I attempted to listen and understand before I sought to be understood. Thank you Stephen Covey for that valuable and timeless lesson. I told them briefly what I was going to teach and show them. I attempted to teach and show. I told them what I thought I had just showed them and taught them.

I had some great help in this presentation, so that I was one of a group working on the issue at hand. I tried to use as little time and as few words as possible to make the points and effect the changes.

It is interesting to think about how much time, effort and preparation over many years a keynote speaker takes to create a “keynote speech” that takes only a minute and makes a substantial difference.

Sometimes the less said, the better.

It is typical for people to have a love-hate relationship with their workplace, their co-workers and superiors. If the people running the organization are paying attention, they can use this to improve the business weekly.

Take employee comments seriously. If they compliment you and tell you things that they love about work, try to find a way to do more of the same. If they tell you something they hate or bring up a problem, take this very seriously. Use the problem to find some root causes, expose some weaknesses, uncover some sloppiness. Then do something about it.  Create an initiative, a training exercise or a new protocol. Measure results. Reexamine the process and measure results again.

If you do this correctly, employees can love to work at your place of business, even if there are things they hate about it, because you try to address what they hate and make it less hateful.

Do you love to work where you work, or do you hate it?

I was reading a few profiles of people who bill themselves as a keynote speaker and was struck by how tirelessly some of them work on their businesses. 

It brought to mind one of my current theories, which is that many of us are addicted to exhaustion. We seem to thrive on over-working ourselves, depriving ourselves of rest, relaxation and sleep. Exhaustion has a certain feel to it. One can become addicted to it as easily as one can become addicted to a sugar rush-crash, a caffeine buzz or a nicotine head. I am sure exhaustion has a whole chain of physiological actions that we can become chemically addicted to, just like we can become addicted to carbohydrate overload. 

I realize that our worlds are fast paced and on a 24-7-365 schedule. I also appreciate the lift one gets from a tall cup of coffee on a morning when you are tired from working too many hours, too many days in a row. 

Sometimes I push myself until I just can’t take any more before lying down. But isn’t that a little crazy? On the days when I rest when I am tired, rather than pushing on, I feel much better, think more clearly and get a lot more done. I am also easier to live with for my loved ones. 

Maybe an addiction to exhaustion is just that: an addiction to something destructive, like any other destructive addiction. Or maybe it is just us fooling ourselves into thinking we are being super productive. 

So maybe the next chance I have to work as a keynote speaker, I’ll use “addiction to exhaustion” as my topic.

This I Believe

I believe I’ll have a nap now

By Tron Jordheim

In the quiet moments that I steal from the events of the day, the responsibilities of career, the joy of family and the stress of the news, I contemplate the things I believe. When I find a way to sneak into a forest to stand below a grand oak tree and feel the wind on my face, I feel many things. I know that love rules out over selfishness and evil. I know that there is nothing more wonderful than nature. I remember the miracles of my life and the people who touched me along the way. Then I think of the challenges at hand: to keep one’s joy in the face of all that would squash it; to laugh when threatened and harassed; to gain prosperity through collaboration and not through domination; to feel young and alive in spite of the weight of the world.

It all seems rather tedious and exhausting. I would rather spend my day laughing with my wife and playing with my children, with a few breaks to toss a ball for my dogs. And I plan to do all of these things for at least a little while today. But in the mean time, there are bosses who expect a high rate of return, bills that need to be paid, nest eggs that need some careful attention and people who depend on me to feed their children. There are street battles raging closer by than I care to know. The haves and have-nots are fighting all around me as I strive to stay out of their way.

It takes a great deal of energy to feel as if one is living just another lovely day in paradise. I tire from the people and events that strain at my view of this beautiful world. I know I can maintain my joy and contribute to my fullest if I can just get a little rest. It feels like time to find a comfortable spot to recline for a while. I believe I’ll have a nap now.

Tron Jordheim is a business speaker, executive, writer and family guy.

I could have picked many titles for this book. I could have chosen a challenging title like: “So you think your company’s sales culture is good?” I could have picked a brusque attention getter like “Hey, your company’s sales culture sucks!” I could have picked something a little more academic sounding such as “Stimulating a 2 percent improvement in bottom line corporate profits through the institution of sales culture enhancements”. I could have picked a title that boasted: “I quintupled the revenue of my company by creating a sales culture…and so could you!”

Any one of these might express my feelings about the value of a good sales culture and about my opinion of most companies’ current sales and customer service practice. 

But why did I choose the title I did?

I am not so interested in the little changes, like when you might decide you really do like guacamole after having avoided it for years. I am more interested in the big changes, like when you decided that the invasion of Iraq really was a stupid thing, or when you decided that acquiring more parks and open space really are good things to do for the next generations.

It sounds like Governor Crist of Florida has had one of those moments. After taking an airplane tour over the massive oil spill that is uncontrollably taking over the Gulf of Mexico and after thinking about the people who died in the explosion, he said that he had changed his mind about off shore drilling. Crist is now convinced Florida does not need it or want it. After seeing how much damage can come from an accident, he has set aside one of his party’s biggest mantras: “Drill, baby, drill!”

Now Crist might be heard saying, “No drilling near Florida!”

As a business speaker, I would find a way to use this turnaround in a speech about leadership. Sometimes you have to take the right stance, even if it is opposite of the mantra of the day.

Some of my ancestors were the Vikings who traded and raided all across Northern and Western Europe and the Scottish/British/Irish Isles. I feel some pride in the amazing sailing skills and the courage and tenacity of my people. I can’t say I am proud of the raping and pillage that the Vikings apparently practiced at every opportunity. I am sure there are Irish, English and Scottish people who are still bitter about the havoc my ancestors spread. History and people are just not so simple.

Some of my other ancestors fought for the German Army in World War One. Although I am awed at their fortitude, their courage and their ability to survive, I can’t say there is a damn thing admirable about The Great War.

The War Between the States was one of those wars that had no good guys.  The idea that the Confederates fought for their freedom is quite ironic, as one of the major ways they expressed their freedom was to enslave others. The Unionists began the war with no noble goal. The only goal was to preserve the Union.

I am sure there were individual acts of perseverance, persistence and heroism. I am sure there were Confederate soldiers who snuck food to the starving prisoners at Andersonville. I am sure some of Sherman’s troops snuck food to the women and children who were left homeless and destitute by the March to the Sea. I am sure there must have been a slave owner who helped his slaves evacuate to a safe and remote area like the Gullah Coast where they could live in relative seclusion and safety while the war raged in other areas. I am sure there must have been a Pennsylvania farmer  who hid, nursed and fed a wounded Confederate boy-soldier until it was safe for him to sneak back home to Virginia.

I live in Missouri, which was a particularly nasty place before, during and right after the War Between the States. There was so much brutality on all sides, that it is just impossible to declare any side the good guy. The bitterness still survives at some level. If you have ever seen the Clint Eastwood movie, “The Outlaw Josie Wales”, then you know a little bit of the Missouri story. Even today, the Kansas KU sports team is called the “Jay Hawks”, which was the name the Kansas border raiding militias went by. Talking about not being PC. This is certainly as offensive to people with Confederate ancestors as it must be for Native Americans of the Northern Plains to see a team named the “Custers”.

It was just a few years ago that Kansas and Missouri decided to change the name of their college sports rivalry from “The border war” to “The border showdown”.

Even so, Kansas and Missouri seem to have mostly forgiven each other. Outside of the sports rivalries and away from the battle field memorials, there is not a lot of talk of the bad old days.

It might be a good idea for all the ancestors of The War of Secession to just admit it was an ugly time and forgive each other.

Forgiving old enemies is not easy. I lost some of my family to the German death camps in World War Two. But in my days as a dog trainer, I had dog training buddies in Germany who had been SS officers in the war. I traveled to Germany frequently to train dogs and to buy dogs in the 1980s.  It was pretty weird training dogs, drinking beer and sharing a few laughs with the guys who might have shoved my great grand mother into a crowded, foul smelling railroad stock car and locked the door behind her. My dog training buddies and I never talked about the bad old days, except to acknowledge that they played a role and that my family paid a price. We shrugged and agreed it was a long time ago. We agreed to focus on the present and focus on trying to move on. The fires of hate and ignorance had long burned out.

I lived in New York during a very racist and dangerous time in the 1970s and 1980s. My family was on both sides. The white side of my family tried to deal with it as best they could. The black side of my family tried to not get killed. It was an ugly time. So we all try to forgive the people who stoked the fires of hate and ignorance, while we try to move on.

But the fires of hate and ignorance still seem to benefit the scammers and the charlatans who find wealth and power in the fear and anger they fuel. Forgiving is not enough. How to we help people feel the futility of hate and vengeance? How do we help them see how they are being used as patsies in political scams to help charlatans rise to wealth and power?

I am tired of having to forgive people for their unspeakable acts of cruelty and foolishness. Let’s move on to something else, please. How about something a little more constructive and forward looking?

Becoming a verb helps people understand and internalize what you are trying to teach them and help them mimic and repeat your successes. So how can you become a verb?

If you listen to what the people say who did not support this bill, we have just thrown our nation and our collective futures to the dogs. That seems a little over-reactive to me. My impression is that the party out of power tends to spend more time posturing than anything else.

It reminds me of playing street hockey back in Brooklyn when I was a kid. There was this one guy from a few blocks over who liked to play hockey against my block. He was always starting fights and being a sore loser. One time he skated hard at me to try and check me against a parked car. You see the cars parked in the street served as our “boards”.  He missed me because I moved out of his way. He slammed into the car and crashed all over himself, falling to the street. He jumped up and started yelling about how he hit me hard and I went down and I was a sore loser.  I had to laugh out loud. But after a few minutes of his speech, a few kids thought he had actually checked me to the street, even though they saw what happened.

Politics, like street hockey, has some odd moments.

A speaker has more than a few ways to let his voice be heard. Standing in front of a group trying to make a point, teach a lesson or motivate some action is certainly one way. Writing a story around a point is another. Writing a blog post works too.

There are so many voices competing for people’s attention that sometimes people do not have the time or the interest to listen to a business speaker. Some times people only have a few minute to devote to skimming a blog post. So how do you get your voice heard in a short post? Get to the point.

Make a point worth making. Prove your point. Then let the reader go. You said your piece. Your voice was heard. Now let the reader go. If your point was interesting or useful, the reader will come back again.

So when a business speaker cannot get in front of a big group for a long period of time, he can get in front of a small group for a small time in a blog. Now that you are in front of me, I feel like I may have made my point and I will let you go now. I hope you come back.