
• What work needs to be done? (Strategies)
• And lastly, who will do what by when? (Priorities)

These six questions will lead to the creation of a dynamic business growth plan.

This is a good thing. According to Inc. Research, “Having an effective growth planning system is the best indicator of whether your company will grow.”

Unfortunately, 88% of businesses do not utilize an effective planning process. Why not, you ask.

Most planning:

• takes too much time
• it’s not much fun
• it’s too complicated
• the plans are too long
• they end up sitting on a shelf
•  with little impact on business performance

There is a better way:

• invest hours, not days or weeks
• have some fun
• make the process simple
• put the plan on a single sheet of paper
• use the plan everyday
• to improve performance and results



Do you have one hour to plan for your better future?
If so, check out http://TheOneHourPlanforGrowth.com.

My health was so bad I couldn’t get a standard life insurance policy, so I was buying credit card life insurance. Have you ever bought credit card life insurance? Let me give you a tip…it’s cheaper to die than buy credit card life insurance.

Financially, I had accumulated excessive debt. It’s embarrassing to admit that I had unsecured debt that was twice my gross annual income.

Lastly, and most importantly, I had relational problems. I had the habit of giving my best at the office and my leftovers to my family.

During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, I lived in the fast lane real estate business in Denver, Colorado. I crashed and burned just as mortgage rates hit 18%.

After my real estate career, I worked with business start-ups and business turn-arounds  in the solar and energy conservation industry. In two years, I was on the road 96 of 102 weeks. I had the time of my life – speaking, training, and consulting 20-30 hours per week. Business growth was a passion.

In 1986, I became a full-time business growth consultant and public speaker.  My first consulting client increase revenues by 400% in nine months.

By 1989, I was married to Diane and had a young son, Joseph. At that time, I called on a couple large companies, AT&T and Farmland Industries. Both of these companies referred me to The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I thought “that’s all I need is more competition.” The competitor turned out to be a man of incredible depth and breadth with valuable insight into personal and professional issues, his name was Stephen R. Covey.

By 1990, I was affiliated with Stephen and the Covey Leadership Center which became Franklin Covey. In the decade of the 90’s, I experience remarkable growth working as a Senior Presenter with Stephen Covey. One of the most important things I learned is to invest an hour every week, before the week begins, to plan my time.

Stephen deepened my understanding of vision, mission, values, roles, and goals. I developed the habit of weekly planning. At the end of each week, I would celebrate my progress and plan the next week. This process of planning, achieving, and celebrating progress changed my life. I eventually restored my health, got out of debt, and rebuilt my most important relationships. I’ve also used the planning, achievement and celebration process to build a business.

When I left Franklin Covey in 2000, these habits and the principles I learned became the foundation for a new business growth methodology.  In 2005, we wrote about the methodology in Prioritize! – A System for Leading Your Business and Life on Purpose. In 2008, we wrote On the Same Page – How to Engage Employees and Accelerate Growth.  My new book is, The One Hour Plan for Growth — How a Single Sheet of Paper Can Take Your Business to the Next Level.

The process of planning, achieving, and celebrating progress dramatically improves any area of life.

As Brian Tracy says, “one hour of planning time saves 12 hours of execution time.” Planning is the process of using your imagination to envision (and then, hopefully achieve) a more desirable future state. As the saying goes, “proper planning prevents poor performance” – in all areas of life.

So, how about you?  What areas of your life need to be improved? Do you have one hour to plan?