Category: Adapt, Innovate, Win

Adapt, Innovate, and Win: Welcome to the cornerstone of jaywren.com, where we believe that career growth is a continuous journey fueled by adaptation and leads to success, both personally and professionally. This category unites the core principles of thriving in a dynamic world with the practical steps for individual development. Here, you’ll find insights and actionable strategies to accomplish these things:

Cultivate an Adaptive Mindset
Learn to embrace change, navigate uncertainty, and develop the resilience needed to thrive in evolving circumstances.
Fuel Personal and Professional Growth.
Explore techniques for self-improvement, skill development, building confidence, and achieving your full potential in all areas of your life.
Embrace Innovation and Creativity.
Discover how to think outside the box, generate new ideas, and implement innovative solutions to overcome challenges and seize opportunities.
Define and Achieve Success
Understand what success means to you and gain practical guidance on setting meaningful goals and developing effective strategies to reach them.
Develop Essential Skills for a Changing Landscape
From communication and leadership to critical thinking and problem-solving, equip yourself with the skills needed to excel in today’s world.

Summary

Whether you’re navigating a career transition, seeking personal fulfillment, or aiming for greater achievements, this category provides the framework and inspiration to adapt, innovate, and win on your unique path to growth and success. Join us as we explore the continuous journey of becoming the best version of ourselves in an ever-evolving world.

Wired For Success: Five Steps to Upping Your Mental Game

Wired For Success: Some people procrastinate, worry, and accomplish very little. However, other people get into action, have peace of mind, and achieve success.  What do these people do differently?

Wired For Success: Five Steps to Upping Your Mental Game

Wired For Success: Some people accomplish very little. On the hand, other people get things done and find success.

How are these people different.  What are the things that successful people do to get wired for success?

Focus on the Present Moment.

Get out of your head and into the world around you.

Ruminating over the past is painful and unproductive.  Furthermore, fretting over the future wastes energy. Both clutter your mind.

Start with a Small Step.

Do you have trouble getting to that long-term project?  To say the least, you are not unusual.

Many people don’t start working on a large project until the day before the deadline.

First, don’t decide to tackle the entire project.  Just decide to do something simple.

For example, if you have a major presentation to give, just decide to write the outline.  Just decide to write one paragraph.
Overtime, things will come together.

Breathe

Just taking a deep breath will help you get back into the present moment.  Taking twenty minutes to relax and focus on your breathing will clear your mind and boost your energy.

Snap into Action

You see sports fans standing to cheer when the team takes the field.  The energy and the enthusiasm increase when the people in the crowd stand and cheer.  Clapping, smiling, cheering, laughing, and standing boost your energy and give you mental focus.

If you don’t feel excited about your work, act excited about your work.  Use body language and action to wire your mind for success.

Gratitude Lists

Gratitude lists wire us for a positive state of mind and gives us energy.

Make realistic yet simple gratitude lists.

Everyone has problems.  People wired for success enjoy life, even when tackling problems.  How do they do this?  They remember to see the good things in their life.

Mental and Emotional Burnout: When Self-Sacrifice Becomes Destructive

Mental and Emotional Burnout:  Do you look at your work and say, “I can no longer do this?”  How do you recover the energy and excitement to do your job?

Mental and Emotional Burnout: When Self-Sacrifice Becomes Destructive

The term “burnout” in reference to job performance comes from an article “Staff Burn-Out” by Herbert J. Freudenberger, first published in January 1974  in the Journal of Social Issues.

In 1980, Herbert Freudenberger collaborated with Richelson Géraldine to write the book Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement.

The Adrenaline Rush that Precedes Burnout

Are you pushing yourself into job burnout? Do find that you are working on an adrenaline rush.  Are you working under constant pressure from your supervisor or from your working conditions?  Do you take shortcuts by eating at your desk, reading your email on your smartphone during breaks, and trying to do several tasks at the same time?

That adrenaline rush that comes from hyperactivity and super performance is often destructive.  Your efforts for high achievement can destroy your success.

Saving Your Career from Job Burnout

Here are common symptoms of job burnout.

  1. You lose interest in your job.
  2. You procrastinate, or you simply cannot work.
  3. Your work has lost its meaning.
  4. A feeling of powerless dominates your thinking.
  5. After resting, you still feel exhausted.
  6. Depression and anxiety are symptoms of burnout. 
  7. People around you disappoint you easily.
  8. Perfectionist and judgmental mentality hijack your thinking.
  9. You work too long, because nothing is ever good enough.

Job burnout can come from several factors.

  1. Doing endless hours of work that is mind numbing or stressful
  2. Working under constant criticism and correction
  3. Not taking regular breaks to eat or rest
  4. Failing to do things that give your mind a change in activity
  5.  Working in a job that is a mismatch
  6. Working too long each day and too many days a week

The solution for job burnout is change.

  1. Take breaks.
  2. Find emotional support through friendships and family.
  3. Try new things.
  4. Make a list of your work priorities.  Do one thing at a time.
  5. Get regular physical exercise.
  6. Learn techniques for resting your mind from work: meditation, pleasant and interesting reading
  7. Watching or listening to television, radio, or video programs that are relaxing, motivational, or inspirational
  8. Change jobs.

The danger of job burnout is that you ruin your health, and you ruin your career.  Having a successful career begins with you taking care of yourself mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Learn to Love Your Job.

Inspiration: How Successful People Find Joy at Work

Do you find yourself depressed about your work?

Do you have trouble concentrating?

Is it difficult for you to finish your work?

Were you excited when you landed your current job and now you dread doing your job?

During the decades that I worked as a recruiter, I went through easy times, tough times, and times in between. However, there was no other job that I wanted to do.

For me, the swings in business were difficult mentally and emotionally.

There were also some parts of my job that I found boring.  For example, I would receive calls from job seekers I simply could not help.  They were talented people.

However, their experience did not match the experience of people my clients would hire. Sometimes, these job seekers pressed me to hear them out on why I should spend time on their job search.  I would hear phrases like this countless times:  “If you can sell one thing, you can sell anything.”

Explaining that my clients wanted people who could sell anything and who also were experts in the consumer-packaged goods industry, took patience.

At other times, doing what I did was very stressful.  Hiring companies wanted jobs filled right away.  Sometimes job seekers became frustrated and wanted to vent their frustrations.  Deals where I spent a great deal of time would fall apart on one phone call.

Finding Inspiration

At one point, I had been in recruiting for over a decade and American industry was going through a recession.  As a recruiter, I found this period very difficult.  I began to go through a state of depression.

I was sitting in a line in a car wash one day during this period.  It was a beautiful day.  I was driving a new car.  I was in line to have the luxury of having professionals vacuum and wash my car.

And yet, I was really depressed.

I had a Zig Ziglar tape sitting in my car, but I had never taken the time to listen to the tape.  I inserted the tape into my cassette player.  As I listened to the tape, my mood changed.  My depression lifted.  I realized that I had reasons to feel grateful. For starters, I had the privilege of having a new car and the convenience of having other people wash it.   I had a terrific family and a terrific life.  My day brightened.

I realized that the inspiration was in me all along.  I just needed to find ways to awaken it.

Today, I continually look for new ways to find inspiration and I act on these ways.

  • Hang out with inspiring people.
  • Make gratitude lists.
  • Pause to meditate.
  • Act in small steps.
  • Watch, read, and listen to inspiring people.
  • Follow the positive things and avoid the negative.

Today, I know that sometimes, inspiration simply does not simply happen.  However, I can do things that make inspiration happen.

Business and Career Growth: Can a Business or Career Become Static and Survive?

Business and Career Growth: Can a Business or Career Become Static and Survive?

Building a business or a career is a continual process of expanding your goods, services, skills, and network.  The first day that I sat down to start my career as a recruiter, I had no contacts.  I had a telephone, an empty legal pad, and a box of blank 5 x 8 index cards.

After a decade, my contact management system contained tens of thousands of contacts.  I had personally tracked and created files for these people.  Most of them I have reached out to by phone, email, or professional networks.  I still make new connections every day.  Little has changed except that my file system has gone from paper to a computer.

I continually added clients.

Here is a partial list of companies where I had recruiting contracts:

    1. PepsiCo
    2. Pepsi Bottling Group
    3. Frito-Lay
    4. Coca Cola, USA
    5. Coca Cola Foods
    6. Mobil Oil Company
    7. Soft Soap
    8. Pillsbury Green Giant
    9. International Playtex
    10. Quaker Oats
    11. Dannon Corporation
    12. No Nonsense Fashions
    13. Coca-Cola Foods
    14. Del Monte Foods
    15. The Clorox Company
    16. Nestle
    17. Brach & Brock
    18. Catalina Marketing
    19. Health Resource Corporation
    20. Majers Corporation
    21. Welch Foods
    22. Softsoap
    23. E & J Gallo
    24. Sunny Delight
    25. M & M Mars
    26. Tambrands
    27. Nabisco
    28. News America Marketing
    29. El Dorado Marketing
    30. Imagitas
    31. ConAgra Foods
    32. ConAgra Armour Swift-Eckrich
    33. Polaroid Corporation
    34. Dial Corporation
    35. Dep Corporation
    36. United Vintners
    37. 7-Up
    38. Miller Brewing Company
    39. 13-30 Corporation
    40. Hain Celestial Group
    41. Q-Interactive
    42. Label Dollars
    43. Promo Edge
    44. Centiv
    45. The Sunflower Group
    46. PromoWorks
    47. The Wine Spectrum of Coca Cola
    48. Kaiser-Roth
    49. DSD Communications
    50. Black & Decker
    51. ActMedia
    52. Linkewell Health
    53. Bush Brothers Beans
    54. Marketing Technology Solutions
    55. Sunny D
    56. Twenty-Ten Corporation
    57. InStore Broadcasting Network
    58. Insignia Pops
    59. The Beecham Group
    60. GlaxoSmithKline – GSK
    61. Jacobs Suchard
    62. Cody Kramer
    63. SVP Worldwide
    64. Mauna Loa
    65. Garden Burger
    66. EAS
    67. New World Pasta Company
    68. Vacation Connections
    69. Lala USA
    70. Continental Promotion Group
    71. Kayser Roth
    72. Morningstar Farms
    73. Duracell
    74. Kiss Products
    75. Phillips Food Brokerage
    76. Unicous Marketing
    77. Kelley Clarke Food Brokerage
    78. Wizards of the Coast
    79. Oberto Sausage
    80. Fanfare Media
    81. Linkwell Communications
    82. Lindt
    83. Nurserymen’s Exchange
    84. Maybelline
    85. Advantage 360
    86. American Italian Pasta
    87. Warner Lambert
    88. Fuel Rewards/Centego
    89. First Flavor
    90. Potlatch Corporation
    91. Crossmark Food Brokerage
    92. RB (Reckitt Benckiser)
    93. Marketing Force
    94. J&J Snack Foods Corporation
    95. Cartera Commerce Inc.
    96. Alcon Laboratories
    97. Ray-O-Vac
    98. Naterra
    99. ICOM
    100. Slim Fast (Unilever)
    101. Potlatch Corporation
    102. Dean Foods
    103. …and others

    Companies Come and Companies Go.

    In the list are many companies that no longer exist.  In some cases, the brands still exist.  However, these brands are part of another company.  To stay in business, I had to continue to grow new business.

    Companies come and go.  People come and go.  Processes change.  Opportunities are here today and gone tomorrow.  People who build new relationships and expand their relationships will build security.

    Change is constant in business and careers.  The process of building a business and building a career never ends.

Negotiations: Why do Americans struggle to negotiate?

Negotiations: Why do Americans struggle to negotiate?

Negotiation is a skill.  You can learn it.  A few negotiation skills can help us in all aspects of our lives.

In some countries, people regularly negotiate retail prices.  Yet in America, many people are frightened of the idea of asking for people to negotiate with them over a price.

If you have been a tourist in Mexico, you have probably had firsthand experience in negotiating prices.  Shop owners will gladly to let you pay the marked retail-price.  However, many merchants in Mexico are open and apparently expecting to negotiate a price.

In the United States, our prosperity and our retail culture diminish our negotiation skills.  Most shoppers are not going to negotiate pennies, nickels, and dimes for individual products.  It’s just not worth their time.  Most retailers are not going to negotiate pennies, nickels, and dimes for individual products either.  It is, in most cases, not necessary based on their business model.

The result is that in our culture, consumer skills of presentation and negotiation atrophy.

Sometimes, all you have to do is ask.

However, shrewd shoppers operate counter to our culture.  They often negotiate the price of mismarked advertised prices.  They also negotiate with retailers to match the prices of other retailers offer.

Retailers want your business.  They especially want your business if you are a local regular customer.

I am one of those rare Tab Cola drinkers.  Coca Cola makes Tab Cola.  The product is such a slow seller that most retailers carry it only on customer request.

The local Coca Cola bottling company sold twelve packs of Coca Cola product in every brand except for Tab Cola.  They shipped Tab Cola in six packs only.  Because of the packaging, the Tab Cola cost almost twice what other colas cost.

Since I regularly bought Tab Colas, I worked out a deal with the local Coca Cola bottling company and a local supermarket chain that enabled me to buy two six packs of Tab Cola for the same price of a twelve pack of the other Coca Cola products.

I got what I thought was a fair deal.  By solving a customer problem, the bottling company generated goodwill with the local retailer.  The retailer won, because Coca Cola worked with them to compensate for the cost difference.

The negotiation took a little bit of time, but I buy the product regularly.  It was worth the time to work out the deal.

The Seven Steps of a Persuasive Presentation

When I worked at Procter & Gamble, I took a sales training course that included a presentation model that works for any situation.  Procter & Gamble titled the model the 5-Steps to persuasive selling.  Xerox had actually developed the original course as the 7-steps to professional selling (PSS).

Let us say that tomorrow you have a meeting.  This meeting could be a job interview.  The meeting might be with your board of directors to discuss a new direction for your company.

Here how the process works.

PREPARE FOR THE MEETING

The night before your meeting, you review the material you will present.  You might have a few notes on your laptop or you might have a slide presentation.  The important thing is that you have prepared what you will need for this meeting.

SUMMARIZE THE SITUATION

When your turn to present material begins, you greet the person or people in the room.  Perhaps thank them for meeting with you.  During this part of the presentation, you introduce your subject.  Your audience has a certain need or problem, for which you have a solution.  The subject of your presentation is a summary of the needs they have.  You might provide them with some additional information on your subject.  While you want to gain acceptance of the ideas you are presenting, the most important thing is to demonstrate that you have their interest foremost.  You are there to help them.

STATE THE IDEA

In a brief, easy-to-understand statement, you give a recommendation for a solution to their need.  Allow your audience to participate.  Ask questions.  They may have objections to your idea.  Let them get comfortable by raising objections.  Treat the objections as questions and provide answers.

EXPLAIN HOW IT WORKS

You might provide a schedule of events, prices, and who will do what.  Help your audience see that your plan is thorough.  Give them the details they need to know.  Help them be comfortable that they can trust that your plan will accomplish the goals you have established.

REINFORCE KEY BENEFITS

“Sell the sizzle, not the steak.”  This part should have no more than three statements as to how your plan gives your audience the benefits of solving their problems.  Keep it brief.

SUGGEST EASY NEXT STEPS.

This is the close.  This is where you request approval of your plan.  I recommend that you layout easy steps that may provide options, and do a trial close on an assumptive choice.  For example, you might say, “Should we start to work this afternoon or first thing tomorrow?”

FOLLOW UP

This part may require a little bit of discipline.  When you have left your meeting, you should do a personal review of the meeting.  Review any notes you have taken.  Write follow up correspondence.  Schedule the next steps you need to take.  Notify others who might be involved of what you accomplished in the meeting and what they can expect going forward.

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