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You are here: Home / Archives for bill gates

How to Advance Your Business and Career by Doing Your Own Retreat

May 13, 2011 by Featured Author Leave a Comment

Note from Scott: One cannot separate his/her personal life from his or her business life. Try as you might, if one is not going well, it will spill over into the other. This detailed article, from Tim Richardson, helps you move forward in your career and personal life at the same time.

Here is an idea that can revolutionize your business and your life.

Many organizations have retreats but how many professionals do you know that take time to go offsite and do some thinking and strategic planning about their career and life?

How about planning some meaningful time to go away all by yourself and put some focused effort into your career? This process is commonly called holding a retreat though I like to refer to it as an advance – after all you want to go forward.

Your thinking, concentration ability and focus will be enhanced when you can get away to an environment that is conducive to creative thinking and planning. Find a place where there are no ringing telephones, pending projects, or distractions of other kinds. To maximize your productivity, leave behind your beeper, turn off the ringer on your cell phone, and block out some time where you don’t feel rushed by other commitments. If you completely clear your calendar and don’t call in for messages, your productivity will be greatly improved. I read recently that Bill Gates even copied my idea! Except Bill does a whole week and calls it his “think week”.

He was quoted in USA Weekend:

Ours is a very fast-moving field. You have to be able to step back from it. Many years ago, I decided to take a week every year and absorb myself in thinking many years ahead. I get colleagues to put together what Ph.D. theses I should read, what products I should play with, what memos I should look at. So, it’s been, except for sleeping a little bit, day and night all by myself uninterrupted.

If Bill Gates can do this, I would hope that most of us could find at least one day to spend in proactive thinking and planning. I did my first session on a beautiful remote beach in the panhandle of Florida. I spent some time working on the beach and some inside at the beach cottage I had rented. That one day advance resulted in more career growth and action than any other single thing I have done in my business. Since then, I’ve had a one or two-day session every year. I have done my advances in State Parks, at Bed and Breakfast Inns, on a camping trip, and in hotel rooms. Think of an environment that you enjoy and one that stimulates your creativity. You might try the mountains, a quiet park, at the beach or lakeside. Before you leave, give some thought as to what you want to accomplish on your planning retreat.

Here are some things to consider when you advance: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Articles, Business Goals, Guest Author, planning, Productivity, Special, Success Tagged With: bill gates, business advice, business life, business retreat, commitments, creative thinking, distractions, personal life, personal retreat, productivity, resolutions, strategic planning, tim richardson

Re-discovering hope

December 1, 2010 by Scott "Q" Marcus Leave a Comment

Oops! I made the misstep of watching the news, not wise if you wish to maintain an upbeat attitude. Rather, it’s an excellent way to become discouraged.

Politicians, with soft spines and moral compasses no longer pointing north, have become wholly owned subsidiaries of Special Interests Inc. and Mega-Business Unlimited. “Establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” has been crushed under the weight of partisan bickering and a landscape awash in uncountable dollars.

There is plenty of blame to share; as they say, “we get the government we deserve.” But since money has long tentacles, we seem — in my humble opinion — to be getting the government the upper crust deserves.

I am not a “class warrior.” I do not dislike nor inherently distrust the wealthy; truth be told, I would like to be so labeled. I also do not believe that money is the “root of all evil,” rather it simply allows you be more of who you already were. As illustration, if you’re a charitable, involved, dedicated person with an empty wallet and fate or hard work decrees you great prosperity, you become a charitable, involved, dedicated person with a lot of money; able to do much more. Unfortunately, if you were a jerk with but a few dollars who happens to receive a fortune; you become a jerk with a lot of coin, increasing your jerkness. That said, I cannot deny that — lately — it appears many well-off folks have an “I-got-mine,-the-heck-with-you” way of thinking.

It is distressing to think that the concept of helping “the least of us” has become quaint and passé.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Beliefs, Holidays, Newspaper Column, Power of Attitude, Traditions Tagged With: bill gates, charity, holiday traditions, holidays, money is the root of all evil, special interests, sunday morning news, ted turner, thankfulness, warren buffett

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