Jordan Fowler – Page 6 – jordanpfowler

Three Reasons Why You Should Start Your New Year’s Resolutions Now

After a late night of parties and day of black eyed peas and bowl games, many of us draw a line in the stand, and promise ourselves (and God, at times) that we will resolve to make some grandiose life change. Problem is, this rarely works. Simply look at any gym’s attendance pattern following January for proof.

So why should you then be encouraged to begin your New Year’s Resolutions now?

Starting early will ease the psychological tension to see your resolution as an all or nothing proposition. If you miss a day at the gym, keeping all your financial records up to date, or steal a smoke, you won’t throw in the towel as quickly by telling yourself, “See I knew this would never work.” Instead, tell yourself, “I am moving towards _________ (you fill in the blank, smoke free living, healthier living, a more God centered life, et al.), and I had a setback today but am getting up and moving forward.”
Starting now allows you to view the desired action as an experiment rather than a resolution. You can tell yourself, “I am going to try this for a month and see the results. At the end of the month, I will decide if this is a realistic resolution.”
Stops you from etching another 30 days of negative habits into your mind. Psychologists have shown that we are creatures of habit. The sooner you begin slight disruptions in negative habits, the better.

So begin your experiment today by filling in this blank: The one change I could make which would most make a difference in the way I want my life to look is______________________. (By God’s grace, of course).

What is your blank?

How You Can Get Unblurry (and How Obama Could Benefit)

It so often happens to the best of us. The fog of business confuses us, makes decision making difficult and slows us to a crawl. Even the President of the United States is not exempt. In their recent Washington Post article, Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake write:

On the verge of his 2012 reelection race, however, Obama’s continued lack of clear definition is hurting his political prospects, according to longtime Democratic pollster Peter Hart.

They continue to quote Hart:

Hart notes that the core of most recent presidents could be summed in a few words; “strength and optimism” for Ronald Reagan, “compassion and determination” for Bill Clinton and “conviction” for George W. Bush.

“The challenge here is not whether a specific element is wrong with Barack Obama’s image, but that he does not have one single image,” writes Hart. “He is everyone and no one.”

The Solution? A single word focus.

One of my heroes, Bobb Biehl, often encouraged us to have a one word focus, for life and for each year. I would add you can have a one word focus for month or even a day. This word provides incredible clarity and cuts through the fog. For example, if you have a group of uncompleted tasks and projects, your word might be “complete.” In that case you would push aside everything new and emerging and set a laser light focus on finishing as many half-completed tasks as possible. You one focus will probably be tied to your one word what-you-do-best word. One of the words I most often hear used of me is “simplifier.” I seem to have been blessed with the innate ability to take a complex set of ideas or concepts and boil them down to a simple deliverable and communicable process. This plays out well for my roles in business development and marketing just as it did in preaching. I keep my do-best word in mind as I do my yearly, monthly or daily focus word. Things go best when they are aligned.

If Obama could sum up the goal of his next term in one simple word, it could aide him greatly in the campaign. One Republican candidate has a very clear single word focus–Ron Paul. Limit. As a Libertarian-oriented Republican, he wants to severely limit the federal powers back to what he feels are their constitutional boundaries. Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 resonates in similar ways.

So what would is your single word (or short phrase) focus for life, the year, month or day?

Occupy Movement Action Plan

I have finally met an Occupy Movement (OWS) person who desires to see an action plan occur. His comment to me:

. . .unfortunately you need to think about who would be passing those laws. The people who they affect the most. I don’t think there’s any way in hell that any of those laws would get passed by the current members in Congress. That’s one reason I can see for not even bothering dealing with specific goals. Why set a goal if there’s no chance of it getting passed?

This young man just created an Occupy Movement actionable step. Finally!

Recruit, enlist and promote a potential congressional candidate who would represent Occupy values.

So some of you should pack up your tents and get busy at this.

(Disclaimer: This is solely generic movement development advice. It does not imply that I, Jordan P. Fowler, or jordanpfowler consulting does or does not endorse any actions or values of the Occupy Movement. This advise was provided in a purely advisory role and the aforementioned parties cannot be held liable if it succeeds and results in the demolition of every corporation known to mankind. Nor can the aforementioned parties be held liable if the Occupy Movement takes this advice and their bid for congressional seats fails. Just covering my assets).

A Single Question for The Occupy Movement

I understand what The Occupy Movement is against. I am all for civil dialogue in the public square. Os Guinness has influenced me heavily in this area. But I continue to ask this question (for months) with no answer:

What are the actionable steps the Occupy Movement desires to see going forward?

This is the type answer I consistently receive:

That’s the problem, there isn’t really a solution… short of pulling the world’s longest thread on the giant sweater that is our corrupt government and economy. And that will never happen.

Unless you want to throw violent revolution into the mix, which I don’t think most of us do, I think the best course of action is loud, visible, but non-violent anger. Take to the streets, make voices heard, and sure… block traders from getting to the NYSE. I won’t argue with that.

I also understand that the disruption of the current system you desire to see ended is part of the deconstruction process you desire. However, my contention is

Disruption without Construction = Destruction.

Rather than only telling me what you are against, tell me what you are for! Otherwise, the current system would be deconstructed with what in its place? Chaos? Anarchy? Put together some sort of 9-9-9 Plan of the Occupy Movement. A clear, actionable way forward. It is as this point that those who see you merely as a modern manifestation of angry, disgruntled youth would at least be open to considering you as a viable solution provider. So who will undertake this from the Movement? Put forward your best and brightest in this effort.

I am always open to listen to any point of view and engage in civil dialogue, but I ask you to come to that conversation with a way forward, not merely a disruption and destruction of the current.

How Preparation H can be Your Friend. What?

So you were up super late last night. Let’s say it was for a red eye flight and not that MMA fight at the local sports bar. Now you find yourself slapping for the snooze button in a less than familiar hotel room. What? Oh yes, that huge pitch meeting to the multimillion dollar client. You head over to the sink, splash water on your face in a futile attempt to snap to it, and look up in the mirror only to notice, you have bag eyes. Not the normal, I’m getting older bags, but I’m so tired these are the size of cow udder bags. (Yeah, gross). So what do you do?

If you are a smart business person, you realized the potential for this and threw a small tube of Preparation H into your toiletries. You see, no pun intended, Preparation H isn’t merely for the lower regions. This lovely shark oil substance is an inflammation shrinking cream that works wherever you apply it. So a small dab on your finger spread under those tired eye will begin shrinking the bags. I suggest applying it 30 minutes before you shower and letting it sit. Be diligent not to get it in your eye ball or tear duct, as that will create red eyes, which will lead your client to other conclusions. Make sure you wash it off before you leave the hotel room or you risk looking like a prize heavyweight fighter at your meeting. (I also suggest using a separate tube for your eyes if you are also a hemorrhoid sufferer, as it just seems a little risky to use the same tube for both.)

Where did I get this tip? Early morning news anchors often use this little under eye perk up trick to look their best.

Finally, a little relational advice. I wouldn’t mention this practice. Once I was at a church giving a message, afterwards someone saw me in the hall and said, “You look a little tired today.” To which I responded, “Yeah, I forgot the Preparation H.” Her mouth hit the floor and I was in a hurry for the next message and had to head back towards the platform. I tried to find her after the second service but couldn’t. To this day she probably thinks, “TMI, that guy is weird and we are looking for a new church.” Still, it works.

Want a Slew of LinkedIn Connections? Use These Power Words

A list of title and summary words that appear in the most and least connected LinkedIn profiles. Of course, if you merely throw these words into your LinkedIn, it smacks of inauthentic content. Use them only if they truly apply to you. (My LinkedIn account).

From this list it is obvious that LinkedIn is becoming the platform for job seekers and recruiters.

Dan Zarrella uses evidenced based approaches to social media (finally someone) and has access to a great quantity of data. I highly recommend his new book, Hierarchy of Contagiousness.

(Dan’s Twitter, Facebook)

Where I Put the Google +1 Button

After much internal wrangling, I decided to put the Google +1 button for my blog at the end of each body of text. Why? I am not looking for easy +1’s but for people who have truly digested a post and think it contains content valuable enough to share. Placing the Google +1 script at the end of the text lends itself to being clicked after the full post has been read.

By the way if you need the script and are a non-programmer, simply post this into your WordPress or other content editor in html mode and the Google +1 button will automagically appear.

<!– Place this tag where you want the +1 button to render –>
<g:plusone size=”medium” annotation=”inline”></g:plusone>

<!– Place this render call where appropriate –>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
(function() {
var po = document.createElement(‘script’); po.type = ‘text/javascript’; po.async = true;
po.src = ‘https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s);
})();
</script>

And without further adieu, here is…