As we RAPIDLY move into 2015, and at Solution Tree and Marzano Research we are in the final stages of 2015 business plan tweaks and budget adjustments, I thought this quote is particularly important.
So often we just think about the ‘me’. I tend to believe the ‘they’ is most often more critical to our success than ‘me’.
Are we paying enough attention to the partners our company depends on to succeed?
– Ron Adner
Author and Professor at Tuck School of Business
Ralph Austin Jones – Grandfather
Ralph Stark Jones – Father
Ralph Thomas Jones – Brother
Ralph Kramden – Friend of Norton
Thanksgiving
For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
For the next several weeks I am going to post a provocative question a business leader uses in his/her company. How does this apply to you and your organization?
What counts that we are not counting?
– Chip Conley, Founder Joie de Vivre Hospitality
TED: Measure What Makes Life Worthwhile
We all remember certain things our parents told us when we are growing up, that sometimes our Dads or Moms don’t even remember saying.
I am not clear what brought up this particular quote, but I believe I was a young teenager talking with my Dad about his business or a summer job. So here is the quote the Dad laid on me, and I have repeated hundreds of times.
Nothing in the world has ever happened until a sale was made.
Think about that. A first date, a job interview, joining an organization, buying anything from food to a house, and heck go back to the beginning of time when the serpent convinced Eve to take the apple. A sale.
So if you think you are not a sales person or don’t like sales people, take a look at the successes in your life and you will see a sale bonded to the outcome.
The answer to how, is yes.
I know it is frustrating, but all answers/obstacles can be solved. If you don’t now how to solve it, get help and figure it out. Sorry, but the first response if not “I can’t”, “I don’t know”, and certainly not “I give up”.
When I was at Tufts University, I had a boss, Dr. Tom Murnane, who would respond to obstacles with,
You’re clever. You’ll think of something.
And 99% of the time, he was right.
This Thursday’s post will be on Solution Tree’s Goal. So we better have a few good quotes on goals to get us in the mood, by three who knew how to set goals and achieve them.
I’ve worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down and I will not let myself down.
A winner is someone who recognizes his God-given talents, works his tail off to develop them into skills, and uses these skills to accomplish his goals.
Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.
Since this Thursday’s Post is going to be on our Values, it seemed only fitting to post one of the most famous quotes on values.
Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.
— Mahatma Gandhi
Recently my daughter and I went on a trip to Africa to look at medical clinics, schools, an orphanage and ministries. At one of the schools we visited this quote was painted on the school yard wall. Like the rest of the school it needed a bit of a facelift, but was by far the best of three schools we visited.
Charlotte and I returned with a greater appreciate for what we have here at home, and a even greater appreciation for those who have few resources and financial returns that are trying so very hard to help kids who have very few options. Mind opening.
I asked one child (far right) if she wanted to be in the picture, and before I could snap the shot two more appeared. They were very excited to be in the photo and even more so to SEE the photo immediately afterwards.
The quote is an old Chinese proverb.
Tell me and I will forget.
Show me and I may remember.
Involve me and I will understand.
And these kids so want to be involved.
After spending two weeks with our four (way fun) children over Christmas break, three of which are teenagers and one holds his own with his older siblings, I heard a lot of conversations about friends and relationships that I don’t always get looped into. You want to know a lot about your kids lives, drive 17 hours two ways and all stay in a house together with no outside visitors except an occasional visit with one set of older cousins.
Lots of talk about relationships, and at one point I believe I had heard too many times what someone may think of fill in child’s name here. So I shared one of my favorite ‘Father Thinks He Knows Best’ quotes.
What someone else thinks of me, is really none of my business.
This may have been buried in one of my previous posts, but just had to throw it out there again.
In the Fall of my Sophomore year at IU, I road-tripped with some fraternity brothers to New Orleans and saw two great events in two phenomenal venues. The first was held on Friday September 15, 1978 at the Super Dome. WOW what a place. She truly was the Eigth Wonder Of The World, especially to a small town boy from Indiana. And how cool to be in the crowd, sitting in the isle of the ‘Fat Cat’ Section, when Muhammad Ali won his third Heavy Weight Title by defeating Leon Spinks. Then, the next day, we watched a night game at Tiger Stadium where LSU hosted IU. We lost 24-17, shock, but it was so different to be be in a football stadium like nothing I had ever seen before, with football fans rivaling IU Basketball fans for passion and spirit.
Now to the point. I recently watched a documentary on Ali with two of my kids, the girls. I tried to explain a bit more about him and his personality, the civil right movement, how in my lifetime so much good has happened, and that this mouthy kid from Louisville played a huge role in education the world. Struggling to explain his personality I downloaded and shared some of his quotes. Here are a few that make me smile and think about ‘the Man’.
I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale, handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I am so mean I make medicine sick.
I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark.
It’s hard to be humble when you are as great as I am.
If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.
It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.
It will be a killer, and a chiller, and a thriller, when I get that gorilla in Manila.
I’ll beat him so bad he’ll need a shoehorn to put his hat on.
Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head.
That all you got, George? (rope-a-dope trash talk)
My toughest fight was with my first wife.
Frazier is so ugly that he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wild Life.
I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.
If you even dream of beating me, you’d better wake up and apologize.
I am American. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me – black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.
Silence is golden when you can’t think of a good answer.
We have one life; it soon will be past; what we do for God, is all that will last.
I have this picture in the workout room in my home, signed by Ali and Frazier. What an era of boxing and in our history.
