Help me celebrate a little success!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 3:56PM 
I invite you to celebrate a little success with me. My motivation here isn't to generate new business, but to follow one of the practices of our Think, Try, Learn philosophy: Celebrate the Data (language still in process). In this case the data are comments from folks who took recently my full-day workshop, "Improving Work Performance, Results and Productivity." These comments were especially tasty because I came into this work with very little background - no social skills (face in front of a computer screen for 15 years), no presentation skills, no experience creating training material, no marketing knowledge, and no industry network to tap into. Whew!
A bigger thought here is that if we fixate looking for the giant success or result, we risk skipping over those moments between action where reflection and gratitude can naturally take place. After all, what is life if not a sequence of these little triumphs? Related is the idea of overnight success takes years. This is standard how-to-enjoy-life wisdom, I know, but I think our high-speed onward-and-upward culture encourages us to move on too quickly. Here's a little example Liza shared: Think of graduation time, e.g., high school or college, and remember the first question that's asked of the graduate. No, not "How late did you celebrate last night?" but the more typical What's next? Perhaps this bias isn't surprising. After all, we in the U.S. live in a country whose economy is based on, and is measured by, growth. And growth, at least in this sense, is all about moving on.
I'm curious...
- How good are you at pausing between moments to relish?
- What methods do you use to do so?
- Finally, any recent good results you'd like to share?
What are the instructor's greatest strengths?
- His dry humor add a great relief to the day.
- Provided excellent and useful information. Has a great presentation style, knowledgeable and entertaining. Great handouts. Very practical.
- Energy and passion, enjoys hearing feedback, likes to hear both positive and negative stances.
- Provided a lot examples.
- Teaching skills, topic organization, ability to transfer knowledge to practice.
- Able to keep the classes attention! Can find humor in organization!
- His in depth knowledge of the subject matter, and his ability to entertain our questions and provide practical solutions.
- Excellent instructor. Nice command of adult learning principles.
- Great presentation skills - kept the audience engaged at all times. Very practical tools that can be implemented immediately, with visible improvement almost instantaneously!
Did this course meet your objectives? Why or why not?
- This course far exceeded my objectives. The information was useful immediately - and it works.
- Exceeded. Have taken time management classes similar in the past and found them to be, frankly a waste of time. This was great information that could be applied right away in manageable pieces.
- Incredibly. I have an empty inbox!
- It did, In fact I have employed his ideas at home.
- This course actually exceeded my expectations. It is one of the most practical courses I've ever taken.
- It improved my organizational skills immediately following the first class and at the same time and productivity.
How would you evaluate the textbook and/or materials used in this course?
- Excellent
- Great
- Very good.
- great...
- Excellent
- very helpful and useful
- Very good
- Excellent. The instructor provided not only his slides, but talking points as well. This will be helpful when looking back at the materials at a future date, and also to support training for future employees who did not benefit from attending the class.
Would you recommend this course to colleagues or others? Why or why not?
- yes helps in all aspects of life ..very beneficial
- Absolutely. Very helpful, practical, and interesting.
- yes...particularly those who have difficulty with prioritization and project planning
- absolutely, already have
- Yes, particularly with this instructor. I have taken several similar courses that were boring and useless.
- Matt Cornell did an excellent job with somewhat dry material.
- Absolutely! The information is applicable to all, regardless of the type of work you do. Immediate rewards for implementing learnings - better organization, greater productivity and less stress.
Reader Comments (4)
Congratulations!!
I've been following your blog since 2007 maybe even from late 2006. Your journey from science lab to becoming entrepreneur is very inspirational.
I'm not surprised with your clients' comments. Reading your blog provides great tips and insights it personal productivity. I would imagine the workshops give even more of that.
As for the celebrating the little success this post is a great reminder that I should be doing that. Definitely there is a tendency to focus on what's not working rather than on the little victories of every day life.
What's often overlooked is the fact that it's those little things that make a difference. It's those single next actions that drive projects forward, that make your family happy, customers to come back etc.
How to celebrate them more??? A simple reminder in a calendar could be a good starting point.
Again Congratulations and thanks for running this blog.
Well said, Rafal. Thank you very much for the compliments. Yours always get me thinking, which is a gift. Re triggering celebration, I think the opportunity is at completion. I was getting at this in [ Transitions: A Secret Ingredient To Getting Things Done? | http://matthewcornell.org/blog/2005/12/transitions-secret-ingredient-to.html ]
Matt, you should be proud of the workshop you've put together. You don't just help people learn, but you do so in a way that's fun and empowering. I've been to numerous presentations and workshops that weren't nearly as engaging as your approach. I hope lots of people get to benefit from your ideas this year!
Thanks so much! I'll keep working to help people.