Michael Podolinsky CSP Honoured with Spirit of Service Award

We serve to serve… and sometimes (not always) get thanked.

Many of us today are too busy to ‘help others out’. We are up to our eyeballs in work, responsibilities and stress. It’s not that we don’t care, we just don’t seem to have the time. I’m not different. Yet for the past 30 years, I’ve tried to give back to my profession I love so much. I carved out time for events and to mentor new speakers, supported our local speaking organization by paying my dues 5 years in advance and like many others, showed up at every meeting I could make. Sometimes these activities get you a ‘thank you.’

At the Asia Professional Speakers Association Annual Convention this month, I was the first ever recipient of the Spirit of Service Award, awarded by the Asia Professional Speakers Singapore (APSS). My association recognized me for my chairmanship of the APSS inaugural Raise Your Game public service programme with raised $40,000 for cancer victims. They thanked me for an on-going spirit of giving and mentorship to the association, the profession and mentorship to numerous speakers in APSS.

Michael Podolinsky CSP thanking the members at the APSS Annual Convention, at which he emceed.

“As a founding member of APSS and Senior Advisor to the Board of Directors of APSS, his tireless effort has proved invaluable to the Board. He was the first person living in Singapore to become a Certified Speaking Professional and currently sits as co-chair of the CSP Council of Asia.” said APSS President Tim Wade.

This year I am celebrating my 30th year in professional speaking and my 22nd year in Singapore where i resides with my family as a PR.

Thank all of YOU for reading, for supporting me by recommending me to speak at your conventions, to come in and conduct training and by sitting in the seats at the 2,890 programs I’ve conducted. God bless you all.

Smile Maker Thought for the day; Take the time to help mentor someone today. The person benefitting most will be the person doing the mentoring.

Where Does ‘Success’  Take Us?

Most of us work hard to be successful and where does this ‘success’ take us? What is the end result of all our hard labour?

I heard Dave Chappelle, a comedian who WALKED AWAY from a $50,000,000 USD contract say, ‘Success takes us where character cannot sustain us.’ Wow. Is he right? Does everyone climb a ladder to some level of achievement until they finally cannot cope morally or emotionally with where they arrived?

We know in the Peter Principle, people rise to their own level of incompetence. That is, they keep getting promoted for doing a good job until they finally achieve a position they cannot handle well and then get ‘stuck’ there.

BUT, do we rise in life to a level we can no longer ethically handle? In essence, working hard to eventually commit moral suicide? My take is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

YES: If the success we seek is all OF this world. That is, the pursuit of money, fame, riches, power and the like, eventually it will consume us. Living in and for what this world has to offer will eventually lead us to make choices of low moral value. Learning what the world teaches us will get us more of what the world offers us.

NO: If the success we seek is for eternal glory and to be of greater service to God and humankind, this pursuit carries with it a morality implicit in the action. The joy of sharing and giving go hand in hand with the accumulation of wealth, not just an afterthought once the ‘wealth’ arrives.

This brings us to the real question for this week. Are you pursuing success defined as riches and a large bank account?

OR

Do you seek success defined as a life focused on love, relationships, achievements for the good of humanity and a lifetime invested in learning, growing and sharing?

As the second one builds strong character and the first is devoid of character, I conclude that what Dave Chappelle said is probably correct for most people, but not for all.

What are YOU building your life around and what is YOUR main focus?

To have this kind of higher plane thinking instilled in the minds of your teams and to further their careers, creativity, productivity and passion, contact us. In addition to training, we speak at conventions, conduct strategic planning retreats, sales meetings and facilitate sessions to optimise team growth and productivity.

Got comments or questions about success? Just leave your comments to the blog post.

Story of 4 Generations and YOUR life

My grandpa Anton was a brusk man with little finesse. He migrated to the USA by himself at age 16 so he had no adult role model from mid teens until he died at age 87.

My father was the oldest of 3 sons. Grandpa Anton never had any toys growing up so he never believed in toys for his sons. My grandma Katy, however, one day bought my dad a small toy for 10 cents but with strict instructions, ‘Hide it before papa come home.’ One day he forgot and grandpa Anton found it.

‘Vats dis?’ he asked. My dad said, ‘It’s my toy.’ Grandpa Anton’s response was, ‘Foolishness!’ and threw it into the wood stove so at least it would add to the heat in their cold Minnesota home.

My dad, Tony, bought my sister and I a lot of toys but never spoiled us. He was a hugger and full of fun. He improved SO MUCH from his father in one generation. What dad did NOT do was spend one-on-one time with us. He was also gone most of every week as a travelling salesman. The real and intimate time I spent with my father before he passed away at age 88 was as an adult when I took HIM on trips and had him move in with ME.

Myself, I work hard to spend quality and quantity time with my kids and my wife every day. We spend one-on-one time together and family time together. My wife and I do not spoil the kids but strive to give them all the love and discipline they need. Yet, I know I have my weaknesses. What really scares me is what I do not know about myself. What things am I saying and doing that will forever get my children to wish, ‘If only papa had…’ For I, too, want to make quantum leaps in improvement like my father did from his father.

My son carries the burden of improving over me to his son, and so on.

Learning Lesson: Rather than waste time complaining about what your parents did or did not do or what your boss and organisation does or does not do, look at what they did or do right and be grateful.

Next, think of all the things you can do differently with your family, your work team, your department. You cannot fix anything in the past. You cannot always fix your parents, bosses or company. You CAN and SHOULD fix communications, systems, processes and invest your time where it makes the most sense. These things you can control. What a wonderful use of the time you have been given in life.

Each generation has an obligation not to repeat the mistakes of the previous generation. Each generation has an obligation to do the best they can with what they have been given.

What is Time Management?

Almost everyone has heard of Time Management. Most people desire better time management. But what IS time management? It’s more than just getting the most from each hour in a day. Since Alan Lakein defined “Time” as “Life” 40 years ago, we’ve understood that Time is the essence of our lives. Waste time and we are wasting our lives.

It just occurred to me, after 30 years of sharing that Time Management is LIFE MANAGEMENT. This is significant as it reframes the goal of Time Management. Time Management gives us a framework for giving us what we need to do with our lives and IN our lives. More than just how we interact at work, home and in-between, it is what we do internally, in our minds as well. What we think, how we dream and how we plan.

In coming weeks we’ll share more on how you can live a better life by managing your life from the inside out; Thoughts, Plans, Goals, Action Steps to Success. Don’t miss the next few weeks!

Smile Maker: Obedience

A father asked his children at the end of the week, “Who has been the most obedient and did everything your mother asked all week?”
The son answered, “You daddy!”

Got comments or questions about time management? Just leave your comments to the blog post.

Productivity Priorities

Today, Singapore Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Mr. Lee Yi Shyan said Singapore is giving $86 million SGD ($69 million USD) to boost the retail sector’s productivity 25% by 2015. The money will be pushed into the process, people and service with automation being the key emphasis.

While I applaud the effort and the amount of money for our small city state, I question the push to automation VS. true eduction and development of retail workers. If local stores benchmarked against Nordstroms in the USA where daily education and motivation prior to store opening about products and service standards is the norm, our retail workers in Singapore are woefully ill equipped. That is not the fault of the employees.

Retailers, manufacturing, banks, insurance companies, property agents all get sent to training, mostly on an ad hoc basis. We see at SIM the numbers of attendees soar in Q3 & Q4 when budgets need to get used up and drop like a stone in Q1 & Q2 when money is gone or there is ‘still time’ to execute training.

The key is DAILY training. DAILY reminders. DAILY discussions. DAILY pep talks. DAILY targets. DAILY leadership by example. Where to find the time for such a shift? Fewer LONG meetings. Fewer text messages. Fewer emails. Fewer interruptions. Fewer fault findings and blaming. MORE fixing by those who cause the problems to learn through doing.

Spending money is great. Automation when appropriate is wonderful. But I rarely buy on-line or from a machine. I buy most often from knowledgeable people who engage me and in whom I share reciprocal trust and respect. People who know the benefits of what they are selling, how to share those benefits and care about other people.

My new McGraw Hill book, “Productivity: Winning In Life” due in June 2011 shares how every individual can become as productive as possible, achieve their goals, lower stress levels and get home on time. Stay tuned for further announcement.

Got comments or questions about productivity priorities? Just leave your comments to the blog post.

Find Your Quest in Life… An excerpt from my BOOK,  ’Making Better Choices for the Rest of Your Life’ which is published in 2006.

Into the classroom where I was speaking, walked a young deaf girl with an interpreter. Her interpreter was signing or translating my words into sign language for her.

I looked at the young girl and signed over to her, `Hi. Sorry I sign slowly. I am a big dummy. YOU are a beautiful lady.` I had dated a deaf woman for 3 months and learned some basic sign language. What I told her was about all I could remember.

She was so surprised and signed `Thank you!` back to me. From there I proceeded to share my talk…

After the presentation, her interpreter came up to me and said, `I need to speak to you in private for a moment.` I was so nervous. Had I made the wrong sign?

The interpreter shared… `She always felt different in this class being deaf. But today, you made her feel special. You really changed her life.`

WOW! That was it. I felt my heart swell and my energy went up 100-fold. I had always talked AT people. I had never, to my knowledge, changed anyone’s life before. Amazing!

I went home after the talk… and erased all my financial goals on my chalkboard. I replaced them with this single statement of what I was to do with my life. `I will serve God and humankind, and the success and the money will follow.`

Guess what? It did!  From that moment on, everything was different. Instead of focusing on what I could get FROM a client or an audience, I focused on CHANGING LIVES. Once the focus was on service, those who needed the service started flocking to me…

Over time, my Quest statement evolved. Today my Quest is, `To positively influence one BILLION people in my lifetime, for the greater glory of God.` Now THAT gets me out of bed in the morning.

QUESTION: What gets YOU out of bed in the morning?

Got comments or questions ? Just leave your comments here.

PRECIOUS LITTLE OF WHAT WE DO REALLY MATTERS! You read that right. Think of the deadline you dreaded 5 years ago and gave up time with your family and friends and perhaps even your health suffered to complete. Who remembers? Who still cares? Think of your entire adult life after you left school. How much of it has been recorded in the history books? I’ll bet precious little.

PLEASE, never feel bad about this. We all do our best and should to make our contribution to society and to earn an income for ourselves and family. Just remember precious little matters and stop fretting and worrying. Ask yourself, in 5 years, who will care? If the answer comes back “No one.”, then maybe you should not worry NOW. Do your best. Get it done with your best effort in 8 or 9 hours and go home.

If you have living parents, spouse or children, do THEY matter? Maybe invest more time with them. If you believe in God and eternity, maybe invest more time with Him in conversation (prayer) and devotion (good works). Our life should count for something. It just can’t count for everything. Strive to focus more on what does matter and less on what does not. As a Christian, I was struck this week by how precious little of my time was devoted to serving Him or my family and how much was just doing ‘stuff’.

Here is how I am changing and you may wish to make your own list.

1. Worry about nothing as worry fixes nothing.
2. Reaffirm your priorities (mine are Jesus, Family, Fitness, Finances and Friends in that order)
3. Make everyday count in terms of your priorities investing time according to your priorities.
4. Fun should come automatically by following your priorities. If it does not, maybe your priorities are wrong.
5. Analyze every day and every week to ensure you are getting the most from your investment of time.

Remember, precious little of what we do matters so make what does matter a higher priority by investing more time in it.

Smile maker: Funny thoughts and quotes

• An optimist is someone who falls off tall building and halfway down says, ‘So far so good!’
• If you can’t see the bright side of life, polish the dull side.
• We know the speed of light but what is the speed of dark?
• When I die, I’m leaving my body to science fiction. (Steven Wright)
• If your parents never had children, chances are you won’t either.
• A day without sunshine is like, well, night.
• When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
• Don’t judge a book by its movie.
• Why do people say “With all due respect” when they’re about to show no respect at all?
• Only the wise and foolish never change
• The law of heredity is that all undesirable traits come from the other parent.
• If you wish to live wisely, ignore sayings including this one.

Got comments or questions ? Just leave your comments here.