Randy Cantrell – Page 168

You Can’t Dabble Your Way To Success: The Power Of Going All In

Personal Development, Video / By Randy Cantrell

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Every child has been asked that question. A lot.

The answer seems easy when we’re small. A fireman. A football player. A teacher. A nurse.

By the time we leave elementary school our likely answer is, “I don’t know!”

I marvel with envy those people who say, “I’ve ALWAYS wanted to be _________.” How cool would it be to have always known what you wanted to be, what you wanted to do?

I wasn’t that lucky. Or astute.

I’ve had to figure it all out on the fly. It is hard work. Very hard work. You know, right?

And then…there’s the urge to dabble. We all do it. We do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. All in the hopes of finding success. The problem is, you can’t dabble your way to success!

Today’s show is super short, but the message is among the most powerful lessons I’ve learned. I know it’s true. I believe it. But, that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do it.

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November 3, 2012 – Saturday’s Smile

Saturday's Smile / By Randy Cantrell

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Episode 148 – Lessons From The TV Show, The Voice

Entrepreneurship, Podcast / By Randy Cantrell

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:04 — 30.7MB)

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Four celebrity singers. Each with his own team of 6 singers. Now, they’ll compete for top honors on NBC’s hit TV show, The Voice.

During Tuesday night’s show the competition completed the “Battle Round” or “KnockOut Round.” Each coach pits two team members against each other. The coach decides a winner, who will advance, leaving the loser to go home.

Four lessons emerged from these battle rounds. I’ve watched all four teams go through this round and every single time these elements enter into the equation to determine the winner — and the loser!

We can apply these same four things to our business building. I’ll give you one hint: song selection is critical.

P.S. Subscribe to the podcast at iTunes and while you’re at it, leave me a 5-star review. It’ll help other people find the podcast. Thank you!

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Cool Hand Luke – 45 Years Ago Today

Communication / By Randy Cantrell

Donn Pearce wrote the novel in 1965. He also wrote the screenplay made famous by Paul Newman’s brilliant portrayal of a man who refused to be broken.

Even in his personal life, I always thought of Paul Newman as “cool.” Cool Hand Luke. The movie was released on November 1, 1967. That was 45 years ago today. From them to now people often use the phrase made famous by Strother Martin.

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Turn It Up!

Entrepreneurship, Personal Development / By Randy Cantrell

During the recording of the song, Sweet Home Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd‘s lead singer Ronnie Van Zant says, “Turn it up,” asking the recording engineer to turn up the volume in his headset. Legendary record producer Al Kooper thought it sounded good and decided to leave it in the final mix.

Sometimes we just need higher volume. You’ve experienced it sitting in your own den as your family watches TV. Somebody, maybe you, ask the person with the remote (and that should always be YOU), ” Turn it up!” Maybe the room noise is making it difficult for us to hear. It could be the content volume is just too low and we can’t make out the dialog.

If it’s not loud enough we can’t hear it well enough to understand it. If we can’t understand it, it’s like that proverbial tree falling in a forest with nobody there to hear it.

Turn it up so you can understand better. Learn more. Grow. Improve.

Turn it up so others can understand you better. Learn from you. Grow from your help. Improve because you care enough.

Turn it up!

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Get Your Life Out Of Your Draft Folder

Personal Development / By Randy Cantrell

Last week I looked at the dashboard for this website and noticed 483 published posts and an astonishingly high number of drafted posts, posts that are in various stages of completion, but have never yet seen the light of day.

148 drafts.

That’s almost 31% of the actual published posts. Just sitting there. Unfinished.

That means that almost a quarter of all the posts started…were never completed.

Yep, I got a calculator to quickly figure that out. It stuck in my head, “Almost a 25% failure rate!” Actually, it’s 23.45%, but what are a few percentage points among friends. I suppose I should round down, not up – when figuring out my failure rate. Does it say something about me that I rounded up? Maybe.

I began to wonder if my WordPress draft folder was an appropriate metaphor for my life.

There have been times when I suspect I’d have celebrated a mere 25% failure rate. Is a 75% still a passing grade in school?

I’m competitive. Always have been. I was almost always ashamed – yes, ashamed – if I didn’t hit in the higher 90% range. I didn’t say I always scored that high! I said when I didn’t, I was always ashamed. Always! My mother was never satisfied with anything less than an A.

But it dawned on me that a draft is a bit like an INCOMPLETE in school. It’s not even a grade really. It’s worse. It’s “you never even did the work.” Well, okay…maybe better said, it’s “you never finished the work.”

What’s unfinished in your life?

What are the things that languish in your drafts’ folder?

Are there things in there that belong in the trash? They just need to be deleted because they have no use or potential?

Are there things in there that deserve to be finished? They need time and attention to be completed or more fully developed because they do have value?

Look closely. GET OFF THE SCHNEID.

Me? Man, I’m covered up. I’ve got 148 posts to go through!

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