Eternal Leadership 020 Mark Sanborn | The Most Important Question
We often accomplish more by doing less. Activity is the anesthesia of the modern person. When we stay insanely busy we think we are accomplishing something but we are just staying insanely busy. Ask yourself, what’s important and am I accomplishing it!
"We all have same number of hours and minutes in a day. It’s what we do with those that determine if we have an ordinary or extraordinary life." - Mark Sanborn
Mark Sanborn was recently named to the Top Leadership Experts to Follow in 2015. His best selling book The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary reveals a clear path to an extraordinary life
How do you define extraordinary? It is something that stands out. Ordinary is unremarkable. We don’t remember the ordinary. Sameness is a bad business and life strategy.
Savor what you are able to create and do. Mark explains that we are in one of three places in our lives
- Stuck
- Struggling
- Successful – We run the risk of becoming stuck, just stuck at a higher level.
When stuck you need a push and a plan. You need to do the work yourselves but we can encourage others and find encouragement for ourselves.
Your plan should define what success looks like but we often lack clarity on the outcome we want. We assume that people without clarity haven’t taken time to define what they want. It could be the case that you just don’t know what you want. You might need to do more things, try more things and it would give you perspective.
Don’t get into a state where you don’t move forward until you have perfect clarity.
Sometimes people are afraid to aspire to more. Successful people are not afraid to aspire higher. It’s about aiming a little higher so you get more than you would have gotten.
Live life fully! Try a lot of things and be intentional about what success looks like.
ResourcesLeadership resources from Mark Sanborn
- Leadership Blog
- Leadership Lessons Newsletter
- Have Mark speak to you company to deliver an impactful message that will create results
- Books - I have read all of these and recommend them for anyone in a leadership role!
- You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader: How Anyone, Anywhere, Can Make a Positive Difference
- The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary
- Fred 2.0: New Ideas on How to Keep Delivering Extraordinary Results
- The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do
Mark Sanborn, CSP, CPAE, is president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an idea studio dedicated to developing leaders in business and in life. Mark is an international bestselling author and noted expert on leadership, team building, customer service and change.
Mark Sanborn graduated cum laude from The Ohio State University. In addition to his work as a business educator and author, Mark continues to be an active leadership practitioner. Most recently he served as the president of the National Speakers Association.
Mark holds the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association (NSA) and is a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame. He was recently honored with the Cavett Award, the highest honor the NSA bestows on its members, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the speaking profession. Mark is also a member of the exclusive Speakers Roundtable, made up of 20 of the top speakers in America.
Mark is the author of eight books, including the bestseller The Fred Factor: How Passion In Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary Into the Extraordinary which has sold more than 1.6 million copies internationally. His other books include You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader: How Anyone, Anywhere Can Make a Positive Difference, Teambuilt: Making Teamwork Work, The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do and his most recent book, Up, Down or Sideways: How to Succeed When Times are Good, Bad or In Between. His latest book is Fred 2.0: New Ideas on How to Keep Delivering Extraordinary Results which was released March 2013.
He has created and appeared in 20 videos and numerous audio training programs. His video series Team Building: How to Motivate and Manage People made it to the #2 spot for bestselling educational video series in the U.S.
Mark’s list of over 2400 clients includes Costco, Enterprise Rent-a-Car, FedEx, Harley-Davidson, Hewlett Packard, Cisco, KPMG, Morton’s of Chicago, New York Life, RE/MAX, ServiceMaster, ESPN, GM, IBM, Avnet, Sandvik and John Deere.
“We each know how good we have become,” Mark says, “but none of us knows how good we can be. One of the most exciting opportunities we get each day is to pursue our potential.” Mark Sanborn challenges his audiences with this message and provides insights for extraordinary living.