Do This One Thing and Find Success

Do This One Thing and You Will Find Success

Can there really be one thing you can do to find success? Yes!  There are no guarantees in life.  Still, do this one thing, and you will improve your chance of succeeding. Have you applied for a specialized position and didn’t get it? Were you a candidate for promotion and someone else was selected? Did you want to go to the FBINA and didn’t get the opportunity? Were you a police chief candidate and failed to make the cut? Most of us that have been working for any length of time will answer yes to many of these questions and many other similar questions.  Life is full of challenges and disappointments.  What can you do to find success when success is so elusive? Don’t Quit!  It is that simple.  Keep trying.  Don’t give up.  Get back in the game.  Get off the bench.  Work harder.  You get the picture. I realize this is easier said than done. You see, I know from personal experience.  I was a candidate for police chief on three occasions before I was finally selected to be the Chief of Police for the Dunwoody Police Department. What keeps people from getting back up after being knocked…

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Thomas Jefferson's 10 Rules

Leadership Lessons From Thomas Jefferson

A lot has been written about our Founding Fathers over the years.  Obviously, Thomas Jefferson was one of them.  He eventually became the 3rd President of the United States.  He is well known for drafting the Declaration of Independence.  President Jefferson was selected for this task because he had clear handwriting and he had a special way with words. Over time, Thomas Jefferson developed a list of axioms for personal behavior that he would share with his family and friends.  This advice developed into Thomas Jefferson’s 10 Rules of Life and was published in The Western Farmer as early as 1839. On a trip to Washington, D.C. in early 2018, my wife and I visited the Jefferson Memorial.  There, I stumbled across a small postcard with Jefferson’s Ten Rules imprinted on it.  I couldn’t believe that I had never heard about Jefferson’s list before.  I quickly purchased the postcard and sat down and reviewed it.  The simplicity and universal applicability drew me Jefferson’s 10 Rules of Life.  These axioms are as relevant today as when they were written. If followed, I am confident this list will help you be a better leader and a better person. Let’s take a quick…

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10 performance measurements

10 Performance Measurements to Judge Yourself as a Leader

I recently received my 2-Minute Monday Motivator in my email box from my friend, Rick Houcek.  Rick is a strategic planning coach, self-motivation workshop leader, keynote speaker, CEO coach and author.  He also happens to be a resident of Dunwoody.  Rick’s Monday Motivator is worth the read.  Sign up here to receive his free weekly newsletter. Anyway, in Rick’s latest newsletter, he discusses the criteria we should use as leaders to judge our performance and make sure that criteria lines up with our stakeholders.  In other words, we should judge ourselves by the same criteria those we lead judge us. Job Performance Criteria for Presidents Rick provided a list of criteria used by historians to judge the performance of United States Presidents according to USA Today.  Here is the list. Public persuasionCrisis leadershipEconomic managementMoral authorityInternational relationsAdministrative skillsRelations with CongressVision/Agenda settingPursuit of equal justice for allPerformance within the context of his times Although this is a great list, it really doesn’t work well for trying to judge our performance as law enforcement leaders.  As Rick pointed out, historians agree you can’t really measure the effectiveness of a president until 50 years later. Since we can’t wait 50 years to find out…

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