“Let their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.”
Daniel Webster
Every day of the freedoms we experience should be a lasting reminder of the sacrifices others have made to defend those freedoms. For the families and loved ones left behind, it is…
“Courtesy is the one coin you can never have too much of or be stingy with.”
John Wanamaker
Think of how you feel when some random stranger is gracious and pleasant to you for no apparent reason. It can change your entire day. What if you focused on being that person? Courtesy is like a boomerang; the more you give, the more you get in return.
“One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.”
Arnold H. Glasow
If you always focus on what is urgent, you are likely to neglect the truly important. Leadership is the ability to pull yourself out of the maelstrom and find the time and space to think about preventing fires, not just fighting them. If you aren’t leading yourself in this way, who will?
“We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.”
John Naisbitt
There will always be more data available. There are always more questions that one can ask. The key to getting things done is to know when to stop seeking information and begin looking for the application.
All the data and questions in the world won’t mean anything if you can’t convert it to action. That’s knowledge.
“Success is born out of faith, an undying passion, and a relentless drive.”
Stephen Curry
If you were to score yourself on a scale from zero to ten on these three attributes, faith, undying passion, and relentless drive, how would you rate? Understanding this, how likely are you to achieve success?
“A failure is like fertilizer; it stinks to be sure, but it makes things grow faster in the future.”
Denis Waitley
Can you imagine how poorly everything would taste if no fertilizer were ever used? How many of life’s great experiences would be lost if we didn’t have some fertilizer along the way. Stop worrying about failing, start focusing on growth!
“Focus and simplicity…once you get there, you can move mountains.”
Steve Jobs
It is amazing how the more you focus, the simpler things become. It’s when you aren’t focused that complexity creeps in…
“Everyone should have a sense of urgency — it is getting a lot done in a short period of time in a calm, confident manner.”
Bob Proctor
Will delaying make the situation better? Easier? Smoother? Faster? Sometimes “slow is smooth, smooth is fast,” other times, you need to buckle down and get it done. A sense of urgency is contagious, both to yourself and to others.
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
Vincent Van Gogh
What is the “great thing” that you are focused on right now? Is it clearly defined in your mind? Can you almost touch it because it feels so real?
Now for the critical question. How are you going to make this become a reality?
Great things are never accomplished through simple wishes and desires. It takes hard and focused efforts, on the small things day in and day out, that bring greatness to life.
The real question is, what are the small things you are working on today, that will mean something incredible tomorrow? Rinse and repeat daily; that’s when the magic happens.
“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
What experiments are you going to put into practice today? Are you trying something new? Is there some idea or approach you have in mind that you want to try out? What is the worst that can happen if the experiment doesn’t go precisely as planned?
If you aren’t pushing the envelope, striving to test new techniques and manners of thinking, are you growing? If you aren’t experimenting daily, are you simply living a “the way it has always been done” life?
Is that the life you want to live?
“The most distinguishing feature of winners is their intensity of purpose.”
Alymer Letterman
What is YOUR purpose?
What is it that drives you to get out of bed in the morning, to work harder than anyone else, to push further than anyone can make you, to do the things that no one else is willing to do?
If you can’t answer this question, you aren’t ready to win.
“Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.”
General Colin Powell
What is scarier to you, pissing people off or failing in your responsibilities? Know the answer to this question. One of the answers will forever limit your success…
“If failure is not an option, then neither is success.”
Seth Godin
If you aren’t willing to fail, you aren’t pushing far and hard enough. How will you ever know how far you can go if you don’t push the envelope and fail every once in a while…
“Leadership is the ability to guide others without force into a direction or decision that leaves them still feeling empowered and accomplished.”
Lisa Cash Henson
There is a big difference between telling people what to do and guiding them to better decisions. The key differences are; a willingness to teach and an ability to learn. Both of these attributes are required of the leader before they can lead anyone. Only then can they appropriately guide others.
“We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.”
Peter Drucker
My favorite end of day questions to ask of myself are:
Interestingly enough, only when I do both is the day is fully satisfying.
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.”
Bruce Lee
Laser-like focus isn’t average or easy. The person who can demonstrate the discipline to say no to of this magnitude is hardly average. What three things should you have said “no” to today?
“Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force.”
Irving Berlin
“Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad…”
“For good or bad.” Whose good? Yours? Others? The truth is that the choices you make regarding your attitude have a profound impact on your life and the lives of those you touch. It strikes me as I write this that those focused on improving their attitudes have a deep caring for those they interact with and those they serve. The person with a “bad attitude” doesn’t care about the impact they have on others. They are looking inward and caring only about themselves.
Perhaps the key to unlocking the secret power of attitude is to lift your eyes and see the world around you with a servant’s heart. If you can’t do this, will your attitude ever be good?
“Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.”
Jim Collins
It comes to mind that possibly great is also the enemy of good. Sometimes there is such a desperate desire to do great things that the good things never get done. Maybe it is a fear of failure; perhaps it is an inability to know when ‘enough is enough.’ The key is to be able to execute with speed and agility. If you only want great, but you never get there, is that good?
While I fully agree that ‘good is the enemy of great,’ there can be too much of a good thing. Don’t let the pursuit of the great prevent you from being good…
Malcolm Gladwell
I have never met a successful person who brought a different level of energy or commitment to practice than they did to the game itself. The most successful people always practice as hard as they play on game day. You can’t take it to the next level when it matters if you don’t practice with that same intensity…
“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions, not outside.”
Marcus Aurelius
How many of your choices today were controlled by anxiety? Would you make those same decisions again, knowing what you now know about the day?
“And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” Matthew 6:27 ESV
“Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.”
Henry David Thoreau
I think the critical question here is, “why are you looking back?” Is it to learn and grow or wallow and lament? There is nothing you can do about the time passed; one may only live going forward. What are you going to do differently because you have looked back?
Look back to learn, live forward; life is too short to waste.
“It takes the same energy to worry as it does to be positive. Use your energy to think positive and positive things will happen.”
Unknown
Have you ever noticed that everything seems to be a little darker and less favorable if you choose to see the world through a “glass half empty” lens? On the flip side, if you intentionally choose a positive outlook, good things seem to happen as if by magic. Regardless, it is a choice. Which one will you choose tomorrow?
“Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.”
Stephen Covey
I love this adaptation of the “Golden Rule.” It’s incredible how your perspective can change when you think of the world this way. ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you.’ Luke 6:31
Of course, it doesn’t matter what you say; you have to back up the words with acts.
‘But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.’ James 1:22-25 ESV
Who are your best customers? How are you treating those who serve?
“Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goeth
Perhaps behavior is more like a two-way mirror; it’s how everyone else sees you, regardless of what you see in the mirror…
“When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”
Alexander Den Heijer
People are a lot like flowers. They need suitable soil, sunshine, water, and food to grow. Take away these things, and performance is suboptimal at best.
Flowers also need structure and process to bloom their brightest. You can’t dump all the water on them at once and then give none for a month and expect great results; the environment matters, consistency matters, discipline and process matter. Add these ingredients to the mix and you have a formula for achieving beauty.
“There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.”
Paramahansa Yogananda
Are you the kind of person that you would want to be friends with?
If you can’t serve others, you can’t be a true friend. You must value others more than yourself; that’s what true friends do…
“Plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”
Richard Cushing
There are two ways to live life, by accident or on purpose. Which one are you choosing today?
“Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, Make Me Feel Important. Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.”
Mary Kay Ash
How many people will you meet or speak with today? What if you started every conversation or interaction with this underlying question running through your mind. “What can I very specifically do to ensure this person knows they are important?” It is the action that matters, not the intent. Answer this question through your actions.
“Trust is the glue that holds people together and is the lubricant that keeps an organization moving forward.”
Colin Powell
Glue binds parts together to align and function not as individual components but as a complete operating system.
Motor oil reduces friction, overheating, and damage to the engine.
I don’t imagine that there are too many effective teams that can function without these components. The question is, do you need more oil, glue, or both?
“The answers you seek never come when the mind is busy, they come when the mind is still.”
Leon Brown
There is an old cliche that some people “do their best thinking when in the shower.” Every pause to think of why this might be? We are always so busy, running in every direction, believing in the falsehood of multitasking effectiveness. Sometimes, the best way to solve a problem is to disconnect from everything and give our minds space to work. Easier said than done, but once you see how it works, you can’t go back…
“Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.”
Margaret Shepherd
What exactly are you waiting on? The perfect moment of inspiration? Ideal conditions? The stars to align? What are you going to do if your “bus” doesn’t come?
Sometimes you have to lean in, lean forward, and leap.