Colleen Marshall was our inspiring speaker at the June luncheon meeting. Discussing her career from a beat reporter in the 1980’s to her position as lead anchor for WCMH news, she shared some of her award winning news segments with us.
Colleen painted the picture of when she first realized she needed a change in her life, most notably after covering September 11th from New York. After seeing so many people possitively affecting the lives of others around them, she felt she needed to fulfil her desire to do so, as well. She soon after enrolled in Capitol Law School, where she achieved her Juris Doctorate while working full-time at WCMH and raising her two children. Colleen now works at Porter Wright as well as continuing as lead anchor at WCMH.
She also discussed another new role which has begun to dominate a large part of her life: caregiver. Several years ago, Colleen’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and now she, along with her siblings, are caring for their mother as they have to deal with the emotional challenges of watching their mother’s mental deterioration.
Colleen provided an inspiring glimpse into how strength, determination, and desire can really change someone’s life, and she is truly a model example of someone who can “keep it all together.”
Next week Colleen Marshall, news anchor with Channel 4 and lawyer with Porter Wright, will be the speaker at our monthly meeting. I got the chance to speak with Colleen recently and was impressed with how easy it was to speak with her. She seems to manage all of the different facets of her life with ease. Yet I know as a business owner, wife, active church member, mother, chamber board member, etc, having balance in our lives can be an elusive concept. As the owner of an executive coaching and leadership development practice, we see this same thing with our executives. It comes down to Self Management. Some of us call it Time Management, but in reality we all have the same number of hours in the day so it really has to do with how we manage ourselves. Two areas where we help our clients focus are 1) on designing and implementing a Weekly Default Calendar, and 2) instituting a “Stop Doing” list. I personally use these tools as well.
I work on my default calendar for about 30 minutes on Friday afternoons by gathering together the action items I have for the coming week and organizing them into blocks of time for related activities. Then I print off my Outlook calendar and slot the “blocks” into 60-90 minutes blocks of time around my other meetings. By focusing on related items for a block of time, I find that I am able to concentrate and get a LOT more accomplished than when I tick things off of an uncategorized To-Do List.
My “Stop Doing” list consists of those items that I need to start letting go of and delegating, even if someone else might not do it my way, or as quickly, the first time they do it. I’ve also learned how important it is to say “no” to items and requests that don’t fit in with my mission, vision and goals. In some cases, there are even things that I’ve done forever but just aren’t as critical anymore to my main goals.
Any of my friends or relatives can tell you that even though I’m constantly working to improve my Self Management, I still have days when things fall through the cracks and life is crazy. And I know that Colleen Marshall will share some of the same with us on June 3. As a matter of fact, I experienced it with her first hand! Come and hear me tell that story when I introduce her!
John O. Huston provided us with a brutally honest, yet entertaining and amusing portrayal of what he deemed the biggest mistakes any company could make. After decades in the banking and lending industry, he has seen just about everything, and decided after years of hearing about “best practices” that perhaps it was time people heard what they shouldn’t do. Mr. Huston was kind enough to provide this list for us to repost:
John O. Huston’s Business Worst Practices: Making Business Hard is Easy
What you sell:
Don’t fulfill an urgent need (Vitamin Pill vs. Aspirin)
Don’t differentiate your product/service (gasoline vs. Prada)
Avoid recurring revenue streams (transactions vs. relationships)
Dispel all mystery (hammer vs. Synthetic Collateralized Debt Obligations)
Compete on price (Cheaper vs. Better/Faster)
How you sell:
Push the epiphany sale (and not seizing upon an event)
Be a crocodile salesperson and not an elephant (all mouth, no ears)
Sell to anyone (instead of targeted, strategic customers)
Make all sales pitches binary (true/false) events (avoid consolation prizes)
Sell muzzles to dogs (forget about “make me look great”)
How you focus:
Make money, not meaning; make more dollars, not a difference
Be a slave to your To Do list; avoid your To Be list
Follow the experts’ advice, just like everyone else
Think that problems are the problem, instead of defining your value
