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plague of millennials

The Plague of the Millennials: Impatience

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Recently I became a certified John Maxwell Coach, Trainer, and Speaker. I did this by taking a trip to his home town of West Palm Beach and had a week long training session of learning the basics of being a coach and a speaker. It was a really unique experience and one that I had to do something I hadn’t done in 7 years – fly! (Which in itself as an experience getting down there, but that’s another story altogether!)

One of the things that I was thinking during the trip was what my niche is going to be in the near future as I start this very interesting career of adding value to others. I had several ideas, but I kept coming back to one main one: creating leaders in the “Lost Generation”.

What makes up this generation? Mainly Millennials. They are those who are commonly thought as Gen Y’ers or to employers: those who want to do little work but get big rewards. I know I’m guilty of having this mentality – it’s why I knew I needed a coach. And in return, I want to be the coach for those who realize they need that help as well. So I know there’s a market – and this post I read recently reinforces that.

I like to think of myself as a Gen XY’er. And while Jason has good points, one thing I disagree with is his perspective of Tim Ferriss. To me, what little I read from Tim’s book (I’m getting better at reading books all the way through!) – he’s pretty close to the ideal world of the Gen Y’er. However, it’s not Tim’s fault that they want this – it’s the environment of the current generation. People are products of their environment.

True, many Gen Y’ers don’t know what it’s like to have to work for something. And when they do, they expect results quickly (again, I understand this perspective from first hand experience!).

However, I do understand the “farmer’s” perspective. You put enough seeds in the ground then you’re going to get a harvest. The more seeds, the larger the harvest. Meaning, anything you stick with for a long time and consecutively work at, you’re going to get good at it – at least. The problem I see is that people aren’t patient. They never learn fully how to use the farming equipment. Furthermore, if those people have kids, then those kids are even less patient.

This is what happened with many Millennials. And I believe it can completely be altered into something productive. However, too much patience can be a problem as well (as I’ve found out).  Why? Well, going back to the farming analogy, if you spend too much time with one seed and not planting others, there’s a good chance you might not any harvest at all. Put that impatience to good use and you can get reward from the ideas of the “4 Hour Work Week” – just like Pat has.

What are your thoughts in impatience in Millennials? Is that’s what “wrong” with them?

Personality Temperaments: Mastering the Art

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One thing I know is that as a coach, I need to be coached myself – otherwise my knowledge base stays at my current level and due to that, I can only grow so fast if at all. When you bring someone into your life that has a knowledge base that is so different than yours and you’re open to their ideas, then you can grow exponentially as you listen and gain a larger understanding of how the world works.

Personally, I’ve had several coaches in my life and some have been great while others have been not as great. But that doesn’t keep me from searching for more wisdom to expand myself.

Recently I started getting coached by Mark Boersma – president of Synergy Solutions based out of Chicago. Mark’s a pretty interesting guy – early on he reminded me of Rick Moranis and I wondered if I could take anything he said seriously as he’s very sure of himself as well. From my experience, those that are very sure of themselves usually are the most insecure (or as us academics would say, “externally referenced”). But those who ask questions and approach life in that you can learn from anyone… those people I’ll open my ear to. Mark has shown some signs of this from time to time, so he’s getting a little more respect and response from me in return. Never forget that being humble isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength. You can never trust a guy who doesn’t cry. 🙂

One of the things that I’ve learned (or potentially relearned) from Mark is more about the art of determining someone’s personality. In the past, I either watched and listened to a person for 20 minutes or I had them take an extensive test. Funny enough, Mark has showed me a way of determining someone’s personality by asking two questions. Those questions are actually a little screwy, but I’ll give them to you anyway!

The Questions

First off, we need to set some basics here. Mark’s 4 temperaments are slightly different than those found in the DISC model. Even though they’re very similar. The Dominant is replaced by the Driver. The Imaginative is replaced by the Expressive. The Supportive is replaced by the Amiable. Finally, the Calculative is replaced by the Analytical.

The first question that is asked is to rank 4 shapes that someone else prefers. Those shapes are a cube, pyramid, wavy lines, and a ball. When ranking, a shape with a 1 is more preferred than that with a 4. Make sure that you ask in that order of shapes each time. If you’re doing it all verbally, you’ll need to repeat the question a couple of times over. And record your answer in a 2×2 grid on a paper at first… later you’ll be able to do it in your head. The scores are recorded clockwise starting in quadrant 1 and finishing in quadrant 4. Keep those scores.

The second question that needs to be addressed is what brings them more frustration in a given situation. Have them rank four choices in the same fashion as you did with the shapes. “What causes you more frustration in a given situation? Your choices are: out of order, out of control, not fun, and conflict”. Again as you did in the previous ranking, record their answers in a clockwise fashion starting from the upper left quadrant and finishing in the lower left hand.

The Explanation:

Now that you have two two by two grids, place them by each other. Place an empty 2×2 grid next to these two. In this grid you’ll put the sum of the numbers of the two other grids in each quadrant. So, clockwise (starting from the upper left hand corner) add each quadrant and put the result in the third grid. The resulting numbers yield the order of the person’s temperaments. For example if the first two quadrants yield a 2 and a 4, then the person is a strong Analytical-Driver. If the top two numbers are switched, than the personality of the person is a Driver-Analytical. (To know more about the traits, the easiest way is look for the DISC temperaments first and match them accordingly.) If the numbers come out to be rather close to each other (such as all the quadrants having a 5 in them) then the person is a new 5 type of personality – a chameleon. They’re the hardest to figure out but potentially the biggest achievers!

Thoughts, Comments, Questions?

If you have any further questions on how this works, please ask! I’m curious to know how this application affects your daily life in knowing how others tick. Also, if you’d like connect with Mark himself, please feel free to contact him at [email protected]. Make sure you refer to New Inceptions so that you get the VIP treatment.

Class Warfare 101

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I listen to and read a numerous amount of sources about politics. One of those sources is reddit. If you don’t know what reddit is, I highly recommend you take some time to make an account and explore it. Whatever your interests are, you probably can find a subreddit there.

One of the subreddits that I follow there is the “political” one. For the most part it’s full of progressive thinkers.You can find that out yourself by checking it out at reddit. As a follower of this blog, you probably know that I take the opposite stance of that perspective. I don’t understand how people can think that the economy can be fixed by just spending money… the government spending money – that we continuously have to raise the debt ceiling. I mean, we might as well raise it to a Gazillion dollars, ya know?

Today there was a post that was shared from a lefty blog that just made me laugh. (Here’s the link to the reddit link.) It just boggled my mind. Basically the writer of the post was going on about how there’s more of an income gap between classes here in the US than there are Egypt.

Well, duh. Yes there is.

Egyptians were under a dictatorship… we’re not. I would assume they were forced to be in certain income brackets – where, we’re not. No one is stopping anyone here from starting a business and making more money… other than the Bush and Obama administrations taxing and spending more.

Face it, the reason we have an income inequality gap is because the wealthy isn’t doing anything with their money (smart thinking!!) because they don’t know what to invest in because the past two administrations suck and the poor needs that money flowing otherwise they get poorer.

The writer of this post simply was wanting people with less money than “wealthy” people to envy them. Make them think that they’re the problem. That they’re the ones to blame. This has all the makings of class warfare ala Nazism vs the Jews.

I mean according to this blog… apparently all rich people are bad. So you best not try to be one yourself!! You’ll be bad too!

This is silly.

In my experience, money is simply an amplifier of a person’s personality. If the person is bad, they’ll do bad things with the money, if they’re good, they’ll do good things with it. In either case, they shouldn’t be forced to do anything with it. That’s essentially what taxes look like to everyone. However, taxes are needed – but definitely not in the percentages we see today through different classes. If they are forced to, others should pay their fair share of taxes if we’re gonna tax the heck out of the wealthy. People who are willing to work for that money shouldn’t be penalized because they were successful in obtaining it. Most often than not, they weren’t shaisters to get it. Most wealthy people become wealthy by actually helping others in selling a product a service…

The Solution:

Let’s just have a flat tax on everyone so the job making wealthy know what they have to earn to out earn their taxes so they can buy that new mansion and the middle class can figure out if there’s indeed a need for new mansions – which would probably provide 3 or 4 jobs for a good part of two years for those who can’t start a business right now!

If you don’t start your own business (you’re own safety net), you’ll always be dependent on someone else for your income. It’s your decision to make more money than you’re paid on an hourly basis – not someone else’s. Maybe you’ll never make as much as them, but you won’t know unless you try. But you shouldn’t tear others down, just to build yourself up. Don’t blame others for your situation. Hitler did – it didn’t end up working out so well for him, did it?

The DISC Profile: Placing People on the Map

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When I was growing up and even through most of my undergrad years, I always thought that EVERYONE was competitive. I thought everyone played nature’s game. However, when I was taking an OLS class in 2004, I found out about personality temperaments. Specifically, I found out about the Myers-Briggs Personality Profile test. While studying this I came to find out that there were 16 combinations of 8 different traits that a person could have. At the time, I thought it was preposterous to label people – but as I had to study it more, I found out that it explained quite a bit.

Well, over time, I became frustrated with the Myers-Briggs test (which is the same thing as the Jungian 16 test). In one week, I could be one of the 16 different combinations and then in the next week, I’d be another. I could be an introvert one week and the next week, I’d be an extrovert!

Well eventually I ran across a book called Personality Plus. In this book, Florence Littauer explains how there are really four main personality temperaments: the Melancholy, Phlegmatic, Sanguine, and Choleric. She also explains how to tell what you are as well as what others are and how to interact with them.

Later, I found out about the DISC personality assessment and realized that the temperaments described in Florence’s book could have easier names to remember! DISC is short for Dominant, Imaginative, Supportive, and Calculative (or a combination of similar terms).

At any rate, the point of all of this is that once you have an understanding of what these temperaments are, you can understand where people are coming from. In a very basic form, you can understand what drives people. So, without further adue, here’s a brief explanation of the different DISC temperaments (source: Wikipedia):

The assessments classify four aspects of behavior by testing a person’s preferences in word associations (compare with Myers-Briggs Type Indicator). DISC is an acronym for:

  • Dominance – relating to control, power and assertiveness
  • Influence – relating to social situations and communication
  • Steadiness (submission in Marston’s time) – relating to patience, persistence, and thoughtfulness
  • Conscientiousness (or caution, compliance in Marston’s time) – relating to structure and organization

These four dimensions can be grouped in a grid with “D” and “I” sharing the top row and representing extroverted aspects of the personality, and “C” and “S” below representing introverted aspects. “D” and “C” then share the left column and represent task-focused aspects, and “I” and “S” share the right column and represent social aspects. In this matrix, the vertical dimension represents a factor of “Assertive” or“Passive”, while the horizontal dimension represents “Open” vs. “Guarded”.[2]


  • Dominance (Choleric / Driver): People who score high in the intensity of the “D” styles factor are very active in dealing with problems and challenges, while low “D” scores are people who want to do more research before committing to a decision. High “D” people are described as demanding, forceful, egocentric, strong willed, driving, determined, ambitious, aggressive, and pioneering. Low D scores describe those who are conservative, low keyed, cooperative, calculating, undemanding, cautious, mild, agreeable, modest and peaceful.

 

  • Influence (Sanguine / Expressive): People with high “I” scores influence others through talking and activity and tend to be emotional. They are described as convincing, magnetic, political, enthusiastic, persuasive, warm, demonstrative, trusting, and optimistic. Those with low “I” scores influence more by data and facts, and not with feelings. They are described as reflective, factual, calculating, skeptical, logical, suspicious, matter of fact, pessimistic, and critical.

 

  • Steadiness (Phlegmatic / Amiable): People with high “S” styles scores want a steady pace, security, and do not like sudden change. High “S” individuals are calm, relaxed, patient, possessive, predictable, deliberate, stable, consistent, and tend to be unemotional and poker faced. Low “S” intensity scores are those who like change and variety. People with low “S” scores are described as restless, demonstrative, impatient, eager, or even impulsive.

 

  • Conscientious (Melancholy / Analytical): People with high “C” styles adhere to rules, regulations, and structure. They like to do quality work and do it right the first time. High “C” people are careful, cautious, exacting, neat, systematic, diplomatic, accurate, and tactful. Those with low “C” scores challenge the rules and want independence and are described as self-willed, stubborn, opinionated, unsystematic, arbitrary, and unconcerned with details.

Who said you couldn’t source Wikipedia? 🙂

At any rate, I would like to note that while the DISC profile or any other personality temperament test can give a basic understanding of who a person is, it cannot possibly give an exact representation of who they are as a person. Why? Well think of a particular place on Earth, say Hawaii. Now it is possible to represent Hawaii by a Latitude and Longitude value but that probably doesn’t do it justice. There are so many ways that a particular place can be described, especially Hawaii, that limiting it to a few key words probably isn’t the best thing to do. The same thing is true with people.

So if you do start using the DISC profile (or any personality assessment) in common situations be careful that even if you get a base description of someone, that it isn’t all you use to evaluate who they are as person. But it definitely is a starting point… and that’s definitely better than nothing or just winging it!

A True Navigator: Making Logical Decisions

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“Anyone can steer the ship but it takes a leader to chart the course.” – J.C. Maxwell

I like the fact that I have the same first initials of one of my favorite authors. 🙂

So… Here’s a situation for you. Let’s say that you are at the helm of a yacht setting out from California and you’re on your way to a great getaway location in the Caribbean.  You’ve been told that this place is the best place that you could ever be based on a conversation with a best friend that is on the yacht with you. The catch is that this particular place has a festival that is only going on long enough for you to barely make the last couple of days of it. Now you realize that to get to this location, you have to pass by several places that you wanted to check out including the coast of Mexico, the Panama Canal, and the Gulf Coast. Your destination sounds great and it’s the best time of the year to go, but you’ve personally always wanted to check out each of these places. You’d rather do all of it, but you have limited time. You would have more time to see everything but you know if you spend time elsewhere, you won’t make the festival. Which would you do? Would you check out the other destinations or try and make it to the festival?

Logic should say that you can go to the festival first and as you sail back, if you had time, you could check out the other destinations in reverse. I ask this question because it is very relative in how you live your life. How do you make decisions in your life? Do you generally make decisions on emotion or by logic?

Logic can be defined as the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Or, to put it into context, it’s the process of thinking about what you (or your organization) really want in the future and determining if your past actions and short term goals will get you there.

Naturally, everyone wants to make decisions based on emotion. We all want to do what makes us feel good. There’s nothing wrong with that. We simply can’t stop making emotional decisions because we, as humans, are indeed emotional. But sometimes if we make decisions without following a course, then we might miss bigger and better things. Sometimes we have to miss out on things right now to get to all the destinations. Sometimes we have to make decisions with logic and planning so that we can get the better rewards. We have to put off the good for the great.

If you’re not familiar with charting a course for your decision making, then here’s a strategic way for you to do just that.

The Secret to Navigating: PLAN AHEAD

The secret to navigating really isn’t too far out there. Yes, you have to “Plan Ahead”, but what does that mean? Well it just so happens that this is actually an acronym:

P – Predetermine a course of action: If you’re going to climb a ladder, make sure you’re climbing one that’s on the building you want to get to the top of. In the yacht trip example, we determine that we want to go to the Caribbean for the festival.

L – Lay Out your goals: Determine what you really want to accomplish. Which are initial higher priorities? Do you have time to make it to the different coast lines or do you have to go straight to the festival?

A – Adjust your priorities: Are your priorities correct? If they aren’t change them according to what you’ve heard, seen, and past experiences. You realize that if you want to make the festival, you have to set sail directly for it.

N – Notify key personel: Have a meeting with those in your life or organization that your decision directly affects. On the yacht, it would probably be a good choice to tell your friend who was wanting to go to the festival that you are indeed going there. If there’s anyone else on board that should know right away, tell them.

A – Allow time for acceptance of any changes: This part takes patience. In change management, we realize that the transition phase is going to be the longest part of change. There are three parts of the transition and should be done in three separate meetings. 1.) Announce the idea; 2.) Expand the ideas through determining the Pros and Cons with others; 3.) Summarize the plan with the people who helped determine it…

H – Head into Action: Most leaders want to start here without planning before hand. More often than not, this is a bad idea. Just because the Nike slogan is Just Do It! doesn’t mean that everyone should just start working out without consulting a physician first. Or in the yacht example, we want to make sure that everyone knows where we’re going before we go!

E – Expect Problems: Build in wiggle room. Again no one is perfect and perfection shouldn’t be expected of anyone – not even yourself. Even with the best thought out plan, we can’t control everything. In the yacht example, we might run into a storm on the way there or the engine might fail.

A – Always Point at Success: Be reassuring when needed. Make sure you remind yourself or the people you’re with of overcoming a challenge that was similar in magnitude. In the yacht example, talk about stories of the past in where you had to make a similar decision where you made it just in time to deliver a passenger on time for their flight.

D – Daily review your plan: Reflect on how things are going by thinking about three things: 1.) Review the goal 2.) Review the current situation and external forces 3.) Review the people involved – are they all ok? On the yacht trip: remember why you’re bypassing other destinations, check the weather and the condition of the boat, and make sure you’re keeping moral high if there’s any problems with the other passengers.

Now that you have a plan for your planning, make it a habit to make logical decisions in your life based on what you want in 5 to 10 years from now!!

The E4 Project – Not Just for Glenn Beck Fans

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I don’t really listen to political talk too much any more. That’s kind of sad considering at one time I was a political junky. I might just still be, but I tend to stay away from it. On occasion I will listen to your typical political talking head just to get an idea of what’s going on out in the world. For the longest time I used to listen and watch Glenn Beck all the time. From time to time, I’d also check out what Rachel Maddow had to say.  Totally too opposing points of view. But to be honest, I started thinking that both of them eventually had the same thing to say over and over. Plus, I started instilling a rule into my life: if it’s something I can’t do anything about, then I’m not going to worry about it. Thus, I simply stick to my standards (as mentioned in the last post) and live life.

But as I said, I do tend to turn in from time to time and heard Beck talking about this new project of his not too long ago: The E4 Project. The E4 Project is called as such because it focuses on 4 words each starting with an E – Enlightenment, Education, Empowerment, Entrepreneurship. All of which I think are important to know and think about.

In a squidoo post I found on the web, Brooke Allen discusses what each word means as a Beck fan. But I’ll go over them fairly quickly and mention their importance in self improvement.

Enlightenment – Faith. To me, Faith can be understood in two ways. It can be understood in the spiritual sense. That if things are meant to be, then they will happen. Or if you’re more of a numbers person, then Faith would be a single term for the phrase “chances are…”. If you have faith, it will happen! Understanding the fact that if certain things are done with a certain result in mind, then chances are that result will happen.

In the world of improving ones life, it should be known that a fundamental change of a person’s life isn’t going to happen over night. Faith is illustrated over an expanded period of time that a goal will be achieved if you continually work towards that goal. Faith is simply knowing that the crock pot is going to cook the food; that the seed is growing to grow into a plant and letting time and a process do its thing.

Education – We’re all familiar with this term. Personally, I love learning. I always have. I’m just naturally curious about the world and whenever I have a question, I find the answer. Just like in everything else, you can never know too much about yourself, others, and self improvement in general. You can spend your entire life learning how to better yourself and those around you but you’ll never know it all.

Empowerment – Once you have a basic understanding of how people and life works, you need to put it into practice. Start making your life better. (For example, make your own list of standards and start living by them!) Start making the lives of others better by adding value to them. Go out of your way if you need to at times!

Entrepreneurship – If you’re unemployed, underemployed, or not making enough money – then perhaps another job isn’t the answer! Even in this economy, there are so many opportunities out there that aren’t being taken advantage of that is no excuse not to be able to develop “side” income. However many people don’t even think outside the box. It’s a major case of “Who Moved My Cheese?”. To put it simply, the old system is broken and not producing money where we’re used to finding it.

With that said, it doesn’t always take money to make money. I almost find it amusing when people limit themselves based on the lack of money is the reason they don’t do something. “Uh, duh! That’s the reason you’re in this spot in the first place! You haven’t figured out a way to make additional income. This is your chance!” If people just simply start adding some habits in their life that can make them money outside of a job, then they won’t be upset because their job doesn’t pay them. Especially with the advent of e-commerce, the sky is the limit. If you can find a need, fill it, make a profit, and do so with a passion, then you might just have your real career at your fingertips.

Why Working a 9 to 5 Probably Won't Get You Your Dreams

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That is if your dreams include doing things on your own terms. You know, the sky is really the limit. It’s just that most people don’t know that they need to keep reaching for the sky. Most people let “things and stuff” get in their way of living the way they’d prefer. Many times those “things and stuff” is actually their day job. The truth is that the same reason that a lot of people want to gain wealth is the exact same reason that they never get it in the first place. They think that they are limited by what they can earn by trading hours of their life for dollars. Only problem is that you can’t out earn the problem.

Simply enough, if you want a Ferrari, if you want that big mansion, or heck, if you just want to get another $500/month outside of your job, then you’re going to have to do just that. Produce money outside of your job. Because a job by its nature only pays you enough that it will keep you around – that includes all those nice perks you get (if you’re lucky enough to get them).

The truth of the matter is that if you don’t control the accumulation of assets, then you don’t control the accumulation of wealth. If you don’t control the accumulation of wealth, then you simply don’t control your financial future. Thus working a 9 to 5 job, whatever it is – however cool it is – simply won’t get the job done. Sorry about the pun.

For a good example, here’s our buddy, Pat Flynn of the Smart Passive Income Blog, on this topic when it comes to building online assets:

Whether you’re trying to be a lifestyle or serial entrepreneur (by the definition of what they are, situational entrepreneurs don’t normally have the same goals as the other two), your end goal is to develop enough assets so that you don’t need to trade hours for dollars.