SolarTexans.com

Two weeks ago John McCain was the only Senator to duck a crucial vote
on the future of clean energy in America — dooming to failure the
measure that would have helped make renewable energy more affordable
and accessible. Now it turns out this missed vote is part of a
pattern.

Last week, the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) released the 2007
National Environmental Scorecard giving Senator McCain a score of
ZERO. According to the scorecard, McCain was the only member of
Congress to skip all 15 crucial environmental votes scored by LCV.

Can you help spread the word about McCain’s 0% environmental voting
record and write a letter to the editor? The opinion page is widely
read in most communities — and a well-placed letter can reach a broad
audience. We’ve included sample text to get you started.

McCain’s LCV score exposes the real record behind the rhetoric — a
lifetime LCV score of 24, a history of siding with the polluters and
special interests, and a consistent pattern of ducking important
environmental votes.

Let’s place thousands of letters in papers around the country. Click
here to let us know you’re writing a letter.
http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageNavigator/LCVLettertotheEditor

Thanks for taking action.

Sincerely,

Carl Pope
Executive Director
The Sierra Club

 

Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) has announced plans for one of the world’s largest solar facilities – a 280-megawatt (MW) concentrating solar power (CSP) plant – to be built 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, AZ.

A ‘power tower’ type of CSP plant
near Seville, Spain; photo credit: Abengoa

The project is enthusiastically supported by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano. However, its viability is dependent on the long-term extension of investment tax credits for solar facilities, which have gone down to defeat twice since December in the U.S. Congress. On both occasions, ironically enough, Arizona senator and presidential candidate John McCain was absent for the crucial vote.

Read more about the Solana CSP generating station here.

McCain Scores Zero on Environmental Report Card

Hillary Clinton Scores 73, Barack Obama 67

John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has scored a stunning zero out of 100 on the latest League of Conservation Voters Scorecard, which rates elected officials on their votes in the most recent Congress.

McCain skipped every one of the 15 votes that the League of Conservation Voters deemed critical measures for the environment, including votes where the Arizona Senator’s yea would have meant passage by a single-vote margin.

McCain has won support from many environmentalists, including Republicans for Environmental Protection, because he has championed action to combat global warming since 2003 and was the only serious presidential candidate to take such a strong position on the defining environmental issue of our time. But his absenteeism on important votes this session calls into question his reputation as a maverick who might buck the party line on some energy and environmental issues.

“Out of 535 Members of Congress, John McCain is the only one who chose to miss every single key environmental vote scored by the League of Conservation Voters last year. When it came time to stand up and vote for the environment, John McCain was nowhere to be found,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. “Every other Member who received a zero from LCV last year at least had the temerity to show up and vote against the environment and clean energy time after time. And unlike John McCain, I doubt any of them would claim to be environmental leaders or champions on global warming.”

The Democrats running for president scored better.

Sen. Hillary Clinton scored a 73%, having lost points for missing four votes.

Sen. Barack Obama scored a 67%, having lost points for missing four votes, and for voting against a failed measure to establish a Water Resources Commission that would have prioritized water resources projects in the United States. Clinton voted for the measure.

 

The 16 Laws of Success

Definiteness of Purpose

 

Develop Definiteness of Purpose

 

* Success and progress towards achieving your goals in life begin with knowing where you are going.

* Any dominating idea, plan, or purpose held in your conscious mind through repeated effort and emotionalized by a burning desire for its realization is taken over by the subconscious and acted upon through whatever natural and logical means may be available.

* Your mental attitude gives power to everything you do. If your attitude is positive, your actions and thoughts further your ends? If your attitude is negative, you are constantly undermining your own efforts.

* The starting point of all human achievement is the development of a Definite Major Purpose.

* Without a definite major purpose, you are as helpless as a ship without a compass.

 

Mastermind Alliance

 

Establish a Mastermind Alliance

 

* A mastermind alliance consists of two or more minds working actively together in perfect harmony toward a common definite objective.

* Through a mastermind alliance you can appropriate and use the full strength of the experience, training, and knowledge of others just as if they were your own.

* No individual has ever achieved success without the help and cooperation of others.

* The value of “gathering together those of a like mind” is self-evident.

* A group of brains coordinated in a spirit of harmony will provide more thought energy than a single brain, just as a group of electric batteries will provide more energy than a single battery.

 

Applied Faith

 

Use Applied Faith

 

* Faith is awareness of, belief in, and harmonizing with the universal powers.

* Faith is a state of mind which must be active not passive, to be useful in achieving lasting success.

* Close the door to fear behind you and you will quickly see the door of faith open before you.

* Fear is nothing more than a state of mind, which is subject to your own direction and control.

* Faith will not bring you what you desire, but it will show you the way to go after it for yourself.

 

Going the Extra Mile

 

Go the Extra Mile

 

* Strength and struggle go hand in hand.

* Render more and better service than you are paid for, and sooner or later you will receive compound interest from your investment.

* The end of the rainbow is at the end of the second mile.

* The quality of the service rendered, plus the quantity of service rendered, plus the mental attitude in which it is rendered, equals your compensation.

* The more you give, the more you get.

 

Pleasing Personality

 

Assemble an Attractive Personality

 

* A Positive Mental Attitude is the right mental attitude in any given situation.

* Courtesy is your most profitable asset… and it is absolutely free!

* Emotions are nothing but reflections of your mental attitude, which you can organize, guide, and completely control.

* Your personality is your greatest asset or your greatest liability because it embraces everything you control …your mind, body, and soul.

* To be happy, make someone else happy!

 

Personal Initiative

 

Create Personal Initiative

 

* It is better to act on a plan that is still weak than to delay acting at all.

* Procrastination is the archenemy of personal initiative.

* Personal Initiative:

• is contagious

• succeeds where others fail

• creates work

• creates opportunity

• creates the future

• creates advancement

 

* Procrastinators are experts in creating alibis.

* Personal initiative is the inner power that starts all action.

 

Positive Mental Attitude

 

Build a Positive Mental Attitude

 

* A Positive Mental Attitude is the single most important principle of the science of success, without which you cannot get the maximum benefit from the other sixteen principles.

* Success attracts success and failure attracts more failure.

* Your mental attitude is the only thing over which you, and only you, have complete control.

* A Positive Mental Attitude attracts opportunities for success, while a Negative Mental Attitude repels opportunities and doesn’t even take advantage of them when they do come along.

* A positive mind finds a way it can be done… a negative mind looks for all the ways it can’t be done.

 

Enthusiasm

 

Control Your Enthusiasm

 

* To be enthusiastic-act enthusiastically!

* Enthusiasm is to progress toward success as gasoline is to a car’s engine. It is the fuel that drives things forward.

* Enthusiasm stimulates your subconscious mind. By feeding your conscious mind with enthusiasm, you impress upon your subconscious that your burning desire and your plan for attaining it are certain.

* Enthusiasm is a state of mind. It inspires action and is the most contagious of all emotions.

* Enthusiasm is more powerful than logic, reason, or rhetoric in getting your ideas across and in winning over others to your viewpoint.

 

Self-Discipline

 

Enforce Self-Discipline

 

* Self-discipline is the process that ties together all your efforts of controlling your mind, your personal initiative, positive mental attitude and controlling your enthusiasm.

* Self-discipline makes you think before you act.

* The subconscious has access to all departments of the mind, but is not under the control of any.

* If you don’t discipline yourself, you are sure to be disciplined by others.

* Without self-discipline, you are as dangerous as a car running downhill without brakes or steering wheel.

 

Accurate Thinking

 

Think Accurately

 

* Thoughts have power, are under your control, and can be used wisely or unwisely.

* Accurate thinkers accept no political, religious, or other type of thought, regardless of its source, until it is carefully analyzed.

* Accurate thinkers are the masters of their emotions.

* Accurate thought involves two fundamentals. First you must separate facts from information. Second you must separate facts into two classes? The important and unimportant.

* Accurate thinkers allow no one to do their thinking for them.

 

Controlled Attention

 

Control Your Attention

 

* Keep your mind ON the things you want and OFF the things you don’t want!

* It is much easier to focus your attention on something you believe will happen than on something you believe is unlikely.

* Controlled attention is the act of coordinating all the faculties of your mind and directing their combined power to a specific end.

* Positive and negative emotions cannot occupy your mind at the same time.

* Independence starts with self-dependence.

 

Teamwork

 

Inspire Teamwork

 

* There is no record of any great contribution to civilization without the cooperation of others.

* Enthusiasm is contagious and teamwork is the inevitable result.

* A good football team relies more on harmonious coordination of effort than individual skill.

* Most people will respond more freely to a request than they will to an order.

* Helping others solve their problems will help you solve your own.

 

Adversity and Defeat

 

Learn From Adversity and Defeat

 

* Everyone faces defeat. It may be a stepping-stone or a stumbling block, depending on the mental attitude with which it is faced.

* Failure and pain are one language through which nature speaks to every living creature.

* You are never a failure until you accept defeat as permanent and quit trying.

* Edison failed 10,000 times before perfecting the electric light bulb. Don’t worry if you fail once.

* Every adversity, every failure, and every unpleasant experience carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit which may prove to be a blessing in disguise.

 

Creative Vision

 

Cultivate Creative Vision

 

* Creative imagination has its base in the subconscious and is the medium through which you recognize new ideas and newly learned facts.

* Synthetic imagination springs from experience and reason; creative imagination springs from your commitment to your definite purpose.

* Imagination recognizes limitations. Creative vision sees no limitations.

* Your imaginative faculty will become weak through inaction. It can be revived through use.

* The man who dipped a chunk of ice cream in chocolate and called it “Eskimo Pie” made a fortune for the five seconds of imagination it took to create the idea!

 

Maintenance of Sound Health

 

Maintain Sound Health

 

* To maintain a Positive Mental Attitude and develop a healthy mind and body, you must conquer fear and anxiety.

* Anything that affects your physical health also affects your mental health.

* A Positive Mental Attitude is the most important quality for sound mental and physical health.

* Exercise produces both physical and mental buoyancy. It clears sluggishness and dullness from body and mind.

* If you haven’t the willpower to keep your physical body in repair, you lack the power of will to maintain a positive mental attitude in other important circumstances that control your life.

 

Budgeting Time and Money

 

Budget Your Time and Money

 

* Tell me how you use your time and how you spend your money, and I will tell you where and what you’ll be ten years from now.

* Take regular inventory of yourself to learn how and where you are spending your time and money.

* The secret of getting things done is: DO IT NOW!

* Time is too precious to be wasted on arguments and discontent.

* Some mistakes can be corrected, but not the mistake of wasting time. When time is gone, it’s gone forever.

 

Cosmic Habit Force

 

Use of Cosmic Habitforce

 

* It takes a habit to replace a habit.

* All of your successes and failures are results of habits you have formed.

* The orderliness of the world of natural laws gives evidence that they are under control of a universal plan.

* For every result there is a cause, and results are brought about through the use of cosmic habitforce.

* First you get a habit, then it gets you.

Broadcasts

“State of the Company” conference call
Rob Styler - 2008-01-29 12:18:30

We are having an important “State of the Company” conference call with our CEO David Gregg. It was planned for Sunday Feb 3rd, like our normal corporate call, but because of the SuperBowl, we have moved the call to Monday, Feb 4th at 6pm Pacific.

The call in number is:

319 279 1001
code: 1025747#

I want to make sure that we manage expectations about this call. There is no big announcement planned. Similar to a “State of the Union” address, the goal of this call is to share where we are as a company and to answer many of the questions that have come up over this past year. Thanks for your patience and continued support during our early growth. We have a accomplished a lot, but it is only the beginning.

Thanks,

Rob

P.S. There will be no conference call on Feb 3rd.

Dial in your driving and see what it really costs. You don,t want to miss this one.-Tim
(Click on picture)

By Solar Nation

January 4, 2008On the energy and environmental front, anyone following the presidential primaries today can make some fairly safe predictions about our sustainable future without even picking a winner from the thirteen major candidates. In its 2008 Voters’ Guide, the League of Conservation Voters has compared and tabulated the energy policies of all the presidential hopefuls (see tables below). The League doesn’t over-editorialize, but it’s clear from even an unbiased reading of their positions that the country will go in a diametrically different direction in 2009 depending largely on the party of the 44th president.

To compare the competing Democrats, one would think they were vying to establish which of them is the greenest one of all. And while this could be construed as one-upmanship at this point in the race, it’s also a good indication of how seriously each of them takes ‘green’ issues. They have all published detailed, thoughtful plans on how they would deal with the issues of energy independence and climate change, and what’s most encouraging about them is the extent to which they see the twin issues as interdependent. Here’s a simplified summary of their positions:

Issues	Clinton	Edwards	Kucinich	Obama
Mandatory cap & auction of pollution permits	Supports, with 100% auction	Supports, with 100% auction	Supports cap	Supports, with 100% auction
Carbon emission reduction	Supports 80% reduction by 2050	Supports ≥80% reduction by 2050	Supports 80% reduction by 2050	Supports 80% reduction by 2050
Fleetwide fuel efficiency	40 mpg by 2020, 55 mpg by 2030	40 mpg by 2016	40-45 mpg by 2017	52 mpg by 2026
National renewable electricity standard	25% by 2025	25% by 2025	30-40% by 2020	25% by 2025
Energy efficiency improvements	20% by 2020	15% by 2018	10% by 2020	50% by 2030
Emissions from coal plants	Supports phased-in carbon capture in new plants	Opposes new plants without carbon capture	Supports phaseout of all coal power & mining	Would consider banning new plants
Liquid coal development	Supportive if carbon pollution reduced by 20%	Opposed	Opposed	Supportive if carbon pollution reduced by 20%

For the most part, Republicans also talk up a storm on energy independence, but somehow miss the connection to climate change mitigation. This leads them to interpret our energy future mostly in terms of new nuclear power plants, old coal, clean coal, liquid coal and business-as-usual in Detroit and the oil states. Examining their positions on the same seven issues listed above, we see a wider spectrum of responses, ranging from mildly supportive to insouciant to frighteningly hostile:

Issues	Giuliani	Huckabee	McCain	Paul	Romney	Thompson
Mandatory cap and auction of pollution permits	Opposed	Supports, with no position on auction	Supports, with no position on auction	No stated position	Supports cap if enacted globally	No stated position
Carbon emission reduction	No stated position	No target specified	Supports 65% reduction by 2050	No stated position	No stated position	No stated position
Fleetwide fuel efficiency	Opposes mandatory action	35 mpg by 2020	General support, no targets	Opposed 33 mpg in 2005	Opposes as stand-alone measure	Opposed 35 mpg in 2002
National renewable electricity standard	Opposed	Supports 15% by 2020 (inc. nuclear & clean coal)	Supports state & local, not national, standards	No stated position	No stated position	Opposed 10% & 20% standard in 2002
Energy efficiency improvements	General support, no targets	General support, no targets	General support, no targets	No stated position	General support, no targets	General support, no targets
Emissions from coal plants	Supports conventional coal	Supports conventional coal	Supports carbon capture in new plants	Supports conventional coal	Supports conventional coal	Supports conventional coal
Liquid coal development	Supports liquid coal	No stated position	Will support liquid coal if pollution capture/control improves	No stated position	Supports liquid coal	Supports liquid coal

As can be seen, Governor Huckabee and Senator McCain lift themselves somewhat above their competitors with support for fuel efficiency and carbon emission limits, but with these exceptions noted, the Republican candidates seem to be sharing a generally reactionary platform. Candidate Ron Paul’s position on energy is perhaps scarier than most, as he does not appear to have given much thought to the seven major issues measured; on fuel efficiency and coal plants he has shown himself no friend to clean energy or the environment, while on the other five issues he hasn’t recorded any position whatsoever.

Giuliani’s and Thompson’s records show opposition to virtually everything beneficial to the environment, and support for continued use of coal in any form. And the campaign promise of the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, to bring large-scale clean energy technology to market, clashes with his public opposition to the nation’s largest proposed offshore wind project off the coast of the Bay State.

Overall, the impression given by the campaign literature of GOP hopefuls is that the energy/environmental debate has not been worthy of serious thought, nor has it featured in their spoken rhetoric as much as immigration, healthcare or the Iraq war. Compared with some of the Democratic candidates’ meticulously crafted plans with their targets, pricetags and deadlines, the Republican contenders seem to be paying lip service to an issue they know does not excite the general public. And so far as government support for clean energies such as solar is concerned, most of them mention it only as afterthoughts to ideas for increased use of coal, drilling in the ANWR and building more nuclear plants, measures that may offset some fossil fuel imports but will exacerbate environmental problems already approaching crisis levels.

So in this exercise in crystal ball gazing, you could probably get just as accurate a result with a two-dollar snowglobe. With Huckabee and McCain, and to a greater extent with the six Democrats, there is a sense of recognition of the comparative importance of the energy issue. It’s the recognition that whereas we can survive not finding a perfect solution to some of the more emotionally charged issues in politics today, we can’t survive a failure to address effectively—and on a national scale—the interrelated issues of energy and environment.

It’s also difficult to escape the conclusion that, in the event of a candidate in the mold of Giuliani, Paul, Romney or Thompson being sworn in next January, the brotherly relationship between the oil & gas industry and Government that characterized the Bush Administration will become, if anything, measurably cozier.

The rush to build power plants slows as worries grow over global warming, building costs and transportation.
By Judy Pasternak, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 18, 2008

WASHINGTON — America’s headlong rush to tap its enormous coal reserves for electricity has slowed abruptly, with more than 50 proposed coal-fired power plants in 20 states canceled or delayed in 2007 because of concerns about climate change, construction costs and transportation problems.

Coal, touted as cheap and plentiful, has been a cornerstone of President Bush’s plans to meet America’s energy needs with dozens of new power plants. Burned in about 600 facilities, coal produces more than half of the nation’s electricity.

But urgent questions are emerging about a fuel once thought to be the most reliable of all. Utilities are confronting rising costs and a lack of transportation routes from coal fields to generators, opposition from state regulators and environmental groups, and uncertainty over climate-change policies in Washington.

“Coal projects need more regulatory certainty before any new ones are going to get built in the near future,” said David Eskelsen, a spokesman for PacifiCorp, which serves more than 1.6 million customers in six Western states. “The current situation does make utility planning very challenging.”

Just a few weeks ago, PacifiCorp dropped plans for two coal-fired power plants in Utah, citing the many unknowns in assessing the costs and objections on global warming grounds from a major customer: the city of Los Angeles. PacifiCorp said in filings with the state of Utah that it hadn’t found a substitute for production that it will need to bring online in 2012 and 2014.

The setbacks have energy regulators jittery about the prospects for meeting America’s ever-increasing hunger for electricity. They say that any delays in building new capacity — coal-fired or otherwise — add pressure to an already strained electricity infrastructure, raising the prospect of shortages or sharply higher prices.

Energy planners say coal needs to be in the mix because the other mainstay fuels for generating electricity also have serious drawbacks. Natural gas has proved volatile in both price and supply. Nuclear power plants are costly and take much longer to build — and the problem of radioactive-waste disposal remains unsolved.

“We’re very close to the edge,” said Rick Sergel, who keeps a close eye on the grid as chief executive of the quasi-governmental North American Electric Reliability Corp. “We operate under tight conditions more often than ever. We need action in the next year or two to start on the path to having enough electricity 10 years from now.”

This fall, regulators in Kansas and Washington state denied applications for coal plant permits because of concerns about carbon dioxide emissions.

After Republican Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said in October that he wasn’t a “fan” of coal, utilities postponed plans to build coal plants in Tampa and Orlando.

Xcel Energy has told Colorado officials that it plans to close two coal plants and add 1,000 megawatts of wind and solar power, in addition to a new natural-gas plant. The company wants to cut its carbon dioxide emissions 10% by 2015.

In Nevada, Sierra Pacific Resources delayed construction of a coal plant and moved up the schedule for a natural-gas-powered plant instead.

The Tennessee Valley Authority decided in August to add a $2.5-billion unit to a nuclear power plant rather than construct a new coal facility — the other main option — because of the uncertain economics.

Altogether, 53 coal-fired plants were canceled or delayed in 2007, according to Global Energy Decisions, a private consulting firm that tracks power plants for the Department of Energy.

In the near term, coal clearly will remain a part of the American energy picture. Even as the postponements and terminations pile up, plans for new coal-fired power plants continue to advance in New Mexico, Mississippi and Indiana.

Although TXU Energy canceled eight coal-fired power plants it had proposed in Texas, the utility is going ahead with three others.

Last month, an energy industry consortium announced plans to build a government-subsidized power plant in southern Illinois to demonstrate low-emissions coal technology. But the ballooning cost of the FutureGen plant — now projected to be about $1.8 billion, nearly double its original estimated price tag — has drawn criticism from the Department of Energy, which could delay or kill the project by withholding funds.

The growing push in Washington to do something about global warming is a major factor that affects the cost of burning chunks of solid carbon, by far the dirtiest way to manufacture power.

A recent study by the industry-funded Electric Power Research Institute projects that coal power will cost more than nuclear power or natural gas by 2030 if coal’s carbon dioxide problem is solved the way most experts envision. Still unproven, that method involves separating carbon dioxide from the gas stream before it heads out of the stacks, collecting the vapors and then storing them underground. That would also require a new network of pipelines to move carbon dioxide from the power plant to a geologically sound site.

By Charles A. Breeding

Recall the opening scene in the blockbuster movie, Forrest Gump – a feather floating in the wind, up and down and all around with no control or sense of direction whatsoever. I would argue that many business people feel that awful feeling of being powerless, being blown around by the latest change of which they have no power, influence or sense of control. Helpless. It is not a good feeling.

Later in the movie, as Forrest’s son is about to leave for his first day of school, he asks his father a thought-provoking question: “Is life like a feather (I’m powerless over many events which affect me) or do I have destiny (I can set goals, and purposefully move toward them)?” Forrest’s answer: “ I guess it’s just a little bit of both, son.” Isn’t it?

Stuff Happens, says the cleaned-up version of the famous bumper sticker. Yet, 10% of success is what happens to you –90% of success is what you DO with what happens to you. In other words, do you respond or react? Do you quit, or get up and try again? Are you a golf club thrower, or do you recoup quickly? Do you let your feelings of resentment or anger get the best of you, or are you as cool as a cucumber in a crisis? Do you say things that you later regret? Or, when attacked, respond with calmly spoken, kind words, and perhaps make the other person regret their attack?

IQ or EQ?
Emotional Intelligence, sometimes abbreviated EI or EQ, in a takeoff of IQ, has become a hot management leadership consulting area in the last two years. Emotional skills have replaced experience and IQ or intelligence as the most important markers of personal success. EI is rooted in the belief that success is only partly explained by IQ, or one’s intellect. More important is how one behaves in response to events, and how well they interact with people.

Credit for popularizing EI concepts generally goes to Daniel Goleman, chief executive of Emotional Intelligence Services in Massachusetts and a former Harvard educator. Goleman reached the best seller list in 1995 with “Emotional Intelligence.”
The foundation of EI, says Goleman, is that “we are being judged by a different yardstick – not just by how smart we are, or by our training and expertise, but also by how well we handle ourselves and each other.”

And I would argue that the tests are how well we handle ourselves in a crisis, in conflict, in disagreement, and in dealing with problems. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

Kinder and Gentler
Goleman describes the results of a U.S. Navy study of its best commanding officers: “…the greatest difference between average and superior leaders was in their emotional style. The more effective leaders were more positive and outgoing, more emotionally expressive and dramatic, warmer and more sociable (including smiling more), friendlier and more democratic, more cooperative, more likable and ‘fun to be with,’ more appreciative and trustful, and even gentler than those who were merely average.” I guess that Dale Carnegie had much of it right over sixty years ago.

Improving EI is all about improving our relationships with others. Unlike IQ, however, emotional intelligence is a learned competence. Corporations, which spend small fortunes identifying, nurturing, and training their future leaders, have begun to zero in on emotional intelligence as a key component of management success.

So what else comprises EI? Goleman’s research shows that emotional intelligence — which includes such things as self-awareness, motivation, empathy/sensitivity, listening, self-regulation, accepting responsibility and accountability, and adeptness in relationships — may be up to 25 times as potent as IQ in determining workplace success.

An Example
John is a rising executive, who at 42 years old, has punched his ticket all the way to Executive Vice President at a utility. He’s extremely bright having graduated from one of the best graduate schools for MBA’s, and is a well above-average presenter and public speaker.

Recently, he was provided data about how his peers, subordinates and colleagues viewed him from an assessment instrument called “360 Feedback.” The results: John is seen as not a good listener; he takes delegated or empowered authority back in meetings when things aren’t going his way; he is seen as somewhat unapproachable because of his quick temper and growing reputation for shooting messengers; he is viewed as having problems giving feedback other than criticism of which he excels.

John’s first reaction to the feedback data is disbelief, followed by the same stages as facing pending, imminent death: denial, blaming, anger, and more. Yet, as the expert coaching intervention proceeds over time, he comes to give some credit of how he is perceived by others. “Perception IS reality,” he grudgingly admits.

Because of John’s eventual acceptance of this information, he has won 25% of the battle: awareness. He also has the desire to improve, the next 25% of the eventual victory. Many business leaders aren’t even aware of the impact that their style has on the respect, trust, commitment-level and motivation of their direct reports.

What to Do
One of the most critically important ways to begin to strengthen your emotional intelligence is to learn to accept full and complete responsibility — offering no excuses. This trait is not age-dependent or experience-driven, unfortunately. No passing the buck. Full accountability regardless of “extenuating circumstances.” Perhaps this is one reason that managers command the salaries that they do – they are responsible for what their team does, or fails to do, period.

Make a New Year resolution TODAY to work on your emotional intelligence. Leadership development, executive coaching, and even some classroom training (beyond the one-day seminar wonder) can and will have an effect on the critical interpersonal skills so important to emotional intelligence. If you are in the “fast-track” and want to stay there, success requires a solid emotional intelligence that often requires coaching to fully realize and achieve.

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« Two Personality Powers for Motivating Others

The Arlington Home and Garden Show runs Jan 4th-6th.  We are going to have a 20×20 booth with all 4 sides exposed.  This will be the first opportunity of 2008 to get your sales.  Everybody participating should be able to get the ten sales(most will get much more)needed to make it to Sales Manager.  Remember those who are Sales Managers are given free sales from the Home Office when a customer signs a CitizenRe agreement at the main website.

There will also not be a lower cost to work a show of this size.  I am offering this show for half the cost, $100 for 14 hours.  Consider it a Christmas present.  Right now we have 7 signed to work the event and still need 8 more.  Please let me know quickly so I can get you the information.

Have a Happy and Safe New Year’s celebration.
–
Louis Petrik
Senior Sales Director
(512) 569-5016