ELEPHANT ALERT!

When I was ten I had an experience I will never forget. It was a typical, oppressive, hot and humid day in Minnesota. I’d been in the field picking rock for hours and wasn’t happy.

Suddenly, an idea came to me that would make my life easier – and possibly change the world!

Walking into the house I shared my secret. “Dad! Someday I’m going to invent a very thin, lotion-like substance that will insulate me from the sun and keep me cool. It will be like an invisible suit you can wear in the heat.”

My dad looked at me and laughed. “It’s already been invented, son.”

I was shocked. “Really?”

“Yep,” my dad replied. “It’s called sweat.”

Here’s the elephant in the office: There’s a lot of people under stress who are functioning as if they’re incomplete, as if they lack what it takes to be a success. They whine, complain, and mope around…wishing they had what they already have. Such people function in a perpetual state of failure.

What does it mean to you and your chances for success knowing that most of your competition is probably using this “elephant in the office” approach?

STOMP THE ELEPHANT

Try this conversation with a friend or team: What is the difference between determining what we need to acquire in order to be a success vs. determining what we can do to leverage what we already have to be an even greater success? As you consider your results, include in your observations the varied impact the two approaches have on attitudes, confidence and momentum.

Consider that you don’t need to invent sweat to be a success – you simply need to sweat.

Where will you lead – where will you stomp elephants – today?

ELEPHANT ALERT!

Things just aren’t working out for some people, are they? They’ve got problems with their boss. They’ve got problems with their job. They’ve got problems with traffic and weather and a spouse and colleagues who don’t have a clue and – what the heck – let’s throw in the finance department, too.

Let’s face it: life is a problem.

Or is it these people that have the problem?

Here’s the elephant in the office: Too many people are sacrificing their happiness until things become perfect.

“But I want things to be better!” they lament. Yet, how many days are they willing to invest in being unhappy before things become perfect?

STOMP THE ELEPHANT

The idea of forgetting about perfection and striving for extraordinary holds great power. But what if you could go further than that? What would it mean to your life satisfaction if you were released from disappointments – permanently?

It begins with: relishing the mundane. Life (yes, even work), in and of itself, is extraordinary. Yet, we’ve become addicted to the rush, the excitement, the myth of perfection. This has left "all the rest of life" to be labeled as mundane. And that’s exactly what the marketers (and abusive managers) want us to think – that day-to-day life can’t be extraordinary just as it is.

And it continues with: discontinuing the futile strategy of changing people. If our happiness is dependent on another person behaving differently – we’re screwed. It’s completely illogical, and a form of self-abuse, to sacrifice our own happiness waiting for others to sprout angel wings.

Ironic, isn’t it? The moment we stop demanding others to be different than they are, we grow our own wings.

Are you ready to be happy?

Where will you lead – where will you stomp elephants – today?

WHAT APPEARS TO BE

What percentage of people around you, when faced with a difficult situation, run from it? Hide from it? Or use the “wish management” approach, as in “I wish this problem didn’t exist”?

In our upcoming book, Stomp the Elephant in the Office, we discuss how many people – regardless of position – rarely take action when there is a difficult issue taking place or a difficult decision to be made.

There is a better approach.

WHAT MIGHT BE

People who hide from difficult or uncomfortable situations speak the “cluck-cluck” language of leadership. I know. I used to speak it well. I figured that if I risked dealing with the issue I would expose my inadequacies. Because the truth is, it was far easier to be critical of others…than do anything about it myself.

WHAT CAN BE

Mi amigo bueno, Ezequiel Ruiz, shared the legend of the eagle with me. He said that eagles, if trapped by an on-coming storm, fly directly into the storm. These creatures do not run; they attack. They know that if they are to survive they must play the game on their terms.

Whether or not this is true doesn’t matter. It serves an important purpose. By playing chicken we perpetuate the very thing we don’t want to have happen. By addressing the ‘problem,’ or the elephant in the office, we begin the process of bringing about solutions.

Ironically, in the end, we discover that the biggest problem we faced was not the issue – but the lack of courage displayed in dealing with it.

What storm are you ready to fly into today?

What is the difference between what “might be” and what “can be”? You decide.