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Laugh and Learn to Impress Your Boss, Without Sucking Up!

Rodney's 52 Ways to Impress Your Boss--Without Sucking Up! This e-book can put money in your pocket. It's written by the author of this blog, and well worth your time and money. Here's what you get in this powerful, easy to read booklet:

• 52 street proven tips to give you an edge
• 9 cartoons to make you smile
• 13 point Job Interview Checklist to help you get that new job
• 13 point Earn a Raise Checklist to help put more money in your pocket
• The 4 questions that can make a huge difference in your life and more.

Don't let your $10,000.00 a year raise go to someone else because you didn't know the tips in this great booklet.

To order, click the Buy Now button below and pay using our secure checkout system. We will e-mail you a link with your download page. Just click the link and download the booklet as a PDF file. Read it on your computer, or print it out and share it with someone you care about. All for just $9.95. Click the "Buy Now" button below to order. Nothing good lasts forever, so order now.

Stop Worrying and Get Back to Work

I swear--people will worry about anything! Am I going to be laid off? What does the boss think of me? How come she gets longer breaks than I get? I wonder if that itch is contagious? It's no wonder we can't get anything done--our brains won't shut off. I say, to heck with it!

• You'll be laid off, or you won't, and they're not much you can do about it.
• Chances are, your boss doesn't think much about you at all. If the boss is leaving you alone, that's probably a good thing.
• Life is too freaking short to worry that someone else might have higher status, or own more stuff than you. Let it go, or learn to enjoy the misery.
• If you've got an funny itch, see a doctor. I hear they've got some new antibiotics that work really well.

I'm not saying it is EASY to stop worrying--I've had plenty of things to worry about in my own life--I'm just saying it is worth learning more about. Life is better when you learn to, as we say here in the Carolinas, "Put that frog in your pocket."

To Boost Performance, Take a Vacation

Maybe I'm the only one, but I'm not real impressed by someone who never takes time off. It makes me think they lack imagination, or there is something wrong with their finances or their personal life. Maybe I just like to hear people's stories when they come back, but I like it when the people around me go on vacation. Of course, I like it even more when I go on vacation! I'll tell you more about my motorcycle trip to the Blue Ridge next time.

A Concrete Suggestion

Do you really want to impress the boss without sucking up? Go. Have a good time. Take lots of pictures. Just don't waste the whole day forcing your co-workers to look at 100 stills and 7 videos on your itty-bitty cell phone. Instead, winnow your pictures down to just 3-5 shots that really capture the spirit of your journey, the people you met or the fantastic things you saw. Use your computer to put these few shots onto one sheet of paper. Share your vacation story with a brief show and tell. I did say BRIEF, didn't I? That way, you look like a role model instead of a drone, people get to see you in a different light, and everyone gets to share in your good time.

Don't Do This

This is a video of what happens when you get in over your head and panic. Sure, it's about motorcycles, but it's very easy to do the same thing when your job is on the line ... you know, like when there are no order coming in, when half the staff has already been laid off, or when rumors start flying. The two Harley-Davidson riders in this video lost concentration and forgot to steer their bikes. That doesn't work well on a curvy back road. I ride, been riding for 25 years, and it looks to me like both riders could have made the turn, if they hadn't panicked and forgotten to steer their bikes. (Good thing they had friends around.) For you and me, in this unstable job market, "steering the bike" means going to work at your job, or going to work looking for a job. Keep that in mind.

Rodney Robbins, Secrets of an Author Artist

Rodney Robbins, Over Sharing is Good

1. Don’t tell anyone I have a history of crashing motor bikes. It started when I was little. I crashed a friend’s mini-bike when I panicked and pegged the throttle. Then I dropped a buddy’s bike in the parking lot after high school graduation because I dumped the clutch. Since I’m a slow learner, I also dropped my first motorcycle (a super-moto) and slid in the gravel and dropped my latest bike (a maxi-scooter) with my mom on the back.
2. I clip my nails so close, I have to polish the bones on the ends of my fingers.
3. While swimming at a lake one summer, I got caught in some weeds, and almost drowned because the exertion pushed me into a paralysis attack. That’s was a bad thing.
4. For me, the best time to write is early in the day when my brain is awake, but my body isn’t. That way, I’m too week to get up or move anything but my fingers, so I might was well just sit there and type.
5. My biggest academic screw-up was failing out of senior English class after the first day. The teacher wanted to do a little "easy review," and I had no earthly idea what she was talking about. Why would I diagram a sentence? It’s not a house boat! Either the sentence says what you want it to say, or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, change the darned thing! I think God invented English grammar to give people with OCD something to worry about.
6. The stupidest thing I ever did was to provoke paralysis attacks to get back at my doctor--and then not go to the ER.
7. The biggest pain in my backside is not being able to eat wheat! No bread. No gravy. No fried chicken. No cookies, crackers, rolls or pastry unless it’s made by Gluten Free elves and blessed by Saint Honorius (patron saint of bakers). I still eat out, but I think every waiter and waitress in North Carolina has heard my entire medical history and food allergy list at least once.
8. I’m not a bad actor, but my stillness works better on film than on stage. 
9. Whining gives me headaches. Red wine gives me migraines. The whine of a 1,300 cc four cylinder motorcycle engine gives me tickets. 
10. In my entire life, I don’t think I ever beat my father at a shooting match. Not once. Pistols or rifles--he was the best. If he was still here today, I’d let him win one more time.

Marketing Lessons from Parade of Homes

My family likes to enjoy the Parade of Homes put on by local builders in Hickory, North Carolina. We get to see wonderful dream homes and have a nice day out together.

• One home was very modern and had wonderful touches like a two story closet off the master bedroom and a pass through from the closet to the laundry room.
• Another home had wonderful signs saying things like, "This door leads to your huge new garage!"
• A third builder had school information, things to do lists and company brochures out for the taking
• But another home had the builder sitting around like a queen with a posse.
• Many had unfinished basements with no suggestions about how to use that space.

The best marketing ideas: signs, information and little touches; were also the most affordable. But the builders needed the ability to step back and see their investment the way a home buyer might see it. So, get your eyes up from that grind stone and try to see things the way your buyer might see them. The builders that did that for this years Parade of Homes sure got my attention.

Are You Conspicuously Absent?

Times are tight. If you are absent from work in 2009, you are conspicuously absent. Vacation is okay. Training someone else to do your job while you are gone is still okay. Not showing up, not calling, leaving early--that's stuff is being tracked by your boss. Yeo, bosses! Your employees are watching you too and they have long memories.To help ensure your place at the table, keep your seat warm!

How to Collaborate for Real World Results

When you are working with other people, trying to complete a project or make a workplace improvement, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Who is the customer? You may be talking about improving an internal process, but not talking to the customer for that product. Who's going to use that form? Who will fill it out? Who will read it? What will you use the information for? Same thing with stuff. Who has to move it, handling it, improve it? Who's the customer?
2. What does the customer want? Is your customer even in on the conversation? Or are you and your team working to "improve" something that you want fixed but your customer doesn't even care about? Is the customer even at the meeting?
3. Will this work in the real world? I hear so many "great ideas" that will never work in the real world. Who's going to fill in all those boxes? Who's going to put away all that crap? What happens on Friday's when everyone wants to get out early? What if the One Person who understands this thing calls in sick? Your project has to work on hot sunny nights, and cold rainy mornings. Can your improvement run smack dab into the real world and it pass a crash test?

Knowing who the customer is and what the customer wants keeps everyone focused on what really matters.

Keeping one eye out for things that can, and will, go wrong, keeps everyone focused on the real world.

A Good Quote for Your Wall

Opportunity is missed my most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Thomas Edison

Your Job's on the Line--What Do You Do?

It's 2009 and jobs are disappearing like flap jacks at a fireman's breakfast! Your job could be next. What should you do to protect it? I say, Focus on the Essentials.

• Go to work every day (attendance is a key factor in who gets laid off first)
• While your there, work hard (with lean staff, the ones who are left need to be worker bees, not drones)
• Make sure you have a car (no car means no job and no way to get to a job interview)
• Make sure your car is reliable (it's a lot easier pay for a new tire when you are working than when you are surviving on unemployment benefits)
• Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut (zombies who shuffle through the day with half closed lids will be laid off, and whiners with verbal diarrhea are easy to fire)

You may think I'm kidding, but in the last year, I've seen people laid off, and talked to people who were laid off, for each of the above reasons. It's easy to fire slackers. It's hard to lay off someone who comes in every day, works hard, has reliable transportation, looks for ways to make things better and doesn't bitch, whine, moan and complain. Workers like that are golden! I'm not saying your job is guaranteed, but people who deliver the essentials are usually the last to go.

When Your Boss Doesn't Get It

Some bosses don't get it. They have no clue how hard you are working. They just don't see how their lapses in good judgment make your life way way harder than it needs to be. They don't care that there is an easier, better way that will give them everything they want and need and more, while saving you a butt load of work. So, what you gonna do?

• As often as you can, do it your way and share the results (not the process).
• Whenever possible, tell them about the better way, but use their language (for some bosses it's money, for others it's efficiency, for some it's common sense, for others its about control--your way has to give them at least the illusion of more control)
• Divide and delegate. Take the job that's three times as much work and give a little bit to each of three different people who work for you (or spread the job over three times as much time).
• Find a new boss.

Some bosses don't get it and they never will. They're like bad congressman who make laws they never read about subjects they've never heard of. Sometimes, you just have to put up with it till things change.