Sept 26 - Hour 2:  How to achieve remarkable performance in anything you do, whether in business, while speaking, or while interacting with family (Mark Sanborn)…plus tips on handling the common female problem of incontinence.  To listen, click below:

http://www.debbiechavez.com/news.asp_Q_page_E_Archived-Shows

Debbie Chavez, Internet Talk Show Host
http://www.debbiechavez.com/

After Further Review … The “Encore Effect,” a recently released book, authored by my good friend and colleague, Mark Sanborn, describes how we all want an encore performance.  Every performer enjoys the recognition of an extraordinary performance.  Sanborn isn’t saying ‘great’ or ‘excellent’ - he’s saying it’s a REMARKABLE performance that creates the encore effect.

The lessons in this book will either remind you or teach you how to give a remarkable performance in anything you do.  Anything? Yes!  Whether you are in sales, management, parenthood, teaching  -  anything!  And why not? What is the value in what you do, if it is not done with a goal of “remarkable”?

As a life-long educator, I have often thought about remarkable performances in teaching.  Can it be done on a daily basis?  How often do teachers get an “S.O.” (standing ovation) at the close of a remarkable lesson or even at the end of the day?  As a professional speaker, I strive to give a remarkable performance every time I am on the platform.  Remarkable performances result in the encore effect - i.e. attendees want to hear more from you.

As an NFL referee, I also strived for a remarkable performance every game.  I asked myself “Did I leave the game today better than I found it?”  Players, coaches and fans demand that!  It is often said that the best officiated game is one in which no one notices “who” they are.  Let me argue that.  In order for officials to ensure the integrity of the game, their performance needs to be “remarkable.”  You want those officials back.

This brings me to NFL referee #85 Ed Hochuli, who has distinguished himself for 19 seasons.  Players, coaches, and fans want him back.  I won’t take the time to revisit a decision he made in a recent game that was incorrect and not in keeping with his remarkable NFL tenure.  No one is more devastated at his miscall than #85 himself.  What makes this a remarkable situation is what Hochuli did following that call.

“After further review” and realizing his error, Hochuli spoke to Chargers Head Coach Norv Turner and said, “Coach, I blew it.  It was my mistake.”  This is in keeping with Hochuli’s philosophy of “just doing the right thing.”  Admitting his error (in front of 70,000+ fans and many millions watching on television) puts his performance in the “remarkable” category.

Will you strive for a remarkable performance in everything you do?

—–

Review by Jim Tunney
Regarded as the “Dean of NFL Referees”
NFL Hall of Fame Member
http://www.jimtunney.com

Today I talked with Mark Sanborn, author of one of my favourite all time reads The Fred Factor and now author of The Encore Effect. This is the first part of a two part interview.

http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com/the_engaging_brand_/2008/09/show-189—how.html

- What do we mean by the encore effect?

- Does a performance build over time like a music performance, or is it different in a business world?

- We all live different roles in our lives, when do we need to be remarkable?

- How much does practice and preparation help create a remarkable life, or a remarkable personal brand?

- Is it remarkable in your judgement or in the judgement of others?

- In a world of social media, the irony of the word remark - able. How what we are wanting to achieve, is get people talking about you positively.

- How ‘ordinary’ people can be extraordinary. It is not about your job, background or title…

- Is it harder for a leader to be extraordinary? Is that the ordinary touch that makes an extraordinary leader?

- What is a performance development agenda?

Anna Farmery
Speaker and Social Media Coach

Loved the book, an easy read chock full of great ideas.  I have found that much of someone being successful is rooted in their ability to plan and be prepared.  Mark’s talks about this in depth on page 63.  His points about preparing for presentations, having back up plans in case the technology fails, and reviewing the notes before a presentation are right on.  It reminded me of the importance of slowing down and taking the time to be prepared and consequently improve’s one’s chance for success.

As Mark suggest, think about all the things that could go wrong and try to figure out what you can do ahead of time.  All Americans would benefit from Mark’s advice here.  What a great little gem of a book.  This would be an excellent book to give any young person getting ready to hit the ‘real world’.

Marty Grunder
http://www.martygrunder.com

Thank you for sending me The Encore Effect.  I had the opportunity to see Mark in action last October at a conference.  Those of our company in attendance, all of whom were directly involved in our customer service initiatives, were very impressed with Mark’s enthusiastic and captivating presentation of his “Fred” principles.

I oversee our organizational development initiatives that include Training and Development so I’m pleased to see a book from Mark that will impact all employees.  It’s especially encouraging in an era of conspicuous greed and selfishness that Mark can inspire us with effective tactics that are based on our own “core convictions”.  I’ve always subscribed to the theory that everyone should have a “larger-than-life” mentor (or mentors) and Mark uses real persons to give us a benchmark with which to continuously improve our personal performance.  I fall into Abraham Lincoln’s “common people” category but enjoy the challenge of sharing knowledge with others to help them create encore performances.  Thanks to Martha Baumgarten for introducing me to Mark and Fred and thanks to her and Meredith for introducing me to Charlie “Tremendous” Jones.
 
Keith Flynn - Director of Community Relations
Retail, Jobing.com Community Relations - PHX

Thank you for sending me The Encore Effect.  I had the opportunity to see Mark in action last October at a conference.  Those of our company in attendance, all of whom were directly involved in our customer service initiatives, were very impressed with Mark’s enthusiastic and captivating presentation of his “Fred” principles.

I oversee our organizational development initiatives that include Training and Development so I’m pleased to see a book from Mark that will impact all employees.  It’s especially encouraging in an era of conspicuous greed and selfishness that Mark can inspire us with effective tactics that are based on our own “core convictions”.  I’ve always subscribed to the theory that everyone should have a “larger-than-life” mentor (or mentors) and Mark uses real persons to give us a benchmark with which to continuously improve our personal performance.  I fall into Abraham Lincoln’s “common people” category but enjoy the challenge of sharing knowledge with others to help them create encore performances.  Thanks to Martha Baumgarten for introducing me to Mark and Fred and thanks to her and Meredith for introducing me to Charlie “Tremendous” Jones.
 
Best regards,
Brent Hill - Director
http://www.pardeehomes.com/

If you’re a foodie, love to travel, or have absolutely no problem grabbing some serious couch time on the weekend, you’ve probably seen Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. In the fifth season, which wrapped this week, we join our host as he eats his way around the world, touring Uruguay, Saudi Arabia, Laos, Spain and my personal favorite Japan – where he goes “in search of the relationship between a perfect piece of sushi and a perfect knife blade, the common ground shared by the martial artistry of kendo and the subtle aesthetics of Japanese flower arranging.” Indeed throughout the episode Chef Bourdain returns again and again to the idea of perfection, asking each of the masters he interviews (sushi, kendo, and ikebana) if they believed in the concept of perfection and whether they felt they had ever achieved it in their field of expertise. Paradoxically, though all of them believed in the idea of perfection, they universally agreed that achieving it was very unlikely and, more importantly not the point. What truly mattered was continually improving your performance – doing a better job each time you took up the task at hand.

Recently, I’ve been reading the new book from Mark Sanborn author of The Fred Factor and You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader. In his latest book, The Encore Effect, Mark offers insights reminiscent of the philosophy shared by the sushi, kendo and ikebana masters of Japan – that giving an exceptional performance has less to do with achieving perfection, and more to do with focus, passion, discipline and the desire to do your job better with each new day. The exceptional performer embraces the idea that there is always room to improve and they apply the same level of focus and discipline equally to each task, no matter how small the job or great the reward. As Mark states, “Remarkable performers focus on the outcome they’re striving to achieve and say no to any activity that would divert their efforts. They know exactly where they are going and they focus on how to get there.”

In addition to focus and discipline, outstanding performers also have passion. In an early post I wrote for the TalentedApps blog, Helping Happy Cows Stay Happy, I talked about my desire to find a deeper passion for my work. What I discovered, am still learning, and Mark far more eloquently describes in The Encore Effect is that passion does not derive from our work, rather passion is something we must bring to our work, even if the job we’re doing today is not necessarily the one we want to do; because the passion, discipline and dedication we bring to our job today may be the key that unlocks the door to the unknown career for which we are still searching. Mark says it even better: “By doing your job with all the passion and enthusiasm and creativity and energy you have, you will make yourself increasingly valuable in the eyes of those around you. And as that happens, your opportunities will expand. When people are excited about you and about what you have to offer, the possibilities that will open up may surprise you.”

I firmly believe that our vocations and our performance are entirely ours to manage. I also believe that we can provide an exceptional performance, one worthy of an encore, no matter what the job or how often we have been tasked to complete it. We simply need to raise the bar, set more challenging goals, and strive to do a better job than we did the last time; remembering that improvement and not perfection is the goal. Again citing the master, “The fact is that no matter how good you become, you can always get better. And that’s a good thing. It keeps work and life interesting and challenging, because if you have become as good as you would ever get, the balance of your days would be pretty monotonous. Perfection is not a goal but a process – one that never ends.” Thanks Mark!

—–

Ken Klaus is a Senior Principal Product Manager at ORACLE and contributing author for Talented Apps. Talented Apps is written by a group of Development and Strategy individuals within the Oracle Fusion HCM team.

The lack of focus that stems from not believing one can achieve great things is a pitfall that stands squarely in the path of even the most talented people in the pursuit of remarkable performance.  An individual’s passion must be extravagant in order to dedicate them self to the preparation, self examination, and sacrifice that remarkable performance is born of.

I spent over a year of my life at Bronco training camp in a twelve year NFL career.  Those were the most physically, emotionally, and mentally challenging days of my life.  Dan Reeves would bring one hundred and ten NFL hopefuls to camp each year and every one of them had the physical tools, the raw talent to make the team.  At the end of camp the forty nine man roster would be set and sixty one physically capable players had been sent home.

NFL clubs have scouting staffs that scour college and pro rosters across the country in search of athletes that have the physical tools to make their teams better.  They run exhaustive tests and interviews on prospective draft choices and free agents.  I was a twelfth round draft pick, the three hundred and tenth player drafted out of college in nineteen eighty three.  The Broncos sent two different scouts to test me and interview me at the University of Minnesota before the draft.  One of the scouts even interviewed my girl friend.  Imagine the scrutiny first and second round picks go through.  The scouts make sure that each of the players they bring to camp can help the team, but the majority of the players don’t play a down.

One of the main reasons that talented people fail is that they limit their passion to the short term and the average.  If my dream had been to be invited to an NFL training camp my chances of making that team would have been zero.  I would have accomplished my dream before camp even started and at the first difficulty in camp I would have folded.  Extravagant passion begets perseverance.  My passion was to be the best football player that ever played the game.  Despite my twelfth round athletic ability I set off on a relentless pursuit of greatness, and because of that passion I would not settle for average or even good performance.  I wasn’t trying to make the team; I was determined to be an all pro captain of championship teams and more.  That focus shaped and influenced the way I approached preparation.  Instead of having a short term goal of not getting hollered at by the coach during practice, I took chances and tried different ways of reacting to plays in an attempt to find what worked best with my skill set for the long run.  When game time came I performed remarkably because my style of preparation allowed me to anticipate problems, and gave me options for how to handle them.

Each year at training camp the Broncos would bring in linebackers with much more athletic ability then I had, to compete for my job.  I would watch them as plays unfolded in practice and observed how they reacted.  Instead of responding to plays the instant they recognized them, they would hesitate and double check in fear that they might make a mistake and get in trouble with the coach.  Because they limited themselves in preparation their performance was limited.  They were concerned with the short term instead of believing that they could accomplish great things in the long run. On the football field, I found that if I took the first step in the right direction before anyone else did all the angles would be changed in my favor.  This approach is not only limited to NFL performance but is true in school, business, relationship, and personal goal achievement.  The focus that extravagant passion brings to your preparation allows decisiveness in decision making.  My speaking business affords me the opportunity to meet and discuss success principles with many business owners.  It’s surprising how many of them, in describing the start of their successful business, have told me, “This wasn’t the plan.  I saw a need as an opportunity and responded to it before anyone else did.”

To avoid the pitfall of lack of focus brought on by a lack of passion I consider my desires whenever I make decisions.  Obviously I can’t be a great football player as a broken down forty seven year old, but I have other passions in my life.  As a speaker I am committed to inspiring long term positive change in teams and individuals.  As a husband and father I am committed to providing love and support to my family.  As a Christian I am committed to reflecting God’s love in my words and actions.  If you can articulate your passions in life and consider them when you make decisions, you will avoid this pitfall on the way to remarkable performance.

Former Denver Broncos captain Karl Mecklenburg played in six Pro Bowls and three Super Bowls establishing a track record of remarkable performance.  His leadership and success programs inspire long term positive change for corporate, association and collegiate clients.

—–

Former Denver Broncos captain Karl Mecklenburg played in six Pro Bowls and three Super Bowls establishing a track record of remarkable performance.  His leadership and success programs inspire long term positive change for corporate, association and collegiate clients. His website is www.karlmecklenburg.com

My friend, Mark Sanborn has written a fine book on performance called “The Encore Effect.”  In my humble opinion he’s dead on.  I have, using different words, shared many of the same principles with would-be performers simply because they work.  Mark kindly asked me to comment on performance from my own perspective, and while I’m sure I’m echoing things Mark not only knows well but has included in this book, perhaps I’ll have a different delivery or angle or perspective which one or two might need in order to achieve great performance for themselves.

For me there are five fundamental elements to being an encore performer, or delivering encore performances.  The first of them is this:  Great performance begins by choosing the medium correctly.  You must find something you’re both good at and something for which you have a strong passion.  This is so important!  I meet people all the time in a career for which they have a passion but not enough ability and their performances are frustratingly mediocre.  I also meet people doing something at which they excel and have amazing potential, but something they only tolerate and sometimes downright can’t stand doing.  So they achieve, again, a frustrated mediocrity.  We could write a book on the reasons people choose those things but suffice it to say right here, it’s not a formula for great performance.  For instance, I have a passion for endurance sports such as cycling and running.  I am, however, partially flat-footed, which I believe was God’s way of saying, “Learn what you can from this but I have other plans.”  On the other hand I am very good at math.  And I HATE math (maybe because my dad was a math teacher)!  It all comes together for me in music, comedy and speaking.  I love music and stage performance, and I have a genuine knack for it.  That’s what you want to find.

Next, performance is about practice, doing the work.  You simply have to put in the time.  This is where the passion for what you do is so important because this is the fuel that causes you to work harder, dig deeper, stay later, and do more than others will.  I heard one Olympic gold medalist describe his work regimen like this:  “It was easy, on days I felt good I would work very hard; and on days I didn’t feel good I would work very hard.”

Third… show up.  You have to show up.  You have to get in the game, walk onto the stage, do the interview, get the job, take the test.  In this world there are doers and there are watchers, the doers do and the watchers don’t.  Be a doer.  And keep in mind that being a doer means not being afraid to fail.  As a comedian most of the jokes or funny songs I write aren’t funny, or funny enough.  But I have to try them to find out and that means risk.  This is another way that the universe separates those who truly want it from those who like the idea of it.  Show up!

Forth, you have to open up and let go.  There is an element to great performance where the performance itself becomes greater than the sum of it’s parts.  It’s an intangible which can be fostered but not contrived, and you know it when it happens.  Some refer to it as being “in the zone.”  You’ve put in thousands and thousands of hours of practice and study, you’ve shown up, you’ve put it all on the line and you’re in the game… and now something happens.  It all starts to gel.  This is where I believe great performance comes through us rather than from us.  From Mozart to Neil Simon the great geniuses have said in some way that they don’t know where it came from, it just beamed in from somewhere, it just “hit them.”  In the movie, “Shine,” about a prodigy pianist who goes insane, there is a point where this amazing young pianist finally gets to study with the great professor, and the professor says something I’ve held on to ever since:  “You learn the notes so you can forget the notes.”  Think about it, when you’re at your best you’re not remembering the steps, thinking through the specific tools you’ve learned.  You’ve put them all into your mind and subconscious and you’re simply acting on instinct, on what comes to you.  You draw on the tools but you don’t focus on them.  This is where a performance becomes an encore performance.  This is where all the passion, ability, lessons, discipline, tools, and rules both come together and at the same time are thrown out.  This is where you’re no longer doing it, you ARE it.  Some people - from great business executives to great writers - find a way to be in that place daily.  For others it takes the right circumstances.  Either way, the key is to learn to foster it and be in that place as much as possible.  Once you learn it you have to forget it, let go and step out on faith.

Finally, great performance is about review and evaluation.  I learned this from my father, who in addition to being a math teacher was a high school football coach.  Every saturday after Friday’s game he would spend hours upon hours watching the game films and evaluating his team.  That way he knew what to work on in the coming week.  After every performance I ask myself three questions:  What went right?  What would I do differently next time?  What did I learn?  Trust me, I don’t like watching my own videos; in fact I cringe at the thought, even as I write this.  But I have to because this is the only way to improve.

The last caveat, here is that encore performance is not an accident.  It’s something you choose, something you work and sacrifice for, and luckily, something for which you will usually be well rewarded.

—–

Mike Rayburn - The World’s Funniest Guitar Virtuoso
Performances include: 8 times at Carnegie Hall
and more than 4,000 shows nationwide

In the introduction to his new book, The Encore Effect, Mark Sanborn puts you on the stage by asking you to imagine that you’ve just giving the performance of a lifetime.  The audience is on its feet, roaring “Bravo!” and thundering its approval of your efforts.

“I believe,” writes Sanborn, “that a worthy goal in life is to have people shouting for more of whatever it is we do that is really important and matters to us.”

I agree.  I love the premise of the Encore Effect.  It’s a terrific equation: performance on stage = performance in life.  And Sanborn does a fabulous job of spelling out the lessons that will, if followed, lead the reader into encore after encore.

Which is, of course, a good thing.

There’s no doubt that praise and adulation for our own performance, ability, value, service, leadership, etc is a wonderful achievement.  None of us should aspire to anything less.

I do think, however, that we can aspire to something more—something that is already woven within and throughout the fabric of the text of The Encore Effect.  It’s an aspiration that, if you discover and practice it, will take your Effect to an even higher, more remarkable level.

The threads of this higher Effect run through the book.  First, Sanborn describes a “professional” as someone who “is more worried about your problems…than you are.”  Later, he tells the story of a teacher’s remarkable performance in the classroom that resulted in a life-changing experience for one of her young students.  Then we hear about Dominos’ Heather Conrad, who says, “My job is about growing people and enabling my team to grow.  It’s about being big on the inside.”  And then there’s chapter 11, titled, “How to Help Others Perform Remarkably.”

More worried about others problems than your own.  Effecting a life-changing experience in another.  Growing others.  Helping others perform.

Are you getting the picture?

The wisdom within The Encore Effect’s wisdom is this: the greatest, most remarkable encore is not the one that you receive, but the one you help others to receive. The truly remarkable among us achieve greatness by raising others up, by giving others opportunities, by putting others up on stage.

Your most significant opportunity for greatness (and mine) is to give your time, your knowledge, your resources and your experience to another with the expressed intent of preparing that person for a performance that will bring the house down.

It may seem like a paradox, but the truth is this: your real opportunity for greatness is to make others greater than yourself.

There is no law of physics, no universal rule—that I know of, anyway—that says your succeeding requires my failing, your fulfillment requires my emptiness, your happiness, my grief. The human experience leaves room for everyone—literally everyone—to be fulfilled, enriched, enlightened, self-actualized—whatever you care to call it—in his or her own unique way.

So we have nothing to lose by devoting ourselves to this ultimate leadership act: cultivating and developing the masters of “the stage” who, in turn, will go on to achieve things greater than we have, and give performances that will outshine our own.

Now, imagine this scenario:  Again, the audience is on its feet.  Again, they’re shouting ‘Bravo,’ demanding more, stomping until the walls shake and the chandeliers rattle overhead.  But this time it’s not you standing up there being showered with roses.

It’s your colleague, your friend, or your employee.  And you’re backstage, watching from the wings.  Beaming with pride.  Because you made it possible.  You helped get them there.

You helped to create their Encore Effect.

—–

Steve Farber
Best selling Author of, “The Radical Leap:
A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership”
President of extreme Leadership Inc.-
A corporation devoted to the cultivation and
development of leaders in the business community.