Maurilio Amorim

Tag: growth

  • My Loss of Entitlement Saved My Future

    I know entitlement first hand. My Brazilian mindset had prepared me for a privileged life where I expected my parents to pay for college, find me a high-paying job, pay for my wedding and set me and my future bride in a new house they would build for us. Nice, isn’t. But that’s not the way it all happened, and for that, I’m most thankful.

    On my 19th birthday I got a call from Brazil letting me know that the government had frozen any money transfers going outside the country. And even without that restriction in place, my parents could no longer afford to pay for my college education. Therefore goodbye,

    free college education

    wedding,

    first house.

    easy job.

    I was crushed. It was the best thing that could have happened to me.

    I have thanked God for that disappointing news many times over the years. In a conversation, my sense of entitlement suddenly disappeared and I was forced to take charge of my own life and trust God for my future. It was traumatic but powerful in a positive way. Whatever little success I have in life today, I trace it  directly to that conversation and the shifting of my expectations and mindset. I still battle entitlement often. When I hear these words come out of my mouth, I know I’m headed down the entitlement road: “I just deserve more. I worked harder than that person; therefore I should be further ahead. These are rules for other people. They don’t apply to me”

    What about you? Have you ever felt a sense of entitlement? Has adversity made you a better person?

  • In Business, In Order to Grow You Must Give Up Control

    In business, you need to learn when and what you need to control. Figuring out this formula can be the difference between growth and stagnation. One day I came to the realization I was stifling the growth of my business because the very skill set that allowed me to get to a certain success level could not fuel the growth beyond that point. Even worse, I was having a difficult time attracting and keeping gifted and skilled professionals on my team. The wake up call came several years ago as I found myself in the ER with chest pains.

    business control freak

    I like control. My family refers to me as “Captain Schedule” when we go on vacation. However, being a control freak has its advantages. After all, if you control everything, you can never blame others for a failed project, a bad hire, or even a flat soufflé. As an entrepreneur, I benefited in the early days of my company from having a good grasp on everything that was going on…from cash flow projections, to hard drive storage capacity, to the details for every project of every client.

    While it doesn’t take a genius to figure out the reality that one person can deal with only  a limited number of moving parts, it’s extremely difficult for those of us who have a need to feel in control to step back and look at our own situation through an objective lens. Instead of changing the way we operate, the control freaks of the world try to figure out ways to be more productive, to sleep less, and to get more done than anyone else around us.

    I still like control. It’s part of how I’m wired.  But today I have built a team of incredibly competent professionals whom I’m proud to work alongside. I strive to make the contribution that only I can make and stay out of their way, for the most part. Letting go has been difficult and I’ve made several mistakes along the way, but here’s what I’ve learned:

    Hire slow. Fire fast. In order to give up control of anything that’s dear to you, including the very business that’s your livelihood, you must trust someone in three critical areas: competence, chemistry, and character. Never, ever compromise on these. I wrote more about the three “C”s as I call them here. But the moment you realize you made a mistake, take care of it quickly. Nothing erodes an organization’s morale and performance faster than a disgruntled or incompetent team member.

    Byte size ownership. One of my early mistakes was to dump too much too soon on a new hire. That’s not fair to them, nor to the entire organization. Start small, correct the mistakes, celebrate the victories, and move forward to bigger and better things. Building trust is a process, and one you cannot short change.

    Don’t abdicate your responsibility. Know what you must know. As a leader, I must not relinquish the responsibility for the organization’s well being, including financial, directional, as well as operational. While I might not be deep in the details, I must have a solid grasp of these essentials. “I did not know things were this bad,” is not an indictment on an organization, but on its leader.

    Motivate. Do not control. Control is an illusive drug. Controlling people is not only wrong. It’s downright impossible. I prefer to motivate people and find ways to resource them with tools that will make them want to do their best. Highly motivated, talented people don’t need to be micromanaged, or coerced into better performance. They have an inner drive that needs to be guided, nurtured, and deployed. If you are having to stay after someone for them to perform, you have hired poorly.

    Are you a control freak or do you just go with the flow?

  • Encouragement: Why I Need More Than a Paycheck

    I need encouragement. For someone who sees the glass half full and opportunity during the tough times, I am not a natural encourager. That’s not an excuse, however. If I need encouragement, why shouldn’t those around me need it as well? They do. We all do. Here’s what I know encouragement does for me:

    Why I need encouragement

    It motivates me. A simple “well done,” a pat on the back, or a nod of the head gives me enough motivation to want to do it again, and better. How many times you and I have done a menial task because we wanted to please someone that matters to us? We do it all the time. Those of us with children do it every day.

    It abates my insecurities. I remember feeling defeated in a job that was not going well. “I don’t have what it takes to get this done,” I had reasoned. I was working for a perceptive man, who came to my office and said, “Hang in there. You are where you need to be. Just keep doing what you’re doing.” That was all I needed to continue.  He was right. Things got better, much better. I got a raise not long after that.

    It reminds me of my humanity. Machines need energy to operate. You give them fuel and they perform. Humans need more than energy. We need purpose, and a reason. An encouraging word will fill my emotional tank when a paycheck cannot. It reminds us that God has created us to be more than machines working towards a goal. We are complex human beings in need of community that supports and encourages us.

    How important is encouragement in your life? Are you getting enough?

     

  • The Next Level: Do You Have the Right Team?

    “What do we need to do to get us to the next level?” That’s perhaps the one question I get asked the most.  While the answer might include strategies like  better systems, seizing opportunities, new facilities, retooling business or ministry models, they are all predicated on the most important variable of all: the competence of the team.

    next level teams

    As I look back in decades of consulting, I can point to the competence of a team as the key element on taking an organization to the next level. Most businesses, churches or not for profits have gotten where they are in the strength of their current team. In my experience, the next level always requires “next-level” thinking and performance. Good leaders realize that and want to move forward. But unless the team has what it takes to run at a difference pace, the organization will not get unstuck.

    I have sat through many a strategy session where a leader would get clarity on how to move to the next level. In many of those instances, I knew that the team in the room could not go pass where they were. Some members would make the journey by growing to meet their new challenge. Others, sometimes the majority, would not. As a matter of fact, they would usually end up, consciously or unconsciously,  sabotaging the new strategy until it died or they left, or were asked to leave, the organization.

    Early on in my career I would gently walk my clients through these tough personnel decisions. After all, some of those on my not-making list were good people who had been part of the organization for years. In my attempt to soften the blow, I ended up prolonging the pain. Much like pulling a painful band-aid slowly. I have changed my strategy. I find myself being much more direct: “You can get there, but you will not get there with Susan, Bob and Carl. Do you still want to do it?”

    Think about your team. Usually the weakest link at the highest level in the organization will determine how far the organization can go.

    How do you feel about my team assessment approach? Do you prefer the slow and painful or the short, and yet painful method?

  • Judging the Struggle

    I haven’t met anyone perfect yet. There are few people who want me to believe they have it all figured out, but I’m not buying it. Some struggles are easier to hide, others play out in the public eye,  and some are devastating. But part of the human condition means that we are fallen creatures and that we often sweat the small things, wrestle with  big questions, doubt was supposed to be certain. Some refer to these struggles as baggage. I don’t agree. Baggage is something you choose to carry around. Our struggles are too often tied in to the very core of who we are, to the human condition.

    struggle

    As a Christian, I find myself wanting to judge people whose battle is different than mine more harshly and empathize with those whose struggles mirror my own.

    That’s very hypocritical.

    Today as I run into hurting people whose struggles are so different than mine that I can’t relate to, I’m committed not to judge them. I’m going to try to love them. While judging comes naturally for me, loving takes a lot more effort. That means showing,

    respect,

    kindness,

    attention,

    grace,

    friendliness,

    I believe this will be harder than I expect, but I must start sometime. Today feels like the right day.

    Is there a change you need to make in your attitude, life, thinking that you’ve been putting off? Why not join me and make this your starting point?

  • Half-Hearted Self Discipline Fails to Deliver

    Self discipline pays dividends. In my life I have seen self discipline become the difference between getting an A or a C in school, between doing ok at work or getting promoted quickly,  between a mediocre business and a thriving one, between thinking about running a marathon and actually finishing one. Discipline is often the difference between success or failure. But if we are not careful, we can be disciplined and yet not see results.

    self discipline

    I don’t know about you, but I tend to play mind games with the things that require my full attention to get to the next level. I’m usually willing to be disciplined in the areas that come natural to me, like exercise, but I often have a tough time committing to pay the price and do what’s not an easy task for me, like having a consistent clean diet. In this case, however, the diet is the more important of the two. Proper nutrition will fuel performance and accelerate the hard work during exercise. Without it, exercise lose its effectiveness and we face diminishing returns for our efforts.

    How many hours have I wasted at the gym because my diet worked against me? What kind of gains could I have seen had I been as disciplined with my eating as I was with my workouts?

    The price of success, whether be at the gym, at work, or in ministry, is more often a combination of self discipline in several different areas of our lives, and not just the areas that we are most comfortable with. Working late might come easy for you, but you might not be willing to push yourself to engage people and have the conversations that will help your job performance and career way more than all the spreadsheets and reports you can generate.

    Stop for a second and take inventory. If you’re like me, there’s an area in your life that you need to commit to be fully in. It might be spiritual, physical, professional or relational. While you’re putting in the effort somewhere, you know that ultimately is not going to be enough to get you to the next level.

    What area(s) of your life needs more self-discipline? What would it take for you to do it?

  • Could a Fitness Goal Help Your Career?

    Sometimes we need goals that have nothing to do with our careers, financial future or performance.  From time to time I find myself focusing on seemingly inconsequential, somewhat irrelevant goals that from a glance can be seen as a distraction from some of the critical parts of life. For me these usually are fitness goals: run a marathon, have my personal record on a race, do a certain number of pull ups or drop to single digits in my body fat (if you know how much I love to eat, you’d know that’s almost an impossibility). So why bother with them, you might ask.  Here’s what these goals do for me.

    Can fitness goals help your career?

    Forced disciplined. I’m a disciplined person by nature, but when I’m focusing on a fitness goal I get in a whole new level of commitment.  Interestingly, that discipline spills over other areas of my life including professional and relational.

    Broken routine. One day you wake up and life is a series of predictable activities. I often find myself going through my daily routine without much thought or focus. The interjection of a new goal, by the nature of it, disrupts the status quo and forces me to do things differently, and more importantly, intentionally.

    Heightened performance. I found out that each time I met my fitness goals there was a major psychological boost in my professional performance as well. I cannot quantify it, but a shift happened in my thinking that simply says “if you can accomplish this, you can take the next challenge in your professional career.”  These fitness goals somehow transferred a sense of confidence to other areas of my life, embolden me to get past performance and thinking plateaus.

    For me, reaching these goals give e more than just a sense of accomplishment, a plaque and a t-shirt. These are personal morale and productivity boosters that help me work through the moments I might feel stuck or not sure of my own abilities to go to the next level.

    Have you experienced anything similar? What was the outcome?

  • You Cannot Be an Original If You Don’t Find Your Voice First

    Until we figure out who we are, we are always going to be an imitation of those whom we admire. While emulating our heroes and mentors is not necessarily a bad thing, it always falls short of the original. We must first find our voice in order for us to break away from merely being good at something to being great.

    find your voice

    I remember finding my voice as a writer. It was my second semester of graduate school and the long paper I turned in to my adviser was not the strung-together researched quotes with personal commentary woven in. For the first time in my English-writing career I had something to say in my own voice and the research quotes became a distance secondary focus. I noticed a difference in my writing and so did my teacher who wrote, “congratulations you’ve found your voice!” in bold red ink on the cover of the report.

    The same process is true for singers, painters, doctors, designers, architects, managers, programmers and most professions. Greatness happens when you stop imitating your inspiration du jour and allow all your professional influences, life experiences, and individual talents to come together in your craft. When that happens, you’re no longer a copy, but an original.

    Some discover their voices early in life, while others spend a lifetime imitating. Don’t get me wrong, a good imitation is not a bad thing, but it will never be a masterpiece.

    Where are you in your journey in discovering your own voice?