beBetter 

Whenever our grandson, Davis, would ride with us to our old house, we would cross a wooden bridge to enter the Northshore section of the lake. Almost every time, Davis would say “CeCe, do you remember when Pops broke the boat?” 

When Davis was about 3 years old, he and his dad were on the boat with us. I had just recently acquired the boat, so I was still learning about being the captain. We cruised over to go under the bridge. What I didn’t know at the time was that the canopy was too tall to go under the bridge. So, BAM! Thank goodness it just collapsed and didn’t hurt anyone. Davis has never forgotten that boat ride. Neither have I, and now I never forget to take the canopy down. I learned from that mistake, and I am a safer and better helmsman as the result. 

On a recent flight, I got to looking at the motion sickness bag sitting right in front of me. It reminded me one of my first trips with my wife, Cathy. We took a trip to Las Vegas with four other couples to celebrate the birthday of a close friend. I really wanted to impress her, so I arranged for us to take a helicopter tour into the Grand Canyon and land for a picnic lunch. I was very excited about this trip and she seemed to be also.  

It was a beautiful day and after some initial training, we boarded the helicopter in the back seat while another couple rode up front with the pilot. After a smooth lift-off, the pilot began a tour around Vegas and then out to the Grand Canyon. It was so cool flying so close to the buildings and seeing Vegas from a new view. Cathy was smiling, but she did look a little pale. 

It’s that nerve-wracking time of year where we “officially” document our progress and performance for the past 12 months. It’s tough on the performance advisors and the assigned team members. Everyone wants to get it right.

I know from my personal experience that one of the best ways to have a great performance review is to have a positive attitude. When I remind myself that this is about helping me grow as a professional and that my performance advisor and coach all care about my success, then it helps me listen to the feedback both positively and constructively. It is part of being better and growing.

Some days I wonder if I even have a clue to what is going on. Nothing like a confidence builder to start today’s blog with, huh? But seriously, do you ever feel that way? Even if we are engaged and focused, with a constantly changing business environment, it’s easy to feel like we have no clue. 

The words “no clue” still ring loudly in my ears and on my behind as I recall the hardest paddling I ever had in school.

Recently, I had the privilege of heading out to southern Louisiana to go speckled trout fishing. I’ve always loved the great outdoors and there’s always been a part of me that feels free once I get in nature and “away from it all”.  

We had three boats and lots of eager fishermen. Now, reflecting on this adventure made it easy for me to see how important maintaining our focus on our objective of catching speckled trout was to our ultimate success. It’s uncanny how similar this fishing trip was to our disciplined focus on our journey of going from good to great.

The Sunday before a big speaking engagement, I had plans for a nice quiet afternoon to reflect on my thoughts and comments for the meeting. I like to have some time to prepare or stress out completely.

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of speaking to The University of Southern Mississippi Beta Alpha Psi Accounting Honorary. What an impressive group of students. We had a tremendous turnout, but what really left me glowing was the work of my HORNE team.

Several HORNE team members attended, and watching this group of young professionals network, smile and represent our firm so well, all after a long work day, was just incredible. They were approachable and many of the students interacted with them.  They networked with the accounting professors, and I even think they listened some to my presentation, or at least they were kind enough to pretend. 

Over the past few weeks, I have shared some daily habits that will change your life and career. I call them the ABC’s to Outstanding and they are easy to do. So far, we have covered the “A,” controlling your Attitude, and the “B,” Better Focus. Now, I want to talk about the “C.” It stands for Constant Learning.

Constant learning is not just about school knowledge, or reading, or mastery of technical knowledge, or new skills, or people skills, or coaching, or making mistakes, or advice from friends and family, or new experiences. I'm not talking about any one of them, I am talking about ALL of them. Embrace growing yourself daily.

Last week I introduced you to the ABC’s to Outstanding as we talked about controlling the “A” which is your attitude. Today, let’s focus on the “B.” It stands for Better Focus.

What’s the biggest risk of losing our focus? Wasting our time and our potential.

“One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular. ” - Tony Robbins

The fact is, we can’t multitask; our brains are simply not wired that way. Numerous studies have shown that when we are constantly interrupted, or are attempting to multitask, it will take up to 500% longer to achieve a specific task, and usually with less accuracy. But, if you focus with uninterrupted time, you can do things twice as fast. So, always create time in your day where you are 100% focused on your most important task. Why?

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to share with you a few things that, if you do them daily, will change your life and career. They are easy to do. I like to refer to them as the ABC’s to Outstanding.

John Maxwell says, “Talent is not enough.” Our single biggest obstacle is not believing in ourselves. Not holding ourselves accountable is a close second. What we tell ourselves matters most on who we become.

Today, I want to discuss the first piece of the ABC’s to Outstanding: The A stands for Attitude. Who control’s your attitude? You do! Yet, how often do we let events turn us negative, mad, jealous, victim or just gloomy? Things as simple as someone pulling out in front of us, or breaking in line at the grocery completely change our outlook on the day. We even keep negative friends that affect our attitude and anchor us to the negative side. Why do we so often give that power away? Outstanding requires that we recognize when we are giving our power of attitude away and turn it back positive.

I must admit, I have fallen in love with the word “unrivaled.” I thought about it again this morning as I was checking my LinkedIn account and saw that an old friend had reached out to me to connect. We used to compete in tennis, and eventually became team mates. (Hey, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.) As soon as I saw his invitation, I thought of his tenacity as a competitor and how it was unrivaled compared to the other players I competed with. There was just no comparison to how hard he would compete to beat you. 
 
Reminiscing about our playing days brought me back to HORNE’s 2020 Vision. The first sentence reads, “We deliver unrivaled focused expertise.” Right in the center of the sentence is the word “unrivaled.” It means we that pursue our focused expertise with uncommon discipline and tenacity. 
 

Against my better judgment, I decided to participate on my firm’s Dragon Boat racing team for a local charity event. Despite my reluctance, we had a wonderful time and it was a great time for many team members to bond and spend time face-to-face. I’m so glad that I decided to participate and I want to share with you the top ten things I learned from this event. 

The final element of development described in The Seed by Jon Gordon is the harvest stage. This is the stage where one begins to reap the harvest they have sown from their seed. During the harvest stage, purpose becomes crystal clear. It’s a time of great abundance. 

I realize that I have been blessed with an abundant harvest stage. Thanks to my partners and team members, my purpose has become crystal clear to me. I have never been more convinced that my place of service is in helping others reach their full potential. My love for HORNE makes it easy to know that this is the place for me to pursue that purpose.