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Letter From The Editor

Dear Friends,

When you are on a roll working your task list, it can be difficult to slow down long enough to focus on the BIG tasks—an article to be written, a plan to write, a team member evaluation to prepare, a conversation you dread having! After all, you are getting a lot of really great stuff done, right? But where is the concern for the consequences to you and others for not getting the BIG task done by-when you said it would be? Think about it, what is stopping you from being your word?

Honestly, there is nothing worth giving up your integrity for. So how do you get unstopped and refocused?

1. Admit that you are stopped & recognize that you are allowing complacency &/or procrastination into your life.
2. Recommit to the big task and BE YOUR WORD!
3. Buckle in and get the job done!

Getting back on track really is about your commitment to being your word; it is about your integrity—doing what you say you are going to do!

What happens if you don’t? You impugn your integrity, the BIG task that needs to be completed goes undone, you and those around you suffer the consequences of a missed deadline, and you set a really poor example for your team.

Allowing complacency to creep into your world, even in a small way, affects you and your team in a big way! No one can afford to do that. So, if you are putting off a BIG task anywhere in your life, take a look. First of all, get present to what is stopping you, take the steps necessary to get your stops out of the way, and get recommitted. You’ll be surprised how much more fun you have with the little tasks in life, when the BIG tasks are out of the way!

Best Regards,

Clay S. Nelson

Being Great with People

Engraved on the wall of the children’s home Mother Theresa founded in Calcutta, India are The Paradoxical Commandments. These verses were written by Dr. Kent M. Keith when he was just 19 years old, and they offer us guidance on how to be great with people, even when the people we are with, aren’t being great themselves:

The Paradoxical Commandments

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

© Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968, renewed 2001

Wow! What would your world look like if you were great with people all the time, instead of being angry, vengeful, right, resentful, or just unkind to people?

What would it be like not to resent the plumber who came to your house to fix a small leak, and managed to flood your entire kitchen and den? What would it be like to forgive the senior driver who inartfully merges your car right off the road and up against the highway barrier? What would it be like to give up anger and have a calm discussion with your child about the importance of integrity and being their word after they’ve been caught in a lie?

Being great with people is about being bigger than your complaints. It’s about having a commitment that is greater than you and your corner of the world. It’s about being committed to the good of humanity—everywhere, always. It’s about creating peace in every interaction in your life. It’s about being committed to a better world that starts with you.

Imagine the results if every single person on this planet was great with every other person. Jails would close, armies would disband, and families, communities, and countries would flourish!

What if, every day, as the verses suggest, you chose to:

• Love
• Do good
• Succeed
• Be honest
• Think big
• Fight for underdogs
• Build
• Help, and
• Give

How would your commitments change? How would your success in business change? How would your family and other close relationships change?

Do you have the courage to take it on? Of course you do! Now choose!

Knowing Is Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be

Ever wonder how it is that astronauts can strap themselves in on top of an incredible amount of flammable substance and rocket into space and into the unknown?

And, what is it about the 80 or so men and women who leave Wasilla, Alaska for a two-week long trip (over 1000 miles) to Nome by dogsled, facing unknown encounters with some of the most forbidding weather, terrain, and wild animals on earth? These Iditarod participants actually have a rule that between checkpoints—many of which are over 75 miles apart—mushers “may not receive assistance!” It’s hard to imagine taking on what astronauts and dog sled mushers do, but one thing is certain—these are two groups of people who aren’t stopped by the unknown!

Leaders often get stopped by thinking they have to know everything about a project or goal before they can get started or continue to proceed. Well, it’s time to reconsider that way of approaching life, because, frankly, it doesn’t work! Knowing is not all it’s cracked up to be—in fact, knowing is often the booby prize in life.

Think about it. First, it is impossible to know everything, so striving for that is a waste of time and effort.

Second, knowing often stifles creativity and passion—both of which thrive on discovering what you don’t know! It is in the world of what you don’t know that new ideas and new discoveries are made. When you concentrate on what you know, or on knowing more, it takes your focus off of the possibilities out there. Knowing something doesn’t lead to results—doing something does.

Being attached to knowing is about fear of being wrong or of not looking good.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with continuing to educate yourself throughout your life, but when you allow the fact that you don’t know something and your fear of being wrong to derail your goals and commitments, that’s when knowing becomes the booby prize.

Many are stuck in having to know because of their fear of the unknown. Most people would rather live their lives in one very neat and tidy box. They want “A” plus “B” to equal “C” every time and when it doesn’t, they are petrified. The only problem is that petrified people don’t move.

To effectively deal with change and be successful, you have to be fluid and dance with whatever comes your way—known or unknown. As Agnes de Mille, the legendary dance choreographer once said, “Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little.” She described the joy of living like an artist, “The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.”

We have two options—choose to lay cold and lifeless in the dirt, stopped by our fear of the unknown, or we can choose to dance our hearts out on the dance floor of life. Which do you choose?

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