“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 26, 2011
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
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
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
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