Summer is now fully upon us. School is out and many of us have planned or will soon get around to planning summer vacations with family and friends.

The relaxed days of late June, July, and August present all of us with some special opportunities that I like to think of as summertime “r’s.”

Review – Summer is a great time to take a step back and reflect upon your professional practice. Were you successful in meeting your goals? If not, what stopped you?
Resolve and revise – Set new goals over the summer. (Need help with goals setting? Grab a FREE copy of my Clear Targets Action Sheet here.) Also, be sure to review your personal mission statement and core values. (You can grab a values list here.) Much can happen in a year, in terms of shaping your direction and principles. Use these months to make new commitments while also revising your existing purpose and value documents.

Step Away to Step into Life

I have two clients that are a block away from each other in NYC. The walking time between them is measured in seconds and often I can schedule things to allow me to go from one to the other in short order.

But there are times when I have to schedule them on different days, which would be less of an issue if I didn’t live an hour away from them.

This past week, I took things to a new level. I visited one client on Tuesday and the other on Wednesday. In between, I flew down to Florida for an early morning talk to over 300 leaders. Including local commutes to and from the airport, my journey from one client to the other, though themselves separated by only one block, exceeded 1900 miles.

Talk about a long walk down the block!

Are you a leader or a manager?

The terms leader and manager are often used interchangeably. Are they the same? Most leadership experts say “no.”

In Leading Change, Harvard professor John P. Kotter explains the difference as follows: “Management is a set of processes that keep an organization functioning… The processes are about planning, budgeting, staffing, clarifying jobs, measuring performance, and problem-solving when results did not go to plan,” writes Kotter. (“Leadership, in contrast,) is about aligning people to the vision…(through) buy-in and communication, motivation and inspiration."

To summarize, management is keeping things functioning in their current state, while leadership is about crafting and implementing a new vision.

business, coaching, leadershipNaphtali HoffJune 4, 2018Impactful Coaching & Consultingleadership, management, vision, actionComment

Do You Live to Work or Work to Live?

The upcoming Jewish holiday of Shavuot (the Festival of Weeks, which commences on Saturday evening) commemorates the Hebrews receiving of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, at Sinai some 3300 years ago. On that seminal date, a series of commandments were issued that would frame key elements of monotheistic thought, spiritual observance, and social interaction for centuries to come.

The Sinaitic experience was the culmination of a seven-week period that began with the Hebrews’ Exodus from Egypt (commemorated by Passover). That physical birth, so to speak, of the Hebraic nation was followed by its spiritual naissance at the foot of the mountain.

It is noteworthy that the seven-week period that separates Passover from Shavuot is a period of counting, known as Counting of the Omer. During these 49 days, the Torah proscribes a steady, upward count, leading up to Shavuot.

A Shortcut to Experience

A story is told about a reporter who was interviewing a successful bank president. He wanted to know the secret of the man’s success. "Two words”, he was told, “right decisions.” “And how do you make right decisions?” asked the reporter. The reply: “One word: experience.” The reporter pressed on. “And how do you get experience?” he asked. To which the banker replied, “Two words: wrong decisions.”

We all recognize the importance of job and life experience, especially for leaders. Experience gives leaders context for important decisions that they must make and insight into how best to lead, motivate and respond to their people. Experienced leaders have been through the wringer before and can use their past learning and decisions to guide them moving forward.

Yet, for many new leaders, experience can be hard to come by. And in today’s fast-changing, competitive environment in which more and more young people are assuming leadership roles, it can be critical for them to find ways to gain experience quickly in order to ensure that they make as few “wrong decisions” as possible, for their own sake as well as for those that they lead.

Celebrating a Podcasting Milestone

This past Wednesday I released my 26th Lead to Succeed podcast episode. This means that I just celebrated its first half-year anniversary. Mazel tov!

This is very exciting to me because it means that Lead to Succeed has survived the “podcaster’s dip” that plagues so many folks who rush to get their message out but quickly become discouraged and drop it (drops often occur between 7-10 shows and again between 20-25 episodes).

What do I attribute my “sustained success” to? Here’s a short list that I came up with.

Letting the idea settle – So often, we get inspired to do something and decide “in the moment” to go out and make it happen. More often than not, though, spontaneous action is not sustainable action. We all benefit from taking time to think and consider the implications of our actions before jumping in full throttle. In my case, a few months passed from the time that I began to seriously consider podcasting until my first episode was released.

Permit Yourself to Be You

The statistics are staggering. According to the website Statista, the current number of social media users worldwide sits at over 2.5 billion and will grow to 3 billion by 2021. Facebook leads all social media platforms with 2.2 billion active users (80% of Americans have Facebook accounts), while messenger apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are actively used by 1.3 billion people each.

When in Social Space, do as the Socialspacians do.

But Social Space is not for everyone. Nor should it be. I just wish that someone had told me this a bit sooner.

The Power of a New Beginning

Yesterday, my son Chaim donned his tefillin (phylacteries) for the first time. In Jewish tradition, tefillin are worn for weekday morning prayers beginning one month prior to the bar mitzvah. This allows a young man to become comfortable with the process in advance of the big day.

As you can imagine, there is a special excitement and enthusiasm that accompanies this long-anticipated moment. After a lengthy sequence that included ordering the (custom-made) tefillin, securing their arrival from Israel, etc. Chaim was finally able to put them on “for real”. And he beamed with pride as he navigated the process for the first time.

But we also know that initial enthusiasm is quick to fade and the newness of an experience, when repeated often, quickly fades.

Learn to Win Small

ONLY two days, or TWO DAYS? YEAH!

Well, it depends on your perspective.

For a couple of weeks in the middle of winter, I had tried to move my workout routine from mid-morning to early-morning, as in 5:15 AM.

I thought that the benefits of a top-of-the-morning, pre-prayer workout would be enormous.

I would be able to pray and work with added energy and focus.

I could skip the morning coffee and would be motivated to eat a healthier, leaner breakfast.

My mornings would be more open, allowing me to get more done.

It would also make for fewer wardrobe changes.

But I just couldn’t pull it off.

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