Home > Author > Marc A. Pitman
1 " Life's short. Live passionately. "
― Marc A. Pitman
2 " Fundraising is an extreme sport! "
― Marc A. Pitman , Ask Without Fear!: A Simple Guide to Connecting Donors with What Matters to Them Most
3 " Be careful of your tendency to blow off other people’s feelings. Emotions can slow down a process, but you will ultimately be even more efficient if you pause long enough to listen to the other person. "
― Marc A. Pitman , The Surprising Gift of Doubt: Use Uncertainty to Become the Exceptional Leader You Are Meant to Be
4 " Take time for yourself to find out who you are at the core. Knowing who you are apart from a group will make you even more effective in front of a group. "
5 " Learn to appreciate others around you. Their ability to enter into the fullness of your individuality doesn’t necessarily mean they are being inauthentic or shallow. "
6 " Be aware that although you do not need interactions with others, your team needs to interact with you. "
7 " Amassing knowledge about something is not the same thing as getting it done. Be wary of your habit of mistaking studying a topic as accomplishing goals. "
8 " Try to catch yourself going down the rabbit hole of planning for emergencies, especially when planning prevents you from acting. Your desire to explore all potential failures could be coming across as attacking your team’s intelligence. "
9 " Be aware of your amazing ability to reflexively reframe negative experiences into positive ones. Reframing can help people see the good in a situation, but it can also mask a deep-seated need to avoid slowing down or being bored. Many in your team will benefit from periods of slow and steady work. "
10 " As you work on identity, you will discover clues about yourself in three different types of stories: the stories you tell, the stories you like, and the stories you hear from others. You will be blown away by how much you will learn about the role you can play in your own story. "
11 " Stock stories tell your human operating system how to respond, how to habitually move through your life. "
12 " Stock plotlines—the themes people tell themselves so that they can build on the positive ones and create alternatives for the negative ones—happen in organizations and teams, and identifying them helps us decide whether we want to keep them or change them. "
13 " Too often in leadership, we unreflectively let the past dictate our leadership style. By working on your imaginary obituary, you use the future to shape your style too. We can’t change what has passed, but the future is still yet to be written. So, write it. "
14 " Pay attention to intuitional goals. When they appear, they come up for a good reason. They speak to your priorities and they might just support you in ways your more analytical side couldn’t dream of. "
15 " Developing a strategic plan—complete with cascading goals—is hard work. But it can energize you, your team, and provide focus for all your work together. "
16 " Weekly planning allows you the flexibility to work around inevitable interruptions and the focus to keep moving your most important goals forward. As you build this habit of the weekly review into your life, the repetition will keep prioritizing your most important goals and relationships. "
17 " Your personal style, mission, and values can be found in the overlay of hardwiring, identity, and goals. And when all of these qualities work together in you, you find integrity at your career. "
18 " Whichever your personal style, you can be an excellent leader. Being aware of your natural style can help you stand between a situation and your response. "
19 " Core values live where identity and goals overlap—they touch into who you are at your depths and how you express what is important to you through your actions. Take the time to start identifying what you value and communicate that and your company’s values through all levels of your organization. "
20 " Personal mission touches into the fundamental ways you operate and your professional and life goals. Developing even a rudimentary sense of your mission helps you navigate the pressures of leading. It acts like a compass, something you can check in on, to see if you’re still on track. "
