“Just because” ceased to be a good enough reason many years ago. In fact, it probably hasn’t been a good enough reason since you were a curious youngster and good ole’ mom used that phrase one too many times.

If you really want your people to follow you, to care, to get engaged, to show some interest… start with why you’re doing what you’re doing. Reconnect with the passion you felt in the beginning and don’t be afraid to share it. If it’s a cause worth caring about, be wholehearted in your leadership. If not, end the misery for the whole team and let it go!

They are portrayed in a significant number of mainstream movies as “the way life should be”, and if people express regrets at the end of their life, it’s usually around these things.

Yet in spite of the lip service we often give to these values, too few of us seem to truly live them. Instead we chase after one goal after another in pursuit of our own version of the American dream. This seems especially true of people with career goals.

If you don’t feel the pressure yourself, just pause for a moment at a street corner and watch all the harried, stressed out people rush past you.

One question I’ve been wrestling with in my own life lately is where the balance is between living in the moment and pursuing/achieving your goals. Must you give up one to gain the other? Is it truly possible to do both?

While I can’t say I have a definitive answer (not even close, in fact!), I have observed a few things I believe are crucial to striking a balance between these seemingly disparate ideals.

- Be clear on your most important values. What really matters to you? This will be unique to you and not shared by anyone else in exactly the same way.

- Make sure the goals you pursue are truly in service to your values. I’m not sure it’s realistic to expect every single activity associated with your goal to be a fit with your core values, but I guarantee you’re going to have regrets if at least the bulk of each goal doesn’t align.

- Check that your goals are your own. Just as your values are unique to you, only you can decide if the goals you pursue are in your best interest. While it may be worth putting “living in the moment” on hold for a season in order to fulfill a longer-term dream, life is definitely too short to stifle our own dreams just to live out someone else’s for them.

- Don’t become so focused on the goals (even the most worthwhile ones!) that you miss the little things along the way… the moments of opportunity… the things that are truly important. It’s no fun to wake up one day and realize the good stuff is gone forever!

Belonging is one of the most profound human needs, yet it is also one of the most forgotten needs in our society today. By intentionally building community in your team, you will be fulfilling a need that has been largely overlooked in other areas of people’s lives.

2. Your team members will feel happier and more fulfilled.

If you take a look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you’ll notice that both esteem and self-actualization are established on the foundation of belonging or community. People who are strongly rooted in a community are more successful and feel happier. Even better when it’s a community of people with a shared vision and values.

3. Your team will be more loyal.

Company loyalty is about so much more theses days than just a good salary and benefits. While things like meaningful work, autonomy, and being able to contribute to a bigger mission are all key factors, there’s no question that people who are happy and loving their team are more apt to stick around longer.

4. It will be easier to recruit new people.

Have you ever walked by a group of people who were obviously strongly bonded and wished you could join the party? When your teams are visibly happy, fulfilled, close-knit, and enjoying strong working relationships, your organization becomes irresistibly attractive to new talent. Your company will become known as a great place to work.

5. It will be easier to recruit more of the right people.

In spite of the belief that opposites attract, in the context of community, it’s actually like that attracts like. If you build a community with your team that reflects the values and purpose of the organization, this community will naturally attract more people who are an ideal fit.

6. You’ll have to deal with fewer conflicts and other serious issues.

Yes, even families have fights. I have observed, however, that organizations that communicate a strong purpose and values and build community around that struggle with fewer interpersonal issues within the team. I believe this in part true because even when the going gets though, people on the team have common ground to come back to.

There is an added benefit that healthy communities operate with clearly expressed “norms.” Instead of needing to squash conflicts or correct behavior issues with an iron rod, people are more likely to self-regulate based on the norms identified by the community itself.

7. Your team will be more productive and produce better results.

When your team members are happier, more loyal, and feel confident in their place in the community, they will consistently go above and beyond. Instead of just “putting in the hours” or doing the minimum requirements of their job, they will work to achieve results based on the best interests of the team and the company.

8. Your team will enjoy more creative collaboration.

The synergy among a closely bonded group of people who share a common vision and values is amazing. Instead of routine, boring brainstorming meetings, your team will be unstoppable with new ideas and collaborations that further the mission of the organization.

9. There will be more knowledge sharing among team members.

Instead of creating siloes or territorialism, strong communities share job knowledge much more freely. One obvious benefit of this knowledge sharing is that it’s like built-in cross-training of your staff. When you need an extra hand with a project, the knowledge base will be there more readily to fill in the gaps.

10. You’ll have an easier time capitalizing on people’s best strengths.

The natural order of a high-functioning community is that people are aware of their talents and use them for the benefit of the whole. So the more you take the emphasis off cut-and-dried job descriptions and put it instead on participating in the community, the more people will step up to the plate and contribute their best.

Now let me preface my rant with an admission that my life hasn’t been steeped in diversity as it is commonly defined. I’ve had people tell me my perspective on the subject is a direct result of not being more of a minority, and they could well be right. Whatever the reason, I have some strong thoughts on the topic that aren’t always popular.

THE GREAT DIVIDE

I think one of the problems with some diversity training is that it creates a great divide. An us versus them mentality. You’re either on one side or the other. Inside or outside. The oppressed or the oppressor. Diverse or non-diverse.

It inevitably marginalizes one group to elevate another.

I get why sometimes it is important for people to understand and accept their heritage as the oppressed or the oppressor. It can create new levels of awareness about this important topic.

However, I question any approach that leaves people on a team looking at each other across dividing lines or feeling vindicated about seeing the other side as the enemy.

DISCRIMINATION DOESN’T DISCRIMINATE

It isn’t just those people we typically categorize as “diverse” who face discrimination. While there are groups we often assume are discriminated against everywhere, it really depends on the cultural reality of your specific society. Something that is welcomed as the norm in one of part of the world or even within one company is looked down upon in another.

It’s easy to recognize the obvious diversity categories like the color of your skin or a physical handicap, and much has been accomplished to bring awareness to discrimination issues related to such groups. Which is fantastic!

Sad to say though, discrimination is still rampant in less visible instances of diversity, and it is often not identified as such because it is so subtle.

I personally have run into discrimination because I lack a formal college degree. It doesn’t matter what training I do have under my belt or what I have accomplished in my business or who I have worked with. People with formal education often look down upon those without.

Excuse it away with logical reasons if you want, but it’s still discrimination… making a distinction in favor of or against a person based on the group, class, or category to which that person belongs rather than on individual merit.

Even worse are the cases of discrimination that are actually acceptable in our culture. A good example is people of low socio-economic status. How many times do you hear jokes about “trailer trash” or “ghetto”? I don’t see anyone protesting these slurs as discriminatory. Usually such jokes are merely met with laughs and nods of agreement.

WE’VE ALL GOT WARTS

Depending on your cultural experiences and upbringing, there is often a perception that individuals in certain diversity groups have inherently had more challenges, things to overcome, painful secrets, something to hide from society or feel ashamed of, or whatever.

Sadly, there is truth to that in some cases. There are still groups today who are actively discriminated against or who face other challenges such as a physical handicap that require a person to overcome on a day-to-day basis. There’s no question that we still have a lot of work to do to eliminate bias-based hardships for different groups of people in today’s culture.

The fact remains though that automatically assigning challenges or dark secrets to certain groups is unfair to everyone and downright ridiculous. I guarantee every single individual has their own stories of hardship, challenge, or things that make them feel somehow “less than”.

A NEW STANDARD FOR DIVERSITY TRAINING

So is diversity training a lost cause? I don’t think so by any means! There are many high quality trainings out there, and here are a few things that I think could further redeem the value of diversity training.

- Remember that we’re all human, we all have warts, and we’re all in this crazy journey we call life together. We need to find ways to create connection and common ground as fellow human beings, not division. The bigger story goes far above and beyond any group, class, or category distinctions.

- What was true 50 years ago isn’t necessarily true today. Be sensitive to the cultural reality of the people on your team today at this time in history. For example, women in our country are no longer struggling with voting rights. At the same time, the movements that addressed suffrage years ago have contributed to the new dynamics in the way women interact within today’s culture.

- Understand and recognize that everyone is uniquely diverse. Just as no two people are physically alike, they each have their own personal characteristics, heritage, and experiences. We can’t continue to lump them together under the same categories and make assumptions across the board just because they share one set of qualities.

- The biggest value of any diversity training is understanding each individual team member’s “come from”. I’d like to see more training programs that create awareness of how each person is uniquely different and understanding of their singular worldview. And then brings it back around to find common ground and ways to move forward that leverage the distinct characteristics and experiences of each individual.

This blog ramble has been a long time coming, and it’s still hard for me to write. Late last summer, I disappeared from my professional world. Not that a lot of people noticed, but a few did, and I appreciated your interest/concern. A couple of crises hit in my personal life that forced me to reevaluate everything else in my life too. No, I’m not going to go into any details. Suffice it to say, I was forced to a crossroads that wasn’t exactly welcome.

One big outcome was a rethink of my career. Why have I chosen the paths I have, what worked about each and what didn’t, and — most importantly! — did I really want to continue on the path I was on? The painful answer was “no”. I say painful because I was letting go of so many things that I had clung to fiercely as part of my very identity for many years. Sometimes rebirth is necessary though, and in hindsight, it is almost always good.

I was faced (again!) with the awareness that life is too short not to live every day with meaning and purpose. When I die, I don’t want to go out with regrets for everything I could have done but didn’t because I was too busy pursuing goals that lacked passion or that I was clinging to out of sheer stubbornness.

But rather than get bogged down in details of the past, I’d like to share a few insights I’ve had about what I believe and the path ahead.

First of all, I’ve been getting clear on my WHY… the cause or belief that drives my every moment. I am absolutely passionate about human potential — all those undiscovered, unpolished, fabulously exciting talents, skills, and ideas inside people the world over. I envision a world where everyone with a dream has the opportunity, the resources, and the encouragement to make it real. Because I believe, together, we really can change the world.

I don’t honestly know what that is going to look like yet. It’s part of the adventure of life. I just know that if I am doing something every day to further the cause of human potential, I’m on the right path. I know that my piece of that larger cause is tied to being the explorer and hero. The explorer in me loves to seek out new ideas and solutions and share that with others. The hero in me wants to champion people to fully live their potential.

There are some other elements of how I see that cause coming to life:

- I want to do cool things with cool people. Enough of the isolation that often comes with solo-entrepreneurship. I thrive on community and collaboration, and I want to be part of a team in some capacity or another for every single project I undertake.

- I believe in taking personal responsibility. That’s both a reminder to myself and an encouragement to the people who share this cause. Enough of the whining, complaining, and making excuses. If life is going to change for the better for people around the world, we’re going to have to step up to the plate and make it happen.

- I absolutely believe in the unique value of each person. I want to take every opportunity to recognize, highlight, and nurture that value in people. Because without all those individual bits of brilliance joining together, the whole can never be as wonderful.

- I want to always believe in the impossible. Yes, I’m a hopeless idealist and proud of it. I saw a quote recently that was something to the effect of “every great achievement was once considered impossible.” (If you know the author, let me know!) What a great sentiment, and I for one want to help make those ideas a reality.

So there you have it… a little update on the journey that’s my life, for those people who have given me their time and attention over the past few years. Like I said, I don’t really know what the path ahead looks like. I know where I’m headed though (my cause), and one of the things I’ll be doing to head in that direction is to write articles here once in a while on things like human potential, leadership development, and building community.

It would be an honor to have anyone else who believes in the cause come along for the journey. Share your ideas and dreams. Ask questions. Push me to reach more of my own potential as I push the people around me to reach theirs. And let’s do cool things together to change the world!

I was listening to a bit of a teleseminar the other day taught by one of the best recognized experts in selling from the stage. This person started explaining why it is in service to our audience to influence them to say “yes” using tactics like urgent timeframes to get the steal of the century… otherwise you’ll pay a heck of a lot more, if you’re able to get this program ever again at all!

For the record, although this same concept is taught by pretty much every single Internet marketer out there, I view it as manipulative marketing. Which I’m NOT okay with! I may not have a better solution yet, but I don’t think it’s ever okay to manipulate people into buying.

So, back to my story… as I listened to this person expound upon the necessity of manipulative marketing tactics, it suddenly struck me that Internet marketers aren’t so cutting-edge as they might believe themselves to be.

Religious evangelists are hands-down the best marketers and sales people in the world. And they’ve been doing it for centuries before Internet marketers!

If you’ve ever sat through a conversion spiel, you probably know what I’m talking about. Guilt, fear, time-driven urgency, peer pressure, even aspirational messages… They’ve perfected the science of manipulative sales and marketing. About the only ones they don’t implement are price-dropping or special promotions, but then again, I bet the old Catholic system of indulgences hit pretty close to the mark there too.

Okay, I’m done offending. This obversation is in no way a statement on my faith (or lack thereof, some of you may be thinking!). The irony just struck me so strongly the other day that I couldn’t resist blogging about it.

No matter what field we’re in, whether Internet marketers or religious evangelists, I’d like to see all of us work a lot more on genuinely inspiring people to join our cause and spend a whole lot less time attempting to manipulate them to buy.

I read a fantastic article yesterday morning on 50 ways to get unstuck and come up with great new blog topics, and I just had to share. Enjoy…

http://www.copyblogger.com/brainstorm-blog-topics/

Now for the most part, I think that what we create is far more brilliant when the spark of passion and creativity is present. Anything less, and it runs the risk of sounding sterile and text-bookish at best.

However, sometimes we’re simply not in that zone. It could be for a variety of reasons. Maybe the spark has gotten lost in the chaos of too much to do or the drudgery of tasks that aren’t in our sweet spot or even in the negativity of people around us.

It’s absolutely no fun to be in this creative dead zone. On one hand, you know you need to keep creating if your business is going to succeed. You don’t necessarily have the luxury of waiting until you feel the spark before you start creating. On the other hand, it can be downright painful (if not impossible) to take inspired action when you’re not “feelin’ the love.”

Here are a couple of the tips I shared with my client to handle this situation:

- Get to know yourself. Walk back through times you’ve felt creative and inspired. What contributed to this state? The environment? Habits or practices? Specific people (or simply being around people in general)?

For me, one of the best ways to reconnect with that spark of creativity is to get out into the mountain solitude with a pen and paper. The beauty of my surroundings is inspiration in itself. The silence helps quiet all the demands of life and let the voice of passion bubble to the surface again. And there’s something about the physical feel of the pen and paper in my hand that sets ideas free.

Being around people is also important to me though. I frequently get my best ideas talking with other like-hearted folks or with people in my tribe who need my help. Either way… when I’m creatively stuck, I know I either need to immerse myself with great people or head to the mountains.

- Practice, practice, practice. Once you’ve identified the elements that help you feel creative, schedule creative time into your calendar, and practice doing whatever works for you to get into the zone.

This will take less time the more you practice. At first you might spend far more time “setting the stage” then you spend actually creating. But the more you practice creativity “on demand”, the faster you’ll get at finding the spark and hanging onto it while you work.

Interestingly enough, as soon as I decided to write this blog post, I got an email from Lateral Action about “How to Handle a Creative Block (When You’re Supposed to Be the Creative Pro).” It was actually a lesson in a great free e-course they offer. It’s intended for creative professionals, but I’ve been impressed with the content and believe it to be useful to any entrepreneur. Check it out if you have the chance.

Passion is the lifeblood of every successful entrepreneur. In fact, I’m pretty passionate about passion when it comes to business. Unbridled passion can help get you through the tough times when nothing seems to be going as planned. It can attract the right clients, team, and business partners to you. It can drive new innovations in your services and products. And it can help you bring impossible ideas to life.

The trouble with passion though is that it is often silenced. Whether other people are discouraging your passion or you’re shutting it down within yourself (even unconsciously).

On the surface, most people would say passion is a good thing. Conceptually, we like passion. But the reality is unbridled passion can be intense, scary, vulnerable, and messy. Passion sparks change, and change can be hard. There’s no status quo, gray zone, playing small, or halfhearted effort when it comes to passion.

So it’s only to be expected that the people around us, and even we ourselves, will shy away from unbridled passion when it starts butting up against our fears and desire to stay safe and comfortable.

Something beautiful is lost when passion is shut down. I see signs of it every day… people unhappy in their job or business, working with people they don’t enjoy, drained of enthusiasm, jaded, and pessimistic. It’s sad to see! It’s not only a tragedy on a personal level (life is way too short to go through it without passion!), but it also keeps us from making the kind of impact in the world that we are capable of.

As a passionate entrepreneur, if you notice you’re waking up in the morning with some of that unbridled passion gone, here are a few tips to get you back on track again.

- Reconnect with why you’re doing what you’re doing in the first place.

- Expect that resistance to passion is a fact of life… with this awareness, you’ll recognize it faster when saboteurs (whether internal or external) try to silence your passion.

- Surround yourself with people who “get” your passion and can help you notice when it’s being sabotaged.

- Take regular time out of the rat race of daily life to do something that helps you really feel the passion again… the same passion that used to make you jump out of bed excited every day.

- Create a vision board or other physical reminder of your passion.

- If you feel totally stuck, give me a call. I’m here to help visionary people bring their ideas to life, and that’s not going to happen if you’ve lost your sense of passion. Remember… I’m passionate about passion.

It was a really fascinating experience to observe a different slice of life than I’m used to. As I took a little time to step into the experiences and worldviews of these people, it struck me how valuable it can be to get out of our comfort zone once in a while and gain a fresh perspective.

- You might meet some new people who could become part of your tribe or just plain friends.

- You might gain new insights into other people, people who might need/want what you’re offering.

- You might gain a deeper understanding of yourself.

- You might see new opportunities to meet needs in the world using your unique gifts and experiences.

- You might discover new resources.

- You might learn something new.

- You might experience a deeper appreciation for your life.

- You might be touched with compassion, awe, love, or other pretty cool emotions.

Go out and try something new today. A new experience, hanging out with new people, even driving a different route to your next appointment. A fresh perspective is always a good and useful thing!