Urgency changes your approach.  Think of times in your life where urgency created extraordinary outcomes.  BUT… instead of being victim to urgent situations be the architect of your results. Use urgency as a useful tool.

You know the right tool can save you a vast amount of time.  The wrong wrench used in removing a goofy European automobile's oil-filter can take hours. The right wrench can take seconds.  Imagine being a motivational keynote speaker writing an essay with a quill on a piece of parchment versus writing it on a laptop computer with the appropriate software. It makes perfect sense to use the right tool to accomplish what you want. This frees you up to accomplish more (or have more free time) in another area.

Yet, some tools are not easily acquired.  Urgency is one of them. 

If urgency was a tool in your toolbox of skills, wouldn’t it be great to reach in and use it like a wrench?  Yet, urgency has naturally been dreaded as an external force, a force to handled, be coped with or managed. For example, NASA’s Apollo 13 mission got a dose of urgency when Jim Lovell radioed, “Houston, we have a problem.”  Urgency set in motion Gene Kranz(now a motivational keynote speaker) and his team. Mr. Kranz clarified their efforts with the words, “Failure is not an option.”

Urgency is the state of requiring immediate action.  It involves focusing your absolute attention. It is a quality that conveys earnestness or the need for doing something quickly.  It can be a pressing need.  Urgency implies importance and necessity. 

Negative connotations for urgency include pressure, stressing out, hurrying and rushing.

Urgency is the root word in emergency. If it’s an emergency, it can’t be good.  But if fast results are what you want, then it's to your benefit to turn urgency into a positive tool for you to use.

In the Olympics, if a tennis player knows she’s behind, urgency demands she step up her game.  By being overcome by the pressure, stressing out, hurrying or rushing, she can blow her chances of a comeback. If she uses urgency as a tool, she’ll quickly turn things around.  If she focuses on what’s necessary and important, she’ll improve her game and put momentum in her favor. That Urgency Monkey now climbs all over her opponent’s back. With enough of a killer instinct, she could keep building on the pressure to cause her opponent to choke.

Peak performers use urgency to their advantage.  The tennis player who did not panic stayed on her game.  She didn’t rush her strategy.  She didn’t hurry past opportunities to take advantage of certain shots.  Urgency as a tool was essential in her approach.

Reach into your tool-box and grab urgency as your own. Use it to build your business, drive sales, and get more of what you want in the business of life.

For our loyal readers we have a FREE eBook for you. Get Everything Done FSTR dives deep into the topic of how to get your own urgency tool into your toolbox.

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NY Times bestselling author, Vince Poscente, is the founder of Libretto Publishing and has written five books translated into more fourteen languages. He writes about harnessing the speed of change, the way to reach BIG GOALS in less time, accelerating potential of human capital, how to get out of your own way and best of all, instant impact with lasting influence. Learn more about this expert on alignment, agility and efficiency.

Olympic Speaker

The media scambles over themselves during 17 days to get "their story." Between the medal count and crafted storylines some newly minted Olympic speakers supercede their 14 mintues of fame. For months after the Olympic Games event planners make assumptions about bringing in an Olympic speaker. Here are the five most common assumptions that can hurt your future corporate event. The five selction mistakes for your

Olympic speaker:

#1. Big Names Draw Attendees. FALSE. This number one assumption is everywhere. Assuming a gold medal Olympian speaker will draw attendees has proven to be false. In a recent study commissioned by the National Speakers Association - there is little correlation between big names and attendee draw. Solution: Invest in great speakers (who don't have to be celebrities) then use video clips plus personal video invitations to drive interest. You will also get bigger numbers next year with a proven speaker this year.

#2 Celebrity Olympic Speakers Can Recreate the Experience. RARELY TRUE. It's tempting to name names but it's really not the Olympic speaker's fault. It's the planners who assume the story they remember from the Olympic games can create the same expereince at the event. Hire a newly famous gold medalist and you will normally get a speech that is underwhelming. There are exceptions - those are the exceptional Olympian presenters who are still speaking today (and even then there are painful exceptions). Solution: Hire an Olympic speaker who can recreate an Olympic experience.

#3. The Interview Format Works Best. SERIOUSLY? Sure, it's better than leaving an unexperienced Olympic speaker out on stage, alone, fumbling with what to say. But these planners have forgotten the number one rule in event planning - the experience is paramount! You've spent tens of thousands of dollars to ultimately watch an Olympic speaker sit in a chair and talk about themselves. Mildly interesting is not the goal of any event planner. Solution: Hire an Olympic speaker who engages the audience eye to eye. Look for an Olympian who is a professional at connecting compelling content to powerful story telling.

#4. His/Her Olympic Story Will Be Great To Hear. NOPE. Let's recap other Olympic speaker bombs in the past. "I did this. This happened to me. I did that. It was hard work. I didn't give up. I won. You can too." Solution: Hire an Olympic speaker who uses "YOU LANGUAGE." Instead of saying what happened to them, the Olympian presenter should draw people into the story as if it is happening to the audience.

#5. A Gold Medal Means He/She is Good At Everything. This is a pervasive assumption. From experience, I can tell you for a fact, when someone finds out you were and Olympian on the golf course they automatically think you are a great golfer. I'm not. The same can be said for table tennis, canoing, climbing, diving board tricks, waterskiing, cooking... you name it. Your Olympic speaker needs to be previewed before you hire them. Solution: My mom used to say, "When you assume you make an ass of you and me." Don't assume anything about the Olympian's speaking ability. Preview and vet their ability and content. If the content is not innovative or counter intuitive it will be between boring and forgettable at best with your audience.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I did not win in the Olympic Games. But, this turned out to be a HUGE advantage as an Olympic speaker. Why? There were no calls for someone who placed 15th in the Olympics. For years I had to hone my craft at speaking. Multiple speaking awards later (including the Council of Peers Award of Excellence from the National Speakers Association - names include Ronald Reagan, Og Mandino and Zig Ziglar), an opening keynote at MDRT (the Carnagie Hall of speaking) and 17 years of speaking professionally around the world the results can be viewed on this video.  If your newly crowned Gold medalist speaker can do this. Hire them. If they can't, hire someone who can.

An Olympic gold medalist is an automatic Olympic speaker. Yet they rarely have the chops to be a naturally good speaker. With the phone ringing all the time, it doesn't seem to matter they don't speak well. They have little motivation to improve. Motivational speaking isn't their only concern. The five assumptions above are alive and well with far too many meeting professionals.

Enjoy the Olympic Games in London. Then, leave your assumptions in the file cabinet.

Hire and Olympic speaker who can light your people up with wisdom, wit and insight.

Our shopping cart company... Shopify posted this interesting article:

8 Tools to Research Your Competition

Summer has a way of taking control. Sure, you plan your holidays as you flirt with the illusion of steering your course. But, between kids and other responsibilities, summer sits in the drivers seat and takes you for a ride. Push bossy summer into the back seat and give it a jolt of healthy, quirky fun.

Below is a Summer Bucket List by our 14 year-old daughter Alex. Her ideas might take a left turn here and there but the concept is definitely worth a test drive.

Alex's Summer Bucket List:

1. Have a summer pool party with friends (just for fun)
2. Get dressed super fancy for one day
3. Go one week without chocolate
4. Walk around the lake with our dog Annie
5. Have a two-person scavenger hunt at the mall
6. Listen to Spanish radio for an hour
7. Volunteer at C.C. Young Retirement Home for an afternoon
   
8. Solve a Rubix Cube
9. Do the splits
10. Prepare a full meal for the family
11. Learn a song on piano
12. Make exact Elf spaghetti (Chocolate syrup. Maple syrup. Sprinkles. M&Ms. Pop-Tarts on cold spaghetti noodles)
13. Get “slushied” Glee style
14. Watch Forrest Gump

Here’s Alex’s roadmap for your own Summer Bucket List.

1. Host a special get together with friends.
2. Get dressed up.
3. Nix a vice for a period of time.
4. Take a pet for a long walk.
5. Make shopping an adventure.
6. Stretch your brain.
7. Help local senior citizens.
8. Solve puzzle.
9. Teach your body a new move.
10. Prepare an innovative meal for loved ones.
11. Learn a song.
12. Reenact a scene from a movie.
13. Reenact a scene from a TV show.
14. Watch a classic movie you haven’t seen (or read a classic book you haven’t read).

Too busy to start your list? Then make a bowl of spaghetti, cover it in chocolate, maple syrup, sprinkles, M&Ms and crushed up Pop Tarts. The sugar rush will give you a 45 minute window to not only make the list but also do everything on it.

Vince

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NY Times bestselling author, Vince Poscente, is the founder of Libretto Publishing and has written five books translated into more than twenty languages. He writes about harnessing the speed of change, the way to reach BIG GOALS in less time, accelerating potential of human capital, how to get out of your own way and best of all, instant impact with lasting influence. Learn more about this motivational keynote speaker.