Better Nature Photos Now

Benjamin Disraeli once said “Everything comes if a man will only wait. ” To get a good landscape photo shoot as soon as you see it, to get a great landscape photo take time to look before you shoot. I run through a short checklist before I take the shot that includes: looking to all sides of the image ( is anything extra in the shot) , decide what you want to the viewer to focus on( making sure it’s in focus) and then bracketing my exposures to make sure I get the right exposure. All this takes about 3-5 seconds but I’ve found it makes a huge difference in the quality of the image.

Enjoy the holidays with family and friends

We live in challenging times. Now that I’ve said it out loud, does it mean that we are no longer in charge of our lives? Is it in impossible to believe one man or woman can make a difference in the world today? I look around and find most people want to keep doing things the way we’ve always done them.  Few people are willing to step out and espouse a radical point of view.

Can this world survive without people with radical views? We place our hopes and dreams on people who cannot meet our ever growing expectations. We long for a superman will come along to save the day. We lose faith in our own ability to change things, to take control of our own lives. Our rhetoric becomes unbearable as we continue searching for the person who will save us from ourselves.  We end up disappointed in our choices and our actions.

My solution is to look beyond our challenges and understand that during demanding times we must embrace the faith of our fathers and mothers to help us create a more perfect world. Faith for many has become a four letter word for everything that we don’t believe in. The four letter word I would embrace in these difficult times is love. There once was a man who was very radical in his time not because he preached to overthrow the government. He didn’t believe in earthly authority and he disappointed many of his earthly followers by being unwilling to overthrow the status quo. He modeled a new style of leadership focusing on serving others. He warned people that to survive in challenging times, we must love one another, that we are our brother’s keepers. He told us through parables that we don’t all get the same gifts and strengths in life but we all have the opportunity to share what we have with others.

He told us that with faith we could move mountains and with unconditional love we could move others to help people with less than we had. He was a man who would not settle for less than he could be. It was a radical message for challenging times. He paid for challenging earthly authority with his life. He left a lasting legacy of wisdom and love that has survived over 2000 years.

He is my favorite person and he is my model of everlasting success. Merry Christmas, Jesus, thank you for changing my life and providing me a community of friends who want to change the world for the better. We both know that it takes unconditional love to heal the world but we also understand that the best place to start the healing process is with ourselves. We cannot give peace and love away without first giving it to ourselves.  So, let me say peace on earth and goodwill towards all.  Pass that message on to everyone you meet but, most importantly, to yourself. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your families.

Can You Make a Difference Today

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should burn out a brilliant blaze than stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every adam of me in magnificant glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

Jack London

Happy Father's Day

On Father’s Day, I always remember what I’ve learned from my father.  He influenced my thinking on so many things.  He asked me on his death bed the one lesson I learned from him that changed my life the most.  I shared with him what he once told me when I was an early teen.  At the time, I was was just starting to deal with puberty and my mother’s life long mental illness. It was a very confusing time for me.  I asked my father what would help me understand life better.  I was hoping to get a simple lesson that would make my decisions easier.  

It took over 30 years to have my father open up and share his own beliefs and understanding of God . He wanted to make sure I was ready for the debate. He wanted me to have enough life to understand his perspectives on God.   

 He invested in me by helping to provide the best education life could buy. At 40, I repaid that investment, leaving my professional career to take care of him and my mother.  I was at the top of the corporate world, I advised many global leaders on big issues facing our world after 9/11, including our country’s leaders.  My four year sabbatical with my father and mother provided me an incredible experience. It was more valuable than all my formal education. My father gave me this poem near the end of his life.  He told me he read it in grade school and formed his life philosophy in a nutshell. It always brings tears to my eyes.  

I was introduced to Coach Wooden by my father. I was getting ready to work with the faculty at The Industrial College of The Armed Forces in Washington DC after September 11, 2001. I was invited to come to Washington DC to talk about how leadership and the world changed after 9/11. I had interviewed many of the great thinkers on leadership from around the world, but the more I spoke to these people, the more overwhelmed I became. For the first time, I was struggling to come up with a curriculum that would simplify my thinking into a process that I could share.

I called my father out of desperation to see if he could help me brainstorm a solution for the faculty.  My father said he would like to help me but really didn’t know where I might start. He kidded me about the fact that I was invited and I should go as I am. Not as a military officer or representing the executive branch, but as a person who knew about organizational psychology and a student of leadership and history.  He then told me about John Wooden.  He had seen an article about Wooden’s leadership framework that might provide me with ideas that I could use to shape my discussions.

I went out and researched Coach Wooden and his famous Pyramid of Success. I tried to get on Coach Wooden’s schedule.  Unfortunately, we just couldn’t coordinate our schedules to talk, but I received several articles and presentations that helped me understand his value-based leadership model.

The more I read, the more clear I became.  His values mapped well to the values the military trains into our military and officers. Knowing the foundation, I could build an advanced framework on what leadership should look like moving forward. Coach Wooden had provided a great way of organizing my thinking.

This weekend, we lost Coach Wooden. He was inspiration to me, as well as many other more well-known athletes and professors. The more you know about John Wooden, the more you realize the gift he was to students, teachers, and fellow coaches.

I decided to share some of his thinking, because it is very relevant to people who lead organizations.  I find his thinking applies to leading technology companies even more.

I thought I’d share some of his thinking on leading teams and then follow up with a short comment. Enjoy and apply it to your own growing technology business.

Here are several rules for team leaders by John Wooden for software and technology leaders. 

Rules to Lead by:

1. Condition your team to love the struggle. In changing times, technology leaders must remember there will be struggles before success. Allow your team the opportunity to enjoy the challenge and growth that comes from struggling to acheive.

2. Remember that success can takes months or years to achieve but can be undone in minutes. Think before you speak, and understand that in a connected world, your thoughts may be around for many years to haunt you. Engage your heart before your mouth when dealing with challenging situations.

3. Never allow anyone else to define your success. If you allow others to define you, you may never succeed. Let your teams know your definition of success and work with them to make it happen. Become good at coaching your team.

4. Organizations succeed when they become more than the sum of their players. Share with others how much of a difference they make in a team’s performance. Find a way of supporting all team members. Look for chances to catch people doing things right and when they exceed expectations. Learn to help the team work well together.

If you have questions or comments about John Wooden, please add them here so we can all remember the man and how he changed our lives. If you found this blog helpful please let us know. We’d love to hear your stories and about how your teams have become successful. If you like this blog and would like more like it let us know. We can share other material to help you lead better.

Tripp Braden is an IT marketing and sales consultant who specializes in developing seven figure partnerships and businesses.  He is also the editor of Market Leadership Journal.  Discover how to grow your company through extraordinary partnerships by visiting http://www.HighGrowthBusiness.com where you can find resources and products to increase your success.

Great Mentors Make A Difference

Until we see each other again

My cousin Bill Jones passed away this morning. I will miss him dearly. For many years he helped me take care of my parents. When he wasn’t doing this he was taking care of others who were ill. He was Chief of Anesthesiology for St. Elizabeth Hospital in Youngstown, Ohio.  When your an only child you have friends and cousins to replace your brothers and sisters. I was lucky I got both in one.

When we were younger we had little in common but as we grew older our friendship grew and matured. In tragedy we learned we could lean on each other for support and unconditional love. A gift that provided us both  comfort in even the most challenging times of including a death of a child and parent.  I will miss our times talking in the garage shooting the bull and having a few beers. He always reminded me we can always be more and in many ways I have become more because of Bill’s prodding and our competitive spirits.

In treating my mother’s mental illness he reminded me it was often time physical as well as mental treatment that might make her healthy. He always made sure both my parents got the best treatment he could find.

When he was in hospice we would get together and talk about our lives together and what the future held for both of us. We would laugh until we cried. We said the things we wanted to while we were both able to appreciate them. Its why hospice works so well if you let it.  I asked him to pass on a message to our loved ones who had already passed on before him.  He would always chuckle and smile no matter how much the pain. Humor is something that always kept us together even in the worst of times and the best. 

Last night I said goodbye to my Bill. I learned many rituals from my time in hospice community and they bring me comfort in dealing with the death of loved ones. They provide me the inner peace in knowing there is something beyond me that will provide them peace forever.  I share with you my favorite writing on the nature of god.  I share it with you as I did last night as I prayed for God’s gift of taking my cousin home last night.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight… the truly wise person is colorblind. 
Albert Schweitzer

Polar Bears at Polar Frontier's Grand Opening

Here are one of the new Polar Bears at the Polar Frontier ‘s Grand Opening at the Columbus Zoo today waiting to jump into the pool. These animals are incredibly agile and can swim for hours at a time.

I work closely with several clients who see their role as making a difference in the world. I’d like to single out Nationwide Insurance and Battelle Institute for helping to bringing this incredible program to the Columbus Zoo. Thank You

The Polar Frontier at the Columbus Zoo opened today. Jack Hanna had many people to thank today for the opening of the Polar Frontier and he didn’t miss one.  His speech couldn’t prepare you for the experience. I will let the photos tell the story.  Here are the two polar in their new digs. It was incredible.  Here Polar Bears Aurora and Anana swimming together in their  new home.

Polar Bears Aurora and Anana at Columbus Zoo