Friday, December 30, 2011

Fresh Page

“Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to the circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.”

Henry Ward Beecher

I’ve Been Thinking . . . about the New Year. A fresh page. A blank slate. Another hole in the belt buckle – one way or the other.

Prior to 1995 the Northwestern Wildcats football teams were the most notorious losers in the Big Ten, and probably in college football. They set an NCAA record by losing thirty-four consecutive games between 1979 and 1982. Although each year brought the possibility of a “fresh page," they didn’t have a winning season in twenty-four years.

Then in 1995, the Wildcats finished the season 10-2, won the Big Ten Conference title, and participated in the Rose Bowl ranked eighth in the nation.

In an essay entitled “Good Guys Finish First (Sometimes),” Andrew Bagnato relayed this experience.

Following a rags-to-riches season that led them to the Rose Bowl – their first in decades – Northwestern University’s Wildcats met with Coach Gary Barnett for the opening of spring training.

As players found their seats, Barnett announced that he was going to hand out the awards that many Wildcats had earned in 1995. Some players exchanged glances. Barnett does not normally dwell on the past. But as coach continued to call players forward and handed them placards proclaiming their achievements, they were cheered on by their teammates.

One of the other coaches gave Barnett a placard representing his seventeen national coach-of-the-year awards. Then, as the applause subsided, Barnett walked to a trash can marked “1995.” He took an admiring glance at his placard; then dumped it in the can.

In the silence that followed, one by one, the team’s stars dumped their placards on top of Barnett’s. Barnett had shouted a message without uttering a word: “What you did in 1995 was terrific, lads. But look at the calendar: It’s 1996.”

No matter what your past has been, you have a spotless future. The past isn’t your present and the present doesn’t determine the future. The future is a blank canvas waiting to be fashioned, designed and constructed one piece at a time. The only way to create an original future is to leave the past behind.

The successes, challenges, joys, disappointments, failures and awards of the past are history. Learn from them. Leave them there. Look to the future. This is the time to create your future – you’re going to live the rest of your life there.

Don’t be like the guy who walked by a little shop with a sign reading “Fortune Teller.” Discouraged, disappointed with his past and curious about his life, he decided to consult with the mystic and ask for a glimpse into his future.

The fortune- teller looked in her crystal ball and slowly raised her eyes to meet with her client’s.


“What did you see?” he asked.


“You’ll be poor, unhappy and miserable until you’re fifty.”


“Then what?” asked the man with desperation in his voice.


“By that time,” the fortune–teller said, “You’ll get used to it.”

The future isn’t something to ‘get used to.’ Determine today that your spotless future will be filled with aspirations, adventures, action, and anticipatory energy. Don’t allow the past or the present to sideline your future potential. Let the wisdom of Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher (multi-tasker) Miguel de Unamuno rattle your thinking a bit. He asserted, “We should try to be the parents of our future rather than the offspring of our past.” Powerful!

Get specific about where you are going this year. What pieces of the past do you need to let go? What do you want to experiment with? Who will you build a relationship with? What risks are you willing to take? What is it you’ve wanted to do but just haven’t had the get up and go to do? How will the future be different from the past?

It is time! Your best days are still ahead. . . Create a fresh page. Today.

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”

Carl Bard

Andrew Bagnato, Chicago Tribune Magazine, September 1, 1996

Monday, December 19, 2011

How’s Your Gratitude Aptitude?

Christmas is most truly Christmas when we celebrate it by giving the light of love to those who need it most."

Ruth Carter Stapleton

I’ve Been Thinking. . . it is the perfect time of the year for me to refine my attitude of gratitude.

I can’t believe that Christmas 2011 is knocking at our door. It has been quite a year of local, national and international roller coaster experiences. Sometimes we might feel like we just want to stop the ride and get off. At other times we enjoy the thrill each day brings despite the discouraging news that invades our lives. We’re all at different stages, perspective, and demands in our lives.

The economic uncertainty, international unrest and political contentiousness have impacted everyone to some degree. The paper, television and internet are loaded with exasperating stories of financial challenge, ravaging devastation, personal ruin and the collapse of governments. Stress and anxiety about the future have penetrated the hearts of millions. In some way, all of our attitudes, emotions, plans for the future and perception of today have been challenged.

And yet, there is reason to celebrate. Christmas is a time for joy, despite the circumstances. Sure, the family celebrations, traditions, decorations and the memories we create are important. But, there is even a greater opportunity to impact and enrich our lives. There is an overriding message in every Christmas moment and it began when God decided to GIVE us the gift of Jesus. That gift alone should prompt our generous spirits and grateful hearts.

Anne Keegan’s article “Blue Christmas” was a collection of Christmas stories told by Chicago police officers. One was the story of George White.

George lived in a rented room at the YMCA. He had one set of clothes, shoes wrapped with rubber bands to keep the soles from flopping, and a threadbare black overcoat. He spent his mornings napping in an old metal chair by the heater in the back of the 18th District office.

Two officers, Kitowski and Mitch, took an interest in the old man, occasionally slipping him a few bucks. They found out that Billy the Greek over at the G & W grill gave him a hot breakfast every morning, no charge.

The two policeman and their families decided to have George as their guest for Christmas dinner. They gave him presents, which he unwrapped carefully.

As they drove him back to the Y, George asked, “Are these presents really mine to keep?” They assured him they were. “Then we must stop at the G & W before I go home,” he said. With that, George began rewrapping his presents.

When they walked into the restaurant, Billy the Greek was there as always. “You been good to me, Billy,” said George. “Now I can be good to you. Merry Christmas.” George gave all his presents away on the spot. Chicago Tribune Magazine (12/24/95)

Generosity is natural when a grateful attitude prevails. It is amplified when we realize our responsibility to give as we have been given. How’s your gratitude aptitude? Consider these penetrating thoughts as we enter the Christmas season.


Attitude of Gratitude

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep... you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace... you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.

If you woke up this morning with good health you are more fortunate than the million who will not survive this week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle unfolding all around you, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation... you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can attend a church meeting without fear of persecution, harassment, arrest, torture, or death... you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

If your parents are still alive and still married...you are very rare, even in the United States.
If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.

Author Unknown

Don’t let the condition of a fickle world rob you of the incomparable blessing to Give with a grateful and generous heart. Develop, nurture and encourage a life of gratitude and generosity no matter what the circumstances. Even if your situation or condition never changes, your attitude toward them can change -- and this can be life-changing.

Determine to make this Christmas truly special by giving to someone in a way you’ve never done before. Amplify your Gratitude Aptitude by giving of yourself. . .

Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we're here for something else besides ourselves.

Eric Sevareid

Monday, December 5, 2011

The Good Life

“The good life is when you wake up in the morning and can’t wait to start all over again.”

Some Smart Person

I’ve Been Thinking. . . about the Good Life.

Some things never change. What day of the year did I always wake up early as a kid? Christmas Morning! I loved Christmas morning!

Why?

Dah! Presents.

When I went to bed Christmas Eve I knew tomorrow was going to be a great day. I believed, without a doubt, my parents had found the perfect present for me and I couldn’t wait to unwrap it to see what it was. Positive anticipation prompted me out of bed.

How does the Christmas morning experience compare to the way you woke up this morning? What does Christmas morning have to do with living the good life?

What if we viewed each new day as a specially selected gift for us to unwrap and discover? We might be on to something.

Let me draw from the wisdom of a few wise people to provide a glimpse of what might help us experience the Good Life. Mark Twain lamented, “I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can’t find anybody who can tell me what they want.”

How true Mr. Twain! It would be a lot easier to achieve what you want out of life if you knew what it was you wanted. If you get up in the morning excited about starting all over again; Congratulations! If you’re looking to drag your way through another day; my condolences!

Figure out what you want and you’re well on your way to the Good Life.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Payne Stewart play golf. His flamboyant outfits, highlighted by knickers along with his equally flamboyant personality, complimented by his passion for the game endeared many fans. Payne definitely stood out from the norm. So did his attitude about life.

He’s my next wise person. Payne once reflected: “I’m going to a special place when I die, but I want to make sure my life is special while I’m here.”

I once heard someone describe their life like this: “Each day is just yesterday warmed up!” Same old people. Same old problems. Same old work. All just disguised a little differently than the day before. That is not the kind of ‘special’ Payne Stewart was referring to.

There is a mental, emotional, physical and spiritual aptitude difference between each day being ‘special’ and yesterday’s leftovers ‘reheated’. The best part is . . . we get to determine what our aptitude will be.

Choose carefully.

Roger Dawson is my next wisdom contributor. “Good things don’t happen to you. Bad things don’t happen to you. Life is what happens to you. The more you examine the events in your life and categorize them into good things and bad things, the more messed up you’re going to become.”

Life isn’t good! Life isn’t bad! Life is life! Stuff happens!

One day, Joe came home from work and his wife greeted him with a passionate hug and warm kiss. “I’ve got good news and bad news,” she said as they ended the embrace.

Joe swallowed hard and suggested she give him the good news first.

His wife managed a slight smile as she said, “the good news is, the air bag works.”

Indifferent. Unfortunate. Blessing. Travesty. Glorious. This is a sampling of the adjectives we could use to describe the events in our life. Instead, look at them for what they are – events, and then determine ways to use them to shape your destiny.

Circumstances do not determine the Good Life or lack of it. Capitalize on the knowledge, insight and wisdom gained from these valuable experiences as a springboard to thinking about how you want things to be.

Ruth Boorstin reminded us, “Our days are identical suitcases – all the same size – but some people pack more into them than others.”

Pack your suitcase with good life ‘stuff.’

“The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.”

Bertrand Russell

Monday, November 21, 2011

Don’t Eat The Goodies If You Can’t Pay The Bill

“The more I learn the more I realize I don’t know, and the more I realize I don’t know the more I want to learn.”

Albert Einstein


“The more I learn the more I realize I don’t know, and the more I realize I don’t know the more I want to learn.”

Albert Einstein

I’ve Been Thinking. . . how much I’ve learned in these few short years on earth. I’m especially reflective on the simple experiences that taught me the most.

Learning has little to do with intelligence or talent. It has everything to do with exposing yourself to unfamiliar experiences, untapped people, and new directions. These resources arouse your curiosity, peak your interest, stretch your imagination and help create a spirit of adventure.

I stayed in a hotel recently that reminded me of an experience I had several years ago. (Keep in mind I was a young, naïve, inexperienced traveler) I made my first speaking trip to San Francisco. The flight was irregular, to say the least, and I traveled several hours without the opportunity to grab a bite to eat. By the time I reached the downtown Marriott Hotel I was famished.

This was a great hotel! They had a refrigerator in my room stocked with beverages and snacks I could enjoy. The room rates were indeed expensive enough to offer such a perk but I wasn’t expecting it. I indulged until satisfied and then made my way downstairs for a meeting with the seminar organizers. That evening I once again enjoyed a cold beverage and gourmet cookie.

When I entered my room after speaking the next day, I noticed an envelope on top of the refrigerator. Much to my chagrin it was a bill for $18.95 to pay for the goodies I had enjoyed the day before. I hadn’t seen the price sheet when removing the items, so naively assumed these amenities were free.

I learned a valuable lesson, all for less than twenty dollars (that’s a cost of one cookie these days inside of one of those money snatchers). And, as far as anyone else knew (up until now) the whole event was natural, planned, without embarrassment. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t resist telling the story.

I agree with Archibald MacLeish; “There’s only one thing more painful than learning from experience, and that is not learning from experience.” I learned from my hotel experience a lesson I have no intention of repeating.

Being naive is one way to learn but I wouldn’t suggest it as your only avenue for seeking new information and sampling the smorgasbord of life. In fact, lifelong learners are continually launching consciously planned endeavors that allow them to enjoy well rounded meals from the buffet line. They have an insatiable appetite for the “ah-hah’s” of life. Lifelong learners are just that because of their desire to expand their capacity and achieve personal mastery.

You can continue today the same as yesterday. Or you can choose to pursue a lifestyle of continual learning that ignites a fire of desire within you, and begin to experience and learn things you never thought existed. Kahlil Gibran once said, “Desire is half of life; indifference is half of death.” Desire can’t be taught. It’s a choice.

Be willing to experiment. With my lawn mower tipped on its side, I struggled to remove the blade so I could get it sharpened. I normally take the entire mower in to the repair shop to get the blade sharpened but decided I would experiment with doing it myself. Finally, when my biggest crescent wrench wouldn’t budge the nut, I slipped a pipe over the wrench handle for more leverage. No movement. Now I’m jumping on the pipe. Still no success. I’m now desperate. So, I loaded the entire mower in my car and off to the repair shop I went. My repair buddy slapped the wrench on the nut and with reasonable force loosened it.

“How did you do that?” I asked with noted frustration in my voice.
“No, problem,” he responded. “I think you were turning the nut the wrong way.”

A willingness to experiment in this situation taught me one thing and confirmed another. First, I learned what direction to turn the nut on a lawn mower blade to tighten or loosen it. Secondly, it confirmed how little I know about being a do-it-your-selfer. Nevertheless, experimentation in unfamiliar areas will always produce a lesson of value.

An old Chinese proverb reminds us that, “He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes. But he who doesn’t is a fool for the rest of his life.” Learning doesn’t always look or feel good. But you must be undeterred by feeling self conscious or appearing ignorant. Just get excited about the new found information.

An open mind allows your imagination the freedom to be your friend. A closed mind, on the other hand, is a mystery. With the restriction of nothing new going in, you can only expect stagnant things to come out.

Shunryu Suzuki, a Japanese Buddhist scholar, explained, “In Japan we have the phrase, ‘Shoshin,’ which means ‘beginners mind.’ Our ‘original mind’ includes everything within itself. This does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything. It is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.”

Approach life with a beginner’s mind; always open and ready for the influx of fresh information. Dispense with preconceived notions. Be careful not to take familiar sights and sounds for granted. See your life through fresh eyes and a receptive mind.

Become an explorer of life. Eleanor Roosevelt advised in her book You Learn By Living, “Continue to learn and grow as long as you live. Life is interesting only as long as it is a process of growth.” You possess learning potential and growth capabilities that can only be discovered with an attitude of flexibility and willingness to exploit the gifts of information and experience.

You are living in a constantly changing world that rewards people who expand their capacities, fine tune their skills, sharpen their insights, and increase their competence. The opportunities to thrive and excel have never been better. Resources exist for you to achieve personal mastery. Dreams are achievable. Go for it! Learn something new today.

“The day that you stop learning is the day that you start decreasing your rewards and start suffering from frustration and lower levels of satisfaction.”

Brian Tracy

Friday, October 28, 2011

Simple Success Strategies

“Success requires enough optimism to provide hope and enough pessimism to prevent complacency.”

David G. Myers


I’ve been thinking . . . about the qualities of successful people.

On July 9, 2011 Derek Jeter smacked his 3000th career hit joining the small club of only 27 other major league baseball players to achieve this threshold. He has also had 6600 at bats without a hit. Jeter’s response to this achievement; ”…There is a lot of hard work, sacrifice and failure that goes along with it.”

Steve Jobs is considered a giant innovator in the technology world. He managed to merge creative genius with technology to create products we didn’t even know we needed. At the time of his death Steve Jobs had amassed 317 Apple patents ranging from computer cases to iPods and even packaging and retail store design.

Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India. She became an international legend advocating for the rights of the poor and helpless. In 1985 President Ronald Regan presented Mother Teresa with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. At the time of her death in 1997, missionaries of charity had 610 missions in 123 countries.

People who achieve substantial success are often perceived as being big dreamers, creative thinkers, expert planners; and most of all consummate doers. There are some added simple principles critical for sustained success.

First, success comes from small efforts hammered out day by day. People often sabotage their success by believing some grandiose achievement is necessary to determine whether or not they are successful.

It’s imperative that you be happy right where you are with what you have while pursuing what you want. Then, success can follow.

Celebrate Now! The moment. The effort. Not . . . I’ll be successful when . . .

“I couldn’t wait for success,” declared Jonathan Winters “so I went on ahead without it.” So did Drew Carey.

Comedian Drew Carey certainly didn’t grow up in a culture that molded his sense of humor. Carey was only eight when his father died and a year later he was molested. Life didn’t get easier. As a college student at Kent State he attempted suicide at a fraternity party, struggled to achieve acceptable grades and ultimately left after five years without a degree.

Carey became drifter and once again attempted suicide. He then began reading, learning and applying principles for taking responsibility for his life. Then, a friend asked him to write jokes for a comedy show. Next thing you know he’s on stage at a comedy club. Star Search and The Tonight Show followed, after which his success snow balled.

Coping, drifting, irresponsibility, ‘settling’, compromise; these are not the steps to success. Begin conceptualizing and molding your success one small step at a time.

My second success observation - Pleasure precedes success.

That’s Right! Your chances for success in any undertaking can be measured by the degree of pleasure you feel in what you do.

If what you’re doing today is not satisfying, fulfilling, gratifying . . . you’re not successful. Make a change.

Marcus Buckingham, writing in his book, The One Thing You Need To Know, advises: “The one thing you need to know about sustained individual success: Discover what you don’t like doing and stop doing it.”

Interestingly enough, successful people are often quitters. They quit doing things they abhor to free up their time and talents to excel at something that engages and energizes them.

Best-selling author Michael Crichton certainly understands this success principle. Crichton graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the prestigious SALK Institute for Biological Studies; certainly guaranteeing him a successful and lucrative career as a doctor or as a medical researcher.

Understanding pleasure precedes success, Crichton traded a secure future for an unpredictable writing career. Crichton concluded he didn’t have the stomach for cutting people open or a passion for the medical field . . . regardless of the money, prestige, or perceived success it would bring.

Beware the tendency to underestimate your success because you are simply doing what you find pleasure in doing. Doing what you love to do is the epitome of success.

“To succeed,” suggested Tony Dorsett, “You need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.”

Number three. Success breeds success. (Told you these were simple.)

Have you ever noticed how a little success fuels energies, arouses desire, increases motivation; which breeds more success, elevates drive, fuels ambition, creates more dreams and the success cycle continues.

The headline on the sports page on Saturday, April 17, 1999, read: Great Gretzky’s Career Ends.

Despite the encouragement from virtually everyone who knew him to give it one more year; the 38 year old Gretzky said his “Gut” told him it was time.

Gretzsky’s departure certainly left a significant gap in professional hockey. His hall of fame achievements began when he took the ice at the age of 3. He scored 104 goals in 62 games at age 8 and 378 goals in 82 games when he was the mature age of 10.

Success breeds success. Out of incredible commitment, unwavering determination, and hard work combined with God given ability success breeds success.

Wayne Gretzky owns roughly 60 records, is a 10-time scoring champion and a nine time MVP. “I was a boy that happened to love a game and got lucky,” said Gretzky in an interview, “and the good Lord gave me a passion for it.”

Think about it—focused effort, combined with the pleasure of doing what we do, creates success that tends to reproduce itself. Pretty simple – but powerful!

“Success is waking up in the morning, whoever you are, wherever you are, however old or young, and bounding out of bed because there’s something out there that you love to do, that you believe in, that you’re good at-something that’s bigger than you are, and you can hardly wait to get at it again today.”
Whit Hobbs

Monday, October 10, 2011

Press On!

“Many men fail because they quit too soon. They lose faith when the signs are against them. They do not have the courage to hold on, to keep fighting in spite of that which seems insurmountable.

C. E. Welch


I’ve Been Thinking . . . about why some people quit and others keep going.

Comic strip creator Charles Schultz was not an overnight success. Even after the strip sold, it took an additional few years for “Peanuts” to attract nationwide attention. Charles Schultz epitomized Vince Lombardi’s thought that “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” Schultz continued creating and illustrating at One Snoopy Lane in Santa Rosa, California. Ten years after his introduction to the world, Charlie Brown and his friends became a household name.

Most people can perform exuberantly for a day, a week, or even a month. But if you want ongoing success, it takes an impassioned belief in what you do, supported by an unwavering commitment to see your ambition through to the finish. There will no doubt be stumbling blocks along the way but they are only reminders to make adjustments, reassess priorities and evaluate to your conviction. Don’t get sidetracked. Remember, “Persistence,” says personnel executive Robert Half, “is what makes the impossible possible, the possible likely and the likely definite.”

I remember watching the funeral services of Richard Nixon with mixed emotions. President Nixon was revered by many for his achievements and international diplomatic efforts. Others harbored bitterness for the blemishes caused by the Watergate scandal.

Henry Kissinger eulogized his friend at the graveside. “So let us now say good-bye to our gallant friend. He stood on pinnacles that dissolved in the precipice. He achieved greatly and he suffered deeply. But he never gave up.”
In their tears, many standing at the graveside must have reflected on the tenacity of the man who once said, “A man is not finished when he’s defeated. He’s finished when he quits.”

Most of us never have, and hopefully never will, experience the trials and tribulations of Richard Nixon. You can be encouraged however by one who spoke from experience. Persistence is an essential element for experiencing success in any endeavor.

Thought of throwing in the towel lately? Have you experienced feelings that the project you’re involved in just isn’t worth the effort? Has discouragement become a way of life? How many self pity parties have you organized?

Take heart, you’re not alone. Winners and losers alike experience these feelings. What separates them? Losers dwell on them until paralyzed by their own inaction. Winners work through the emotional difficulties while hanging on to the conviction that nothing will stop them from achieving their dream.

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale poured his emotional energy and personal philosophy into a written manuscript. A host of publishers responded with rejection slips causing Dr. Peale to pitch his manuscript into the wastebasket. His wife Ruth believed in the printed prize possession and determined to help her husband get it published.

She personally visited a publisher who had not yet been contacted. The publisher immediately noticed that her package looked odd, unlike any book manuscript he had ever received. It was big and bulky, not even the normal shape. When he unwrapped the package, he was surprised to find a garbage can containing a manuscript that the world has come to know as The Power of Positive Thinking. Ruth Stafford Peale’s courage to try one more time made it possible for her husband’s book to sell over 30 million copies.

It was no doubt his wife’s efforts that inspired Dr. Peale to remain unaffected by disappointment. He once said, “I never let go of something I desperately want to do or think needs to be done. If I can’t do it head on, I will look for a circuitous way to do it. The idea is to do it no matter what method you use.” (Maybe he was referring to delivering a book manuscript in a wastebasket).

Multitudes of people get sidetracked from achieving their dreams. “Many people fail in life because they believe in the adage: If you don’t succeed, try something else,” believes Don. B. Owens, Jr. “But success eludes those who follow such advice....The dreams that have come true did so because people stuck to their ambitions. They refused to be discouraged. They never let disappointment get the upper hand. Challenges only spurred them on to greater effort.”

You will never achieve all you are capable of unless you stay focused and are willing to take whatever action is necessary to realize your dreams, regardless of the obstacles you encounter.

Press on! Press on! Press on!

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our ability to do has increased.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Monday, September 26, 2011

Growth Doesn’t Come In Microwave Packages

“You’ve got to continue to grow or you’re just like last night’s corn bread -- stale and dry.”

Loretta Lynn


I’ve Been Thinking . . . about the temptation to coast.

C. William Fisher, in his book, Don’t Park Here, tells about driving in his car with his 4-year-old son. “Byron, what do you want to be when you grow up to be a man,” he inquired. The youngster replied, “I don’t want to grow up to be a man.” Surprised, his father asked, “Why not?” Byron replied, “because then I couldn’t ride my tricycle!”

Fisher wrote, “As I drove on, I thought, ‘I’m sure I enjoyed my tricycle when I was 4, but I’m also sure that I enjoy much more the power and performance of my Olds (probably a Toyota in current times) today.’”

Fisher’s point reminds me of the two caterpillars crawling across the grass when a beautiful butterfly flew over. One nudged the other and commented, “You couldn’t get me up in one of these things for a million dollars!”

Neither the caterpillar nor little Byron understood the excitement of growth. How many times do we cling to childhood tricycles or limited performance, not realizing the potential for so much more? To get what you want out of life, you will be required to continually change and grow. Personal growth transforms life through the development of powers not yet recognized.

Growth is preceded by substantial effort. There is no shortcut. An unceasing effort to advance, move forward, and explore the unknown will protect you from the trap of the tried and true. Growth doesn’t come conveniently packaged in a microwave container that can be zapped and ready to serve. If you want to become all you can be, understand that explosive growth requires a commitment to a lifestyle of pursuing uncharted territories.

Here are a few stimulators to activate the growth process and overcome that fleeting thought of coasting.

Becoming all you can be is a mind set, a way of thinking. You must believe there is room for improvement and growth. When you rethink how you think, your mental boundaries will be stretched, expanding the room for your performance potential and eliminating perceived constraints. The capacity to grow begins in your mind. Give yourself permission to risk the unknown.

Growth requires you to abandon the status quo and overused methodologies. Sticking to the tried and true will stymie your ability to move beyond where you are. It is a subtle trap that keeps you living in a box. Instead, determine to abandon the usual and ignore doing what you’ve always done. Disturb your comfortable lifestyle. Do something new!

Be prepared for the long haul. There is no overnight success. Pursuing your potential will take considerable quiet, unapplauded effort. It is an inside job that defies discouragement and survives without public recognition. An old Irish proverb says, “You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather is.” In other words, you can’t depend on what others before you have done or your past performance to guarantee future brightness.

Surround yourself with people who are vitally alive and stretching. Stay away from boring people who live in a grave with ends knocked out -- a rut. Get close to those who epitomize a passion for the privilege of living and the pursuit of possibilities.

Dissolve perfectionist attitudes. Perfectionism immobilizes initiative and paralyzes progress. The pursuit of perfection cripples your ability to move ahead because nothing will ever be “good enough” to build on. Perfectionism often becomes an excuse not to try at all. Growth is not a finished product but a way of making each part of our life better. Perfectionists are continually looking to achieve unblemished results. It’s not going to happen.

Continually dream, plan, create new goals and identify new challenges to conquer. Stagnant living is being over concerned with obstacles and limitations. Replace old expectations by pursuing something new. You will be motivated to expand yourself to meet the new challenges and master new approaches. Ronald E. Osborne stated, “Unless you do something beyond what you’ve already mastered, you will never grow.”

Stop doing something you presently do. More of the same just produces more of the same. Evaluate your beliefs, habits, and behaviors. Determine what isn’t working or adding substantial value to your life. Eliminate it. Replace it. No matter how hard you try to make the old methods work, you will reach a point of diminishing returns. An addiction to the old makes it virtually impossible to learn anything new.

Be willing to make mistakes. Growth requires you to learn on the go, right through your mistakes and failures. Errors are expected, even welcomed. Take advantage of them. They are ever present learning tools, warning signals and detour signs that keep us on course to personal success.

Eliminate excuses. “I’m too old to start now.” “I’m set in my ways.” “I’m just too comfortable where I am even though I’m not getting the results I want.” I’ve heard them all and a hundred others. Every excuse is a good excuse but not one is acceptable. Take charge. Make choices. Eliminate excuses. You are in control.

George Eliot wrote, “It is never too late to be what you might have become.” There is no time like the present to get started. Growth doesn’t begin until you do. You must move...take action...mobilize your resources...eliminate resistors and channel your energies to push your personal effectiveness to an all-time high.

“Resting on one’s laurels makes for an uncomfortable bed, and only crushes the laurels.”

A. Cygni

Monday, September 19, 2011

There Are Only So Many Tomorrows

“Somebody should tell us right at the start of our lives that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.”

Michael Landon


I’ve been thinking . . . about the end of life. Wait. Wait. Wait. Don’t stop reading; this isn’t a morbid message. I promise. In fact, it’s all about living your life right now.

I got to thinking the other day: what if someone asked me to write on a 3 x 5 card how I lived my life to the fullest so that my advice could be passed on to other generations. What would my card say?

I never finished the card but thought I would pass on a few thoughts that ran through my head.

There is a wonderful scene in the movie Dead Poet’s Society that makes a good starting point. Mr. Keating is escorting his group of sophisticated, uptight, adventure impoverished students to the school's trophy case displays. Photos of earlier graduating classes are prominently displayed.

"Look at these pictures, boys," Keating challenges. "The young men you behold had the same fire in their eyes that you do. They planned to take the world by storm and make something magnificent of their lives. That was years ago. Now the majority of them are pushing up daisies. How many of them really lived out their dreams? Did they do what they set out to accomplish?" Then, with a dramatic move, Keating leans into his astounded class and passionately whispers, "Carpe diem! Seize the day!"

Contrast that attitude with the one depicted in the classic comedy movie “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray. In the movie, Murray repeatedly wakes up at the exact same time on the exact same day. Everyday is the same “Groundhog Day” – which he lives over and over again.

That script not only made for good humor, it also depicts the lifestyle of many people. They rise at the same time, eat the same thing for breakfast, head for work at the same time, slide into their comfortable work habits, punch out and head for home. Then, repeat the same thing again tomorrow.

It is relatively easy to physically live a long life in America. Statistics indicate 88,361 of every 100,000 persons reach 50 years of age, more than 70,000 make it to 70, and almost 17,000 live to age 85 or more. That doesn't mean these same numbers live lives of significance and value. We have little to do with how our life begins and, in some cases, the length of it but we can significantly affect the outcome.

Cultivate attitudes and skills that limit our chances to plateau. Seize the initiative to master each moment. Dismantle beliefs that life must be fair and good at all times. Establish priorities that reflect personal values. These are attributes indicative of people investing fully in the process of living.

I read a powerful story about the late Jim Valvano, former North Carolina State basketball coach. At age 47 he was suffering from terminal spinal cancer and reflecting on his life. He recalled an incident as a 23-year-old intensely competitive coach of a small college team. “Why is winning so important to you?” his players asked.

“Because the final score defines you,” Valvano replied.

“No,” the players insisted. “Participation is what really matters. Trying your best, regardless of whether you win or lose - that’s what defines you.”

Twenty-four years later, struggling with the horrible effects of chemotherapy, hanging onto life by a thread, Valvano realized, “Those kids were right. It’s effort, not result. It’s trying. God, what a great human being I could have been if I’d had this awareness back then.”

Life isn’t intended to be an all-or-nothing fight between winning and losing, misery and bliss, boredom and excitement. Life isn’t inherently good or bad. Life is life. Sometimes its okay, sometimes it’s invigorating. Sometimes comfortable. Sometimes unpleasant. Always inviting us to make the most of it.

There is no gift package waiting to move you from a spectator to active participant. You’ll have to make the discoveries on your own. It means challenging your present thinking, sometimes even creating additional problems. You may need to discover new ways of seeing yourself, life, and the possibilities contained in both. The journey starts when you believe that your life can become renewed and the future impacted.

What a great human being you’ll become when you endorse the principle that at the closing of each day you’re content with the way you lived it. Seize The Day!

Remember the infamous words of Erma Bombeck: “Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.”

What would your card say?

“Life is the movie you see through your own eyes. It makes little difference what’s happening out there. It’s how you take it that counts.”

Denis Waitley

Monday, September 12, 2011

In Pursuit of Great – World Class

“Good enough has become the enemy of great. Routine has become the enemy of desire. Easy has become the enemy of sacrifice and hard work.”

Kevin & Jackie Freiberg
Boom!


I’ve Been Thinking. . . about what it takes to continually move a company to higher levels of excellence.

How can a company go from ordinary to extraordinary? Why do some companies seem to remain “average” forever while others are on a continual quest to be exceptional? What are the time-tested, secret, practical business philosophies that could transform a company?

In the book, CEO Road Rules: Right Focus, Right People, Right Execution, 50 CEO’s of primarily privately held companies were interviewed. The success patterns the authors observed in their interviews and in their work with entrepreneurs and mid-size companies fall into three broad areas:

Right Focus (having a clear and concise mission, vision and values along with knowing what you can be best at);

Right People (attracting and retaining talented and emotionally intelligent people and providing them coaching and rewards along the way);

Right Execution (defining key result areas and measures, implementing your plan and “living the values” while holding everyone, accountable for results).

In my humble opinion, the authors ‘nailed’ a simple, strategic approach for attaining greatness. In short, pursuing great is about selecting a visionary set of ambitions and expectations aligned with a compelling mission and values, engaging the commitment of dedicated people and developing an aggressive plan and set of actions that position us to become exceptional.

First off is focus. World Class companies are renown for being passionate and steadfast in living their principles and flexible in the continual review of how they do things.

Southwest Airlines understands the pursuit of world class. Their mission is “a dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit.” Southwest was conceived as a company who would attract passengers in secondary cities with a fun low cost option. The company deliberately decided to fly only 737s to save on maintenance, offer no assigned seating or booking (the part I don’t like), and hire only fun people who made flying an experience different from what people were accustomed to (the part I do like).

That is their simple business strategy and needless to say, it is working quite well. Interestingly enough, Southwest has decided to buy new, larger planes. When asked about the change from their long term decision to fly 737’s, the company responded it was good to challenge their long held processes to find something better.

Every organization must identify strategies that work for them. It’s not about trying to duplicate other’s efforts, or being something we are not or pursuing angles outside of our mission, vision and values. It is about determining what we believe is critical to our success and maintaining the course.

How about the right people? There is never an excuse for not surrounding ourselves with talented people who support our vision, values, growth, development, and mission.

Somebody once said, “Love is blind, but hiring shouldn’t be.” Are we selecting people who encourage us to go to new heights by aligning themselves with our vision? Are we surrounded by people who endorse our values and are passionate about doing something extraordinary? Do we model how we expect other Family members to behave, think, dream, and serve?

Pursuing great will require us to surround ourselves with people who can support who we are, what we believe in and where we are planning to go. Otherwise, we should be eliminating potential candidates as fast as an American Idol audition.

Allow me to suggest another ‘people angle’ to consider. Personal growth precedes organizational excellence. Rare, or even non-existent, is the organization that can move to higher levels of effectiveness without leadership who are committed to re-thinking, re-evaluating and re-inventing their effectiveness on an ongoing basis. Those who endorse, no embrace, this way of living will do uncommon things in uncommon ways.

Execution. It’s the final link in our pursuit of world class. Plan. Follow thru. Evaluate. Measure. Reinforce. Adjust. Track. Team members hold each other accountable to achieve what has been planned and tenaciously hold fast to our beliefs. When it’s done, we celebrate. A worthy goal is to find more and more things to reward and more ways to reward it.

Pursuing world class is about putting our vision and values into action in extraordinary ways. It’s the daily display of treating others as the most important person in our lives. Pursuing great understands how the vision propels us to new levels of quality. Are we doing things that make a difference in people’s lives? Are we doing them in a way that is consistent with our values, in line with the mission and capable of moving us toward our vision?

Extraordinary companies do ordinary things extraordinarily well. They are continually developing or have already mastered the strategies, ideas, and tools needed to achieve extraordinary success. Excellence is exemplified in every area of operation.

Building a world class company is an exciting, open-ended, fun pursuit that will never be quite complete. It’s a wonderful path to enhancing our reputation, attracting compassionate, competent team members, and succeeding in ways we never thought possible.

Right Focus. Right People. Right Execution. A winning combination that moves us to World Class.

“At the end of every day of every year, two things must remain unshakable our constancy of purpose and our continuous discontent with the present.”

Robert Goizueta,
Coca-Cola

Monday, August 29, 2011

Can Somebody Tell Me Who I Am?

“The first key to greatness is to be in reality what we appear to be.”

Socrates


I’ve Been Thinking . . . about authenticity.

Reports indicate that after World War I, hundreds of shell-shocked French soldiers struggled to remember who they were. Military records failed to help these amnesia victims recall their names and be reunited with their families. Officials decided to hold an identification rally in Paris and announce the event throughout France.

Imagine the anticipation and anxiousness surrounding this effort. Thousands of people gathered in the plaza hoping to identify their loved one. One by one the soldiers made their way to a high platform and pleaded, “Please, please, can somebody tell me who I am?”

That anxious cry -- “Can somebody tell me who I am?” -- resounds throughout the world today. The ability to determine who we are establishes our identity in a world of copycats and allows us to be ourselves in a world intent on us being someone other than we are to attain success.

I thought about Socrates’ comment and the soldier’s pleas as I reread an October 26, 1992 article in the New York Times. You might think the article entitled, “Fragrance Engineers Say They Can Bottle the Smell of Success,” by N.R. Kleinfield is a fabrication but here’s the actual way a portion of it appeared:

“It was bound to happen. Someone thinks he is about to create the Honest Car Salesman in a bottle.”

I chuckled when I read that one of Detroit’s big three auto makers hired Dr. Alan R. Hirsch, a quirky smell researcher in Chicago, to devise a rather exceptional scent. The hope was that when the odor was sprayed on a car salesman, he would - yes - smell honest.

It sounds absurd. In fact, after she was done laughing, Dr. Susan Shiffman, a smell researcher and professor of medical psychology at the Duke University Medical School, remarked, “I was not aware that honesty had a specific smell associated with it.” But Dr. Hirsch, who refuses to name his Detroit client, is confident that he will have the Honest Car Salesman Odor devised within a year. “If he succeeds, he said, the auto maker will entrust the smell to its dealers, who will spray it on their salesmen, and then customers will catch a whiff and cars will fly off the lots.”

My first reaction was, “You have got to be kidding!” This unusual research is a marvelous indicator of a culture obsessed with “doing” rather than “being.” In an effort to get all you can, remember that what you do to be successful is far less important than knowing and being who you are. Authenticity will allow you to begin your journey to greatness. Refrain from artificial ingredients that camouflage the real you.

A modern day model of authenticity is Dolly Parton. In Parade magazine, she said, “People who know me know that beneath these big boobs is a big heart, and beneath this big hair is a big brain. Over time, people see me as a real person and stop staring at the anatomy.” Dolly Parton understands the obstacles she must overcome for people to see the real her. She is keenly aware that no matter what she achieves with her life, living her life consistent with what she really is will be the true measure of success.

Over time, people value the person who knows who they are and respects themselves for what they are. Be a genuine version of you.

“The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don’t let them put you in that position.”

Leo Buscaglia

Monday, August 15, 2011

Don’t Shove It... Love It!

“The grass may look greener on the other side, but it still has to be mowed.”

B.C. Forbes


I’ve Been Thinking. . . how to make my grass greener.

When you have one of those days at work when the grass looks greener on the other side or you want to scream, “Take This Job and Shove It,” consider the advice of Dr. Nickolas Hall:

On your way home from work, stop at your pharmacy and go to the section where they have thermometers. You will need to purchase a rectal thermometer made by Q-Tip. Be very sure that you get this brand. When you get home, lock your doors, draw the drapes, and disconnect the phone so you will not be disturbed during your therapy.

Change to very comfortable clothing, such as a sweat suit and lie down on the bed. Open the package and remove the thermometer. Carefully place it on the bedside table so that it will not become chipped or broken. Take out the written material that accompanies the thermometer and read it.

You will notice in small print the statement reads, “Every rectal thermometer made by Q-Tip is PERSONALLY tested.” Now, close your eyes and repeat out loud five times, “I am so glad I do not work in quality control at the Q-Tip Company.”

Puts things in perspective doesn’t it?

Let’s say you have reached the point where you want to ‘shove’ your job. It’s not energizing and inspiring you like you want. Consider your options:

1. Do absolutely nothing and hope for a magical intervention by the tooth fairy.
2. Leave your position so you don’t suck the energy out of other people.
3. Take some time to consider what you could do to transform your current job into something you would enjoy.
4. Figure out what your ideal job is and create it or go find it.

If you think the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, it might be because someone is fertilizing it. I’m sure the water bill is higher there as well. The perfect lawn doesn’t just happen.

Neither does the perfect job.

Francis Ford Coppola once said, “If you love something, you’ll bring so much of yourself to it that it will create your future.” People who love what they do invest their heart, mind and spirit into everything they do. They are totally immersed and invested in what they are doing. How do you get there? Explore some new ways of thinking and approaching your job.

First, increase your competence. Find a way to get better at what you do. Take one of the basics of your position and become a master at it. Denis Waitley and Reni L. Witt are convinced that, “Enjoyment comes from doing our best. At our best, we want to do and be our best, even when the work we are doing is not our first choice and does not give us the joy we want…”

Do yourself a favor and throw yourself wholeheartedly into becoming a master at what you do. Work as hard as you can to be the best you can be at what you choose to do.

Secondly, light yourself on fire. There’s an old Texas proverb that says, “You can’t light a fire with a wet match.” The world is full of soggy matches waiting for someone to come along and light their fire. Find a way to become your own personal arsonist. If you don’t set the kindling on fire, don’t expect anyone to do it for you.

Simply stated, each of us is responsible to take the initiative to create a passion for what we do. The fast track to this experience is doing what you love. If that isn’t happening for you try pouring your heart into what you do and see what happens.

Take it from Reggie Leach: “Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.”

Another “love it” strategy is to focus on people. Ironically, when I unselfishly brighten another person’s world, my world becomes a bit brighter. Who needs you to show a measure of concern? What are the strengths of your co-workers? Show kindness to someone who is unable to return your gesture. Give up fifteen minutes in your day to build a better relationship with one person. You get the idea.

Ben Stein believes that, “Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all success, all achievement in real life grows.” Give it a try. If you are feeling a little disheartened about your life or job, find a way to enrich the life of someone else. You’ll be amazed at the result.

Finally, stretch yourself. Heighten your personal expectations. Challenge the walls of your current responsibilities. Be imaginative. Confront the status quo and take responsibility to work toward achievements uncommon to your position. Choose to make a difference. Dig in and find a way to produce the unexpected.

William Demille said, “I have always admired the ability to bite off more than one can chew and then chew it.” Feeling restless? Disillusioned? Bored? Uninterested? Try biting off a bigger challenge that stretches you to new levels of achievement. . . and most likely a greater love for what you do.

Don’t shove it, love it is a pursuit worth considering. We tend to enjoy whatever we are doing the most when we choose to find positive ways to engage our talents. Commit now to creating a renewed fascination for what you do.

“Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.”

Dale Carnegie

Monday, August 1, 2011

Stuck in the Stairway of Life

“You cannot expect to achieve new goals or move beyond your present circumstances unless you change.”

Les Brown


I’ve Been Thinking . . . how amazingly blessed I am to have uncanny, peculiar and untimely experiences that teach me valuable life lessons.

I recently attended a wonderful dinner on the roof of 101 Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C. It was my first visit to this spectacular venue. The view of our nation’s capital was breathtaking as the sun set in the west and the lights of the city illuminated the skylight. The pictures I captured on my iPhone couldn’t do justice to the beauty observed by the human eye.

A couple hours into the evening I needed to use the restroom. The staff politely instructed me to take the elevator down to the ground level (we were on the 11th floor) and follow the signs to locate the restroom. I followed their directions and the signs posted. Success. Relief.

As I made my way back to the elevators, I suddenly learned the door to the lobby was locked. I knocked repeatedly but to no avail. I made the decision to run up the ‘11’ flights of stairs to the doorway leading to the roof where the dinner party guests were all gathered. Arriving sweaty, breathless and a bit panicked, I promptly learned this door was locked as well and no one on the other side was able to hear my repeated beating on the door. . . let alone my deep breathing.

I’m stuck. Two locked doors and an exceptionally warm, humid stairway had me imprisoned from the celebration going on outside. Being an impatient, action-oriented (and thankfully not claustrophobic) person I decided not to wait until someone discovered I was missing to be freed. Running down the stairs to the lower level (wishing I had on running shoes), I began pushing on doors.

Much to my delight a door opened to the alleyway on the side of the building. It wasn’t exactly a suitable place to hang-out for the remainder of the evening so I hastily made my way to the front lobby and pled my case with the security guards.

Minutes later I rejoined the dinner party. I’m sure the sweat dripping from the side of my face, my shiny brow and my relieved expression was no cause for curiosity with my dinner mates. Well, maybe one.

I’ve now had a bit of time to reflect on this brief adventure and the broader application of being “stuck in the stairway of life.” I wonder how many people are running up and down the same stairway everyday seeking a way out of their current circumstances. They are beating on locked doors unable to navigate their way to freedom or catch the attention of someone who might be able to help. Each day begins and ends repeating the steps they traversed yesterday. It’s frightening!

There’s little fulfillment existing in a stairway of stale air fed only by desperate panting and the odor of exasperated and exhausted stairway companions. This is a surefire prescription for monotonous, repetitive, even grueling but unproductive activity. It’s impossible “to live, to love, to learn and to leave a legacy,” as author Stephen Covey says we all want to do, when our life is derailed by circumstances seemingly beyond our control.

The answer is to persevere in finding the ‘alleyway’ to freedom. Find an opening, no matter how small that leads you out of the prison of predictable sameness. This dilemma cannot be resolved with the conventional thinking that got you into the bind in the first place. Liberate your mind to think outside the obvious stairway walls and get a fresh perspective on new, possibly even unusual or extraordinary options.

The elevator to the top is waiting . . .

Your primary job is to make any effort, overcome any obstacle, and scale any height to become the dynamic, unstoppable, irresistibly self-confident person that you are capable of becoming.

Brian Tracy

Friday, July 22, 2011

Demystifying the Magic of Service

Service is just a day-in, day-out, ongoing, never-ending, unremitting, persevering, compassionate type of activity.

Leon Gorman
L.L. Bean


I’ve Been Thinking…there must be a magical answer for consistently delivering unequalled, exceptional, out of this world service. Then, I remembered Walt Disney’s comment that, “There is no magic in magic, it’s all in the details.”

I love the story of the trucker who came into a truck stop café and placed his order. He said, “I want three flat tires, a pair of headlights and a pair of running boards.”

The brand new server, not wanting to appear naïve, went to the kitchen and said to the cook, “This guy out there just ordered three flat tires, a pair of headlights and a pair of running boards. What in the world does that mean?”

Chuckling, the cook said: “Three flat tires mean three pancakes, a pair of headlights is two eggs sunny side up, and running boards are two slices of crisp bacon.”

“Oh, OK!” said the server. She thought about it for a moment and then spooned up a bowl of beans and gave it to the customer.

The trucker asked, “What are the beans for, missy?”

She replied, “I thought while you were waiting for the flat tires, headlights and running boards, you might as well gas up!”

I marvel at the way the server quickly learned to see the situation from the trucker’s point of view. Three simple, brilliant service details evolve from this simple illustration.

First, treat every person you encounter as the most important person in your life. I mean everyone!

A Sunday school teacher was telling her class the story of the Good Samaritan. She asked the class, “If you saw a person lying on the side of the road with torn clothes, wounded and bleeding, what would you do?”

Visibly affected by the image the teacher described, one little girl softly responded, “I think I’d throw up!”

Some people are more lovable than others. Service excellence digs deep to treat “every person” special and over deliver the way you serve them.

Be so nice to people they won’t believe it. It’s much easier to build a good relationship, treat people with kindness and go out of our way to make them feel special than to struggle rebuilding damaged relationships.

Companies spend fortunes every year on market studies, product evaluations, and future projections. What if they invested equal time in determining from their customers what makes them feel like the most important customer the business works with?

Key Point: The people you make feel special will become special… And they will never forget the way they were treated and who treated them that way.

Second service consideration. Incredible service flows out of the brilliant mastery of small details.

Lee Cockerell, writing about his experience as executive Vice President of Operations for Walt Disney said: “It’s not the magic that makes it work; it’s the way we work that makes it magic.”

Service mastery means paying attention to the small stuff. Extraordinary results are not an accident. They flow out of consistent, robust, carefully orchestrated common sense practices that sincerely make people the priority.

It’s not the fancy stuff that makes the difference. . . It’s the fundamental stuff. The simple stuff. As W. Clement Stone has written, “Success comes from doing common things uncommonly well!”

Smile uncommonly well. Be interested. Affirm people. Be uncommonly personal. Show the highest level of respect. Be positive. Upbeat. Unshakeable. Uncommon professionalism and unmatched friendliness.

Understand feelings. Get results! Make “please” and “thank you” your favorite phrases. Look people in the eye. Display a contagious positive attitude. Spruce up your appearance.

These are your basic, essential, worth mastering “magic” details.

Key Point: Pay attention to the small stuff and you’ll get attention.

Third service detail worth mastering. Anticipate and exceed people’s expectations.

I’m increasingly convinced the purpose of an organization is to anticipate, identify and exceed people’s needs and expectations. That should also be the priority of every person working in the organization.

Hospitality expert Walt Disney said; “We’re in second place if we meet expectations. We need to exceed them. We’re convinced of that.”

Under promise and over deliver. Know your customer better than anyone else. Get close. Treat every situation as unique. Give personalized attention that meets personal needs. Do what you say you will do and don’t do what you say you won’t do. Eliminate stupid rules that make it impossible to go above and beyond.

Service is no longer about satisfaction. The expectation’s bar is continually being raised. What’s good enough today probably won’t be good enough tomorrow. We are involved in the unending challenge of leaping over the bar to delight a customer. Service standards are higher than ever. There are brief moments, and sometimes enormous windows of opportunity to exceed expectations by doing the unexpected.

Fix things, seek alternatives, and freely admit mistakes. Apologize, customize and individualize your approach. Deliver on your promises. . . Plus one percent.

Key Point: You don’t decide if you’ve exceeded expectations. The customer does.

Virtually every guest at the Walt Disney World Resort typically sees three very recognizable aspects of the magical service: the cleanliness of the park, the show and certainly the sincere friendliness of the cast.

Comments, surveys, focus group and letters affirm the business philosophy of Walt Disney, who said; “Quality will win out! Give the people everything you can give them. Keep the place as clean as you can keep it. Keep it friendly. Make it a fun place to be.”

This basic philosophy applies to every form of business. Demystifying the magic of service begins with treating every person as a V.I.P. Then determine how you can anticipate and exceed people’s expectations. Finally, pay attention every minute detail that makes the first two possible.

Sincere efforts to deliver excellent service are easy to spot. They are personalized, focused and leave the customer looking to their next experience.

Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.

Peter Drucker

Monday, July 11, 2011

The Incredible Power Of Choice

“One’s philosophy is not best expressed by words. It is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run - we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are our responsibility.”

Eleanor Roosevelt


I’ve been thinking. . . about how life is filled with changes, challenges, demands, pressures, and a host of other unavoidable dilemmas. That’s reality!

This, too, is reality. We can choose how to deal with these issues. Whining, complaining, moaning, and groaning are popular. In fact, pessimism has become a national pastime. It is the popular way to look at the world. It’s seems too painful or takes too much energy to do something about the undesirable events. Instead, we want others or the situation to change so life will be easier for us.

Choosing to rise above the circumstances is powerful and greatly affects the outcome of the day’s activities. It’s not the events that mold your life, determine your feelings, or guide your actions. Rather, it is the way you decide to interpret and respond.

We must be convinced that we actually have the ability to choose our responses. The value, power, and impact of any life event are determined by your response. Unfortunately, there are many who have conditioned themselves to practice just the opposite.

Internalize this simple yet profound truth. You alone make all of your life's choices and these choices determine the quality of your experiences, what you become and the destination you attain. The seemingly smallest choice, just like a gentle breeze, will set in motion the influences to dramatically affect your life.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi invested twenty-five years researching what makes people happy. He discovered that happiness doesn’t just happen. He was also intrigued to find that happiness had little to do with money, power or material possessions.

Csikszentmihalyi’s conclusion showed that “people who control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.”

Our present and our future are not a matter of chance but are intricately woven with the threads of our own choosing.

Be careful not to allow yourself to be victimized by the society in which you live. It’s not the culture, the times, the social circumstances. When we blame these elements for our conditions, we return to them for the answers and are continually disappointed. This is the fast track to “victimitis.”

Another roadblock to life by choice is assigning undue control to inherited traits. These people are convinced the quality of their lives have been predetermined through some “gene-o-matic” or DNA mixer. There is no doubt that our social and family conditioning impact each of us but I would be quick to contend each of us possesses the ability to rise above those influences.

Master motivator Og Mandino wrote in The Choice: “There is a better way to live. Choice! The key is choice. You have options. You don’t need to spend your life wallowing in failure, ignorance, grief, poverty, shame, and self-pity. But, hold on! If this is true, why have so many among us apparently elected to live in that manner? The answer is obvious. Those who live in unhappy failure have never exercised their options for a better way of life because they have never been aware that they had any choices!”

“As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is up to us.

Arnold J. Toynbee

Monday, June 20, 2011

Tap Into The Power Of Your Potential

“You have enormous untapped power that you will probably never tap, because most people never run far enough on their first wind to ever find they have a second.”

William James


I’ve Been Thinking. . . about the awesome concept of potential? I’m grappling with Denis Waitley’s challenge to “Never rest on your achievements; always nurture your potential.” How does that apply to me? What is my potential?

City slicker Smith smiled as he exited the hardware store with his brand new power chainsaw. Guaranteed to cut down several trees an hour, this was his ticket to clearing away land on his new country acreage. Two days later, he returned to the store in a fit of frustration and anger. “This saw isn’t worth a plug nickel. You guaranteed me it would cut down several trees an hour. I barely fell one tree in an entire day.”

Somewhat puzzled, the store manager stepped outside with the saw, flipped the switch, and gave the cord a rip. The saw fired up and the steel-toothed chain whirled around the 24” guide bar. Startled by the deafening noise, Smith jumped back. “What’s that noise?” he gasped.

Smith’s failure to use the saw’s built in power is similar to our common approach to getting more done. Limits are set on our achievement potential because we underestimate our capabilities. People sincerely believe they are just too busy to do more than their present output. They are only capable of cutting one tree per day. Yet, compared to what we are capable of, our horsepower may be functioning at only half or three-fourths its potential.

Countless intelligent people limit their life enhancing, achievement producing potential. They never move further than the boundaries of their self-imposed limitations or bountiful excuses. As scientist Willis R. Whitney pointed out, “Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.”

I’m attempting to align myself with Erma Bombeck’s desire that, “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’”

Winners are people who do not leave to chance the gift of time or opportunity to achieve. They realize they are not yet everything they are intended to be -- even though some of us have come farther than we ever thought we would. They pursue it systematically through the use of simple, fundamental truths that generate a new world of opportunity.

“A sobering thought:” pondered Jane Wagner, “what if, right at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?” I sincerely doubt that it is ever possible or we would need to redefine potential. In fact, Stanford research indicates we use less than 5 percent of our mental ability.

Be bold enough to envision and create a level of effectiveness beyond your present scope of thinking. You are intended to be a different person next month than you are today. There are accomplishments out there for you to encounter that haven’t even entered your mind. You have potential power that is waiting to have its’ engine started.

“The only reason you are not the person you should be is because you don’t dare to be,” said William H. Danforth. “Once you dare, new powers harness themselves for your service.”

Consider the advice of St. Francis of Assisi: “Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” What a great way to reveal the dormant, unused, untapped potential that exists within.

What do you ‘dare’ to become?

“Life is like a ten-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we have never used.”

Linus
Peanuts Comic Strip

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Easing The Pain

“Flexibility means the ability to bend mentally and physically, to adapt one’s self to any circumstances or environment while maintaining self-control and composure.”

Napoleon Hill


I’ve Been Thinking . . . about the comparison between back pain and life’s pains.

Our foursome was enjoying the customary Memorial Day round of golf. We arrived at the challenging par 3, sixth hole and I reminded myself not to worry about the water in front of me or the sand traps protecting the front of the green. My final thought before swinging was to swing easy and let the club do the work.

As I stroked the ball and let my body follow through with the swing, an excruciating pain suddenly shot through my lower back and down my right leg. Before I knew it, I was on my knees, unable to move. After several minutes of careful maneuvering, I hobbled over to the golf cart. Needless to say, I didn’t finish the hole or the round of golf.

For the next several days I endured several visits to the doctor, chiropractor and physical therapist. As the therapist concluded her initial consultation, she indicated I had a problem with flexibility. “I rate patients on a scale of unsatisfactory, marginal or satisfactory,” she said.

“Where do I fit on your scale?” I asked.

“Let’s just say it is going to take considerable effort to get you to a marginal level of flexibility. Until you increase your flexibility,” she continued, “the pain will persist.”

Lack of flexibility isn’t a one-time event. It often creeps up on you without advance notice or warning. The climax is painful and sometimes paralyzing. There is no quick-fix prescription for healing. It normally involves a lifetime of exercises designed to increase flexibility and thus minimize the pain.

I’ve learned the hard way that intermittent stretching won’t fix the problem. If I perform the prescribed exercises only when the pain surfaces the result is temporary relief. Permanent improvement in my flexibility requires adjustments in the way I sit and stand, learning to adequately stretch before physical activity and maintaining a daily regimen of exercises.

There is a direct correlation between the challenge of maintaining physical flexibility and the ability to remain mentally and emotionally flexible through life’s challenges, changes, painful moments, and demands. People stuck in habitual behavior and thinking, without being strengthened by a fair amount of stretching beyond what’s currently comfortable, will sooner or later experience considerable discomfort.

These are unsettling times in which we live. Anyone who pretends that life goes as planned is a consummate fool. Stability is no longer on the agenda and adapting only to your own schedule isn’t acceptable. Success in this environment requires continual flexibility and adaptability. Consider this -- if the rate of change in the world exceeds your rate of change, pain is certain.

An immediate and ongoing commitment to loosen up, stretch, and go with the flow will brighten your day-to-day life and ease potential pain. If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to give it a try.


“People wish to be settled. Only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Monday, May 16, 2011

not to Radical Retention Reminders

“In a good to great transformation, people are not your most important asset. The right people are.”

Jim Collins


I’ve Been Thinking. . . a lot about how to keep the right people on your team.

A successful nurse, tragically hit by a bus and killed, arrives at the pearly gates and is welcomed by St. Peter, who says that she will need to spend one day in Heaven and one day in Hell before she decides where she would like to spend eternity.

With great trepidation she enters Hell and is amazed to find a beautiful golf course, friends and colleagues who welcome her, terrific food, a great pool party and even a nice-guy devil. At the end of her day, she regretfully leaves Hell in order to experience her day in Heaven. That experience is delightful as well, with clouds, angels, harps and singing that she expected.

St. Peter pushes her to make the decision of a lifetime (and beyond). In which place would she spend eternity – Heaven or Hell? You guessed it, she chooses Hell.

When she returns to Hell she finds a desolate wasteland, intense heat and her friends dressed in rags and picking up garbage. There are no parties – only misery and despair. She says to the Devil, “I don’t understand, yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and a country club, and we fabulous food and we danced and had the time of our lives. Now I see desolation, the heat is overwhelming and all my friends look miserable and despondent.”

The Devil looks at her and smiles. “Yesterday we were recruiting you; today you’re a resident.”

Yesterday we were recruiting you; today you are an employee. Does the reality of employment match the aura of our recruitment?

Here’s the challenge . . . there’s a vicious cycle that naturally occurs requiring us to maintain continual attention to “recruiting” potential and current star performers.

It looks something like this: Recruit. . . Hire. . . Re-recruit. . . then Re-Re-Recruit staff. Otherwise, they feel less noticed. . . less appreciated. . .taken for granted. . .leave. . . we Re-Start Recruiting.

Most leaders need their cages rattled at some stage of the vicious circle just to shake the dust off stagnant practices. Consider these random challenges to determine where you might unlock the chains of the “way we’ve always done it” and inject fresh possibilities.

The first step to retention is who we hire. Hiring Recklessly or Randomly Results in Repetitious Remorse. It’s like planning for misery on the installment plan.

People decide in the first three days if they are going to leave or stay. They may not leave right away but the decision is made.

Repeat the new employee welcome “daily” - forever.

Poor Orientation = 36% of all turnover

What are we doing in orientation to make staff feel good about their decision and convince them that this is the place to be?

EXCUSE: We don’t have time for orientation – don’t have time not to have orientation. Without orientation, people aren’t convinced of the reasons to stay. Outcome: Organization becomes a revolving door.

You NEVER get a SECOND chance to make a good FIRST IMPRESSION. Capitalize on it.

Passionate leaders ensure people are indoctrinated with the driving philosophy of the company. Impassionate leaders constipate potential excitement.

Dynamite Recruiting without Fabulous Retention is a Waste of Energy.

Make a list of the top 25% of your team members – How Can You Keep Them?

Conclusion at Sprint: Employees want a leader who knows them, understands them, treats them fairly, and is someone who they can trust. Pay and benefits are expectations in this day and age. The most important element in retention is the leaders.

Turnover is not an event – it is really a process of disengagement that can take days, week, months and even years until the actual physical separation occurs.

Organizational complacency escalates employee discontent. Create new, fresh, compelling reasons for people to feel passionate about what they do.

89% of managers believe employees leave for money. 12% of employees leave for more money.

#1 reason people leave a job is supervisor/staff relations. Reality: People leave people not jobs.

Healthy Job Market: Unhappy employee will make a mad dash for a 5% pay increase.

Healthy Job Market: Happy employee will need at lest a 20% increase to jump ship.

According to research published by the late Susan Eaton, in What a Difference Management Makes, retention is all about relationships, and relationships are at the heart of a good working environment. This includes relationship with co-workers; across departments; with supervisors; with the organization; and, most importantly with the customers they serve.

Employers quote “unavoidable reason” for 90% of turnover.

Employees who left revealed only 11% had left for “unavoidable reasons”.

Saratoga found “unavoidable reasons” to be 5%.

Leaders can do something about 95% of the reasons people leave. . .

Remember Field of Dreams? Costner played a man obsessed by a vision to turn his cornfield into a baseball diamond in order to attract star players from the past. A voice persisted in telling him, “Build it and they will come.” Well, he built it and they came. If you want to attract and retain star players, you must make your workplace one of your compelling recruiting and retention tools.

People need to go home feeling Useful –- Relevant –- Significant!

Get serious about creating a place that is fun to work!

How much time, energy and money are you investing in retention (re-recruiting) versus turnover and replacement?

Reboot, Reset, Refresh your re-recruiting radar ---

Be a place where people love to come (and stay) to work. . .

“The problem is not motivation. It is the ways in which we unintentionally demotivate employees.”

Quint Studer

Monday, May 9, 2011

Whisper In My Ear. . .

“We are more and more into communications and less and less into communication.”

Studs Terkel


I’ve Been Thinking. . . no, I’ve almost been obsessing over the demise of face-to-face, verbal, heart-to-heart communication.

We’re LinkedIn, twittered, Facebooked, logged on, YouTubed, iPhoned, and even Googled but sometimes I’m not sure we’re really tuned in to what matters.

We now depend on Outlook rather than a conversation. The internet has replaced a spirited discussion over a cup of coffee. We email the person in the office next to us and go an entire day without exchanging words. Maybe we should declare an “email diet day.”

Studs Terkel is right. . . we’re communicating less and less.

As I pondered this blog’s message, I was reminded of a cute story I read years ago on communication. Timmy and his mother were at church. Just as the pastor began his sermon, Timmy shouted out, “Mommy, I have to go pee.”

Mother replied, “Shhhhh, we don’t use that word. We say ‘I have to whisper’.”

Timmy said, “Okay.”

The next week Timmy and his family went to church. He leaned over and said, “Daddy, I have to whisper.”

His dad replied, “Just whisper in my ear.”

Not a pretty picture. Even our simple communications are becoming complicated and misunderstood. We’re not all on the same page and that certainly can lead to some undesirable results.

Consider this, 300,000 users per day sign up for Twitter. Twitter recently disclosed these facts:

• Twitter now has 105,779,710 registered users (of course this number is
outdated as you read it).
• 180 million visitors come to the site every month.
• Twitter gets a total of 3 billion requests a day via its API.
• Twitter users are, in total, tweeting an average of 55 million tweets a day.

I sent that information to my son living in New York City. Ironically, he had an exaggerated (or maybe not) personal experience to illustrate my point. Here’s his message back to me:

“Thanks for sending this dad. It is an incredibly powerful tool. It's also very interesting to see how communication patterns are changing.

For example, Nikki and I were standing in line at Elizabeth & James, a boutique in the West Village, on Friday night. Being that the boutique's designers are Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, the majority line holder was female (10-35 years old). We were in line for nearly 2 hours, so needless to say people were on their phones (checking Facebook, email, Twitter, etc.) I tweeted from the line a number of times, including photos, # (hash tags) and @ (at replies).

The moment I found most interesting was when the two girls in front of me were both on their phones, while carrying on a conversation. Here was their back and forth...

Girl 1: "This line is crazy."
Girl 2: "Ya it is."
Girl 1: "I wish Mandy could see this line."
Girl 2: "I just posted a photo."
Girl 1: "Did you tweet it or status it?"
Girl 2: "Tweet."

It's crazy to me that people used to utilize email to avoid talking to an actual person. Now they "Tweet It" or "Status It" (Facebook Reference) to circumvent emailing. Not to mention that both Facebook and Twitter both utilize the GPS in your phone to include your location in each tweet or status update (spooky).”

I know, I know, roughly seventy-two percent of you are saying, “that is ridiculous, I’m not that addicted to technology.” Maybe not. Maybe.

What is getting in the way of your face-to-face, verbal communication with your spouse, friends, family, co-workers? What has replaced the emotion of words combined with body language, non-verbals, and tone of voice? Who is missing out on the unique opportunity to experience your personality? Certainly there are people anxious to “hear” your words of encouragement. It’s not possible to experience the warmth of your smile via an email.

Go talk to someone - - -

“85% of our joy, happiness in life comes from our interaction with others.”

Brian Tracy

Monday, April 25, 2011

The Business of Business

“The business of business is people.”

Herb Kelleher
Retired CEO & Founder Southwest Airlines


I’ve Been Thinking . . . about something a lot of companies talk about – people.

We’ve all heard the company mantras like:

“People are our priority.”
“We can’t do it without our people.”
“People are what really matter.”
“(Add your own favorite).”

Sometimes actions are not necessarily consistent with proclamations. Herb Kelleher is right, “The business of people is people.”

One of my favorite scenes in the Academy Award-winning film As Good As It Gets, is where Carol (portrayed by actress Helen Hunt) becomes so infuriated with Melvin (portrayed by actor Jack Nicholson) that she finally gets up from the restaurant table and is ready to leave. Melvin looks at her quizzically and quite stunned. He doesn’t have a clue that he just insulted her. He asks her to sit down; she obliges and responds, “Melvin, pay me a compliment. I need one and quick. You have no idea how much what you just said hurt my feelings.”

Melvin is paralyzed. He mutters something and Carol lets him know that it’s not even close to a compliment. She demands, “Now or never!” Melvin pauses for a moment, goes into a confusing description of his ailment and then ends his disjointed comments with: “You make me want to be a better man.”

Shocked, Carol responds: “I think this is about the best compliment of my life.”
In my heart, I believe there is nothing more important than people. The way we see people. The way we interact with people. The way we lead people. And, our attitude about people’s abilities, motivation and potential. Like Melvin, people are grateful for leaders who help them grow, develop, blossom. . . become better people.

As Walt Disney said, “You can dream, create, design, and build the most wonderful place in the world . . . but it requires people to make the dream a reality.” Every day leaders have the privilege of looking for lives to change, hearts to encourage and minds to stimulate so they can make dreams a reality.

Leaders possess the incredible opportunity to touch people’s lives. Every day, in some way, we can add value to people and impact their effectiveness. It all begins with our willingness to “hemorrhage” our energies into making a difference in people’s lives. Dynamic leaders have an open mind and big heart that continually look for the absolute best in other people. Our highest honor is to instigate and nurture the growth of our people.

Peter Drucker would support this leadership tenet. He observed, “Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to a higher sight, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations.”

People know when an organization values them. People know when a supervisor has their back. People know when teams are created to cooperatively achieve uncommon results. People know when a leader believes in them. People know when someone wants to help make them a better person. It is the ultimate compliment.

That is what business is all about.

“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of a leader.”

Dale Galloway

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Get It Right The First Time

“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.”

Oprah Winfrey


I’ve Been Thinking . . . about how many things in life I take for granted. I fear the list of precious, promising, positive, pertinent overlooked good things in my life would be embarrassing.

After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, 47-year-old Randy Pausch returned to Carnegie Mellon University, where he taught computer science, to deliver a final lecture to colleagues. The professor hoped 150 people might show up. Instead, the 400 seat lecture auditorium was filled.

Randy Pausch’s “last lecture” was delivered in September 2007. The lecture began with him standing before a screen beaming down chilling CT images of tumors in his liver, under the title. . . The Elephant in the Room. He then stunned the audience with this announcement: “I have about six months to live. I’m in really good shape, probably better shape than most of you.” He then dropped to the floor to do push-ups.

Randy opened his heart to the audience in a humorous, insightful, and emotion packed farewell that was more focused on living than on his imminent death. He told his colleagues and students, “I’m dying and I’m having fun, and I’m going to keep having fun every day I have left.”

Within weeks, his videotaped lecture was seen by millions on the Internet and later became the material for a bestselling book. Randy Pausch was a dying man who taught those who listened how to live. Hi died on July 25, 2008 but his legacy, wisdom, wonderful outlook on life and passion remain a living inspiration to us all.

Isn’t it amazing how those facing death have an unusually clear perspective on what is truly important in life?

What about us?

What’s going right in your life today? What are you thankful for? What are you celebrating? What have you done to make this day the best one you’ve had in a long time? What relationships are blessing your life? Do you enjoy your work? Your coworkers (have you told them?)

You might have to look around – search a bit to find all of your blessings. I’m convinced there will be some you’ve overlooked since we have countless things in our lives to be thankful for. Here’s a practical example from my life.

In January 2009 and few couples traveled to New York City for our first time. We had a delightful long weekend celebrating the 60th birthday of a friend while seeing the sights and enjoying the sounds of the city. We boarded a flight at LaGuardia late Sunday afternoon and returned to Omaha with only minor glitches and delays in our travel.

A few weeks later, 155 people on US Airways Flight 1549 thought they were going to die. During takeoff from LaGuardia, their plane struck geese, disabling both engines. In a powerless glide, the captain miraculously maneuvered over the densely populated areas and then announced: “Brace yourself for impact.”

Less than 90 seconds later the disabled jet made a water landing in the frigid Hudson River. Boats and ferries quickly arrived to rescue the passengers and crew. Everyone survived. People appropriately named it the “miracle on the Hudson” and praised the pilot and crew.

During an interview, one passenger simply said, “We have a second chance in life.”

I was much more thankful in retrospect for our uneventful takeoff, flight and landing just a few weeks earlier. I normally take those safe flights for granted. Not anymore. I too was given a ‘second chance’ in life . . . without the drama of a landing in the Hudson River.

Several years ago actor Bill Murray starred in a movie called Ground Hog Day. In this comedy he had to keep re-living a particular day all over again until things came out right.

I’ve never been given the chance to relive a day in my life. If I had to do a day over again, I ‘m certain I wouldn’t take for granted everything I had the day before – or least I think I have enough common sense not to mess it up two days in a row – or maybe not.

Get it right the first time. We don’t get a chance to do it over again.

“It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.”

Bruce Springstein