For this new year’s week, I challenge you to develop some stop, start, continue resolutions for yourself.  Complete the three sentences below.  Write down your answers.  Save them in a file, tuck them in a drawer, add them to your calendar at the end of the quarter.  Then, on some selected date, review your progress toward achieving them.  Good luck!

I resolve to STOP:

I resolve to START:

I resolve to CONTINUE:

Tuesday Tidbits are weekly messages I send to my leadership team. They are generally short & sweet, often focused on leadership or teamwork, always positive and, hopefully, motivational. I hope you also find some meaning in them.

Take twelve fine, full-grown months; see that these are thoroughly free from old memories of bitterness, rancor and hate, cleanse them completely from every clinging spite; pick off all specks of pettiness and littleness; in short, see that these months are freed from all the past—have them fresh and clean as when they first came from the great storehouse of Time.

Cut these months into thirty or thirty-one equal parts. Do not attempt to make up the whole batch at one time (so many persons spoil the entire lot this way) but prepare one day at a time.

Into each day put equal parts of faith, patience, courage, work (some people omit this ingredient and so spoil the flavor of the rest), hope, fidelity, liberality, kindness, rest (leaving this out is like leaving the oil out of the salad dressing— don’t do it), prayer, meditation, and one well-selected resolution.

Put in about one teaspoonful of good spirits, a dash of fun, a pinch of folly, a sprinkling of play, and a heaping cupful of good humor.

And, I would add…mix well and share generously.  Happy new year!

Many people make personal resolutions to do something different in a new year.  Lose weight and exercise more.  Stop smoking.  Spend more time with the family.

What about resolutions for your business or career?  Today’s newslink is to a list of ten action items for the new year, compiled by IDG Enterprise CEO Michael Friedenberg.  Click HERE to read his list, published December 15 on CIO.com.  Add a comment below and share what you would add.

Happy New Year!

Newslink: Leadership features articles about the development and practice of leadership skills in today’s business world.

The movie is the true story of recently widowed father of two, Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon), who decides to buy a run-down wildlife park and move his family there to give everyone a fresh start away from sad memories.

Of course, memories aren’t so quickly left behind and running a zoo isn’t easy, either!  This heartwarming story takes viewers through the evolution of the family’s grief and recovery, with a sprinkling of humor.  One of the life lessons in the story is something handed down from Mee’s father to him, and from him to his children:

You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.

Think of these words when you’re about to have a difficult conversation; be brave enough to say the first words.  When attempting to do something you’re unsure of, twenty seconds of courage will get you started.  When choosing a new path, bravely take that first step.

When making New Year’s resolutions later this week, be brave enough to think big!  What do you want to change?  What do you want to start?  What do you want to stop? Remember, all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage.  Something great will come of it.

Happy 2012!

Tuesday Tidbits are weekly messages I send to my leadership team. They are generally short & sweet, often focused on leadership or teamwork, always positive and, hopefully, motivational. I hope you also find some meaning in them.

Success

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

What would you add to the above definition of success? 

Tuesday Tidbits are weekly messages I send to my leadership team. They are generally short & sweet, often focused on leadership or teamwork, always positive and, hopefully, motivational. I hope you also find some meaning in them.

Today, I will do what others won’t so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t. ~Jerry Rice

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity. ~Louis Pasteur

Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.  ~Edward H. Harriman

Most people, upon reaching the top, look down and enjoy the view.  The smart money is on looking up and finding new mountains to climb.  ~Jeb Dickerson

Happy December!

Tuesday Tidbits are weekly messages I send to my leadership team. They are generally short & sweet, often focused on leadership or teamwork, always positive and, hopefully, motivational. I hope you also find some meaning in them.

Here are a few quotes on teamwork…

Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.  ~Vince Lombardi

Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.  ~Kenyan Proverb

Coming together is a beginning.  Keeping together is progress.  Working together is success.  ~Henry Ford

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.  The ability to direct individual accomplishment toward organizational objectives.  It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.  ~Andrew Carnegie

Tuesday Tidbits are weekly messages I send to my leadership team. They are generally short & sweet, often focused on leadership or teamwork, always positive and, hopefully, motivational. I hope you also find some meaning in them.

It’s hard to believe that it’s November already! There are only sixty days left in the year. Seventeen of those days fall on the weekend. Subtract Thanksgiving and we are left with just forty two work days remaining in 2011.

How will you make the best of those remaining days? Worrying and fretting about where the time is going? Or, buckling down and getting the most out of them?

Have you reached your 2011 goals, yet? What about your personal development; have you explored something new? You know what they say; if you aren’t growing… What about your co-workers; any team goals that haven’t been met, yet? How are your peer relationships coming?

Time is short. Make the most of it.

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. -H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Tuesday Tidbits are weekly messages I send to my leadership team. They are generally short & sweet, often focused on leadership or teamwork, always positive and hopefully, motivational. I hope you find some meaning in them.

What a lofty goal, one person trying to get 400,000 people to donate to anything! And, vowing not to blog until that goal is reached? What a statement this person is making!

I wondered who or what in the world this @fugeesfamily could be, to inspire such passion. So, I clicked on the link and it took me to Marjorie Clayman‘s blog, “Social Media, Marketing and Musings,” and specifically to her Oct. 23 post titled, “A Blogging Hiatus Till We Get This Done.”

Before I knew it, I clicked through links to make a $12.00 donation to the Fugee Family!

The Fugee (as in refugee) Family unites children, who have survived war in countries all around the world, through the universal game of soccer. Coach Luma Mufleh has created a safe and structured environment for these children, based in sport, education, family and citizenship. There are expectations – a contract, in fact - of proper manners, attending practice, attended tutoring, attending school and appropriate dress and language. In the last five years, Coach Luma expanded the program’s offerings to include “year round soccer for 86 boys and girls ages 10-18, tutoring and after-school soccer for 50 elementary school children, a private academy serving 36 children and an academic enriching summer camp.”

What’s next for Coach Luma and the Fugee Family? That’s where your $12 gift comes in. (Of course, you can give even more, or donate items on this wish list.)

Coach Luma wants to do even more for these children. She wants to create a Fugee Village. They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it takes money to build a village. I encourage you to learn more about the Fugees and then help Coach Luma’s dream become a reality.

I gave. I hope you will to. Imagine the possibilities!

Today, I am thankful for these challenges, because each one is a new opportunity.

I am learning about parts of the business that I’m not nearly as familiar with as I am customer service. I’m working with people I don’t often get to partner this closely with. It’s interesting and motivating to do something new and different, even though it is also sometimes overwhelming!

There’s juggling all of kinds in a project like this; external partners, conflicting priorities, cross-functional tasks and decisions, communications and deadlines. There’s technology needs, financial concerns, process changes, compliance considerations, and deadlines. Then, there are meetings, reports, spreadsheets, project plans, executive updates, and deadlines.

Did I mention deadlines?

The very best thing is that the other people on my team have jumped in with focused commitment. They are working hard, working fast and working smart; they working independently and working well together. We are getting things done!

As always, it’s not the tasks or the systems that make a project work, it’s the people. Knowing the people on my team, I know this project will be successful.

What about you? Have you taken on a new challenge lately where the people made all the difference?

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. -William Arthur Ward

Will you join the gratitude movement?