Part 1 - Your Values Finder

The acceptance of mediocrity has become epidemic. This three part series will help you find ways to combat it's debilitating impact on your life.

Your Values Finder
We'll start the series with your values. When you don't know what your values are your decision-making is haphazard. Instead of leading you closer to your great goals, random decisions take you off track. If you want to know what you currently value the most simply check where you spend your time and money.

Here is a link to a workbook titled, "Your Values Finder" which is designed to help you confirm or select your important values.

You may be thinking you don't need this for yourself. That's okay, you can still help by getting this workbook into the hands of others. Perhaps a young family, college students or someone who may appear to be floundering a bit. Please share with me how the workbook has helped you and who you think it could benefit.

Knowing your core values is the first step in beating back mediocrity. The next is defining your purpose and making it addictive, which will be the topic of the next Reflections on Leadership post.

Learn more about Karl Bimshas Consulting by visiting www.karlbimshas.com and begin to discover the a-ha within.

Spare the Reader, Not the Writer

Call me crazy, but I believe a good story gets better when retold by others.

How often have you read a fictional book and thought, “Well that was stupid,” when in your judgment the author took a wrong turn. Here’s your chance to stop and fix problems before you plop down hard earned money for a piece of pulp.

Last year I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) You begin writing November 1 and the goal is to write a 50,000-word novel by midnight, November 30. I achieved that goal with a story I titled "Three Blinks and a Sigh". As is so often the case with people, I did nothing else with the output of that effort. For someone who makes his living helping others achieve their goals, this is tragic.

To remedy that I’m going public with my early draft fiction writing, one chapter at a time and with your help it will be a strong, satisfying story that you and hundreds of thousands of others would gladly buy for themselves and three or four of their closest friends.

Here’s your chance to spare the reader, not the writer. VISIT the new “READER FEEDBACK” page on my website karlbimshas.com and CLICK the orange JOIN button. ADD your email and click SUBMIT, this will bring you to a registration page for a variety of interests. At the bottom you’ll see  a check box for my novella, Three Blinks and a Sigh - Feedback, CHECK THAT (and any others you’re interested in) and you’ll receive notice when a new chapter is posted.

Under all the chapters is a Feedback Survey form you can easily fill out right on the site. Use it for each chapter you read, or save it for your thoughts on the entire book! It’s up to you.

Writing is serious business, but this is meant to be fun for you and me. If you’re a writer, you know sharing early drafts can be gut wrenching. If you’re a reader, you always find something you’d like to improve. There’s no guarantee I’ll use all your suggestions, but you can bet I want to hear all of them.

If you’re a writer or a reader, or even both, I hope you’ll join in on the fun. The first chapter will be posted soon so JOIN NOW!

Make It A Perfect Day

10-10-10

This seems as good a day as any to discuss your perfect day. What does your perfect day look like?

Perfection can be hard to achieve, particularly if the judges are harsh critics. If you consider yourself a high achiever there’s probably nobody harsher than you. Luckily you’re the one who gets to determine if your day is going to be a great one and you are the one who does the assessing at the end of the day.

For me, the days that are memorable and satisfying are the days that I’ve productively worked on things that were important to me or my loved ones; that I showed gratitude throughout the day and I came up with potentially viable ideas to solve a problem or improve something in my world.

Accomplishing items on a to-do list are personal. For the Type A personality resting on a hammock for one full hour could be just as difficult as it is for the weekend slacker to spend only one hour there. To-do’s shouldn’t be mammoth projects. They should be small satisfying tasks that move you closer to your goal. Reading or writing one chapter of a book is a good example.

Showing gratitude gets you out of yourself. Other people and concrete items make many things possible for you. Have you ever appreciated the elegant simplicity and crucial role of a stop sign? I can moan about how much I’m paying in taxes, but instead I choose to be grateful for the array of humane and unique services I’m helping fund. When was the last time you sincerely thanked a person for making your day run smoother, either because of their contagious laugh and beaming smile, or their attention to detail on an important project, or even getting your drink just right. Do it, you’ll improve the day of at least two people.

Regardless of what people say, we are all conditioned to solve problems. Now, there may be times that it’s inappropriate to be rushing toward a solution. Sometimes people just want to be heard, not rescued. Regardless, our brains are incredible problem solving machines. Calling things “challenges” just because it sounds better is silly. If you want to be truthful, you’re probably witnessing dysfunction, but no one wants to hear that, so just call things what they are, problems. Problems shouldn’t have a negative connotation, but they do. Begin to change that conception. They are a puzzle that needs to be solved and we’ve each been blessed with they key deep within the recesses of our brain. It just takes time to access it, some longer than others. When you spend time brainstorming all the potential solutions to a problem that would improve the current condition you get closer to that key. Eventually and unexpectedly you will one day trip over it.

So here’s my template for a perfect day.

1. List ten things you need to accomplish during the day.


2. Brainstorm ten ideas to solve a pressing problem or make something better in your life.


3. Show gratitude ten time throughout the day. (Preferably to people, but being immensely grateful to things like your car brakes working properly after a near miss is perfectly acceptable.)

At the end of the day see how you did. Did you get three tens? Congratulations!