Tim Milburn

JUNE 23, 2014

'Self-discipline sounds a lot like punishing myself. It’s all about sacrificing what I want to do for what I have to do. It’s “making myself do the thing I have to do, when it ought to be done, whether I like it or not.” (Huxley). Back in June, 2013, Time ran an article that described a study showing that Self-Disciplined People Are Happier. “…the researchers found a strong connection between higher levels of self-control and life satisfaction.

Commitment 157

Commitment Price Power Productivity 157

Tim Milburn

JUNE 17, 2014

'If you are a human being (which means all alien beings can stop reading now) then you are going to experience fear. Fear is emotion – raw, unfiltered anxiety that has evolved over time to protect us from the painful and maybe fatal situations we encounter. Rational fear is good fear. It protects us. It is a healthy fear that keeps us from putting ourselves into the path of unnecessary danger.

Commitment 167

Commitment Energy Course Succession 167

Tim Milburn

APRIL 9, 2014

'I recently returned from a leadership conference with my newly elected student leaders. We bonded and created fun memories. We even made up a few new words that will stick with us throughout the next year. The conference and journey together gave us all increased momentum as we anticipated what we wanted to accomplish in the near future. Each new student leader comes to the table with hopes and dreams and ideas.

Conference 152

Conference Bond Team Positioning 152

Tim Milburn

MARCH 24, 2014

'In his groundbreaking book, The Road Less Traveled , Dr. Scott Peck offers in the opening sentence, what he later identifies as “the greatest truth”: Life is difficult. He goes on to say, “Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”.

Energy 162

Energy Open-book Positioning Travel 162

Tim Milburn

MARCH 11, 2014

'In Part One of this article I explained why it was important to develop a philosophy around the ways we approach, handle, and learn from failure. In this second part, I will offer six questions to aid in the process of developing our own philosophy of failure. I wish we talked about failure more than we do in student leadership development circles.

Development 124

Development Morale Learning-by-Doing Leadership Development 124

Tim Milburn

FEBRUARY 12, 2014

'Leadership starts with taking responsibility, first for oneself, then, for the good of others. In other words, leadership starts with you but it’s not about you. It’s about working for the good of others. Imagine the following scenario: You walk into your house and your mom or dad is standing over a broken lamp on the floor. They look at the lamp and then they look at you.

Follow-up 133

Follow-up Video Influence Leadership 133

Tim Milburn

JANUARY 28, 2014

'The following is an excerpt from the book, The Age of the Customer, by Jim Blasingame. Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him and to let him know that you trust him. — Booker T. Washington. Thousands of years ago, when Og instinctively held up his open palm for the first time to reveal to Gog that he wasn’t holding a weapon, Og was saying, “Trust me, I mean you no harm.” When Gog believed the message of that gesture and accepted it by holding

Power 96

Power Books Covey Open-book 96

Tim Milburn

JANUARY 14, 2014

'One of the best parts of launching a book is making new friends. Someone once told me that “a book is a business card that people don’t throw away.” I’d have to agree. Writing a book creates all kinds of opportunities for conversations. I’ve already begun communicating with people about the book on three different continents other than my own.

Review 104

Review Leadership Open-book Seminar 104

Tim Milburn

DECEMBER 30, 2013

'It’s that time of year. The end of one. The start of another. And I know you are tempted to do what you always do. You want to make a resolution. Stop! Don’t do it. You made a resolution last year. Remember? Look how long that lasted. I believe there’s a time and a place for a person to make resolutions. I just don’t think that time and place occurs on January 1 of each year.

Commitment 130

Commitment Advice Tools Motivation 130

Tim Milburn

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

'The word “selfie” has been declared the Word Of The Year for 2013 by Oxford Dictionaries. I am simply reporting that as news. I’m not sure if it’s good news. The BBC reports it this way… To qualify, a word need not have been coined within the past 12 months, but it does need to have become prominent or notable in that time. “Selfie” is defined by Oxford Dictionaries as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or web

Leadership 132

Leadership Download Document Media 132

Tim Milburn

OCTOBER 2, 2013

'This is a guest post by Robert L. Dilenschneider, author of A Briefing for Leaders: Communication As the Ultimate Exercise of Power. There are many fine values, such as courtesy, confidence, ingenuity, thrift, and so on. The trouble is that the list of values grows easily and can cause many employees to lose their focus. They fail to prioritize. A “short list” of values is far more useful in putting the workplace back on track. photo credit: Bob AuBuchon via photopin cc.

Waterman 140

Waterman Automotive Learning-by-Doing Industry 140

Tim Milburn

SEPTEMBER 24, 2013

'I recently did a “live” webinar for the amazing sales associates of Thirty One gifts. This webinar was hosted by Courtney Hawkins. She is a Senior Executive Director at Thirty One Gifts. We recorded the webinar and I wanted to make it available to you. You can access it by clicking the picture or the link below. Webinar Title: Leadership Starts With You.

Webinar 92

Webinar Leadership Conference Execution 92

Tim Milburn

SEPTEMBER 23, 2013

'We had just spent a full day of training. My students got to hear from a variety of speakers. I walked out of the conference hall and headed toward a group of them huddled up in the corner staring at their phones. “So…how were the speakers?” I asked. Here are some of their responses… They were great! I feel better prepared for the year.

Audience 140

Audience How To Content Conference 140

Tim Milburn

SEPTEMBER 11, 2013

'I slumped down next to a tree near the finish line. I was exhausted and I was frustrated. I had just completed a cross country race. It was the second race of the season. I came in last place. It’s no fun being last. Every single one of the 80-90 runners that day had crossed the finish line in front of me. As I sat there, with my head leaning back against the tree, I kept saying to myself, “I’m done with this.” My coach approached me.

Learning-by-Doing 146

Learning-by-Doing Goal Succession Team 146

Tim Milburn

AUGUST 7, 2013

'We have a couple of weeks until the start of our Fall Semester. It’s GO time! This is an exciting time of year in the life of student leadership. Our student leaders are arriving on campus a few days before everyone else to get everything ready. It’s time to put our plans into action. It’s time to see how all of our preparation pays off. photo credit: atmtx via photopin cc.

Creativity 99

Creativity Commitment Planning Positioning 99

Tim Milburn

JUNE 28, 2013

'I have a love/hate relationship with meetings. I love them when they’re necessary. I hate them when they’re full of unnecessary elements (like my presence). I love them when they move us forward. I hate them when they don’t move us any closer to our goal. I love them when they take less time than allotted. I hate them when they take more time than needed.

Energy 159

Energy Tools Goal Training 159

Tim Milburn

JUNE 19, 2013

'The following is a guest post by Scott McGinty. Look at a CEO of a fortune 500 company, get a sense of their personality, and then look at the CEO of a successful startup. Chances are, they’re going to be very different. One would have the mindset of relating to their employees and making a fun environment, after all, most start up’s have passionate CEO’s.

Company 107

Company Morale Incentives Motivation 107

Tim Milburn

MAY 7, 2013

'Every now and then, ESPN will air the World Series of Poker. They play Texas Hold’Em for gobs of cash and bragging rights. The most dramatic moments occur when one of the players at the table utters two words… All In. photo credit: Reza Vaziri via photopin cc. Most of the time, this means the player is putting all of his or her chips on the table.

Project 122

Project Learning-by-Doing Class Planning 122

Tim Milburn

MAY 1, 2013

'One question that I’m often asked is whether or not I believe every person can be a leader? My answer: yes and no. I answer “yes” because I think every person has the potential and the responsibility to lead oneself well. I believe leadership does start with you. You and I must learn, practice, and hone our ability to lead our own selves well. photo credit: theloushe via photopin cc.

Diversity 154

Diversity Motivation Content Influence 154

Tim Milburn

APRIL 29, 2013

'I walked into the room full of newly elected student leaders. You could feel the excitement. You could sense that each one of them was motivated to do his or her very best. They all wore the same t-shirt. They were all on the same team. The only question that remained between their success or failure as a group was a simple one… Would they learn to trust each other?

Charisma 158

Charisma Learning-by-Doing Open-book Team 158

Tim Milburn

APRIL 25, 2013

'The life of a student can be very demanding. You are learning to balance your classes, your relationships, your workload, and your free time. On top of all that, you became a student leader. In the midst of the demands, it’s easy to begin to live from event to event…from one task to the next. When that happens, you will find yourself trying to play catch-up all year.

Leadership 118

Leadership Commitment Learning-by-Doing Project 118

Tim Milburn

APRIL 23, 2013

'Do you know how to pick out a quality piece of fruit? Everyone I talk to seems to have a technique to pick out the sweetest, juiciest, and tastiest ones in the pile. But I don’t have that ability. For example, I was trying to make these fancy fruit parfaits for a special meal I was preparing. The recipe called for a mango. So I went to the mango pile at the grocery store and started looking them over.

Follow-up 153

Follow-up Quality Motivation Project 153

Tim Milburn

APRIL 17, 2013

'I have a running joke with some of my friends. You might have a similar one. We imagine what we’d do if we won the lottery. We dream about how we would spend all that money. We talk about how many problems we could solve with our winnings. But then someone will state the obvious… “Don’t you have to buy a lottery ticket to have a chance at winning the lottery?

Motivation 136

Motivation Learning-by-Doing Succession 136

Tim Milburn

APRIL 13, 2013

'I don’t like to wait. The study of leadership seems to be about doing, about making something happen. But there are situations where I have made the decision to wait. Because that’s the right decision. A good decision can become a bad decision if it’s not the right time. Timing matters. But it’s even harder to wait when the decision or circumstance is out of our control.

How To 166

How To Film Follow-up Training 166

Tim Milburn

APRIL 11, 2013

'It was the end of the night. Our students had worked hard all day to put together a top notch event. There were numerous details and all of the elements of the event seemed to exceed expectations. As we were milling around the room, cleaning up all of the decorations, I turned to the student in charge and said one word to her, “Awesome!” She smiled and thanked me.

Energy 143

Energy Power 143

Tim Milburn

APRIL 9, 2013

'There’s a scene near the beginning of the movie, Sherlock Holmes (2009 with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law), where Holmes and Watson have thwarted an occult-like ritual led by the evil Lord Blackwood. As Watson moves in to grab Blackwood, Holmes abruptly stops him. Holmes then proceeds to point to a long, transparent needle protruding from Blackwood designed to pierce Watson when he got close.

How To 135

How To Conference Creativity Open-book 135

Tim Milburn

OCTOBER 24, 2012

This is a guest post by Dennis N.T. Perkins, Author of Into the Storm: Lessons in Teamwork from the Treacherous Sydney to Hobart Ocean Race. Imagine navigating a tiny boat through a sudden, violent storm at sea — with winds roaring at nearly 100 mph and waves soaring to 80 feet — to not only survive, but triumph over formidable competitors in one of the world’s toughest ocean races.

Uncertainty 148

Uncertainty Teamwork Team Tactics 148

Tim Milburn

OCTOBER 22, 2012

There’s a simple test you can take to see if you’re a leader: turn around and see if anyone is following you. People may follow you for all kinds of reasons. I tend to break them into three categories: They follow you because they have to – you are an authority over them. They follow you because they need to – you have something they want.

Influence 166

Influence Follow-up Learning-by-Doing Examples 166

Tim Milburn

OCTOBER 15, 2012

Maybe you can relate to the following dilemma: I put all of the tasks I want to accomplish during the day on a list. I call this…my to-do list. Throughout the day I attempt to tackle all of the items on my to-do list. On good days, I’ll try and accomplish the more important tasks rather than simply going after the most urgent ones. I’ll typically come to the end of the day feeling like I didn’t have enough time to accomplish what was on my to-do list.

Power 106

Power Planning Leadership 106

Tim Milburn

AUGUST 13, 2012

Have you ever tried to get into a restaurant or store in the middle of the day but the door wouldn’t open. You look at the sign displaying the business hours – the business is open but the door won’t open. You see people inside and wonder why they have locked themselves into the building. Then you see it…the other sign. The little sign next to the door handle says “push.” You’ve spent the last five minutes trying to muscle the door open by pulling on it.

Leadership 127

Leadership Learning-by-Doing Follow-up Energy 127

Tim Milburn

AUGUST 10, 2012

When you write a blog centered around leadership development, the messages often repeat themselves. Do a search for “leadership” on Google and you’ll come across hundreds of thousands of articles, posts, tips, principles, and illustrations to help you improve in the area of leadership. Put all of the leadership development blogs out there together and you’ll see a lot of similar messages and material.

Leadership Development 161

Leadership Development Definition Blog Tips 161

Tim Milburn

AUGUST 7, 2012

My good friend, Mike recently took me mountain biking on some of the trails running through the foothills above Boise. Before this, I mostly rode my bike on the street and on the local greenbelt. It became quickly obvious – hills are a game changer. We rode up until I couldn’t go any farther. The sign that we had reached this point was me losing my breakfast out on the trail.

Advice 156

Advice Definition Planning 156

Tim Milburn

AUGUST 6, 2012

In a couple of weeks, students will return to campus for another school year. It is our student leaders who show up first. When they arrive we’ll tell our stories about the summer. We’ll go on a retreat and bond and laugh and prepare. Then we’ll focus on all of the things we have to do to get ready for the start of the school year.

Bond 119

Bond Letter Learning-by-Doing Tips 119

Tim Milburn

AUGUST 3, 2012

The following is a guest post (reprinted from his site) by Garret Kramer , the author of Stillpower: Excellence with Ease in Sports and Life. Garret’s last guest post on timmilburn.com generated a lot of conversation. He will challenge your assumptions. Read this post with an open mind, then go out and pick up his book. There are many, many coaching manuals and books on the market today.

Sports 133

Sports Belief Systems Comparison Open-book 133

Tim Milburn

AUGUST 2, 2012

You’re the only one who can make the difference. Whatever your dream is, go for it. -Earvin “Magic” Johnson. At the beginning of each school year, I invite student leaders to think about what they hope the end of the year will look like. I have never heard a student say he or she hopes the end of the year will be exactly as things are right now.

Delegation 146

Delegation Price Motivation Positioning 146

Tim Milburn

AUGUST 1, 2012

I’m back in the office after some time away. Summer = one of the perks of working at an academic institution. The first day back after summer is a bit surreal. You’re back, but you’re not really back. It takes time to reconnect when you’ve been away. It could be summer break. It could be a vacation. It could be a new season for your sport.

Sports 140

Sports Motivation Planning Tools 140

Tim Milburn

JULY 24, 2012

The front of Beaver Stadium in Pennsylvania has a bare spot. The spot was formerly the home of the Joe Paterno statue. The bronze image of a man who had coached a football program into a national powerhouse. The flattened, metal silhouettes of football players attached to the wall behind the statue removed as well. The statue told a story of a man who led young men.

Power 115

Power Team 115