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<channel>
	<title>Adam Carroll</title>
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	<link>http://www.adamspeaks.com</link>
	<description>Helping Students and Young Professionals Succeed Faster</description>
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		<title>Money Savvy Dads</title>
		<link>http://www.adamspeaks.com/money-savvy-dads/</link>
		<comments>http://www.adamspeaks.com/money-savvy-dads/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 15 Jun 2013 14:27:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>ACarroll</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Money Savvy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Success/Motivation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Adam Carroll]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Adam Carroll Iowa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Adam Carroll speaker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dad Money Advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Entrepreneur Magazine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fast Company magazine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Inc Magazine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Money Savvy Dads]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Succeed Faster]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[what to teach kids about money]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.adamspeaks.com/?p=2460</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There is nothing quite so rewarding as being a father on Father’s Day.  It’s the one day of the year where Dads are celebrated with new ties, handmade clay ashtrays, breakfast in bed, and the occasional “useful” gift like a new set of barbeque tools. Our offspring look to us to provide guidance, direction, and advice as well as food, clothing, and shelter.  What they don’t always get, are lessons around effective money management. Like it or not, your children are absorbing everything you say and do when it comes to money.  They know (often unconsciously) that there are money stresses at home.  They know when it’s time to pay bills, when it’s time to write checks for baseball, gymnastics and swimming lessons, AND when you’ve spent more than your spouse would’ve liked on that new doohickey that you saw online. What they don’t understand is how much certain things at home cost. Growing up, did you ever have a sense of what the mortgage payment was?  How about the car payment, insurance and gas every month?  Do you have memories of checkout lines at the grocery store where the clerk asked for your parent’s social security number to write on the check? If your parents were (or seemed) well-off, did you get an allowance for specific chores or just for being the wonderful person you are?  Or did they bypass the allowance and just pay for anything and everything? Money Savvy Dads are a different bunch.  They use every teaching moment they can to form and shape their childrens’ financial habits.  In essence, their children become savvy money managers, not by happenstance, but by design. John D. Rockefeller was probably one of the first of the Money Savvy Dads.  His children received an allowance each week of 25 cents.  John D. gave each of them a double entry book-keeping journal and taught them to record every penny they gave, saved, spent and invested.  At the end of each week, he asked to see the journals.  If each penny wasn’t accounted for, no allowance was given the next week.  As you might imagine, the children became very accustomed to accounting properly. To this day, the Rockefeller family is one of the few that has retained and grown the family money while many other hyper-wealthy families squander what their tycoon relative had amassed. Money Savvy Dads know and practice 3 behaviors that are central and paramount to raising Money Savvy kids. First, they understand that their children will one day be adults who will have to fend for themselves.  By preparing their youngsters for that day throughout their life, they end up raising adolescents, pre-teens and teenagers who understand ‘complicated’ ideas like delayed gratification, saving for something that’s desired, and investing for the long term. Even young kids are required to have emergency savings accounts &#8212; not because of the fear of an emergency, but because it teaches a valuable lesson of putting money away for later use.  Typically, a youngster with money in the bank is going to want to keep the money there instead of splurge on something they saw in the Sunday circulars. Consider the opposite situation &#8212; a young adult with $3,000 in credit card debt is more likely to think, “I’m already in debt.  What’s $500 more?  I want the TV”. Secondly, Money Savvy Dads practice the behavior of telling their children no and then give them a legitimate and honest reason as to why they are saying no. “No you can’t have that!” comes off far differently than, “No, I’m not going to buy that for you because we are spending a considerable amount of money on a fun vacation next weekend.  If you want to start saving for that, you’re welcome to.” If the truth of the matter is the electric bill is due next week and you’re trying to figure out how to pay it, be candid with your children about the fact (without creating fear) and ask if they have any questions. As a general rule, we tend to shelter our children from financial pressures or concerns because ‘they’re too young to understand’ or ‘we don’t want them to worry’.  Fast forward a decade or two and you will probably have a young adult who struggles continuously with money because they never learned the hard lessons growing up. Finally, Money Savvy Dads have their kids think entrepreneurially.  The generation of workers that are approaching their twenties will be independent contractors, start-up entrepreneurs, and self-made wealthy.  They will (most likely) have no social security to look forward to and instead will rely on what they are able to amass on their own for a secure and dignified retirement.  By thinking like entrepreneurs, they&#8217;ll be far more prepared for that world of work. By asking them questions like: “How would you make a thousand dollars this weekend if you had to?”  they’ll begin to think of work differently.  Talk to your children NOT about minimum wage, but about creating value doing something for your neighbors or your community.  Talk to them about making $25-50 an hour or more and how they might go about doing that. Money Savvy Dads have their kids watch shows like Shark Tank, BizKid$, and even Storage Wars.  Then they talk about those shows and get their kids thinking about the logic behind each of them. Let’s celebrate the Money Savvy Dads out there who are raising sophisticated consumers, informed investors, and savvy little savers.  Their children will be the ones we read about in the pages of Inc., Entrepreneur, and Fast Company magazines.  They will be the ones signing checks and paying for their Dad’s comfy retirements.]]></description>
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		<title>Marshmallow wars with Grandpa (how he taught me to remember names)</title>
		<link>http://www.adamspeaks.com/marshmallow-wars-with-grandpa-how-he-taught-me-to-remember-names/</link>
		<comments>http://www.adamspeaks.com/marshmallow-wars-with-grandpa-how-he-taught-me-to-remember-names/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Jun 2013 02:51:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Carroll</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Relationship Savvy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Success/Motivation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.adamspeaks.com/?p=2452</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#160; My grandfather was&#8230; check that&#8230; IS an icon.  And by icon I mean he’s an iconic figure.  He’s larger than life, made my childhood super memorable, and knows everyone.  (Okay, everyone is relative, but he knows a TON of people.) While I and my cousins were growing up, we relished the times spent with him, especially because he allowed us to do things that parents would never let us do: things (like an all-out marshmallow war in his house with 5 bags of jumbo marshmallows), and chase us around the aisles of Toys ‘R’ Us on a kids bike.  In a word, he’s crazy. For some reason, whenever we were with him it seemed like we were bound to end up at a grocery store for something that he needed to get.  And us kids were always in charge of steering the cart while he tossed paper products over his head for us to catch.  Nine times out of ten we would run into someone that knew him and would call out his name. “John! John Tapscott!” “Well, Mary, how are you?” “Oh, John, how long has it been?” yadda yadda yadda. We knew that as soon as he stopped to talk, we were at least 10 minutes delayed. Inevitably the question would get asked, “Grandpa, who was that?” “She worked on my campaign years ago” or “I knew her Dad from politics” or “just someone from the old neighborhood”. What always amazed me was his ability to pull the person’s name out of his subconscious as soon as he saw them.  Without so much of a ‘help me out’ or ‘I’m having a hard time placing you’, he’d pick up the conversation as if he’d seen them yesterday. It has been one of his gifts and one of the gifts he’s given me over the years. I once asked him how he remembered everyone’s name and he told me that the sound of someone’s name is the sweetest sound in the world &#8212; to them.  While he was running for governor, he realized the power of calling people by name when he was out stumping.  So he got really good at listening to people’s names, remembering them, and making people feel important by calling them something other than: buddy, dude, doc, champ, chachie, charles, man, or some other random moniker. Ever do that, You? “Get really good at remembering names, Adam” he’d tell me.  “Someday it will serve you very well.” Over the years, I’ve picked up on the secrets that make some people really good at remembering names while others are flat out terrible at it.  The first seems overly simple, but here it is: LISTEN. Our problem is that we don’t pay attention when someone introduces themself to us.  I’ve been doing informal studies about this for years.  When I realized that most people just don’t listen to names, I started asking people what my name was after 3 or 4 minutes of casual conversation.  Most, if not all of them would say, “I’m so sorry, I’m not sure I caught it the first time.” What they really meant was: I was so preoccupied with the sound of my own name that I didn’t really pay attention to yours. Or, exchanging names is just a formality, I never really intended on remembering what you said. I once attended a social gathering of small business owners and as I introduced myself to a female business owner in her mid-40’s, she said, “Oh, honey, don’t bother telling me your name ‘cuz I won’t remember it anyway.”  Imagine the warm fuzzies I got from that promise. Which leads me to the second tip for remembering names: Tell Yourself You’re Good At Remembering When I present on college campuses, at conferences, or within companies, people are amazed when I have 15-20 people stand up over the course of about 20 minutes and at the end I name all of them in order.  They’re AMAZED.  As if it’s some special super power or there’s a voice in my ear that’s repeating all the names to me&#8230; The reality is, I tell myself over and over again that I remember everyone I meet.  And the more I tell myself that, the more I believe that I’ll be able to call the people I meet by name. As a general rule, most people have horrible self-talk.  They program their own minds with the garbage that ends up becoming the script they run whenever they meet someone.  They tell themselves, much like the name-forgetting business owner I met, “I’m just no good at remembering names so don’t bother listening.”  It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy &#8212; tell yourself over and over that you can’t remember names and not only will you not be able to, you won’t even try. Instead, replace that script running in your head about not being able to remember names with phrases like: Other people’s names are super important I remember everyone I meet Say their name 3 times before I say mine Everyone I meet is important today I make others feel good by remembering their names It may feel cheesy to continually repeat these statements until it’s hard-coded into your brain, but that’s exactly what will happen.  What you must understand is your brain is the most powerful super-computer ever designed.  There will never be a machine that can do what your brain can do.  However, much like a computer that runs on a program, your brain is running on the programming that you’re putting in on a daily basis. Whether it’s remembering names, birthdays, facts or figures, your ability to pull that information from the recesses of your brain is more determined by what you’re telling yourself on a daily basis than your minds’ physical capacity. You have the capacity for total and immediate recall, the question is&#8230; do you engage it? Skill-Builder: For the next 24 hours, your goal is to meet at least 5 new people and [...]]]></description>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>My Advice To An Entrepreneur</title>
		<link>http://www.adamspeaks.com/my-advice-to-an-entrepreneur/</link>
		<comments>http://www.adamspeaks.com/my-advice-to-an-entrepreneur/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 02 Jun 2013 01:15:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>ACarroll</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Money Savvy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Success/Motivation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.adamspeaks.com/?p=2442</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[“What advice would you give to a young entrepreneur?”   I was posed this question on Twitter by a follower named David Kopelman and 140 characters just wouldn’t do the advice justice, so this post is his answer (with a twist). While I believe that all entrepreneurs have things in common, I also believe that we are all uniquely gifted in our own ways and must build our businesses as such.  So, instead of assuming I know what @DKoppelman1 is all about as an entrepreneur, I’m going to write advice to myself as if I were 22 again and wanting to take on the world &#8212; which almost perfectly described me at 22. Assuming I could go back in time to myself at 22, there are 6 things that I would coach myself on to accomplish more things in less time.  In no particular order, they are: BE QUICK BUT DON’T HURRY. You often race through projects, books, training courses (and life), when slowing down and taking everything in would be far more beneficial.  Be quick about what you do in the sense that most projects and tasks should take half or 75% as much time as you give yourself to complete them.  You’ll learn this when you read The Four-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss.  It will scramble your mind in a good way. Be quick to accomplish your goals, but don’t hurry through and assume that you’re going to be at a mastery level within days, weeks or months.  You’ll become a successful speaker and seminar leader, but it won’t happen overnight.  One day a friend of yours will tell you about the 3-Year Rule and it will make complete sense.  I’ll give you the high level definition: It takes 3 years to get to the level of success you think you should have in year 1.  Be patient.  Be quick, but don’t hurry. YOUR FRIENDS ARE SUPER IMPORTANT.  CHOOSE WISELY. The guys in college that looked up to you and said you were bound for great things were great for your ego but did nothing to push you to new levels.  You will be the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with.  Income-wise, success-wise, mindset-wise.  The last one will dictate the others.  Be around people who push you to be better, not to be satisfied with where you are currently. In choosing your friends, make sure that you are surrounding yourself with people you aspire to live life like.  While your buddies are out drinking and watching football, you should be spending time with mentors who will help you in your quest for success and significance.  Some of your current friends will feel alienated, but it’s okay.  Great friends will always be there&#8230; some will fade off. If you can’t find a group to connect with, make one.  You’ll realize this later in your career and create a successful organization of like-minded thinkers.  I just wish I (you) had figured this out years before. STUDY RISK AND LEVERAGE.  KNOW THEM BOTH INTIMATELY. You’ll grow to understand the difference between taking a calculated risk and being risky.  Early in your career you’ll be risky, then you’ll learn to take calculated risks.  Minimizing those risks will ensure that you’ll be successful more than you’ll fail.  As your understanding of calculated risks rise, your businesses will ramp up faster and you’ll predict the downsides and prepare for them. To ramp up fastest, don’t be afraid of leverage (if you’re all in).  Leverage will serve you well throughout your life and you’ll figure out how to use it to your advantage in all scenarios.  Leverage is both debt (credit), people (assistants &#38; employees), and time.  Borrowing money to make money is good leverage.  Hiring people to do less time valued work is smart.  Investing time to learn something that will level up your business is wise. The smartest and most successful people you’ll come to know and study will both understand and use both risk and leverage.  So must you. GET GOOD AT EVALUATING OPPORTUNITY.  THEN CHOOSE. In your lifetime, you’ll be hit up for hundreds, if not thousands, of great opportunities.  Get really good at evaluating these and deciding whether or not it’s worth your time, your energy, and most importantly, your attention.  Dad once told you, “You won’t lack for opportunity.  Your challenge will be deciding which one to pursue.”  He said which ONE to pursue for a reason.  Chase two rabbits and you’ll catch neither.  You’re still learning this lesson at 37. Come to know early on that your time is worth a certain amount and then work like hell to make that a reality.  The goals you set in your 20’s were hit in your early 30’s.  You would’ve hit them in less time if they had been in front of you constantly.  Make a dream board, create affirmations, then meditate on them daily until you’ve manifested them in your life by Making Awesome Shit Happen (M.A.S.H.).  It really is that easy. SUCCESS IS A JOURNEY, NOT A DESTINATION.  ENJOY IT. You’ll want to compare yourself to others throughout life.  Don’t.  Every one of us is on a different path.  The journey is yours alone to enjoy.  Sure, you’ll have companions throughout your journey.  Some will depart early, some will come around every so many months or years, and others will be there right by your side the entire time just as you are for them.  All of them are there for a reason &#8212; to help you learn and grow. You’ll take jobs early on in your career &#8212; take them for what you can learn, not what you can earn.  Take them for the people you’ll be surrounded by.  Enjoy the journey with these people.  When it ceases to become enjoyable, make sure you’ve learned the lessons, then move on to the next path.  If you leave before you’ve learned the lesson, you’ll be doomed to repeat it again and again no matter [...]]]></description>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Helping others succeed faster: Not the job you&#8217;d sorta kinda like to have&#8230; your dream job</title>
		<link>http://www.adamspeaks.com/helping-others-succeed-faster-not-the-job-youd-sorta-kinda-like-to-have-your-dream-job/</link>
		<comments>http://www.adamspeaks.com/helping-others-succeed-faster-not-the-job-youd-sorta-kinda-like-to-have-your-dream-job/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 28 May 2013 21:39:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Carroll</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.adamspeaks.com/?p=2425</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why Traditional Networking is Dumb. (I will be sharing many more posts on the subject of Networking POWER, in the upcoming weeks from my new book, You Don&#8217;t Know Me From Adam) Networking has become a bad word.  Whenever I talk about Networking POWER, inevitably someone comes up and tells me that they have a negative connotation to networking. Perhaps they were assaulted by that guy that goes to every chamber event, every speed networking event, and every new company open house and has thousands of his cards on hand ready to spray out to anyone within arms reach.  He’s less concerned about getting your card so much as he is aggressively staking his claim on your rolodex in whatever category he happens to be in. You know the guy&#8230; (and if you ARE the guy, please put your cards away and put some of this book to good use.) Usually this person feigns interest in what it is you do and then waits for a chance to tell you how what he does is something that you could probably use.  It feels like a commercial more than a conversation and you ultimately pound your drink and then excuse yourself to go take a bath. What I ﬁnd to be absolutely incredible is the number of business networking clubs that have sprung up around the country.  There are business people that actually pay money to sit around a table once a week and come up with referrals to send to the people in the group.  Only it’s not a “let me help connect you to someone that really needs your service” so much as it’s “I have to provide two leads this week to Gary, so here are people that I’m willing to be sacriﬁcial lambs.” It’s ugly networking.  Which is a shame because networking can be really attractive.  Networking became a bad word because we were taught for awhile to approach it with a killer sales mentality.  The goal was getting the biggest stack of cards, having the most robust Outlook Contacts database, attending the most “networking” functions. When I started to realize that I had all of these cards and only a handful of real relationships, I did a deep dive into the database and set up appointments with the people that I sought to retain as business partners.  I “thinned the herd” of contacts considerably and spent a portion of my time trying to ﬁgure out how to connect the people that needed to be connected. Instead of card collecting, I began card connecting. My vision of networking became less about me and more about putting really cool people that may be able to help each other at the same table.  Whether they referred me business or not was irrelevant, I was merely the catalyst to their meeting. 7 times out of 10, someone would ask me, “Why would you help me with this?” (which is really a sad commentary on the state of business today).  Asking for help is something that is still relatively taboo, especially for those that are just entering the workforce (Gen Y) and those that have been working for a long time (Baby Boomers). When I suggested to a Baby Boomer friend of mine that when starting his business he should ask 20 of his closest friends to coffee and ask for their assistance in growing his company (only after promoting opportunities to them), he said it felt foreign. “I don’t have any problem sharing of my resources and contacts,” he said, “but I can’t ask these people for help.  It doesn’t feel right.” A majority of 20-something soon-to-be college graduates will balk at the thought of asking their parents or their parents’ friends for help in ﬁnding a job.  Yet the number 2 way that companies are ﬁnding great talent is through social and business contacts.  Very last on the talent acquisition list are passive ways of acquiring a job like the internet job boards and want ads. The single biggest reason given for feeling sheepish about asking for help among 20-somethings is the fact that they feel they have little to give in return.  Yet, without question, each of them has some skill, talent, or ability that they could easily offer up as a value add to the relationship. Between Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, and whatever other new social sites pop up, our interconnectedness cannot be denied.  I can log onto LinkedIn and search through my 2,000+ contacts which link me to over 15 million contacts in my 3rd level.  You could say I have 15 million friends &#8212; I just haven’t met them all yet! The notion of interconnectedness led me to create an exercise that I do when presenting to an audience on the topic of super-connecting.  My assumption when creating this exercise was that when we want to ﬁnd information super-quick, we go to google, bing, or yahoo to do so.  The reason these sites are so dependable and fast is they catalog the entirety of the internet which is nothing more than a huge interwoven series of computers.  (laymen’s terms, of course.)  Basically, the connections are what allow us rampant and lightning fast access to zillions of bits of data stored on other computers all over the world. Similarly, I learned that when learning a new skill, language, or musical instrument, our brain creates neural pathways.  The more neural pathways that are created, the easier it becomes to learn the guitar, speak Spanish, or knit.  Furthermore, if we practice multiple things over a short duration &#8212; like speaking Spanish while learning to play the guitar (not simultaneously mind you) &#8212; our brains create even more neural pathways and the recall of what we learned is greatly improved.  Again, the connections allow us to access the data (recall what we learned) faster than we ever thought possible. While keeping both of these fun facts in mind, I reasoned that the level and quantity of our connections with other [...]]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Credit Union Jobs</title>
		<link>http://www.adamspeaks.com/credit-union-jobs/</link>
		<comments>http://www.adamspeaks.com/credit-union-jobs/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Feb 2013 20:13:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Carroll</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://adamspeaks.com/?p=1906</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For Business, Marketing, and Communication Majors The question usually comes up about the junior or senior year in college &#8212; how am I supposed to get experience when no one will give me a job? I’m happy to tell you that there is some low-hanging fruit that’s been in your backyard for some time but you never really equated the company with a job that could give you all of the experience you’ve been looking for. The answer is at your local credit union. I’ve been working with credit unions in the state of Iowa for the past couple of years and most all of them have one main goal: to lower the average member age. Credit unions are different than banks because all of the people who are customers of the credit union are actually member owners.  Because they have “shares” in the credit union, they are actually part owners in the institution itself.  Not so with banks&#8230; So, where this poses an opportunity for you is these credit unions are dying to figure out how to attract people your age into their branches.  It’s really a no-brainer once you dig into what the credit union offers &#8212; lower loan rates, better service, great people. But the credit unions scratch their heads when trying to figure out how to make what they have attractive to people your age.  So much so that many of them are now asking college students to sit on their board of directors to get a fresh perspective. Many of the credit unions I’ve worked with have asked me how to find interns that can help them with marketing and promotions, social media, and sometimes the high level administration stuff.  Just think, instead of casting a wide net for an internship it may just require asking the right person for the gig that would give you all of the experience you’re looking for. My recommendation is &#8212; if you’re not already a member of a credit union, you need to be.  Then, get to know some of the people at your credit union and ask if they ever hire any interns.  Whether they do or they don’t, you need to present an internship idea to them and see if they bite. What if you could actually leverage the Facebook experience you’ve acquired to land a sweet gig?! To your success.]]></description>
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		<item>
		<title>Investing in Yourself</title>
		<link>http://www.adamspeaks.com/investing-in-yourself/</link>
		<comments>http://www.adamspeaks.com/investing-in-yourself/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Feb 2013 20:13:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Carroll</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://adamspeaks.com/?p=1914</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the things that has separated me from a number of my peers is the sheer amount of professional development that I’ve done over the past 10 years.  I’ve spent $30-40,000 in courses, weekends, boot camps, books, CD’s, and webinars.  And to be quite honest, that is a drop in the bucket compared to what some of my friends spend. (I know one very entrepreneurial couple that will spend $100k this year alone in professional education!) What amazes me is meeting people who question how much they’ll spend on a weekend training program or CD set.  Spend is the operative word.  What they’ll spend is a fraction of what they’ll learn and eventually earn using the information they obtained.  That’s why I never perceive professional development an expense, but an investment.  It’s an investment in me.  And from past experience, an investment in me pays way better than an investment in the stock market, real estate, or going out on the town with friends. Let me suggest this&#8230; if you are someone that claims you don’t have enough money to do something that could radically change your world, then your not having enough money is only part of the problem.  The rest of the problem is you don’t have the right mindset. Money is a very infinite thing.  There is an infinite amount of money in society today.  Trillions of dollars are flowing around the world right now as you read this.  And yet, for most people, what their online balance shows them is what they gauge their having money on. What if the money were around to do whatever you like? Consider the fact that most Universities have a student activity fund that is funded by students at the rate of $50-75 a semester.  Take the average state university of 15,000 students and multiply that times $100 ($50 x 2 semesters).  The answer is $1.5M.  One million five hundred thousand dollars will buy a heck of a lot of bands, hypnotists, balloons, pizza, speakers, and oh yeah, tickets and transportation to professional development events you’d like to attend. Maybe the money you’re spending on professional development doesn’t have to be yours.  Ever considered asking your University (the Dean, Campus Activities, Student Life, etc.) if there are funds available to attend a conference that will help you Succeed Faster?  Dozens of students have done it in the past with incredible results. Karan Ahuja got his entire Succeed Faster attendance covered by Purdue University.  So did Nick Rizzi at the University of Denver.  Jocelyn Paonita had me write a letter for her and it secured her $800 for the event.  These are just a few of the myriad of students that got their professional education paid for. So my question is&#8230; are you thinking about your own wallet when making a decision that could effect the rest of your life?  Or, can you adopt the Succeed Faster mindset which says that if you ask, you might just receive.  And if you ask with the right method and support behind you, you’re just about guaranteed to get it! If you’re interested in attending a Succeed Faster event, but don’t have the cash, shoot me an email and let me know that you’re interested in getting a letter that you can take to the University.  I’m happy to help you Succeed Faster!]]></description>
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		<title>The Dentist&#8217;s Chair</title>
		<link>http://www.adamspeaks.com/the-dentists-chair-2/</link>
		<comments>http://www.adamspeaks.com/the-dentists-chair-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 2013 20:13:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Carroll</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://adamspeaks.com/?p=1901</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[My cousin and I have a standing call once a week on Monday mornings.  He is usually driving to his dental practice office that is about 30 minutes away and I’m usually at Starbucks or Panera having coffee and planning out my week. Technically, we’re both entrepreneurs.  From a very early age, he knew that dentistry was where he was headed.  In fact, he was accepted into dental school his freshman year of undergrad (almost unheard of).  He worked in a small town in Iowa with a couple of dentists before deciding that that is where he would build his practice.  He even ended up buying out one of the dentists in the practice and became an owner. Our weekly conversations usually involve him asking me where I’m headed this week, what cool ideas I’ve been exposed to, and when we can find time to hang out.  I ask him how things are going with his partners, what they’re doing to grow the business, and what great books he’s been reading. I think you could say that both of us are relatively successful, but in entirely different ways.  At times, he is jealous of the freedom and flexibility of what I do.  At times, I’m jealous of the fact that he’s building a very tangible, income generating asset that can be sold down the road. Both of us would probably change places with the other &#8212; for about a week.  And then, we’d be craving what we had before the change. One of the things I found just after graduating from college was the vast differences in people and what they ultimately wanted from their career, their life, and their relationships.  Some of my friends really just wanted a job they could feel secure in, some wanted to travel extensively before ever settling down, some said they wanted kids immediately and as many as possible, others wanted no kids but someone that would build a business with them. The life paths we all take are as varied as we are.  And while some people will attempt to tell you which path you should be on, my response to them would be: if that path is so great, how come you’re not on it? There are four levels of fulfillment or satisfaction that most people are searching for: Security, Success, Significance, and Serenity. The first level of security is about doing something that pays the bills.  Having a “gig” that you enjoy enough to go to everyday and feel secure that your life is being taken care of. The second level is that of success.  I’ve found that no matter what you do, the 3 year rule applies.  The 3 year rule states that you’ll probably find the level of success you think you’re supposed to have in year 1, in year 3.  For most people, they constantly struggle to reach success because they spend a year or two getting their feet on the ground and then go right back to the square one in a new venture.  If success is what you desire, plan on putting 3 years of your life into whatever you are truly passionate about.  By the end of year 2, you’ll know that you’re almost there. Significance comes when what you’re doing with your life matters to others.  It’s when you feel like you’re making a difference or helping improve someone’s life. And Serenity is the ultimate level to achieve.  It’s where you are peace all the time with the decisions you make, the people you associate with, the business dealings you do, and the way your future looks.  It’s a great place to be and something to strive for &#8212; oh yes, and, it’s fleeting.  Some people hit serenity only to get drawn back to lower levels when they change their life plans. I don’t know if my cousin will always be a dentist.  I don’t know if I’ll always do what I do.  But I do know that change is the only thing that remains constant, that we are all walking out the path we’re supposed to, and that at some point, ALL answers will be revealed to us, but only when we’re ready for them. Succeed Faster!]]></description>
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		<title>The First Six Months</title>
		<link>http://www.adamspeaks.com/the-first-six-months/</link>
		<comments>http://www.adamspeaks.com/the-first-six-months/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 17 Feb 2013 20:13:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Carroll</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://adamspeaks.com/?p=1889</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Some of the best advice I ever got was from a crusty old manager at one of the first jobs I had out of college.  Being a recent college graduate (and highly educated!) I was anxious to give my advice to fellow workers, in meetings, around the break room, etc. This gentleman, let’s call him Dale, was in a meeting with me where I had piped up with my opinion one too many times.  After the meeting he asked if I could help him with something and I went back to his office. &#160; “You talk too much,” was the first thing out of Dale’s mouth. “What do you mean I talk too much?” I said. &#160; “Son, I’m going to give you some free advice that was given to me when I started working that has led me to build great relationships in every position I’ve ever had.” Dale then went on to tell me that the first 6 months of ANY job can be considered probationary.  Sure, they’ve hired you, but they’re still trying to get a sense of what you’re capable of and how much they can trust you with. He told me that a good rule of thumb is that the first two months of your employment you shouldn’t say much of anything in meetings unless you’re asked for your opinion directly.  Being quiet and listening intently is a great quality in a new employee and the higher ups will appreciate the fact that you’re soaking everything in.  In fact, Dale told me that if asked to elaborate, it’s okay to say, “I’m still in a learning phase here, but here are my thoughts&#8230;” The second two months of employment are all about asking questions.  One on one meetings are your chance to dig in and ask questions to everyone you meet.  Your goal is to be as inquisitive as possible.  How does that work?  What did you mean by that?  Can you elaborate on the Q2 goals?  How did you get to be so good at this job? Keep in mind the questions should be polite, non-confrontational, and asked purely for the chance to learn something more about your position.  What happens over several months of asking great questions is your managers will begin to see you as someone that is deeply interested in getting better at the job.  They’ll appreciate the fact that you care enough about the goals to have them elaborate on them.  You’ll win friends when asking people how they got to be so good at their job.  And ultimately, you’ll probably begin to hear people say things about how inquisitive you are and how other employees should be more like you. After 4 months on the job, most conversations are fair game.  4-6 months is usually enough time to completely get your feet under you, have really strong relationships built, and have developed a reputation as someone that gets stuff done. The key to making all of this work in your first real career is to take yourself down a peg or two.  Yes, you are a talented, capable new employee who is eager to share how much you know.  However, as my Dad once told me: It’s better to keep your mouth closed and appear a fool  than to open it and remove all doubt. Before you can show everyone how much you know, you have to earn the right to open your mouth.  Earning the right to share opinions isn’t just a by-product of having the job &#8212; it’s gotten through building relationships, having trust from other employees, and good solid handle on what’s happening in the great company you’re working for. When in doubt, remember the advice from Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends And Influence People: Be interested, not interesting!]]></description>
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		<title>3 Components</title>
		<link>http://www.adamspeaks.com/3-components/</link>
		<comments>http://www.adamspeaks.com/3-components/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Feb 2013 12:13:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Carroll</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://adamspeaks.com/?p=1894</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I have this calendar on my desk from www.tut.com.  It gets me thinking every morning when I read the “note from the Universe”.  Today’s was: The trick is remembering that at all times far more in happening on your behalf than your physical senses will ever reveal.  Like right now. I did a deep dive into the Law of Attraction last year and realized that there were really three components to activating this law (which supercedes the Law of Gravity). The first component is your thoughts.  I’ve heard from many sources that the mind is a wonderful slave but a terrible master.  There was a book written some years ago that was titled You Can’t Afford The Luxury of A Negative Thought.  Yet, every single day people are telling themselves all sorts of negative lies that begin to effect what they bring into their life.  These thoughts have an effect on all the stuff happening outside your physical senses. &#160; Step 1: Monitor your thoughts The second component is your emotions.  Ever gotten so tense or anxious or upset that almost every minute during the day goes the opposite of how you wanted it to?  Almost as if when you woke up in the morning and stepped in a wet spot on the carpet from the dog, it set the tone for the rest of the day?  Your emotions have a powerful effect on the Law of Attraction.  In fact, the stronger the emotion you feel, the more powerful the magnetic effect that your thoughts have at that very point in time. The solution is to feel good as much as humanly possible and get to a point where you begin to feel even better.  You should be guided by your emotions &#8212; when you have that pit in your stomach, take a deep breath, think positive thoughts, and replace any negative emotions with positive ones. Step 2: Feel good ALL the time The third component is probably the most important one.  It’s all about belief that what you want will actually come to you.  Belief is the one missing link for most people looking to access the law of attraction.  We can think great thoughts, all the while attracting that “stuff” to us, have powerful emotions that act as a strong magnet, but the minute we think to ourselves, “but it probably won’t happen”, the stuff we’re attracting goes away. Make a list of the 5 goals you have for yourself this year.  Then, write a number between 1-10 beside each goal.  1 means you don’t think you’ll achieve the goal and 10 means it will happen in the next 6 months.  Anything that’s not an 8, 9, or 10 does not carry with it enough belief to make it so.  So instead of focusing on the 1’s thru 7’s, focus on the 8’s, 9’s, and 10’s and you’ll be astonished at how quickly those events, things, or people come racing into your existence. Step 3: BELIEVE The reason we dream big dreams and focus on big goals is we have no idea what is working on our behalf on the other side of the globe (or the other side of the street).  What we do have an idea of is how to accelerate and exponentially multiply the law of attraction so that whatever it is we think about, feel amazing about, and believe in will come into our lives, faster than we ever thought possible. &#160; Succeed Faster!]]></description>
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		<title>Death By Meeting</title>
		<link>http://www.adamspeaks.com/death-by-meeting/</link>
		<comments>http://www.adamspeaks.com/death-by-meeting/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 11 Feb 2013 09:10:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam Carroll</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[blog]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://adamspeaks.com/?p=1927</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ever sit in a meeting and wonder how much it’s costing your company to have all of those people in attendance?  It’s staggering&#8230; yet most companies hold regular meetings where all of their salaried people get together to cover things that could be relayed through an email, video message, or sometimes, a text! One of my consulting clients is a medium sized organization that holds A LOT of meetings.  They frequently request that I attend the meetings to share some information about the projects I’m working on, and I happily (and truthfully, grudgingly) comply.  I find that meetings are a great time for me to crank out an updated to-do list, prioritize what I need to get done, and brainstorm next steps.  Essentially, meetings allow me to re-focus my attention and energy on what needs to be done. Once I get my to-do list knocked out, my email blasts scheduled, my personal must-do list from home, and play a couple of rounds of Words With Friends, my attention usually then comes around to how the hell much is this meeting costing the company? If you take the meeting I attended today where a good solid 30 people were gathered, I assume that most of the folks in the room were making at least $40,000 a year.  Add in benefits and retirement packages and they are all easily at $50,000.  A person making $50k a year is making roughly $25 an hour.  ($50,000 / 2080 hours).  The meeting today was about 5 hours, so if you take 30 people x $25/hr x 5 hours, you’d get an approximate cost of the meeting coming in at: $3,750.  This doesn’t factor in the opportunity cost of the time lost, the mileage reimbursement, lunch catered in, or the fact that a day-long meeting on Thursday usually means a vacation day on Friday resulting in more work stoppage. It’s crazy. Die-hard meeting enthusiasts will tell me I’m crazy and you can’t break down the times and expenses like this, but if I were the owner of a company that regularly wasted thousands of dollars on meetings, you better believe they’d be clamped down on. One of the best ideas I’ve ever heard was the company that did away with conference tables in exchange for high-top rounds that everyone stood at.   Because there were NO chairs in the room, the meetings lasted about 20 minutes tops.  Everyone came prepared with agendas and left with to-do’s and the work was accomplished&#8230; without spending thousands on wasted time. I think being an entrepreneur and solopreneur for so long has given me an unusual grasp at time-wasting.  Believe me, I can waste time with the best of them, but much of my time wasting is scheduled.  I like to grab my guitar and play every now and again.  I enjoy watching certain videos on YouTube or tuning into a webinar by marketers that I model.  I’ll even sneak in a movie here and there. But to sit in a room and listen to people drone on about stuff that has no applicability to my tasks, my income, or my interests is like going to a really bad high school play without knowing any of the actors.  At some point, you’re bound to ask yourself, “why the hell am I sitting here?” Next time you’re called into a meeting, offer up this excuse: “I would really like to know the outcome of the meeting, but due to a number of projects that I’m working diligently on, would you mind if I focus on completing those instead?  Nikki in HR said she’d take copious notes for me&#8230;” I think your time is more valuable.  I know mine is.]]></description>
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