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There are lots of words that describe me. The "professional" ones include: author, speaker, trainer, consultant, facilitator, business owner, Chief Potential Officer The Kevin Eikenberry Group - Your Leadership Help Button (of The Kevin Eikenberry Group) and leader. The "life" ones include: husband, father, son, brother, friend, Purdue Graduate, reader, and learner. The "personal" ones include, Boilermaker fan, farmer's son, tractor collector (yes, the real ones), auction lover and optimist.

All of these things (and more) make me who I am and are relevant to this blog and why it will benefit you.

Below you will find ideas, thoughts and suggested action steps to help you become a more effective leader – whatever your professional and life roles are. The path towards Remarkable Leadership (and a Remarkable Life) is just that - a path. The goal of this blog is to help you on that path, and through learning and action, become your Leadership Help Button.

Coach and Be Coached

The Biggest Perceived Coaching Barrier

by Kevin Eikenberry on March 16, 2010

in Devloping Others, Leadership, Learning

My mind is filled with thoughts of coaching these days.  Perhaps it is because in about 2 hours  100 minutes we will be kicking off our Coach and Be Coached event on RemarkableTV.com.

One of the things I hear from leaders is that they “don’t have time” to coach.  In most cases it isn’t that they don’t want to coach, or develop others, it’s just that they “don’t have time.”

To them, (and you if you are nodding your head in agreement) I say .  .  . Bull . . .

I know you are busy.  (So is every other leader on the planet).

You don’t have a time problem.  You have a priority problem.

I know that there are days when we all have pressing matters on our plates, and our priorities might not include helping others grow.  I get that.  Today is one of those days for me.

But if we play the “I’m too busy” card all the time, what we are saying is, “coaching isn’t really important enough to spend my time on.”  (Here’s a post about the fallacy of busy).

And I hope, if you are reading this post, that isn’t really true for you.  Which means our first coaching challenge is to put our actions in alignment with our beliefs.

If we want to grow our results. . .

If we want to grow our team . . .

If we want fewer fires in the future (because others are avoiding them – or are able to manage them themselves) .  . .

If we want the satisfaction of helping others succeed . . .

Then we must invest time to coach.

If you are reading this on March 16, I hope you make time to join us between 11 am and 3 pm Et for our Coach and Be Coached event.  You will gain more insights into coaching than you thought possible in a short time.

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Mojo

by Kevin Eikenberry on March 15, 2010

in Books, Leadership, Learning

This week’s Resource Recommendation – Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It By Marshall Goldsmith

Some call it a hot streak; others use words like momentum, flow or good karma. Marshall Goldsmith, one of America’s top executive coaches, calls it mojo, and he has written this book to define it, explore the components of it, help you see why you want it and how to get it.

MojoIn an early chapter Goldsmith shares what he calls “The Mojo Paradox”:

Our default response in life is not to experience happiness. Our default response in life is not to experience meaning. Our default experience in life is to experience inertia.

From this paradox, he moves forward to help us get past that inertia in thoughtful, conscious ways so we can create more happiness, more meaning and more mojo.

The book then explains the four building blocks of mojo and how to use them in your life. Those blocks are:

  • Identity
  • Achievement
  • Reputation
  • Acceptance

Often in this space I recommend books that have a pretty narrow focus and might only be applicable to some readers based on their professional interests. This is NOT one of those books.

If you are interested in having more happiness and a more meaningful life, this book is for you (and who doesn’t want that). It will help you think about getting more happiness and meaning – and give you specific ideas about how to make that happen. And, it all comes from one of the best executive coaches on the planet.  That makes the few dollars spent a darn good investment!

I’ve read this on my Kindle and wish I hadn’t. Not because I didn’t want to read the book, but because this is one of those books I would have taken a few notes in the margins and highlighted some sections.

This book challenged me to think and reflect and will help me both professionally and personally to get – and keep – my mojo. It is hard to beat that!

Final note – Marshall will be one of our guests on the Remarkable TV event Coach and Be Coached tomorrow, March 16. Register now (for fr/ee) for all the details. Plus, as a registered guest, you can find out when he is scheduled to appear!

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Seven Key Actions to Greater Personal and Professional Development

March 15, 2010 Leadership

“What did you learn today?”
It’s a question that sounds familiar to most of us. You were likely asked it when you were a kid. And, if you are a parent, you’ve probably asked it of your kids too.
But when was the last time you asked it of yourself?
“What did I learn today?”
If you want to [...]

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The Quickest Way to Build Your Team

March 13, 2010 Leadership

John Wooden, the great basketball coach (and Purdue graduate) once said, “The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones.”
And we have all heard that one of the best ways to find a new idea or understand a concept is to borrow from another discipline or business.
From these [...]

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And/Or? Choose And!

March 12, 2010 Leadership

Last week I wrote a post titled Do We Nurture or Build Relationships?   I was trying to distinguish between nurture and build as concepts, and I think I was pretty successful.  The wise commenters talked about building relationships and then nurturing them once formed.  They are of course, correct AND  their comments  reminded me of an important [...]

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Coaching, Love and Belief

March 10, 2010 Devloping Others

If you read my newsletter or follow this blog, hopefully you know about our big Remarkable TV online event next week, Tuesday March 16th from 11 am – 3 pm ET.  It is called Coach and Be Coached and is designed to help all of us reach higher levels of performance through, coaching and being [...]

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Rules of Thumb

March 8, 2010 Books

This week’s Resource Recommendation – Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business without Losing Your SelfBy Alan M. Webber
Among other things, Alan Weber has served as Editor of the Harvard Business Review and is the co-founder of Fast Company magazine. In this book he has taken his experiences from these roles [...]

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Five Powers of Coaching

March 8, 2010 Leadership

Spiderman, Wonder Woman and Superman all had super powers; they had special skills that allowed them to be super heroes.
They had great powers given to them at birth that made them special. Generally speaking, they didn’t have to develop those powers, they just had them. We too were born with tremendous skills, but unlike like [...]

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Do We Nurture or Build Relationships?

March 3, 2010 Leadership

Members of the Remarkable Leadership Learning Systemare focusing on the skill of Nurturing Relationships all this month.  In our teleseminar on Monday I explored differences between the words building and nurturing and why those differences matter when thinking aobut relationships, especially as a leader.
When we build something we form or construct or assemble it.  When [...]

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Coach and Be Coached: Coaching to Achieve Remarkable Performance

March 1, 2010 Devloping Others

This week’s Resource Recommendation – Coach and Be Coached: Coaching to Achieve Remarkable Performance – for Others and Yourself! A Remarkable TV Event
We’re are excited to announce that we are tipping off our next Remarkable TV event, Coach and Be Coached, on March 16 at 11am ET.
For 4+ hours I will be interviewing successful coaches [...]

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