Making a living; Making a life

It’s been said that we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. I have found this to be true of my own life—I benefit personally through generosity and when I forget this lesson my SPIRIT suffers.

Helping others is something you can start doing today, whether it’s spending more time with your family, developing an employee who shows potential, helping people in the community, putting your own desires on hold to benefit your team. Remember the needs of the many far out weigh the needs of the one. The key is to find your purpose and help others while you’re pursuing it.

Have a GREAT and GIVING DAY

Adding Value

Here’s a thought. When people think about you, do they say to themselves, “My life is better because of that person?” To succeed personally, you must try to help others. In fact, I believe that you can get everything in life you want if you help enough other people get what they want.

How can you turn your focus from yourself and start adding value to others—well you can put others first in your thinking, you can find out what others need and then meet that need with generosity and excellence. The very act of giving enlarges you and the blessing you will receive.

Father's Day

Father’s Day is this Sunday so take good care of your father’s, the father of your children, your brothers and any male influence that have assisted in the care and nurturing of children in your family! “Dads” and “Moms” are such precious resources. I miss mine every day and strive to provide the security to my “crumb crushers” that my parents provided to me.

Security is a comfort that allows our children to explore with developing fear. That jest for exploration is the fuel to success that we talk about daily. So to all of you that provide security and nurturing for the next generation, a BIG THANK YOU!

The scorpion and the turtle

Have you heard the parable about the turtle and the scorpion? Once a turtle and a scorpion found themselves stranded on the side of a rising river. The turtle was going to cross the river before the current became too strong. The scorpion asked whether he could ride the turtle’s back across the river. The turtle rightly answered NO! The turtle told the scorpion that he wasn’t crazy and wouldn’t give the scorpion a chance to sting him and kill him.

The scorpion said, “Look, why would I sting you? I will be on your back and if I sting you and you drown, I will drown with you. I don’t want to die so trust me I won’t sting you.” The turtle thought, yeah why would he sting me and kill himself so the turtle agreed and allow the scorpion to climb onto his back.

Halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the turtle on the soft part of his neck. The turtle turned around and asked why the scorpion would do that as the turtle was becoming paralyzed and no longer able to swim. The scorpion simply answered, “That’s what I do; I sting things.” The turtle then answered, “But now we will both die.” The scorpion simply said, “You knew I was a scorpion when you allowed me to climb onto your back”.

Obviously, you can draw many conclusions from this story. What I found interesting is that the turtle allowed calamity into his life by ignoring the obvious! We are in control of what we allow to rule our day – don’t be a turtle and ignore those signs and symptoms that will eventually lead you to negative outcomes. You are the master of your own destiny daily!

Takes a Village

What motivates people to either give you there best or something that falls short of the mark? Do some people wake up each day with a conscious thought just to “mess up”? Do people really do the best they can do even though their outcome leaves a lot to be desired? When you are in a leadership role, in your professional or personal life and encounter behavior or outcomes that are contrary to your expectations you probably go through this decision tree matrix. The frustrating proposition for managers is that even after you provide instruction, some folk still continue down a path that is less that desirable for them and for you. The question is what should you do?

Some management gurus suggest that folk do the best they can each day and that you should wait and “catch” them performing at optimal levels and then praise them. They also suggest that during the intervals that you have to wait for these folk to perform at optimal levels you should just provide consistent feedback. These management gurus have long ago fallen out of favor as companies found out that this process could run you into bankruptcy. More recent management gurus suggest that the critical factor is choosing the right people for the job and then investing in their success. This frame of reference would then pick experienced people from inexperienced people, thereby limiting the pool of folk who are provided opportunities.

Some management gurus suggest that strong leadership is the only thing needed for an organization to succeed. Well if that were true then ENRON would still be in business and GE would still be a world market leader.

My guess is that it takes a “village” not to only raise children but also a successful company which suggest that everyone in the village is working for the success of the village and not their own individual position in the village. That takes each of us examining our own motivations and work behaviors daily. This level of introspection is healthy for me and I suspect can be healthy for all that partake in the activity. Being part of a village is a great thing as villages both protect us and provide sustenance. We each then owe it to the village to be good citizens and provide sustenance back!