Joe Contrera is the Founder and President of ALIVE @ WORK LLC, a leadership development company dedicated to helping Extraordinary Leaders Achieve Extraordinary Results. He is the author of three books. His latest, Extraordinary Results: Mastering the Art of Leading, Coaching, & Influencing Others, is quickly becoming a must-have resource for leaders in organizations across the country. It will not only change what you believe about leading, it will help you build your leadership skills so that you can successfully influence others.
“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime.” ~ Babe Ruth As I reflect over the last twenty-six years of my business, I am struck the…
“Human beings have a strong dramatic instinct toward binary thinking, a basic urge to divide things into two distinct groups, with nothing but an empty gap in between.” ~ Hans Rosling The other day I was chatting with a client about the inner-workings at a gold mine. Like many organizations they seem to have an ongoing…
“Time waits for no one.” ~ Yasutaka Tsutsui We all experience times in life when you feel like you get a couple of fast balls thrown at you. They brush you back from the plate, grab your attention, or wake you up rudely. Life deals out it’s fair share of adversity, and it shows up…
“You may say I’m a dreamer, But I’m not the only one! I hope someday you’ll join us, And the world will be as one” ~John Lennon A number of years ago there was a series of Hewlett Packard commercials whose tag line were “What If?” Since then, a number of folks have adopted…
“You can fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” ~John Lydgate of Bury St Edmunds Abbey (c1370 -1451) In this time when the most spoken word in the English language seems to be artificial, I am observing an increase in…
“Do not fear the loud things that you see and hear, nearly as much as the quiet, silent things that sneak up on you when you stop paying attention.” ~ Joe Contrera Lately, I have observed and heard from folks about number of situations in business that have taken place in organizations that are…
“Accountability is the cornerstone of success. You cannot have one without the other!” ~Joe Contrera Most folks want to be successful. And, if we were being completely honest, most of us would also like for success to happen easily. Afterall, isn’t that why we buy lottery tickets, read self-help books, dream about a side-hustle,…
“Without the why, the how and the what don’t matter!” ~ Dr. Nido Qubein (Many years ago, before anyone wrote a book about “The Why,” my mentor and friend, Dr. Nido Qubein shared the above quote with me and it has impacted me almost everyday of my life. I hope it has the same impact…
“Happiness is an inside job.” ~William Arthur Ward In a world that seems to be filled with a whole lot of unhappy people I find that the decision to be happy falls solely on my shoulders. Sure, I can watch the news so I can blame the media, the president, congress, or all those…
“Changing an organization, a company, a country – or a world – begins with the simple step of changing yourself.” ~Tony Robbins If you think about the way most organizations choose a leader, it can be a bit mind-boggling at times. We take an individual contributor who is an excellent performer and promote them…