Archive for success
How does today impact tomorrow’s success?
Posted by: | CommentsEveryone wants to have a good day, but not many people know what a good day looks like – much less how to create one. And even fewer people understand how the way you live today impacts your tomorrow.
Have you ever asked someone what he was doing and heard him respond, “Oh, I’m just killing time”? Have you ever really thought about that statement? A person might as well say, “I’m throwing away my life,” because, as Benjamin Franklin asserted, time is “the stuff life is made of.” Today is the only time we have within our grasp, yet many people let it slip through their fingers. They recognize neither today’s value nor its potential.
If we want to do something with our lives, then we must focus on today. That’s where tomorrow’s success lies. But how do you win today? How do you make today a great day instead of one that falls to pieces? Here’s the missing piece:
The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.
It all comes down to what you do today. Now I don’t mean your “to-do” list. Nor am I asking you to adopt a particular kind of calendar or computer program to manage your time. I’m focusing on something bigger. I want you to embrace what may be a whole new approach to life:
Make the decision once, then manage it daily.
There are only a handful of important decisions that people need to make in their entire lifetimes. Does that surprise you? Most people complicate life and get bogged down in decision-making. My goal has always been to make it as simple as possible. I’ve boiled the big decisions down to twelve things. Once I’ve made those twelve decisions, all I have to do is manage how I’ll follow through on them.
If you make decisions in those key areas once and for all – and then manage those decisions daily – you can create the kind of tomorrow you desire.
Successful people make right decisions early and manage those decisions daily.
Here are the twelve areas where I make decisions and then manage them on a day-to-day basis:
- Attitude: Today’s attitude gives me possibilities.
- Priorities: Today’s priorities give me focus.
- Health: Today’s health gives me strength.
- Family: Today’s family time gives me stability.
- Thinking: Today’s thinking gives me an advantage.
- Commitment: Today’s commitment gives me tenacity.
- Finances: Today’s financial decisions give me options.
- Faith: Today’s faith gives me peace.
- Relationships: Today’s relationships give me fulfillment.
- Generosity: Today’s generosity gives me significance.
- Values: Today’s values give me direction.
- Growth: Today’s growth gives me potential.
This post is adapted from my book Today Matters, which approaches each of those decisions in greater detail and offers practical advice on how to make them early and manage them daily.
From my files: Quotes on Potential
Posted by: | CommentsThis week I’m sharing on Twitter some of my favorite quotes on potential. But I’m not always able to include them all. Here are the thoughts of some people, both famous and unknown, on our potential and how we use it:
An unused life is an early death. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is very dangerous to go into eternity with possibilities which one has oneself prevented from becoming realities. A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it. –Soren Kierkegaard
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. –Soren Kierkegaard
The real tragedy is the tragedy of the man who never in his life braces himself for his one supreme effort, who never stretches to his full capacity, never stands up to his full stature. –Arnold Bennett
The real contest is always between what you’ve done and what you’re capable of doing. You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else. –Geoffrey Gaberino, Olympic gold medalist
We throw all our attention on the utterly idle question whether A has done as well as B, when the only question is whether A has done as well as he could. –William Graham Sumner
On our track to success, we have to fight the tendency to look at others and see how far they’ve come. The only thing that counts is how we use the potential we possess and that we run our race to the best of our abilities. –Denis Waitley and Reni L. Witt
We spend most of our 20s discovering all of the hundreds of things that we can be. But, as we mature into our 30s, we begin to discover all of the things we will NEVER be. The challenge for us as we reach our 40s and beyond is to put it all together – to know our capabilities and recognize our limitations – and become the BEST we can be. –Catherine B. Ahles
A man is a good deal like an automobile. You can’t tell how much gas he’s got in his tank by the sound of his horn, and you can’t tell how much horsepower he’s got under the hood by the noise of his exhaust. There’s usually the most noise where there is the least quality. –HP Thompson
What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. -Eleanor Powell
Leading difficult people: Excited Eddie
Posted by: | CommentsI love spending time with enthusiastic people. I’m pretty high-energy myself. An enthusiastic follower can be a joy to work with. His excitement about his work has the potential to energize the entire team.
With one exception.
Let’s talk about Excited Eddie. He’s got loads of enthusiasm for his work, but only to a point. You see, his excitement only lasts for as long as the project is new. Eddie is a fantastic starter, but his ability to finish projects is lacking.
Just like Fearful Fred and Slumped Susan, you need to lead Excited Eddie in a way that works with his personality. If you understand, listen to, and lead him appropriately, you can harness his startup enthusiasm and help him to finish well.
Understanding Excited Eddie:
- Behavior: High Enthusiasm
- Motivated by: New Challenges
- Strength: Starts Strong
- Weakness: Seldom Finishes
Listening to Excited Eddie:
- Privately sit down and listen to Eddie’s exciting startup stories.
- Ask him for the “rest of the story.”
- Take into account how his emotion may cause him to exaggerate.
- Let him see what he lost by not seeing things through.
- If he desires to finish well, develop a game plan.
Leading Excited Eddie:
- Give him a new challenge.
- Keep him focused.
- Reward him for finishing well.
- If he’s a good starter, assign a steady and detailed person to assist him.
Growth plan:
Read Today Matters together.
Do you lead an Excited Eddie? Or are you personally more likely to start strong than to finish strong? Through guidance and effective rewards, you can channel Eddie’s enthusiasm so that it carries his work through to completion.
One is too small a number
Posted by: | CommentsA Chinese proverb states, “Behind an able man there are always other able men.” The truth is that teamwork is at the heart of great achievement. The question isn’t whether teams have value. The question is whether we acknowledge that fact and become better team players. That’s why I assert that one is too small a number to achieve greatness. You cannot do anything of real value alone.
I challenge you to think of one act of genuine significance in the history of humankind that was performed by a lone human being. No matter what you name, you will find that a team of people was involved. That is why former US President Lyndon Johnson said, “There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.”
C. Gene Wilkes, in his book, Jesus on Leadership, observed that the power of teams not only is evident in today’s modern business world, but it also has a deep history that is evident even in biblical times.
Wilkes asserts:
- Teams involve more people, thus affording more resources, ideas, and energy than would an individual.
- Teams maximize a leader’s potential and minimize her weaknesses. Strengths and weaknesses are more exposed in individuals.
- Teams provide multiple perspectives on how to meet a need or reach a goal, thus devising several alternatives for each situation. Individual insight is seldom as broad and deep as a group’s when it takes on a problem.
- Teams share the credit for victories and the blame for losses. This fosters genuine humility and authentic community. Individuals take credit and blame alone. This fosters pride and sometimes a sense of failure.
- Teams keep leaders accountable for the goal. Individuals connected to no one can change the goal without accountability.
- Teams can simply do more than an individual.
If you want to reach your potential or strive for the seemingly impossible – such as communicating your message 2000 years after you’re gone – you need to become a team player. It may be a cliche, but it is nonetheless true: Individuals play the game, but teams win championships.
from Teamwork 101
Quitting is more about WHO you are than WHERE you are.
Posted by: | CommentsBack in December, I wrote about the importance of starting well. In the comments, many people agreed with me, but they also pointed out the critical nature of continuing after you start. They were right. Like I said at the time, starting and finishing are the two covers of the book. The main part – the pages – represents the day-to-day labor needed to achieve your goal.
Unfortunately, in many ways starting is the easy part. Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, “The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings.”
What about you? Are you merely a starter? When the enthusiasm for a new idea fades, when the passion cools, when the odds against you increase and the results diminish, when it looks as if success is impossible, will you maintain your intensity and keep going? Are you tenacious?
Consider the fact that Admiral Robert Peary attempted to reach the North Pole seven times before he succeeded. Oscar Hammerstein produced five shows that were flops on Broadway before staging Oklahoma, which had a record-breaking run of 2,212 performances. Thomas Edison failed in his attempt to create a workable lightbulb 10,000 times before creating one that finally worked. To achieve your dream, you need to be able to keep going when others quit.
To develop tenacity, keep in mind that…
Quitting is more about who you are than where you are.
Everyone faces difficulty when working toward a dream. And if someone fails, he can make excuses for what went wrong, how the unexpected happened, how someone let him down, how circumstances worked against him.
But the reality is that the external things do not stop people. Those who achieve their dreams don’t have an easier path than those who do not. They just have a different internal attitude about the journey. The great artist Leonardo da Vinci once declared, “Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed on a star does not change his mind.”
The one who achieves the dream sees the journey differently.
Instead of thinking, “Not enough people believe in me. I’ll never make it,” he says,
“My belief in myself is enough; I can make it.”
Instead of, “It’s taking too long to realize my dream,” she reminds herself,
“Dreams are realized one day at a time.”
Rather than, “Enough is enough! I’ve taken enough hits!” she declares,
“I’ve come too far to give up now.”
Instead of, “I don’t have the strength to hold onto my dream,” he tells himself,
“Hold on a little longer. The darkest hour comes just before the dawn.”
Novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe said, “When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.”
And I love how H.E. Jensen expressed an achiever’s way of thinking: “The man who wins may have been counted out several times, but he didn’t hear the referee.” The only real guarantee for failure is to stop trying.
So when things go wrong, when the obstacles seem too great, when the difficulties get to be too much, when your dream seems to be impossibly far away, your job is to simply keep going. If you stop, it won’t be because of what happens around you. It will be because of what happens in you. Choose to see things differently. Success is probably closer than you think. Just keep moving forward.
