The Importance Of Character....

In Leadership From The Inside Out, the late Kevin Cashman makes a powerful distinction between character, the essence of who we are, and persona, the external personality we have created to cope with our everyday life. A leader who leads through character is guided by authenticity, while the one who leads from persona is guided by image.

The former has trust and compassion as foremost guiding principles, while the latter is concerned about fear and self-interest. The leader who leads through character is focused on creating value and contribution rather than winning at all costs. Such a leader values openness and inclusion, shunning control and exclusion, the hallmarks of the leader who is driven by image.
Here are a few tips to inspire you in your leadership journey:
1. Make values actionable
Living your values every day is an important aspect of character in action. Companies go through considerable expense having consultants craft value statements that, unfortunately, end up being nothing more than motherhood statements hanging on the wall in the reception lobby. Prevent this from happening by making values actionable. “We value open communication” is vague and left to interpretation. Consider what happens if you clarify this by adding: “There are no sacred cows in this team.”
2. Be known as a promise-keeper
In The Leadership Challenge, authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner consider “Model the Way” through personal example and dedicated execution, as a foundational practice for admirable leaders. One way to put this into action is to keep your promises, to do what you say you will do. No matter how small the promise is, no matter who the promise is made to, strive to keep your word. While events may well prevent us from honoring commitments we made, don’t let a commitment slip by without getting back to people to let them know why you can’t fulfill your promise. Resolve to handle your word as precious currency and watch how your value rises in everyone’s eyes.
3. Don’t take shortcuts in quality
As Henry Ford put it: “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.” Do you preach to your team that quality is an important value, yet when there is a crisis, you find yourself telling people to take shortcuts at the expense of quality in order to get the order out the door? Every time you do this, it erodes your authenticity in the eyes of your constituents. Eventually, when you speak about quality, they will discount it as lip service.
4. Be consistent in your dealings with others
Do you treat some people in your organization or team better than you treat others? For example, do you unwittingly complain about a member of your team to other team members? While we can easily slip into such behavior, especially when we are tired and frustrated by the day’s events, consider that this chips away at your integrity as a leader.
5. Audit your decisions
At the end of every week, get in the habit of going over each decision you made. Did your focus on the bottom line cause you to forget the impact on some people? Did your biases affect the objectivity of your actions? Are you proud? Do your actions reflect positively on you as a person of character? What could you have done better? Every action we take, no matter how small, has our character stamp on it.
According to Biology Letters’ “Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting,” one of the reasons we are more civilized when we know we are being watched is due to concerns about our reputation. Reputation is the quality or character that other people attribute to us; it’s the surface layer. It’s our carefully crafted profile on Facebook; it’s the multitude of recommendations that are posted on our LinkedIn profile.
Character, on the other hand, is what is deep inside us; it’s who we are on a daily basis, when things go well and when things go wrong. It’s who we are in the boardroom as well as in our living room. We have reason to be proud when both reputation and character are a mirror image of each other. Abraham Lincoln put it this way: “Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”  Bruna Martinuzzi President, Clarion Enterprises Ltd
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My whole point in posting this was to make folks think about who they are recommending and why?  Is it someone or company with Character and Integrity? or is it someone you just met and liked but have no real knowledge of their company or character. 

So many times in life we pass the day away with no real thought other than to make sure everything is taken care.  No thought of how we are affecting others with our decisions.....

Let's start the new year with a bolder vision of who we truly are both in the professional and personal venue.  By bolder vision, I meant take your expectations of 2012 and go ahead and increase it by 10%.  Sit down and find out why you hamper yourself with the constraints we put on ourselves everyday because we do not have this or that.  If we put away the negative thinking and do a weekly "Character" check of our decisions I truly feel 10% is a no-brainer to achieve in a yearly basis.
Tonie Boaman, Dash Notary

Are we TRULY open 24 hours 365 days a year?

This question constantly seems to come up, even other notary folks ask this of other notaries.  Here was my reply:

yes, Dash Notary is truly 24 hours and 365 days a year. I went back over our records and see that we did over 90 signings of various types between the hours of 10pm and 6am for the year of 2011. So overall is it tons of signings? No, but we get more clients from those same signing because of the referrals. The clients that truly need our services are more than willing to help you out by reusing and referring more than the "standard hour" clients. They truly value the service(s) that we provide.

5 Reasons You Need a Will:

1. Support your loved ones financially If you own property and have investments and retirement accounts, a will can help you organize these assets and divide them among your family and friends. The mere fact of having a will and appointing an estate administrator can ensure that your assets go to where they are needed as quickly as possible. Plus, even if you don't have many assets to pass on, creating a will can save your family the costs of estate administration down the road.

2. Take care of your children when you're gone While wills are most often associated with money, what makes them truly valuable is their ability to help you care for your family. If you have children or are the main caretaker of an elderly or sick relative, you'll want to make sure that they are taken care of by someone you approve of after you are gone. You can use a will to name a guardian for your children or other dependents, someone who shares your values and concerns for your loved ones. Without a will, or even without such a provision in your will, your children could become wards of the state.

3. Make your wishes and preferences known If you have something specific in mind for your memorial service, are particularly attached to a certain charity, or have a certain family heirloom that you'd like to set aside for one of your relatives, make these known in your will. Unless you write down your wishes, your family may not be able to carry them out, either because they have no way of knowing what it is you wanted, or there is disagreement among them. By setting down your preferences, you'll ease the stress on your loved ones who are left to handle your affairs, since they can always look to the provisions of your will for guidance.

4. Plan for your family's particular dynamic, not just your state's laws In this day and age, many individuals have children or assets from different marriages. If you don't create a will before you die, your state's laws may leave everything to your spouse or to your next of kin. If you would like to spread your property differently, you'll need to make a will that specifically addresses your situation. Because these circumstances change throughout your life, it's important to revise your will after any major life events, such as marriages, divorces, childbirth or adoptions, retirement, or even death of a relative.

5. Peace of mind There's no reason not to make a will - it helps your family emotionally and financially, it's one of the most straightforward estate planning documents you can create, and for the next month, it's free if you create your will online with Rocket Lawyer! 

*I always advise the use of an attorney with any legal documents you may not fully understand.