Inspire ME Friday: Find Your Passion, Create Your Focus, And Success Will Follow.

"Success depends on focus. Focus depends on passion. Find your passion, create your focus, and success will follow."

Good Morning Folks,

A client sends this morning's inspirational message to share:



==> Get Inspired: Find Your Passion, Create Your Focus, And Success Will Follow 
by Ton De Graaf

Just watched the October 19th special event, filmed live at the Apple campus in Cupertino, California where Apple celebrated Steve's life. What a legacy that man leaves behind, just awesome. From a business and executive coach's perspective (yep, that's me) a few thoughts:

Only great leaders create great companies. Great leaders will challenge and inspire their people in their quest for excellence. People will only experience a feeling of pride when they worked hard for their success. If success comes easily, overnight, without too much effort, pride will not enter the equation.

The quest for excellence never stops and is all around. In every piece of packaging. Every swipe of the finger. Every "How can I help you?" 

Everything.

And it doesn't matter just some of the time. It matters all of the time. A great leader must be able to light that spark of continuous improvement within each and every employee. One cannot become motivated just because the boss says so. Only intrinsically motivated people are able to amaze themselves and as a result amaze the world.

Whether you're making a product or offering a service, it all starts with the passion you have for whatever you do and the ability you have to focus your energy to become successful. A great leader creates a clear and compelling vision that makes people passionate.

Success depends on focus. Focus depends on passion.  

Find your passion, create your focus, and success will follow.

The people at Apple have a passion, they've created their focus and became extremely successful by creating products that amazed the world and we now all love.....and that's an emotion.

And it all started with one man and his quest for excellence who became successful by connecting his business to emotions and emotions to business and by attracting passionate people to make it all happen. Quite an accomplishment.

Just some thoughts.....

Like at Apple, the single most  important thing about our culture is, it never wears off. It doesn’t go away. It’s there every day, and it has a huge impact on everything that matters to every business we serve. 

We have the best people in the industry from our mail rooms, front of house, office services, Experience Directors, Regional Directors, Future Leaders and everyone in HQ, to our Executive Leadership Team, marketing, finance, operations, sales and people solutions. There are so many people willing to help our employees at FSO that they can learn from, to make them better in their careers.

For our clients, our commitment to exceeding your expectations, ensuring that every single teammate is the best trained and best prepared employee they can be is what sets us apart!

As Shalaine would say, "Have a great day filled with purpose & love; make each moment count!! LET’S ROCK IT!!!"

Have a GREAT weekend!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

Read inspiring messages from our employees HERE

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“If you do not go after go after what you want, you will never have it. 

If you do not ask, the answer will always be NO. 

If you do not step forward, you will always be in the same place."

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About Ton De Graaf: Ton is one of the very few coaches in the world who is designated by the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches as a Chartered Business Coach™ (ChBC™) after a vigorous and independent assessment conducted by the Middlesex University and the Professional Development Foundation in the UK

Ted Tuesday: "You've Got To Find What You Love,"Jobs says

"Hands down the best career talk ever given. EVER! Jobs urged the Stanford graduating class of 2005 to courageously follow their heart and intuition, just as he did. He encouraged them to give their inner voice a chance and not suppress it by giving in to others' opinions."

Good Morning Folks,

Today we revisit one of the most memorable and classic speeches ever— one that Steve Jobs gave to a group of graduating young students from the University of Stanford beginning a new journey of their lives: How to Live Before You Die (& not spend your life hating what you do)

I believe this is hands down the best career talk ever given. Ever. I’ve watched it over a dozen times. Not originally a TED talk, but now one of their top videos. This commencement speech garnered over 8 million views in a single day on YouTube, the day after Jobs' death. As I write this post, the speech now has over 15 million views.

Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life's setbacks -- including death itself -- at the university's 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005.

"You've  got to find what you love," Jobs says

What was so special about Steve Jobs' words that day which made a lasting impression on many? It was straight from the man's heart. And secondly, there was much to reflect upon in terms of the embedded message encouraging youngsters even today to achieve their best.

In his three part speech, Jobs talked about how one's past can influence one's future, stumbling upon both love and loss and coming face-to-face with death. Jobs shared many personal moments from his life right from when he started as a college student till the day he discovered he had cancer. 

Jobs narrated his experiences when he had dropped out of college and so didn't have a dorm room. He slept on the floor of friends' rooms, returned coke bottles for 5 cent deposits to buy food and walked 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. He wanted to convey that the past had an important role to play in his present.

Jobs continued to talk about how he was fired from Apple, which was the biggest turning point of his career. Being jobless for a few months, Jobs thought it was all over until his perspective changed and he began to see this as an opportunity. He went on to start NeXT and Pixar, and during this time Jobs also fell in love with Laurene, whom he eventually married. In turn of events, Apple bought NeXt and Jobs returned to Apple, a move he never thought would've been possible.

Jobs urged the Stanford graduating class of 2005 to courageously follow their heart and intuition, just as he did. He encouraged them to give their inner voice a chance and not suppress it by giving in to others' opinions.

Here's Steve:

Full  of Steve Jobs' address

The sprit of Steve Jobs is very much alive today at FSO as we consistently strive to help our clients discover and (re)imagine new and better ways of doing business.

Every day, people search for something that motivates them. Things to get them out of bed, things to get them pumped up, things to help them make it through the day and so much more! What a great thing to be able to say about your job!

As in the locations that I am lucky enough to visit this week, each site employee, YOU, are the FSO difference! You're commitment to service, to exceed the client’s expectations, to notice that detail, to have that SKIP, FIRE, TWINKLE is uniquely FSO.  

The employee and client lovefest could not be stronger and I could not be more fired up!!

Thanks to NDTV for their inspiration putting this together and most of all to you for listening.


Have a GREAT day. Love LIFE!

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

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"If you resist change, you fail. If you accept change, you survive. 
If you create change, you succeed" ~~Mike Schlappi
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InspireME: Push Yourself and DARE TO BE GREAT!

“It had long sense come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them… they went out and happened to things.”

Good Morning Folks,

This is Friday, InspireME Friday to be exact, the day of the week day when MitchWeiner.com sends you off to your weekend on a high note. Because, achievement begins with an inspiration. 

For the past few weeks we've gotten great response selecting and sharing with the world some very special motivational messages that our own employees, from all walks of the company, publish internally every day.

Yesterday I did a roundup, Linking YOU UP to an archive of the best of these best posts. But we are just getting started.

To cap off an amazing week today's author, New York Sales Rockstar Taylor Miller, returns for her second guest blog. Her first share, "If Your Dreams Don’t Scare You, They Aren’t Big Enough" —in just three weeks— because the most viewed post in all of the first year and 300 posts we've done since launching the blog inJune of 2013.

I love Taylor's message that follows:

Today I want to start everyone’s day with this simple, but very powerful quote: 

“It had long sense come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them… they went out and happened to things.” 

As a kid I remember my parents pushing me every single day to be the best athlete, student, daughter, friend etc. that I could be. At times, when it came to putting in the extra work, whether that being homework, extra track workouts, or going out of the way to help someone else, I remember resisting to go that extra mile. 

Being the daughter of a professional athlete, I remember one thing my Dad always said to me that truly struck a chord. “You know Tay, I wasn’t always the best. Sure I had some natural talent, but from the age of 14 I realized to be great and to fulfill my dream of playing in the NHL, I would have to work harder than everyone else every single day to get there. I pushed myself on the track until I couldn’t walk anymore, I drove hours out of my way to play on the best teams and to get the best training when my friends were playing outside. I studied like crazy to and from practice and you know what I have never once let that work ethic slip away through high school, college, my NHL career and even now. No matter what it is you do in life, do it with everything you have, because you only have one shot.” 

As I got older, something inside me changed and I truly understood the meaning of hard work and my Dad’s stories. I understood that greatness doesn’t just simply happen, but greatness is made. Greatness is reached by training, running the extra mile, studying an hour longer than everyone else and truly pushing yourself to your limit each day. I realized that someone else can only encourage and push you so far, but your destiny is truly up to you and your life is what YOU make it! 

I started pushing myself on the track until I fell over, driving hours out of my way to play on the best soccer teams and to get the best training, putting countless hours of studying in to and from practice and truly putting in the extra mile at everything I do no matter if it is relationships, school, soccer, work etc. That work ethic resulted in a college soccer career and now has turned into a great opportunity at FSO where I continue to push myself each day! 

So today I encourage you to be great. No matter what your role is in this company, Mitch can only push you so far. You must find your inner drive on your own and push yourself to make that extra phone call, visit that extra client site, go out of your way to make someone’s day, smile even though sometimes you may not feel like it and always extend a hand because every new opportunity and person you meet could be a road to a beautiful journey. 

Take chances, push yourself and always remember you have a team behind you every step of the way in FSO.

DARE TO BE GREAT!

Taylor! 

Congratulations and thank you Tay. We are all very proud of you and honored to have you in our company. For those clients and prospective clients reading this, you can't get a better feel for the spirit and integrity of FSO then the impression you takeaway when you hear how our folks think.

At FSO we are ready to embark on more great weeks. From our great front end machine to our delivery system and everything in between, we are continuing to make excellent progress in all areas of our organization. 

I know as your CEO, and as Taylor's message addresses, that each and everyone of you have it within. You have the power, the passion. The desire and the know how to get it done and get more done. 

THINK TODAY. How do I come to my glorious career differently tomorrow than yesterday?

THINK about the people who you interact with each day and get to know them and engage them so you can take them along with you…sometimes it is the obvious staring us in the face that we don’t see…what are the perceptions, habits, beliefs? 

Acknowledge and show your appreciation to your team…trust me, catching someone doing something great and letting them know how much you value them will make their day!

I know that I am very much inspired and look forward to continuing to make a difference. 

I hope you are excited too…we are a company truly driven by a Vision.  

Lots to be thankful for and excited about….have a wonderful day, make it personal, and (re)imagine! 

Have a Happy, Healthy, Safe and Refreshing Weekend,

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

Inspire ME Friday: Taylor Miller— "If Your Dreams Don’t Scare You, They Aren’t Big Enough”

"You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can't do is ignore them."

Good Morning Folks,

I often refer to the wonderful motivational messages that are being communicated throughout the week internally at FSO by folks from all walks of the company.

Today I'd like to share a recent message from Taylor Miller, one of our sales rockstars and the hardest working advocate of outsourcing and FSO that I know. Taylor....

Dreams. Today I want to talk about Dreams. Having a dream, turning that dream into a vision, turning that vision into a possibility, into an opportunity and finally into a reality. 

Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Reagan, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs…When you think back to the most influential figures in history, you will notice they all shared a common trait. They all had the ability to dream. They all had the ability to look outside of the box and feverishly test the status quo. They refused to take no for an answer and they made a decision to push the human race forward. Whether these great heroes stood for equality or creating a world of fantasy and imagination, they changed our world.

Someone we all know also had a dream. A dream that started with an idea in 2008, turned into a vision, a possibility, an opportunity and finally a reality in 2014. A vision in which the hourly demographic is given a CHANCE to make their dreams a reality. A dream that hospitality and customer service must be brought to life, as it is truly a dying art in our society today. “All I need is 6,000 good people”, he says, “6,000 passionate people and trust me kids those 6,000 will begin to change our world”. All he needed were people to believe in his vision, his creativity, and his competitive edge. While some call it madness, I think we can all agree we all saw genius.

The 2,000 employees, 60+ cities and 225+ client sites speak for themselves that dreams are truly possible. If you work hard enough, stay positive, push the status quo and most importantly DARE TO BE GREAT every single day, good things start to happen.

I can personally attest that success starts with a mindset. A mindset to push yourself to be the BEST you can be each day.

Sleepily walking into a crowded airport terminal and finding my place amongst the noise, I never thought I would discover a piece of my destiny that day. As I sat, I browsed my notes on the week’s interviews before pulling an over sized textbook out of my bag that read “The Art of Sports Broadcasting”. I was a senior in college, the world before me, skills at my finger tips, but not able to recognize exactly what it was I should be doing. Not until I met Mitchell Weiner anyway.

I’ve never had anyone have a 15 minute conversation with me and look into my soul the way Mitchell did. He saw my drive, goals, optimism, ambition, tenacity, ability to talk to just about anyone, ability to engage, my honest interest in the lives of others and on and on… He made me realize that both my natural, perfected and unique skills I’d acquired over the years went hand in hand with sales.

To him, I am eternally grateful for believing in me, for taking a chance on a kid who had a dream to be something great and was willing to work even harder to get there. I, like the rest of you, believed in Mitch just as much as he believed in me. I believed in FSO, the journey and the vision of not only the FSO that is already standing, but the road of triumph and tribulations it would take to build it even further.

With that being said…

“Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They invent. They imagine.
They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire.
They push the human race forward.
Maybe they have to be crazy.
How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art?
Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written?
Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?
While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,
are the ones who do...” ~~Jack Kerouac 

This is from Apple's "Think Different" ad campaign that launched the brand in corporate graphics departments while the world around it worked on MS Office whose WORD compatibility with OSX made it all possible. Actor Richard Dryfuss narrated there spots you heard, but as a special treat, here is a RARE version of the spot narrated by Steve Job's himself. It's called a "scratch track that is used as a placeholder until the narration and edited sequences are finalized.

As Forbes wrote about the campaign, "For any investor assessing innovation, creative destruction and disruptive technologies it’s a must to find the outliers. The standouts are not the technologies themselves but the zealous missionary people who conjure up the big new ideas and champion them to everyone else.

One strategy to find them early is to find the people who seem like their brains are on fire. Passion can be the best predictor of success in venture capital, where so much else is uncertain.

The same intensity celebrated in Steve Jobs can be seen in artists and musicians that straddle the thin line between eccentric genius and insanity.

It’s been said that genius is recovery of childhood at will. And Aristotle said that no great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness."

At FSO, our ability to (re)IMAGINE a future very different than exists today and surround ourselves with passionate, open minded people who always have our client's future success at heart, make FSO the Apple of its industry. The disruptor. The innovator. The better alternative.

Competition: Hear us loud and clear. We are coming for you.

Bravo Taylor Miller. Amazing message and THANK YOU FOR BELIEVING.  

Do you have the courage to change things? Think different. 

Here's to you Mr. Jobs... Peace be with you...

Have a Happy, Healthy, Safe and Refreshing Weekend,

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

InspireME Friday: Remembering Steve Wow 'Em Every Time

"Every Steve Jobs  presentation builds up to one big scene. In past year's Macworld keynote, it  was the announcement of MacBook Air. To demonstrate just how thin it is, Jobs  said it would fit in an envelope."

Welcome to the weekend, friends:

Steve Jobs Sold the Steak, Sizzle and Wowed 'Em Every Time... whether you're applying for a job or about to introduce your company to a customer or your own new product to the world... here's how you can Wow 'Em too.

1.  Set the theme. "There is something in the air today." With those words, Jobs  opened Macworld.

2. Demonstrate enthusiasm. Jobs shows his passion for  computer design. During his presentation he used words like "extraordinary,"  "amazing," and "cool." When demonstrating a new location feature for the  iPhone, Jobs said, "It works pretty doggone well."

3. Provide an  outline. Jobs outlined the presentation by saying, "There are four things I  want to talk about today. So let's get started…"

4. Make numbers  meaningful. When Jobs announced that Apple had sold 4 million iPhones to date,  he didn't simply leave the number out of context. Instead, he put it in  perspective by adding, "That's 20,000 iPhones every day, on  average."

5. Try for an unforgettable moment. This is the moment in  your presentation that everyone will be talking about. Every Steve Jobs  presentation builds up to one big scene. In past year's Macworld keynote, it  was the announcement of MacBook Air. To demonstrate just how thin it is, Jobs  said it would fit in an envelope.

Thanks to Steve Jobs and Business Week and to you for listening.

Happy, Healthy, Safe and Refreshing Weekend,

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

. . . . . ..  . . . . . . . . . . ..  . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . ..  "“You have three names: One that you inherit,  one  that your parents give you,  and one that you make for yourself.” . . . . . . . . ..  . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..  .

RECRUITMENT OPEN HOUSE! 
Immediate openings: 
• Hospitality Services Concierge Security • Messenger Services Office 
Services Mailroom • Sales HR Operations • Record Management Marketing IT 

When: Tues. January 21st, 2014 7:00am – 5:00pm Wed. January, 22nd, 2014 12:00pm – 8:00pm 

Where: FSO 18-22 West 45th Street, 9th Floor New York, NY, 10036