Leadership I learned in space, Part TWO!

continuing from last time…

 

7) QUOTE: If you’re going to build a time machine into a car, why not do it with STYLE?” – Dr. Emmett Brown, Back to the Future

LESSON: Don’t just handle a project, put YOUR personal stamp on it and make it memorable!

In almost anything you take on there will be a stated way to make it a success and an unstated way to make it a failure, it’s up to you to smash through one, and not quite touch the other? Whether its coding a new allergy database or making a turn over presentation to the board of directors, there is some way that you can leave you personal mark of distinction on it without compromising the quality of your results! If you can’t see it than ask someone else, preferably the most creative business person you can find!

 

6) QUOTE: Reality is that thing in which, just because YOU don’t believe in it doesn’t make it go away!” – Phillip K. Dick Sci Fi Author

LESSON: You get more done by challenging reality and accepted standards than you do bt mere acceptance.

There are certain things you can argue against until you’re blue in the face and you wont change at all! Gravity is a constant, water is wet and drop an anvil on the head of a Road Runner and he will die! However, there are many instances where we have been taught that something is a constant or a rule or law, and later investigation turns it on its ear! Time for instance. We all learned in school that there are 2 constants you cant work against, the speed of light and time! Unfortunately we are slowly but surely finding out that light is slowing down and time is affected by things such as height, speed distance, etc. So obviously those two items, at last are no longer constants! What else in your life have you accepted as being rock solid, that are proving to be much more malleable than you first thought? Challenge them, that’s how you will know for sure.

 

WHAT? that’s only TWO! Well yes I have gotten some comments that recently I have been a tad long winded, therefore we will be breaking this up!

Yes I know that’s somewhat contrary to the nature of this series, I am technically taking away one of your excuses, but I know that by now, if you’ve read any of my posts or at least the highlights, than you should already have one in mind and ready to use…

 

So remember if you’re going to use an excuse, make it a good one, after all you may find that no one cares, or is listening, so why waste the effort.

Just PICK ONE and stick with it, you’re going to NEED IT!

 

 

Leadership, and thereby excuse DESTROYERS, are EVERYWHERE!

That’s right! I hate to tell you but even if you want to spend your life watching TV you’re going to find that your excuses are not going to be allowed to stand! I know I keep telling you to pick ONE and keep using it, but I am afraid that even that one isn’t going to do you any good if you watch any kind of quality TV. Please understand that childhood beauty pageants  and bearded men chasing squirrels do not qualify, but I have been told that even the Duck folks have some good excuse destroyers on hand.

But lets stop for a minute and look at one of my favorite forms of literature AND television/movies, that of Science Fiction, perhaps more commonly known as speculative fiction. A name that I speculate will be forcefully removed from our vocabulary THIS YEAR. In a piece I like to call…

THE TOP TEN LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM SCI-FI

Not so long ago, in a book store not too very far from where I lived, there were a series of books published with names like, “Everything I needed to know I learned from Star Trek” and “The art of Using The Force in Business” and my favorite, “Yoda’s Rules for Business.” Now obviously some of these were purely published as money makers, they started me thinking; how much of what I apply in my busion3ss life has been influence by what I have read, seen and heard from the Sci Fi universe? So today I’d like to leave you with my take on the 10 most important quotes to live by, as related to the amazing world of Science and Science Fiction.

10) QUOTE: “In my experience, there is no such thing as luck!” – Obi Wan Kenobi Star Wars Movie 1

LESSON: The harder you work the “luckier” you will seem!

There are very few ‘over night’ successes. Matter of fact most of those folks who seem to ‘suddenly arrive on the scene and become million unit sellers, usually are only able to do so after years and years of preparation and hard work!

9) QUOTE: Quite an experience to live in fear isn’t it? That’s what it’s like to be a slave!” – Roy Baty, Blade Runner

LESSON: Do NOT allow yourself to be held HOSTAGE by life’s uncertainties! Embrace the unknown!

I have been able to create an entire series of lessons and presentations of “Feel the crap storm” and do it anyway! I thought that it was a very unique issue related to a very few people I have met in my life, who seem to get FROZEN in place by their fear of the unknown and then become so useless or so OVERWHELMED by their challenges that they throw their hands up and refuse to move until SOMEONE leaps into help them! This is GREAT for people who love to wear the white hat and ride the mighty stallion, but for the rest of us we must find a way to move on! My favorite idea in this realm is “Feel the fear and do it anyway!”

8) QUOTE: Resistance is Futile” – The Borg, STTNG

LESSON: Many Technology and method shifts are impossible to avoid, so go with flow. The train is leaving the station, grab a seat or wave bye bye from the platform.

The only thing in this world that you can count on is CHANGE! Previous generations might go an entire lifetime and not see the changes we see on a daily basis. When we were all farmers, a plow may not change for DECADES, but today we are seeing technologies created and mass marketed and then SURPASSED with the originators being left wondering what happened? Take the audio CD for example. When they were released, we were told that for the very first time in history we would be able to hear Jimi Hendrix in distortion fee distortion. But now this are t0 cumbersome and inefficient. Now if you cat fit an entire artistes catalog on one device! Not bad when you look at Debbie Boon, but when working on The Grateful dead you are looking at an entirely NEW beast!

 

WHAT? that’s only THREE! Well yes I have gotten some comments that recently I have been a tad long winded, therefore we will be breaking this up!

Yes I know that’s somewhat contrary to the nature of this series, I am technically taking away one of your excuses, but I know that by now, if you’ve read any of my posts or at least the highlights, than you should already have one in mind and ready to use…

 

So remember if you’re going to use an excuse, make it a good one, after all you may find that no one cares, or is listening, so why waste the effort.

Just PICK ONE and stick with it, you’re going to NEED IT!

WE INTERRUPT THIS STREAM OF THOUGHT FOR THE FOLLOWING

     Now when I started this series I never imagined that I would post what follows, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of those who know me well enough to know some of my personal beliefs and ideas. After all, what part of a man’s life will he MOST LIKELY be using an excuse for rather than is belief or non belief in an all encompassing creator. Now I am not going to tell you that I found the cup of the holy grail, after all, it WAS just a cup.

     However I did come across something someone said in  speech recently that I HAD to do some research and see what was real and what was not What I found could help eliminate some doubt for some folks. And create more questions for others.

     What I was told was that at some point after creation, a group of angels were judged as guilty sent to the earth. They were sent to roam the earth as part of their punishment, and started to “live among the people there.  As such they found the women of Earth very attractive and found a way to mate with them and offspring were formed called,Nephilim. These half breeds were not like most men, they were taller, stronger faster and had many skills far beyond what their mortal parent could have provided.

     These half breeds became an offense to the creator, and as they became more powerful and more corrupting and more offensive to the creator, to the point that he determined that he would be forced to remake the world over in perhaps an all new form. If you have taken history in any of its many forms,. or just done research on your own, you will find that MANY have legends of a great flood. Most also have legends of giants with great powers and abilities.

      In a seemingly UNrelated storey there is actually a sect of christianity that has determined that THEY are container of the secrets of what Jesus did while he was in America. Personally I have found no evidence to support THAT idea, but if a world wide flood was laid out upon the earth, than the people of the 1st Nation (American Indians( should have a legend as well. Unfortunately. most 1st Nation tribes had no reading or written language that was common amongst them, making shared legends almost impossible. Then I read the autobiography of one Col. William F, Cody (you probably knew him as Buffalo Bill).

     Col. Cody was not a highly educated man, point in fact I can track approximately 3 years of “official schooling, and although his mother read to him from the bible he himself had no time for  such learning on his own. Having been born in the 1840’s and died in 1917, and spending most of the intervening years as a hunter and scout on the western frontier, Col. Cody learned more from living than from books, which is what makes the following so amazing.

      If you look n any Bible, I use BlueLetterBible.com myself, you will find a section of the book of Genesis (The beginning) that says: There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare [children] to them, the same [became] mighty men which [were] of old, men of renown. Later in the same chapter you will find :And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. This you will find introduces us to Noah and his ARK, within which you will find the original story of the flood.

    SO what does THIS have to do with excuses, and more importantly a certain western Buffalo Scout? Well if you pick up a copy of his Autobiography, no not the coloring book one, but an unabridged version from 1920, you will find the following at the end of the 6th chapter (last page and a half to be exact):

     “While we were in the sandhills, scouting the Niobrara country, the Pawnee Indians brought into camp some very large bones, one of which the surgeon of the expedition pronounced to be the thigh bone of a human being. The Indians said the bones were those of a race of people who long ago had lived in that country. They said these people were three times the size of a man of the present day, that they were so swift and strong that they could run by the side of a buffalo, and, taking the animal in one arm, could tear off a leg and eat it as they ran. These giants, said the Indians, denied the existence of a Great Spirit. When they heard the thunder or saw the lightning, they laughed and declared that they were greater than either. This so displeased the Great Spirit that he caused a deluge. The water rose higher and higher till it drove these proud giants from the low grounds to the hills and thence to the mountains. At last even the mountaintops were submerged and the mammoth men were drowned. After the flood subsided, the Great Spirit came to the conclusion that he had made men too large and powerful. He therefore corrected his mistake by creating a race of the size and strength of the men of the present day. This is the reason, the Indians told us, that the man of modern times is small and not like the giants of old. The story has been handed down among the Pawnees for generations, but what is its origin no man can say.”

      Again Cody had little formal education and was forced to leave home in his early teens t help provide for his family, oi by the time his Autobiography was written, he had found himself rather successful despite his lack of education, and therefore found no reason to finish it. But to those of us who have todays rudimentary education available, there is one thing it seems that we can NO LONGER deny, and that is the validity if the facts presented in the bible. This alone having shows physical evidence of the REPHAIM.

      So I ask you to take a step of faith, in the direction of the one who can and will make more of a difference than anyone else in your life. For this there IS no excuse, the alternatives are dire.

 Excerpt from: William F. Cody (2009-06-09). An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W.F. Cody) – Illustrated (Kindle Locations 1900-1905). Heritage eBooks. Kindle Edition.

SO, NOW WHAT?

     I got an email the other day, and that was the gist of it: “I got a stinking accountability partner, NOW WHAT?”

     OK, maybe I deserved that, But I really didn’t think I put forth the feeling that it was in the act of finding an AP that would magically solve all your problems, but hey maybe…. But really its in the USING of an accountability partner that things start to change. But remember an AP is only as good as YOU allow them to be.

     For example, if I tell my AP that I have a bad habit of staying up too late on Sunday nights watching the end of “the game” and that makes me late every monody morning during the season (notice no ment6iuon of WHAT season. If he see’s me online late Sunday night and asks what I’m doing and I answer “watching the game” I have to give him full rights and authority to have an offensive posture towards me the next time he interacts with me. Whether he wants to call me right then and there, or wait until the following morning and I’m on my 3rd cup of coffee, he cant be intimidated by me into NOT being honest!

     More importantly, its NOT my RIGHT to reply back something uniquely intelligent like, “OH YEAH, well YOUR socks don’t match…your belt!” Because first off, that’s just not cool, and secondly, really should you be noticing that? No, no you shouldn’t, and trust me the first time you ‘retaliate’ to you AP is the LAST time you will be speaking to that particular partner.

     Remember the idea behind having someone who will help you with your accountability is that its a ‘no fault zone’ Unless someone asks for brutality, you need to be able to take some tact, but you also have toe be as up front, and non judgmental for them as you want them to be for YOU! Only in that way is ANYONE going to actually move forward enough for you to make the breakthroughs that you know your capable of becoming!

    SO, set yourself some time aside, tell your wife of SI its only going to be an hour or so, but make sure YOUR calendar is clear for a few hours, remember you are going to open up to THEM, but you have to make room for them to open up to YOU. SO many times you will find one personality so much stronger than the other that it just tends to dominate the meetings. But that’s not what were here for, we are here to learn to give and to take. As well as to be reminded of whats important and how we are going to carry through and walk on through the obstacles, yes, we’ll get a little scratched up and maybe even scarred, but that’s OK, that’s where were going!

 

Or you could just pick an excuse, any excuse, just make it a good one, after all you’re going to have to live with it for the rest of your life…

…and the next excuse was…

There is no next excuse, that’s what were here for, to make sure that the last excuse you used was the last one you will ever need. But its been so long and I forgot to do this, and I didn’t call that person and…

 

Hey we all get busy, suck it up and get on with it. I mean that with all the love and sincerity I can fashion. If I had a big hammer with a velvet slip cover, I would be using it, but I cant find one!

 

So, you have once again, found yourself facing the fact that it is infinitely easier to NOT do than TO DO. What can you do to break that habit once and for all?

 

I’m going to mention a word, this world may not mean much to you it did get a bad rap in some areas a few years ago, but that’s OK, right? I mean in the beginning you said I could talk to you like were both adults here. That word that you need to use is ACCOUNTABILITY.

 

There are a bunch of “groups” that have tried to make off with the group, but unfortunately that’s not what were talking about, although it is going to get harder before it gets easier, because now I’m going to suggest that you need an ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER. A what?

 

Yep that’s right an accountability partner. Someone to whom when you make a commitment and you fail to live uiop to your end of the bargain, YOU FEEL BAD FOR DOING SO!

 

When I first heard about this concept I was fresh out of a bad relationship,m trying to recreate a new business and my very best friend introduced me to, what I thought at the time, was one of the GREATEST business partners that would ever cross my path. This guy looked better, looked younger, was in better shape both physically and financially, and yet he was running not one but 3 businesses as well as coaching his kids league teams and active in his church. IN my neighbor hood we call that SUPERMAN! And I wanted to be like that, I realized one night that beyond the money and the notoriety I wanted the type of relationship he had, I wanted the time control he had, I wanted…

 

So I asked him one night, “Phil I’m doing everything I can, but I want more, I want what YOU HAVE. That’s when he introduc3ed me to an accountability partner. He said, “OK Jay, here’s how we’ll play it, I will coach you in business and what you think you want, but at the end of our meetings, I’m going o give you 2 pieces of information, consider them homework. The next time you get together the FIORST thing I’ll ask is DID YOU DO YOUR HOMEWORK? You say yes, we continue, you say no, we freeze everything until you do.”

 

Th3e first few times I thought it was some kind of a game, then I sat down one day and figured out what his time was worth. THEN it hit me, this guy is spending $1200 every hour he’s talking to me. The VERY LEAST I can do is make sure the 2 questions he asked me to answer are being answered.

 

He was going to help me with a presentation one Friday. SO I worked what I thought was REALLY HARD, to make this a success. Then something happened and it just didn’t turn out as well as i should have. Why? Because even though he was spending 5 hours traveling from his home city to my presentation, plus the 5time it took to go through the presentation and the Q/A. For a first time, it “wasn’t bad” but for a seasoned pro it didn’t turn out nearly as well as it should have. If I had spent 10 – 12 hours preparing, about the total in travel; and expenses, and I had invested 2 MAYBE 3 hours preparing for this. He should have slapped me, I know I deserved it.

 

But HE was my accountability partner, and for many years we had a GREAT relation ship, and a VERY productive and profitable one. The world turned and some things happ3ned and now I was without an accountability partner.

 

This past weekend my church held a men’s encounter, it was amazing. But On my way in I KNEW I was missing something, something I REALL needed! I needed and accountability partner. SO I made a deal with “The BOSS”

 

As long as I did what I needed to do we would to!. Hence the reason it’s 1120pm. I didn’t due my due diligence any earlier, and MY commitment to my Partner, and my family, is that if I am expecting different results than those IN have been getting, I had to maintain my part of the bargain at any (within reason) cost.

 

SO remember, get a partner, heck if you cant find one, contact me, and I’ll help.

 

Because if you don’t get an accountability partner, then pick a REALLY good excuse…

 

because you’re going to need it, matter f fact make it a REALLY good one, because your going to be living the rest of your life by it.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG TO BRING YOU THE FOLLOWING

My dad gave me this when I was 17, just before I left for college. I wont tell you HOW long ago that was, needless to say its been a long time.

Long enough that when a very good friend of mine decided to remind HIS team of it, I felt it time to remind MY team, enjoy:

1899

A Message to Garcia

By Elbert Hubbard

In all this Cuban business there is one man stands out on the horizon of my memory like Mars at perihelion. When war broke out between Spain & the United States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was somewhere in the mountain vastness of Cuba- no one knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach him. The President must secure his cooperation, and quickly.

What to do!

Some one said to the President, “There’s a fellow by the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody can.”

Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered to Garcia. How “the fellow by the name of Rowan” took the letter, sealed it up in an oil-skin pouch, strapped it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the jungle, & in three weeks came out on the other side of the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, and delivered his letter to Garcia, are things I have no special desire now to tell in detail.

The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, “Where is he at?” By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing- “Carry a message to Garcia!”

General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias.

No man, who has endeavored to carry out an enterprise where many hands were needed, but has been well nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average man- the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on a thing and do it. Slip-shod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indifference, & half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds, unless by hook or crook, or threat, he forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap, God in His goodness performs a miracle, & sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant. You, reader, put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office- six clerks are within call.

Summon any one and make this request: “Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio”.

Will the clerk quietly say, “Yes, sir,” and go do the task?

On your life, he will not. He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions:

Who was he?

Which encyclopedia?

Where is the encyclopedia?

Was I hired for that?

Don’t you mean Bismarck?

What’s the matter with Charlie doing it?

Is he dead?

Is there any hurry?

Shan’t I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself?

What do you want to know for?

And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions, and explained how to find the information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Garcia- and then come back and tell you there is no such man. Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law of Average, I will not.

Now if you are wise you will not bother to explain to your “assistant” that Correggio is indexed under the C’s, not in the K’s, but you will smile sweetly and say, “Never mind,” and go look it up yourself.

And this incapacity for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity of the will, this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift, are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future. If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first-mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting “the bounce” Saturday night, holds many a worker to his place.

Advertise for a stenographer, and nine out of ten who apply, can neither spell nor punctuate- and do not think it necessary to.

Can such a one write a letter to Garcia?

“You see that bookkeeper,” said the foreman to me in a large factory.

“Yes, what about him?”

“Well he’s a fine accountant, but if I’d send him up town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget what he had been sent for.”

Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to Garcia?

We have recently been hearing much maudlin sympathy expressed for the “downtrodden denizen of the sweat-shop” and the “homeless wanderer searching for honest employment,” & with it all often go many hard words for the men in power.

Nothing is said about the employer who grows old before his time in a vain attempt to get frowsy ne’er-do-wells to do intelligent work; and his long patient striving with “help” that does nothing but loaf when his back is turned. In every store and factory there is a constant weeding-out process going on. The employer is constantly sending away “help” that have shown their incapacity to further the interests of the business, and others are being taken on. No matter how good times are, this sorting continues, only if times are hard and work is scarce, the sorting is done finer- but out and forever out, the incompetent and unworthy go.

It is the survival of the fittest. Self-interest prompts every employer to keep the best- those who can carry a message to Garcia.

I know one man of really brilliant parts who has not the ability to manage a business of his own, and yet who is absolutely worthless to any one else, because he carries with him constantly the insane suspicion that his employer is oppressing, or intending to oppress him. He cannot give orders; and he will not receive them. Should a message be given him to take to Garcia, his answer would probably be, “Take it yourself.”

Tonight this man walks the streets looking for work, the wind whistling through his threadbare coat. No one who knows him dare employ him, for he is a regular fire-brand of discontent. He is impervious to reason, and the only thing that can impress him is the toe of a thick-soled No. 9 boot.

Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no less to be pitied than a physical cripple; but in our pitying, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy indifference, slip-shod imbecility, and the heartless ingratitude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry & homeless.

Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds- the man who, against great odds has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there’s nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes.

I have carried a dinner pail & worked for day’s wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; & all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous.

My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the “boss” is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly take the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets “laid off,” nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town and village- in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed, & needed badly- the man who can carry a message to Garcia.

THE END

If your working so hard that you don;t notice the clock, you also, won’t mind the accolades being presented to you.

Remember,, the answer is excuse 42!

…because for me…

…they all not only happened, but happened one right after the other, but they didn’t wait for one to stop then the next one started, they just piled up on each other,

For those of you who know me personally you know that when I say, “I have no IDEA how I broke my knee once, much less in SIX places”, you will be able to believe it. Even MY Doctor was rather incredulous over that one. See I can tell you what I did the week FOLLOWING the initial injury, but I haven’t a clue as to what initially happened. See apparently I missed a step, while carrying 40lbs of candy and fell down some stairs, but that was a week AFTER the pain started.

Then comes the call that mom’s in ICU and can I come help take care of her. They don’t know what the issue is although for 6 weeks they pump her full of drugs, and she loses weight, fluid and attitude. So my sister and I spend all the month of December swapping out who will be baby sitting mom. Not that I mind, Lord knows she has done her share of baby sitting me in my adult years, its the scheduling that’s hard, because just about then:

I get an email from my boss saying there will be major restructuring of the department starting in Sr. Management and working its way down, how far down no one knew, but some people would be re applying for their jobs. OH Yeah, and the move that was supposed to be next month is now next week. Wait, that’s 2 weeks, Umm from 3 Thursdays, and were not going where we thought and so we have to be out of here Monday (next) so we move to an area we left and stay for a short while only to move when the other build…”Can I work from home?” So THAT was actually a blessing, until…

The memo comes out that we are so far behind the budget that everything BUT current salaries have been taken away, and we have to budget with LAST YEARS budget, and anyone who quits will NOT be replaced for a year and….then there are the holidays.

Which is normally a GREAT thing, except that this year we not only have the NORMAL employees relatives who are ALWAYS dying during the holidays, but now mine are sick too. Then there’s one who has age seniority gunning for my job because of course….

My wife’s car dies. Now we didn’t know how badly until we were already several hundred dollars into a repair, only to find that something happened to disable the vehicle even MORE, and now we were looking at a repair of 5 times the initial estimate. Time to buy a new car. I HATE buying clothes and cars. You always seem to get your shorts all tangled up either way! This one however wasn’t that bad. Gotta love Car-max.

SO, as I asked last time, which one or combination of these is a valid excuse? Bet YOU thought it was just one of those silly on lone polls again huh? Nope just a day in the life of…but the question still stands, where would YOU draw the line?

I was in business once that depended very heavily on assistance from a partner, when the partner started doing FAR LESS than what I felt was needed, I went to my mentor and said, “How can I motivate this person?” His answer was as true today as it was then: “Would you do this if that person were not a part of it?” The answer of course was, “Well YES.” His reply was simple “Well then GO DO IT!”

Billy Graham is 93 years old this year, an amazing story about an AMAZING man with an AMAZING life. He JUST wrote a book, to join the library of over 30 previously published. In this book, titled ”Nearing Home” he makes an amazing statement which is “Pain should be a TOOL not an EXCUSE”

So while most men his age are struggling to sit up in bed in the morning, he is racing to meet a publishing deadline and encouraging men HALF his age (that’s me) to look forward to do the same. So while many of MY partners and team mates, friends and family, have taken the opportunity to use whatever it is that THEY are dealing with as a “REASON” for not doing this or not going there, none of which I begrudge them, I have kept on moving, albeit somewhat more slowly than is normal for me, but moving AHEAD none the less. And YOU SHOULD TO!

During lunch I spoke with a young lady who is very frustrated with her job, now she is very good at what she does, she was caught in the verbal crossfire of her co workers. My advice, get OUT of that situation. Please don’t misunderstand I’m not advising her to quit or anything else rash like that. Instead when ‘people’ around you stop acting civil, remove yourself, as best you can, from THAT situation. Even if its just taking 15 minute stress walk. But do NOT let people around you get you into a bad situation. Certainly they have ZERO right to drag you or anyone else for that matter, in to the middle of THEIR private little war. You on the pother hand have EVERY right to a peaceful workplace and if you can’t find it there you need to find out where that is, or they need to move themselves elsewhere,

Put headphones on, read a good book, meditate, pray, call someone you care about. Just do SOMETHING, at least ONE thing that will allow you to do what will put your mind back on track and move you one step closer to where you need to be! Uh oh, maybe I’ve said too much, maybe NOW you can figure out the core of this site……

Until next time, remember…42!

 

 

Choose one please…

OK, of the following, which of these would you classify as a legitimate reason for not working, and which would be excuses?

1. i broke my knee in 6 places

2. my mom is in ICU for 3 weeks and then sent home on isolation for 3 months

3.  My job relocates, resizes and re interviews all employees

4.  I’m asked to run my team on last summers budget

5.   with someone else gunning for my job I am asked to take off rotating weeks to care for mom

6.   The Christmas and NY Holidays.

7.   My car dies

I think that should sum up the events, not necessarily in that order that have occurred since last November. So I ask again, which are legitimate reasons for not getting the job done, and which are excuses?

Well by my OWN judgment they are ALL nothing but excuses. Why? Because really at the bottom, the core of what I teach is the idea that is your believe in what you’re doing, and you REALLY examine and get to know your processes, there should never ever be a day that goes by that you legitimately have a reason for not getting SOME piece of the job done. And as you slowly but surely do one thing every day, you are going to find that they all add up top that next big BREAK!

Even if that’s not 100% the case., you are certainly going to find yourself much farther along than you were.

 

SO Starting with our next post, no more excuses, We are going to push forward and get to the bottom of the core concept of how NOT to have anymore excuses and instead how to power through.

So Tune in next tome for some clear cut lessons that will tell you what it is that you need to do!

Until then, remember, instead of coming up with 7 ‘different; reasons and trying to explain the ALL just pick an excuse, any excuse, and use THAT one instead of maintaining a whole stable, regardless of how true they may or may not be.

As a matter of fact some folks are so well organized that they just call out a number. You’ll pull up a stool at the “Dew Drop Inn” one night and hear folks shouting a bunch of number .”!0, 12, 47, PI” (the last one shouted by the local math professor) Because they know that if its day time and their not producing, then no one and I mean NO ONE wants to sit and listen to their excuses.

So don’t provide any, instead give them a safe place to vent, and a smack on the rear to get them moving again and ‘wagon trains HO!” get them out of there!

Any excuse will do, but remember, by choosing that over your production you are choosing to live a quiet life of desperation.

 

“63!”

 

I heard a GREAT statement this afternoon…

That was so amazingly spot on target that I couldn’t believe that neither I nor any of my cohorts had ever voiced such a statement before.  The conversation was about what people will and won’t pay for, something that is always a pertinent question when dealing with businessmen. From where some folks sit, the buying public is very fickle and yet only has a certain amount of money, yet they will often use all of that they can, to purchase what they need. Alternatively there were others in the conversation who felt that there is no limitation of funds and people will find a way to buy anything that they feel (or can justify) that they want.

 

All of this, eventually wound its way around the conversational world to the upcoming election, after all what doesn’t? Which brought up the question of healthcare and who and how should that be paid for, which led to the question of socialist medicine or private healthcare, which led to… Do you see why some of my lunch conversations are longer than maybe they ought to be? So, since this is NOT a political blog, nor o sot really a place where I want to get into the privatization of healthcare, or not, let’s focus on what the core of the conversation was really all about, which is the concept of money and the consumers view of it.

 

Suddenly the conversation was brought to a screeching halt by the utterance (rather sarcastically I might add) of the following: “People would rather pay to fix stupid than learn how to stay smart!” I think what brought us all to a halt was the fact that not only was this simplistic description of the situation, but it was one that we all completely agreed with.  For example, most folks would rather pay to learn how to lose weight than how to eat healthy! More people would pay to learn how to “get out of debt, than would pay to learn to manage their finances wisely.” Come on folks, it’s the same money. The difference is of course, that in learning you are typically being proactive, and “storing up for the winter.” Where as in ‘fixing stupid’ you can honestly say that you are in crisis mode with your back against the wall ready for action.

 

So what does all this mean, in marketing or in business or in the life of us folks who are doing our darndest not to use excuses and instead get results? Well first of all it means that we will continually be bombarded with what we see as “foolishness” from the left right and every direction. We all have that one friend who has at least one of every gaming console manufactured, some the ‘custom’ cases created for a specific game, and yet seem to be shocked and dismayed when school starts in late august and they need to buy new clothing for their kids. These are not always the same folks who will complain about having to take ‘so many damned pills’ while chasing them down with a quart of Hagan das.

 

Unfortunately these types of conversations almost always degrade into ‘welfare’ and other unfortunately oriented subjects, but if we focus on the idea at hand, what options are open to us? The good news is that many of the options are the same as those that you have available now; unfortunately some of those are the same options that are available to us now. Ah Ha! Some of you caught on to that one didn’t you! But the truth is the only way that this will affect YOUR bottom line is if your market is made up of these types of people. After all if you’re not marketing to these types than you can just ignore them. The bad news is that unless you are ONLY appealing to the members of the “Diamond of the month club” you will be marketing to members of this crowd at some point or another.

 

Why? Because in today’s business world the number one rule in everyone’s plan should always be when your customer is in pain how can your product or service relive that pain in the most painless way available? So, when are your customers going to be IN the most amount of pain? Why when they have just realized that their back is up against the wall, and nothing that they can do, or know how to do, or have access to, will get them out of it. But guaranteed, 30 days AFTER you have resolved their situation, they will be back on that hamster wheel just churning away, looking for that next new gaming system.

 

We have identified, the who, the what and even to some extent the why, your only question left really is, how are you going to deal with it? Unfortunately this too boil’s itself down to a rather self liquidating question. Are these folks part of your customer base? YES. Can what you have to offer these folks fix their situation or at the very least lesson their pain? YES (now comes the hard part). Is your solution at a price point that these folks can afford it? Or Justify it? Remember people will pay for what they can justify and the human animal can justify a GREAT many things!

 

If not, then what can you do? Well you can either get into a bidding war, from which NO ONE emerges unscathed, or you can try some new ideas. Have you considered ascension? There are numerous financing options available, bonuses to sweeten the pot, and several other items that we haven’t touched on yet. So where can you learn more about these options? Well it just so happens I have a Kit for sale that will… NO, I wouldn’t do that to you. Not now, anyway, it’s the wrong time, no not in the economy, but in our relationship. SO instead come on back next time ad I’ll show you a couple ideas that we haven’t touched on yet.

 

But whatever you do, don’t sit around and make excuses.

 

If you are going to, choose one you can live with you just very may well HAVE To!

 

…and now for something I know you’ll REALLY like…

I got a gift the other day. I came home from work and lo and behold there on my doorstep was a package with a book in it. At my house that’s not REALLY an unusual thing, matter of fact you can come to my house almost any day UPS/FEDEX/USPS are working and you will probably find a package on the doorstep, and were you to open it, yep, you’d find a book. But what made THIS book a gift is that I don’t remember buying it. I mean I buy a LOT of books, from all over the world (thank you internet), but for the most part they all come through one of 3 importers. This one was wrapped in a big commercial package, from a business that have frequented once in the last 5 years, and that was to buy a book a friend of mine wrote and ONLY released it THROUGH this one source (www.AndyAndrews.com), and for once I wasn’t willing to wait for the mail.

 

So, once my son realizes its not only not a toy for him, but that its not even a book for him, he loses interest and tries to get me involved in his newest building project, so I set the book aside. Then about a week later I did the unthinkable, I left my tablet at home. Yes the one repository guaranteed to NEVER let ME get bored, the one thing that carries over 600 books on subjects from business to seduction to the bible, and I forgot to bring it with me, so I grabbed this book and threw it in my briefcase. Well the day was pretty hectic, so come lunch I decided I needed a break, so I started thumbing through the book. WOW, now I feel like I’ve wasted a week.

 

This book is really a great book. For those of you wondering its “The Barefoot Executive” by Carrie Wilkerson, purportedly a working mom, coach, speaker, business owner. I admit, sounds like a book I would read, as a matter of fact as I read it I’m finding that not ONLY is it a great book because of what’s in it, but because Mrs. Wilkerson writes in the same “conversational style” that I do. So it feels very comfortable reading it, and it’s a very quick read.

 

So I go home and start talking to my wife about it, hoping that she might admit to buying it, no dice. Then I notice on the jacket that there is a blurb by Dave Ramsey, one of Mic’s favorites, so I go check his site. No dice. See every now and then Dave will run a special on a book that he feels will be of benefit to his listeners, but couldn’t find anything on this one. However, all though the book she refers to these “free resources” that she’s giving away at her website, tool, audio clips, video’s ideas to help promote and further engrain these concepts that she’s teaching into the reader. So that not only are you reading it, but the information is start8ng to become part of you. Brilliant!

 

The I get to a certain part of the book, and realize that this is not just a “business book”, this is a book that almost EVERYONE that I know should read, and were I not in the midst of giving away copies of Andy’s book “How Do you Kill 11million people,” I would feel compelled to send THIS to at least a dozen folks I know. Later that night Mic asked me to help her move some EBooks to her Nook Color, so I work through that process and while doing so find where the Nook is stashing a bunch of other files, you’ll NEVER guess what I found there? Well OK maybe by now you could guess, Yep the EBOOK version of the Barefoot Executive. So I ask her if this is a book that she maybe ‘accidentally’ bought ad downloaded. (Hey it’s a nook they make it VERY easy to make such mistakes, I’ve done it!) She’s as bewildered as I am as to where the book came from, as her reading tastes tend to run between Vampires, Biblical research and Medical tomes of knowledge not seen since the dawn of man.

 

Well after 3 days of reading I just sent her the same email I’m going to give all of you. Don’t walk, RUN, physically or virtually, to your favorite bookstore, online or box, library or even the authors website: http://carriewilkerson.com/ and buy a copy. Matter of fact, if you want to check it out Carrie even allows you to DOWNLOAD a free chapter. Now for you legalists, yes you do have to give a name and email address to get the pdf, but since she’s not using a “double opt-in” (thank you!) it doesn’t even have to be YOUR email The chapter that she gives you is one of the early chapters that really carries a lot of weight. By that I mean that if you’re not of the same thought patterns as Carrie you will probably find this all a little overwhelming, and possibly even somewhat incredulous. But as someone who has been in business for myself for 20 years I can tell you that for a fact, what she is presenting is 100% accurate. Something’s you need to tale on face value.

You can make progress or you can make excuses, you can’t make BOTH.

 

So if youre going to make excuses pick one, any one, just make sure its one you like, because you may be stuck using it for DECADES

 

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