In the past, I’ve written about the need to have a personal development plan as a part of your strategy for becoming a better leader. Last week, at the Building Champions Experience, I had the opportunity to attend a breakfast with author and speaker, Michael Hyatt. In his presentation, Michael made the case for how a personal development plan will help you go further faster in your career and personal life. Here are my takeaways from Michael’s presentation:

The first step in going further faster is to know where you are going. Michael’s recommendation was to set aside time to ask yourself a few important questions:

1. What is my purpose for wanting to grow in this area?
2. What do I want achieve from my growth in this area?
3. What is my vision for where I want to be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now as it relates to this specific area of my life?

There are three reasons why someone would want to go further faster:

1. You want to speed up the learning process to get to your destination faster.
2. You don’t want to reinvent the wheel, and prefer to learn from the successes and failures of others.
3. You want to avoid the common mistakes that are made along the way.

There are three ways to go further faster:

1. Read the best and most relevant information related to the specific area you want to improve in. Utilize resources like Google, Wikipedia, blogs, books, and books summaries.
2. Sign up for specialized classes in the specific area you desire to improve in. Look for outdoor retreats, half-day classes, internet classes, and courses at your local college.
3. Hire world class experts to personally coach you. If you have the money look at the expense as an investment in your future development. If you don’t have the money, then look for a pastor, friend, peer, or someone that is willing to mentor you.

Going Further Faster with Michael Hyatt is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

Best selling author, Patrick Lencioni was the keynote speaker this morning at the first full day of the Building Champions Experience. Today’s theme was all about being more intentional and purposeful in your business. Patrick spoke on two of his best selling books, the Five Dysfunctions of a Team and Getting Naked.

After Patrick was done we went to our individual breakout sessions. I chose to attend the Making Your Vision a Reality session put on by executive coaches Daniel Harkavy and Gregg Harkavy. I then attended executive coach, Steve Scanlon’s presentation on Emotional Intelligence for Business and Life.

Here are my top five takeaways from today’s keynote presentation and breakout sessions:

1. Vulnerability based trust is the foundation for building a great team. A team that knows each other’s strengths and weaknesses, openly admits mistakes, and celebrates successes together will be able to make the greatest contribution to those they love and serve.

2. The best service providers are vulnerable by embracing uncommon levels of humility, selflessness and transparency for the good of the client. They overcome the fears of feeling inferior, losing the business, and being embarrassed by providing WOW customer experiences and being transparent.

3. In order to make your vision become a reality you must have a clear and compelling vision statement, your business plans must connect to a component of your vision, and you must communicate your vision with excellence using a strategic communication plan.

4. When constructing your vision it is vitally important for you to have key members of your team contribute and participate in the process. This will create buy-in and a sense of ownership that will help other team members embrace the vision.

5. There are three factors that help determine a our overall personal success. The first is a person’s IQ. This is a measurement of a your ability to learn (NOT how smart they are). The second, is our past experiences and behavioral patterns. The third, is your EQ, or emotional intelligence. EQ is the ability and/or skill to assess and subsequently control one’s emotions during a negative interaction or moment. Low emotional intelligence equates to your emotions controlling your actions and generally lead to negative responses. My takeaway on Emotional Intelligence is that I have A LOT to learn about how it impacts my life and business.

It was another great day of reflection, planning, and connecting at the Building Champions Experience. Patrick Lencioni was funny, down to earth, and full of wisdom. The breakout sessions were relevant and content rich for all attendees.

Thursday we focus on Life Planning and will hear from author, speaker, and blogger Michael Hyatt.

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

Building Champions Experience 2011 – Day 1 Takeaways is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

Tonight the Building Champions Experience (BCE) kicked off with a powerful and emotional presentation from Building Champions’ CEO, Daniel Harkavy. The theme of BCE 2011 is Contribution and tonight Daniel shared five lessons he has recently learned about “giving back” regardless of whether your current reality is positive or negative. In order for us to be contributing and making a difference, Daniel encouraged us to do the following:

Lesson 1: Connect with your purpose. If you do not know or connect with your purpose you risk one day waking up with serious regrets in life. If your purpose is currently to live a perfect life, have everything you’ve always wanted, and project a flawless persona then you are missing tremendous opportunities to connect, help others, and make a difference in the lives of those you love and serve each day. It’s hard to see the needs of others when you are so focused on yourself and image.

Lesson 2: Row against the current. When you make service a part of your purpose in life and you start live out this purpose by connecting with others, equiping them, and serving them, you will face opposition. People will tell you it is a waste of time, that your not good enough to do it, and they will question your motives. You have to keep pressing on and going against the current of our culture that tells you life is all about you.

Lesson 3: Clarify your role. As a parent or leader your job is to clearly articulate your vision and purpose to those you love and serve. They will look to you as the person setting the pace and doing the behaviors necessary to lead them through life. If they see chaos in the way you approach challenging times they might jump ship. Then you lose all opportunity to equip them and help them become healthy contributors.

Lesson 4: Remember, you are being watched. Your wife, children, neighbors, co-workers, and friends are all watching to see how you act. You may talk a great talk, but if you don’t follow it up with action then people will not follow you and trust you. It is your job to equip those you love with the behaviors, tools, and attitude to live a life of service and contribution.

Lesson 5: Surround yourself with the right people. In order to have the greatest impact on the people in your life you must connect with them regularly. Make time in your day for your loved ones. These people need to be positive and encouraging to you. They should support your vision and purpose in life. During challening times they will be there to encourage and support you; pick you up and tell you to keep up the good fight.

Daniel then went on to give two calls to action. The first call to action addressed those of us that are contributing and helping people each day. He encouraged us to keep having those meaningful conversations with neighbors, our children, and even people we don’t know very well. He reminded us that a simple “thank you” might be the only positive words spoken to someone all day.

The second call to action was to those of us that are in a season of life where we feel beat up and unable to contribute. Perhaps this feeling of inability stems from financial and health hardships. Perhaps its from a bad experience in the past where you did contribute but got burned. He encouraged us to not give up. He encourage us to find a way to serve again with no expectations for recognition or reward.

Daniel’s presentation was powerful because he drew on personal experiences and shared his own struggle with being a person that makes a healthy positive contribution. His candidness and transparency was inspiring.

It was a great start to the Building Champions Experience and reminded me of how blessed I am to be here this week surrounded by professionals that want to make a difference in the lives of those the love and serve each day.

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

Building Champions Experience 2011 Opening Session is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

The most successful professionals I know are lifelong learners. They always seem to be reading books, studying best practices, networking with successful people, and applying what they learn to their own life. For many, the idea of finding time to focus on their personal development is almost a joke. Managing the high priority relationships, deals, and deadlines can take all of your time, leaving you with just enough energy to crawl into your pajamas, turn on the TV, and crash on the couch at the end of the day. I’ve learned that having a detailed plan to help you be intentional in your pursuit of personal development is essential to your overall success in life.

Early on in my career, I was encouraged by my business coach to develop what he called a Personal Development Plan. Over the years this type of plan has become something I look forward to doing each quarter, and is one of my favorite coaching tools. It is a fairly simple process that can yield wonderful results throughout the year. A personal development plan looks at the major areas of your life and has you identify the specific tools, actions, and experiences you will use to meet new people, learn new skills, and increase knowledge. I want to encourage you to consider building a personal development plan using the following process:

1. Identify 3-5 books you will read over the next 90 days. I encourage you to allow yourself some variety in what you are reading. If you make a goal to read only books on marketing or sales, then you will most likely get burned out before the end of the period. Instead find a book on personal finances, faith, business, and your health. Mix it up and enjoy what you read.

2. Identify 3-5 leaders to meet with over the next 90 days. Who are the people you admire most in your industry? Is there someone that does their job extremely well and that you could learn from if you took them to coffee or lunch? When I first thought about reaching out to people that were more successful then me I was very nervous. I found that all people love to connect and successful people love to share and mentor. Be brave, make the connection today.

3. Identify 1-2 classes, workshops or seminars to attend in the next 90 days. These types of experiences are great for connecting with others that are also eager to learn. Chose workshops that challenge your thinking, provide you with the opportunity to learn something and put it into action immediately. I highly recommend an experience like the Building  Champions Experience at the Suncadia Resort in Washington.

4. Identify 1 new skill you will learn in the next 90 days. This does not mean that you have to become an expert at whatever you chose. Rather, it is a chance for you to learn something new and fun like cooking, photography, crafts, or even trying a new sport.

Creating your own personal development plan is essential to your long-term success and growth as a professional. Make sure you don’t pack too much into your plan. Focus on quality instead of quantity. As always, if I can be of any help please let me know.

Question: Will you take the time to create a personal development plan this year?

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

CREATING A PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN is a post from: Coach Dan Foster

The fourth day of the Building Champions Experience was the perfect end to a great week. We focused our time on Priority Management, Reflection, and Accountability. The room had many emotions flowing through it when I arrived. People were excited for another great session, sad to be leaving friends, and happy to be headed home to loved ones and routine. We had spent the better part of the past three days focused on identifying our personal and business priorities as well as looking deeper into our Big Why. It was time to focus on how to manage all of these priorities when we returned to our normal life and busy routines.

The morning session began with executive coach, Daniel Harkavy having a discussion with Mark Miller, the VP of Training and Development for Chick-fil-A. Mark is an author and frequent speaker at conferences on topics ranging from leadership development to creating a thriving corporate culture. Here are my takeaways from their discussion on priority management:

Keep your priorities a priority by:

1. Reviewing your Life Plan, Vision Plan, and Business Plan regularly. If you have just written these than it should be done daily for the first 90 days. After that you should review them weekly.
2. Scheduling your high-payoff activities into your calendar before you schedule anything else.
3. Making your priorities non-negotiable in your life and business schedule.
4. Rescheduling high-payoff activity, if you are forced to miss the activity, to a later date/time to keep it a priority (don’t just say, “I’ll do it next time”).
5. Share your priorities with a trusted advisor (spouse, coach, friend) and your administrative staff. Ask them to hold you accountable to your schedule and priorities.
6. You cannot manage time – you can only manage how you choose to spend each minute and hour of the day.

Make sure the people that assist you are the best:

1. Your assistant must be able to think on their own and take initiative.
2. They must have the courage to tell you when you are wrong or not focusing on your priorities.
3. They must listen and have the pulse of your team/office.
4. They must be a life long learner.
5. They must be willing to operate within boundaries/expectations you set for them.

We had the opportunity to end the day hearing from a number of people describe how the experience of this week impacted their life. It was amazing to see so many people personally impacted by the Life Planning exercise, and so great to hear how they are making changes to improve relationships with those they love. You could actually see the relief on some attendees faces that had finally wrestled with questions of where they are going, why they’re doing what they do each day, what and who is most important to them in life and what they want to be remembered for when they are gone (their legacy).

We ended the entire experience right where we started, Reflecting, Planning, and Connecting. The last few minutes of the session we had the opportunity to review our notes from the week and come up with our top action plans to implement in the next two weeks. After writing these action plans out we then schedule time on our calendars to work on them over the next two weeks. The final step was to hold ourselves and friends accountable so we handed a copy of the action plans to an accountability partner and gave them permission to check in with us and ask us about our progress in two weeks. We then had the opportunity to connect with each other, say good-bye, and thank the awesome staff and coaching team at Building Champions.

I want to highly recommend you consider attending the Building Champions Experience in 2011. You will not be disappointed! Hope to see you there!

Make it a great day!

Coach Dan

BCE 2010 Top Takeaways – Day 4 is a post from: Coach Dan Foster