Over the holidays I was able to reflect more on what I learned from  Great Work, Great Career, which I read before the holiday.

I wanted to share with you a bit more about what I learned…

After writing my contribution statement I moved on to the next section about cause.

I reflected on my cause for a while which is something I try to do at the start of each new year. I know my cause and it is deeply personal. My personal mission statement and my professional cause are aligned and feed each other. Do you know your cause? Have you written a mission statement?

And the last section was about Building a Village. I really liked the idea of Building a Village. I feel that this is one of my talents and I realize now what else I need to do to strengthen my village. I learned things here that I could do right now (see me write this blog post? That’s one of the things they recommend) and make deposits into the EBA (Emotional Bank Account).

My acid test of a really good book is did it cause me to do something? Or cause me to see the world differently, shift my paradigm?

Well this book far exceeded my acid test. I’m still thinking about how I can apply what I learned. I loved, loved , loved it. But then that’s part of my contribution: Be a cheerleader!

Have you read the book? What are your thoughts on it? We would love to hear from you.

Author:  Annie Oswald

This book re-inspired me and reignited my passion for what I do. I tell people I love my job but after reading this and going through the exercises I have come to realize that I really do LOVE my job. I have my dream job working and plus I work best people in the world. Well of course you do, you might say. You work at FranklinCovey where the people are highly effective, right?

Well I’ll be totally transparent here; we don’t always walk the talk. We try but we don’t always succeed. While reading this book I have come to realize now that we don’t walk the talk because of me. If I had lived by my Contribution Statement (which I have now created by examining my talents, passions, and skills) and if I were a trim tab, I could change the corporate culture. Really, I could make a difference.  I could be the singular irreplaceable one uniquely qualified to make that kind of difference. And even if others didn’t see or feel the shift, I would and I would know and my paradigms are my reality.

The book is divided into 3 parts: Conscience, Cause and Building a Village, each section includes exercises.

The Conscience exercise was a difficult pill to for me to swallow. They ask the question:  What is your real responsibility to your organization, to your customers and co-workers?

Well…

To my organization I applied a revenue number.

To my customers I applied the responsibility of creating and offering quality products and services that would help them further their mission by improving their lives.

And to my co-workers, my responsibility is to cheer them on, to offer solutions, to give my creative energies.

Wow! This was an eye opening moment for me. My moral compass and conscience told me that I had been a cynic, set up some roadblocks, and withheld my best ideas because of a scarcity mentality.

In this exercise I created a Contribution Statement for myself that applies my talents and passions to course correcting my attitude.  My goal is to be a trim tab.

So take a minute and share, what is your real responsibility to your organization, to your customers and co-workers?

We would love to hear from you.

Click here to join me for my next post, where I will discuss the more about my experince reading Great Work, Great Career.

 Author:  Annie Oswald

I felt like I really needed to freshen up my mission statement before I could teach and advise others to write theirs. It was several years ago when I first attended a 7 Habits workshop (and trust me, it was several years ago). It was at Sundance in the summer and a beautiful place to enjoy nature and discover my passion through writing my first personal mission statement. Since that time, I’ve had another child, put two daughters through college, celebrated many more wedding anniversaries, and advanced my career to my dream job. A lot has happened since that first mission statement was written and my paradigm on life has matured.

So, in a hurry I thought I’d try out the Mission Statement Builder tool on the FranklinCovey website. I thought I’ll get this done in a hurry, it can’t be that difficult, I’ll do it while I’m listening in to this conference call-you know how we multi-task while the phone’s on mute, admit it you do it too. 

But surprisingly I really got into the process. The tool is easy to use, asks the right questions in the right order, and pulls it together in a final format. When you’re done you say “Wow! That was cool and look at what I can do!”

I thoroughly enjoyed going through the process again. I loved getting in touch with my voice, my passion, and recognizing some of my achievements thus far in life.

Next step is to decide which of the products I want to put my mission statement on-do I want a poster? What picture should I put on it? I’m not really good at journaling so maybe my mission statement on a journal would encourage me to do more. Decisions, decisions.

But now I’m ready to go out and inspire others and I’ll definitely encourage these teens to go home and do their own mission statement builder after camp.

I’ll keep you posted on which product I choose-I’ll blog about it when I get back (if I survive!).

You can build your mission statement or revamp your current mission statement at: www.franklincovey.com/msb

Author:  Annie Oswald

We all know that when we are enslaved to the credit card companies, the mortgage and the bill collector it’s hard to enjoy life, family, and our jobs, right? So why not get control and be happy? It’s common knowledge that financial peace of mind is directly tied to our happiness.

It’s certainly that way in my life. In the first eighteen years of my marriage, my husband and I spent what we earned. We saved the minimum in our 401K but the rest went out as quickly (or quicker) as it came in. We had sufficient for our needs, but every Christmas, with four daughters, we’d slip back into a debt, work our way out, get flush by late summer, and then Christmas would roll around again and we would repeat the cycle again and again.

As our two oldest went off to college we got a real slap in the face. The expense of college for two is out of sight so we knew had some steep hurdles to overcome. And that’s when we finally got control. We

1) trained ourselves to budget, 2) tracked every single penny we spent, 3) trimmed our expenses, and 4) set a target. By living by these four laws, we were able to get our two daughters through college, support them while they worked and lived abroad for 18 months, get out of the debt we were in, and build a new home. All without winning the lottery.

Now that was years before I discovered this book and the formalization of the four laws. This book would have really helped us get control sooner but still the ideas and principles taught here will still help us maximize our financial prosperity despite the financial recession the country is in.

This book offers four simple laws that are easy to remember, easy to implement, and easy to live by. There are some great worksheets included that you can use immediately to help you get started.

I truly believe in proactively controlling your life and your money.  Believe me, if I can do it, you can do it.

Author:  Annie Oswald

I got up on today, April 1,  and unscrewed all of the canister lights in my kitchen, woke up my daughter and told her ‘no school today! too much snow and wind’, came to work and taped down a few mouse balls, and just generally wreaked some havoc and all because of my personal mission statement, after all it is April Fools’ Day.

FranklinCovey has a new “old” audio product just released called “How to Develop Your Personal Mission Statement.”  I picked it up, listened, and tried again. I have written mission statements a couple of times and I always ended up feeling like I didn’t quite have it right yet. Sometimes I felt like it was more driven from fear-what if I write this down and I can’t really make it happen? Will that make me a loser in life?

A personal mission statement is based on Habit 2, Begin With The End In Mind.  In  life, the most effective way to begin with the end in mind is to develop a mission statement, one that focuses on what you want to be in terms of character, and what you want to do in reference to life contributions and achievements.  Maybe it’s because it’s Spring, or because of where I am in life, but this time it really stuck. Maybe it’s just as Victor Hugo once said, “There is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come.” And the time had come for my mission statement to become a powerful force in my life.

What really helped me out was the CD full of tools that is included in this audio package. It has all kinds of FranklinCovey tools and resources but most importantly it has a personal mission statement builder. I personally needed a sense of destination and the mission statement builder gave me that and created the energy to get me started and the inspiration to finish. In fact, Stephen says that at the beginning of this process there is enormous hope and encouragement as well as fun and happiness. And that for me was the clincher. My mission statement should be fun.

That tool, combined with Stephen’s coaching, got me to a place where I feel like I’m back on course and I can make a difference in this world and I will make a contribution.

So, what does all of this have to do with April Fools’ Day and the pranks I played? My mission is all about living a life of fun and good cheer, learning to have and share fun, showing and sharing love through joyful fun, and leaving a legacy of fun.

So, when it’s all said and done, I want people to come to my funeral and have a rip roarin’ fun party!

Author:  Annie Oswald

Hi! I’m Annie Oswald and I’m the Director of Alternate Distribution Channels at FranklinCovey Co. Alternate Distribution Channels is just a fancy name for getting FranklinCovey audio, book, and video products into the hands of people all over the world.

 Today I’m excited to announce a great new audio from FranklinCovey that we are creating. This is like an Advance Reader’s review but for audio. The audio is Dr. Stephen R. Covey and Stephen M. R. Covey Present A Conversation.

 This audio program features two generations, a unique combination of father and son bestselling authors, discussing and sharing some humorous and always profound professional and personal experiences.

I think that as a listener you will be transported. You may even  feel like a fly on the wall listening in to this personal meeting between two great business leaders, authors, speakers, and intellectual minds, I know I did. I listened as they made the case that there is one thing that is common to every individual, relationship, team, family, organization, nation, economy, and civilization throughout the world.

From their insights I learned more about the importance of trust in creating building and maintaining effective relationships in all aspects of life: our homes, our families, each other, our companies and ourselves.

Trust is the one thing which, if removed will destroy the most powerful government, the most successful business, the most thriving economy, the most influential leadership, the greatest friendship, the strongest character, the deepest love.

 On the other hand, if nurtured, trust has the potential to create unparalleled success and prosperity in every dimension of life. Yet it is the least understood, the most neglected, and most underestimated possibility of our time.

Trust impacts us 24/7, 365 days a year.

I have to admit I’m not an avid business audio listener (I shouldn’t admit that publicly-business audios are my business) but I loved this.

 Check our store in a few weeks for more details.

 Author: Annie Oswald