WHO HAS WHO?

"Bullfeathers"

That's the paraphrased response from a women in the audience when the subject of releasing our perverted death grip on company benefits was discussed.

"I've worked too hard to let go of my benefits," she continued with great passion. She had a point, but I worry for many folks. People I knew in business who use to talk about the projects they were working on or the brain-dead boss they were working for now start off their conversations with: "I only have 4 years, 3 months, 2 weeks and 5 days until retirement."

It's important to remember: everything you do has a price. What price is being paid for your benefits, and who is paying that price? If you're aware of the price and are willing to pay it, that's fine. If you put up with a job that drains your passion and diminishes your spirit so that you can get your teeth cleaned free twice a year, so be it.

When I left the company I was with for 17 years, I marched out proudly (albeit naively) with no medical, no dental and a vested pension. (When I took the pension at 65 it just about covered the cost of Metamucil.) When I started by own company I had a pension plan, and health insurance. How did I get it? I did it the old fashioned way, I paid through the nose for it. But, I did a job I loved and lived in the part of the country I love.

Lesson: Company benefits are something you have; they shouldn't have you.

QUINTESSENTIAL WORK

Be prepared to argue with me.

I don't believe anybody's work is more important than anybody else's work.

"What? Are you saying the work of Mother Teresa was no more important than the work of Mrs. Murphy who makes cat toys?"

I'm sure the casual observer sees a difference, but it doesn't have to be different to the two women.

If you feel a zeal, devotion, and intensity for what you do; what you do is not harmful to the community; and you do it to the best of your ability, there is no difference in the importance of the work itself.

All work, paid or unpaid, is inherently important. Work is important for the benefit it provides the community. (Without benefit the work won't last.) Also work is important for the sense of accomplishment it provides the worker. (Without accomplishment the worker won't last.)

Sure, the outcome of some work, by its very nature affects more people than others, but does that make the essence of that work more important?

Is the actual "work" of a pilot more important when he's flying alone or when he has a few hundred people aboard? The "work" of a doctor when she is treating one ghetto child or researching a cure for cancer?

Doctoring and piloting are important by themselves regardless of how many people they affect.

So is making cat toys.

Yesterday when I laughed at my cat chasing around a catnip filled replica of a rodent, the experience made more of a positive difference in my life that day, that moment, than Mother Teresa's work has done.

I just hope Mrs. Murphy knows that.

Lesson: All work is important; experience it that way.

CAN'T GET OUT WHAT YOU DON'T PUT IN

What is:

Essential for effective communications?

A cornerstone of healthy relationships?

Dispensed slowly?

Yanked quickly?

Desired in our daughters' boyfriends?

Vital to all organizations?

Missing in most organizations?

An ingredient in high performance teams?

Abundant in our God?

Lacking in our politicians?


The answer: trust.

Trust is a belief and confidence in something or someone. You either have it or you don't.

Whether trust is in your personal bag of virtues or not doesn't stop you from being asked to display it. How often and in how many ways in your work and personal lives are people asking you to trust them? Occasionally it's easy because you do trust them, and you will gladly and confidently do what they ask. Sometime it's easy because you don't trust them and would never do what they ask even under the threat of having to spend time alone with a mime.

The challenge comes when you're asked to do something you feel you should do that requires a level of trust you don't have. Friends may ask you to play the "Trust Me" game without historically having produced any legitimate reason for you to do so.

In life you can find yourself backed in a person or professional corner frantically searching for trust from people whom you have never given a reason to trust you. If you didn't have people's trust before you needed it, you'll never have their trust when you do need it.

Lesson: Deposit often in the trust bank. You never can tell when you'll need a withdrawal.

CATS, BIRDS, AND WORMS

One beautiful, Southwestern morning, I was in the shed filling up a bucket of birdseed to feed and nourish all the winged species we have here in the mountains.

As I took the bucket-o-seeds around to the back bird feeders, I saw something which gave me pause for thought -- our cat, Sydney, in a brazen example of nature's inescapable food chain, was eating a bird.

I was struck by the irony. I'm feeding the birds; my cat's eating the birds.

Sticking with warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered vertebrates, it's often said, "The early bird gets the worm." Then doesn't it also follow that the early worm gets eaten?

You get the promotion, somebody else doesn't, Somebody else wins the turkey raffle, you don't. The good die young, the bad live on.

In life you don't always win and often you're darn lucky to come out even. Life is going to do to you what life does to you. Why is there a tendency in us humans to feel unfairly treated when we don't get what we want? In nature what's fair for the cat is sure not fair for the bird. What's fair for the bird is a real bummer for the worm.

Lesson: Fairness is a non-issue. Some days you're the cat, some days you're the bird.

READY OR NOT HERE WE COME

Do you ever wonder if these new-fangled concepts that you are exposed to on a daily basis are really any better than the old ways?

To flip a classic rebuke, "Don't just do something, stand there." Are the decision makers at work and at home merely "doing something?" Should they "stand there" for awhile to insure that the new is really better than the old?

Consider the thrust to change management and parental styles. Is the new participative method really better than the old authoritarian? If God didn't see a need for authority, wouldn't he have sent Moses down from the mountain with the ten suggestions?

I'm certainly not against change, but as fellow travelers in these dynamic times, we must be real clear as to the changes we initiate. Will the changes you generate create real growth, or is change being implemented simply because you're not sure what else to do?

The tried and true may not always be the most glamorous way to go, but before committing to a new idea, think it through and back again. If you're not ready on all fronts to change, you may be better off to refrain from "doing something" and just "stand there" until you are ready.


Lesson: Don't blindly jump on the change bandwagon until you're sure you want to go somewhere.

BELIEVE ME

One day I was driving down a highway in rural New Mexico, doing a tad over the speed limit, when I saw ahead a car doing exactly the speed limit. Physics dictates a showdown.

My first thought was, "This person must be new to New Mexico." As I came closer, my "passing genes" kicked in. Positioning myself for a shot at the lead, I perceived a slight problem -- I was about to pass a police car.

My decision to pass or not to pass a police car would seem a given, but not in this case. The car in front of me was not your everyday state police, but a Navajo reservation police car. My belief told me that the reservation police do not give tickets on a federal highway -- at least that's what I thought I believed until it came time to test my belief.

Test results: I followed that car until I reached my destination. So much for the intensity of that belief!

Your new girl friend seems like an honest, open, trustworthy, reliable kind of person and you believe possibly this could be the one. The night of your fifth date she calls you on skype and tells you how much she values your opinion. She has just bought a new outfit to wear on your date tonight. You are waiting for her to get out of the clown outfit she is wearing and show you what she bought. Suddenly you realize this refugee from Barnum and Bailey is indeed wearing what she bought! "How do you think I look?" she asks. "Trust me, you can tell me anything."

Lesson: You never really know how much you believe in something until there is some risk involved in that belief.

WASHROOM TECHNIQUES

"Boy, what a waste of time that was!"

Be honest, did you ever say that at the end of a meeting?

If not, you are indeed one of the fortunate few. If so, who did you blame for wasting your time? My guess is you blamed the person who ran the meeting. He or she is the most obvious "blamee." When all is said and done (and it usually is at a meeting), who has the responsibility to insure that your valuable time is not wasted? I'll give you a hint. You were in the shower with that person this morning.

You know intellectually how you use your time is your responsibility, but accepting that fact rationally is difficult and even more difficult is doing anything about it. So what chance do meeting leaders have to correct what's wasting your time if you don't tell them?

In The classic book, The Empowered Manager, Peter Block gives some remarkably practical advice to meeting leaders. He suggests that if you really want to know how well a meeting you are running is going, during the break you should slip into the washroom, go in a stall, put your feet up and listen to what everyone is saying!

Typical meeting scenario:

A leader asks, "Any questions, comments or concerns?" Attendees say, "no," then go on break and complain like hypochondriacs at an AMA convention. Back in the meeting after the break, leader asks for any questions or comments before going on and is greeted with total silence. And after the meeting, the "waste of time" litany commences.

Lesson:  Only you can waste your time.

BUSY

Born

Busy, Busy, busy

Busy, busy, busy

Busy, busy, busy

 Die





Lesson: Be busy being bodacious.

WHO TOOK WHAT FROM WHOM?

Many years ago our son Dave was home with us for winter holiday break. He was attending the University of Iowa. We hadn't seen him for a while, and this promised to be a good time. It was, up until he received -- the telephone call.

The call came from one of his roommates. Their house had been robbed and all of Dave's expensive musical instruments and sound equipment was gone.

Dave worked very hard to be able to afford these treasured items. As might be expected, he was one discouraged temporarily ex-musician. Then, an all-to-human phenomenon occurred. Dave began to concentrate on all he had lost. And once that "lost train" leaves the station, it just picks up speed.

Dave lost more, he lost sleep, lost appetite, lost temper and lost time on his vacation by cutting it short to get back to the scene of the crime.

Our second born gave to the antisocial misfits more than they had taken. Sure the pukes took his equipment, but Dave chose to give the knuckle-draggers his sleep, appetite, temper and vacation. He quickly recognized this line of thinking was not very productive. It didn't get his equipment back, nor did it punish the materially disadvantaged cretins. The only one being punished was Dave, and he was doing it to himself!

What happened, happened. How to make silk out of this sow's ear was now the question. So Dave in his creative and customarily optimistic style reframed the situation. He was no longer "stolen from," his equipment was merely "borrowed by an unidentified person without his permission for an indefinite period of time."

Case closed, on with life.

Lesson:  People may take your "things," but you are the only one that can let them steal your moments.

BUFFY THE LIFE SLAYER

I was examining the "table readings" provided by a cutesy, theme restaurant. Among the color pictures of desserts the size of which do not exist in the real world and the variety of beers offered so you will not realize how short changed you're getting on dessert, was a rather curious card which read:

"I am EMPOWERED to make sure that you ESCAPE FROM THE EVERYDAY.
If you need anything just ask!"

This preprinted 3 X 5 card was signed by Buffy, the waitress.

Do you really need to "escape from the everyday?" Even if you think you do, do you really believe Buffy could do it for you? If she could, who empowered her to make your life more exciting?

"Everyday" is what makes up your life. Every big and important or little and inconsequential thing you do added together equals the sum total of your existence. Why would you want to "escape" from that which makes you up?

Buffy, stick to apologizing for the desserts.

Lesson: Without everything that has happened in your life, you'd be someone else.

PERSPECTIVE

Remember the last time you dug a ditch 100 feet long, one foot deep?


My ditch went from a shed to a fence at the lot line. Ten minutes of digging, followed by one minute of rest. Ten digging, one resting. After about 3 repetitions of the preceding, I looked toward the fence and it seemed, if anything, to be getting further away.

Do any of your life's goals, when concentrating on them, seem to be getting further away? We're told to focus on our goals, to visualize accomplishing all we want, and to imagine how we will feel when we have what we want. When we do concentrate, focus, visualize and imagine, we drop to our knees in frustration over how far we have yet to go.

After two more repetitions in my quest to dig to the distant fence, I put down the shovel. I expelled a big sigh and out of the corner of my sweat stung eye, I caught a glimpse of the shed, my starting point, which was now further away from me than the fence was.

Lesson : Don't be discouraged about how far you have to go; look at how far you have come.

GOAL FEVER

Do you get really frustrated when somebody tells you that the way to attain all of your personal and professional objectives is to set effective goals?

It aggravates me because I believe I set effective goals. My goals are written, definitive, committed to and environmentally acceptable. Yet I don't always get what I want. I should, shouldn't I? I follow all the rules.

Don't all politicians enter the race with the goal of winning? Don't you strive to accomplish your work goals? Don't you enter tennis or golf matches with the goal of winning?

During the opening ceremony of the '92 Summer Olympics, swimmer Ron Karnaugh's father died. Ron committed to swim in his father's memory. When it was Ron's time to race, he wore his father's hat in the pool area, looked up to the sky as if to ask his dad for some additional inspiration, dove into the pool and finished sixth.

I've discovered over the years, as I'm sure Ron did on that Olympic-sized day, that I can set all the goals I want but if there are five swimmers faster than I am, I lose.

To avoid frustration and aggravation, consider this statement: A true goal is a commitment to accomplish some worthwhile outcome that is WITHIN YOUR CONTROL.

This doesn't mean you should not envision and aspire to accomplish desired results out of your specific control. It's important for you to have a direction and focus. But it's also important for your own emotional health and well being to recognize the level of influence you really exert over certain goal attainment.

Maybe there is a need for two different levels of goals?

Level One Goals — goals you strongly influence by your own actions. For example: finishing college, learning a foreign language, running in a marathon.

Level Two Goals — goals you influence by your actions but the ultimate decision as to whether the goal will be accomplished rests with somebody or something else. For example, sales objectives, games, politics, winning a marathon, etc.

Attaining Level Two Goals is certainly desirable, but remember a completed level two goal will always be the successful attainment of a series of Level One goals, with a dash of luck thrown in. Life is enough of a challenge without whipping yourself over results that are not within your direct control.

Lesson:  It's useless at best and frustrating at worst to set a goal whose outcome depends on something outside oneself.

THE ANTI COACH

It was third down, two yards to go for a first down at our opponent's ten yard line. We (St. Patrick High School) were on a roll. I was playing fullback on that memorable Sunday afternoon. (The afternoon was memorable because we were on our way to a touchdown. This touchdown could win the game for us and winning was a unique occurrence for the St. Pat's Shamrocks back then.) The coach called all the shots and sent in the halfback with the play the coach felt could get us the touchdown and salvage some degree of respectability, not to mention his job. The halfback joined us in the huddle with the play. The coach, in all his wisdom, had called my number, I was going to carry the ball.

Just before we broke the huddle, the halfback leaned over to me and provided the coaches words of encouragement, which you are unlikely to find on a motivational poster, Coach said. "whatever you do, don't fumble." To this day the ball has not been located, and I picked up the name "Cinderella" because I missed the ball.

Golfers, do you ever say to yourself, "O.K. duffer, whatever you do, do not put this ball in the water." Then you tee up an old scuffed, scratched, oblong, "water ball" just to give validity to your pessimism.

"Whatever you do don't say anything about the big bump on Aunt Martha's nose." A sure way to get into a nose bump discussion with Aunt Martha.

Our minds cannot focus on the opposite of an idea. You can't focus on not doing something. You do a major disservice when you tell yourself or others what NOT to do. Focus on what you want to see happen, not on what you do not want to see happen

This positive focus is not only important when dealing with ourselves, look what happens when we focus on what we don't want others to do. Since I'm already on the football coaches manure list I'll just dig myself in a little deeper.

While playing football in college, the coaches took movies of each game. (This was B.V.-- Before Video.) They took movies to "help us become better players." The way our coaches conducted those session they worked in much the same way as the electric chair helps convicted murders become better citizens.

I remember one game in particular. The camera focused on an opposing player running around end, and as luck would have it, yours truly was the only one between the runner and a sizable gain. I never had the quickest reflexes even so, I felt pretty good about myself and my abilities--until exposed to a little help from my coaches.

The camera was able to isolate just the runner and me. He faked; I bought it, put a great tackle on where he used to be and, in compliance with the law of gravity (which had just been enacted), settled in a cloud of dust. It was all natural turf in those days. The camera caught every agonizing moment of that play.

(Anybody who has ever played in a sport where movies or video tapes were taken by the coaching staff, knows what is coming.) At the next practice session, when the coach came to the part of the movie where the tackle was missed, he showed the play, rewound it, showed it again, rewound it, showed it again, and rewound it for what seemed like half of my life. All the time he was telling me, and anyone else who would listen, while also reinforcing my "failure" visually, what a lousy tackler I was.

What had my coach accomplished? Did I see myself as a "tackler" or a "non-tackler" when I left the meeting? I was just coached for a whole hour on how not to tackle!

Sports are an easy way to demonstrate the negative effect of focusing on what you don't want to happen, but its not the only way.

I'm sure many of you remember Karl Wallenda, the founder and father of the famous high wire act, the Flying Wallendas.

I'm also sure it would surprise Karl to find his tale being told around the campfire in many personal-improvement training programs. His story is called, curiously enough, the Wallenda Factor.

The Wallenda Factor, as reported, goes something like this. Prior to his death in 1978, according to his wife, the lovely and talented Mrs. Wallenda Factor, all Karl thought about was falling. He obsessed over the wire, the winds and the whatevers. While that line of thinking does not sound unusual or unwarranted, it could be fatal. Because as we have said there's no future in focusing on what we don't want to have happen. For Karl that turned out to be literally true.

Focusing on falling was probably not the best thing for Karl to think about before boosting himself 75 feet in the air over downtown San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The obvious, yet often ignored, point of the WF is if you get what you think about most, why would you think about what you don't want?

Do you define major portions of your life by what you're against?


Lesson:  Focusing your energy on what you don't want to happen not only doesn't work, but doesn't leave much energy for what you do want to happen.

BUCK,BUCK,BUCKET

I believe you get up each morning and pick up your personalized "stress bucket." As you go through the day your bucket gets full. When your bucket is full, what do you do? You dump your bucket.

Mature people have a healthy, productive way of dumping their buckets. They exercise, laugh, meditate, garden or breathe deeply. Immature people simply dump their buckets into someone else's bucket.

Immature people are those people who call a meeting, burst through the door like crazy persons yelling, screaming, and exit feeling so much better. But the immatures leave a room full of people so uptight those attending the meeting won't be able to exhale for a week.

You see the immatures at work, on the highways in the grocery stores and in the airports taking it out on whomever. They dump, feel temporarily better, move on and leave a trail of stressed people strewn in their wake.

Not only do the immatures come off like spoiled children, they are also ineffective. The reason dumping one's buckets into another's doesn't work in the long run was best explained by that distinguished philosopher Forrest Gump. In the movie of the same name, Forrest's friend was throwing rocks in anger at her old house. Forrest looked at her and Gumped: "Sometimes there's not enough rocks."

Lesson:  Your stress is like a boomerang -- it's useless to toss at anyone else.

MONOPOLY IT AIN'T

They say life is a game. Well, it's one heck of a game if you ask me. It's a game two other people got you into without your approval. You have to find out the most important rules for your self while simultaneously playing the game, and, most interestingly, you can't win. No thanks, I'll pass on that game. Oops! I can't do that either. If I'm alive, I'm playing.

The life game does have a winner, it's just not you. Death is the ultimate winner. Death is like a well-camouflaged, sharp-shooting, game piece hidden behind the heavy trees on the ridge overlooking your life being played out in the valley below. Death's job is to pick off everything of importance around you. Maybe on a slow day Death will just play with your world like a cat plays with a mouse. He will wound or take out those special to you just for something to do. Then when death gets really bored he'll put a slug right between your eyes, and there is not one darn thing you can do about it. Death always wins.

I know this sounds cynical, but reality often does sound cynical. When you really "get' that life and the lives of those around you are finite, only then can you begin to truly live life the way it is, not the way you would like life to be.

If you view immortality as winning life's game, you're a loser right out of the blocks. Who would want to live forever? As Woody Allen said, "Some people want immortality and they can't think of what to do on a Saturday night." If you look at life as a trip, as something you do between birth and death, you win the game by simply enjoying and maximizing each day. Enjoying what you have when you have it is the only way you can thumb your nose at the sniper on the hill.

Lesson:  Life's game is not about winning or losing; it has to be about how you play the game because there is nothing else.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

As we landed in Los Angles the sun was shining and the airline had not lost my luggage, overall a good flight. Now all I had to do was get the rental car and I'd be on my way.

I had given speeches in the LA area before and felt reasonably comfortable finding my way around. This was pre-GPS so I just had a map of the area with my destination clearly marked by my client with bright yellow magic marker. There should be no problem finding the place. Getting lost when I have a time commitment tends to release my stress juices. Not needing that particular adrenaline rush, I thought I'd verify my driving plan with the desk agent at the rental car counter.

"Can you exit the 105 at Western?" I asked in my best guy-asking- directions tone. "I dounno," came the reply from the most recent Dale Carneige drop out. "Ask the guy down where you pick up your car," he mumbled. I guess if you "dounno", you "dounno", so I slupped my bags to the rental car pick-up.

"Can you exit the 105 at Western?" I tried again in my best annoyed-guy-asking-direction tone. This guy was much more helpful. I think so," he said. Well I thought so too, and within my world two "thinks" equal a "know," so I went for it.

Wrong.

After driving longer on the 105 than I thought I should (I started seeing signs for Pittsburgh), I pulled off the highway and parked on an unfamiliar side street to get my bearings.

I figured with my trusty, handy-dandy map my "bearing getting" should be a snap. I pulled out the map with the designation brightly highlighted and sat there staring. It was then I learned another of life's bountiful lessons.


Lesson:  Knowing where you're going is useless if you don't know where you are.

Slippery Slope

I am officially a senior citizen, and I’m just a tad away from yelling at kids to get off my lawn, but something really concerns me.

I heard the other day that in the early days of TV, (days of which I was a part), the word “pregnant’ could not be said on TV. Today you can watch somebody get pregnant on TV.

"Dick Van Dyke Show" was one of the first TV programs to let you into their bed room only to find 2 twin beds hugging the opposite walls. Today’s TV shows don’t need a bed, the kitchen counter will do.

When Elvis hip-wiggled on the "Ed Sullivan Show" the camera never wandered south of his belt line. If the same rules were in effect today we’d miss the pop singers grabbing their junk.

If you heard the “F” word shouted, the room would go silent, it would mean some ice road trucker, a Marine drill instructor or a lifer must be in the room and really had a visceral life effecting point to make. Today you look around and the only other person in the room is a middle school girl having trouble with the zipper on her back pack. That same young lady goes to school in an outfit that in my day they asked a hefty cover charge to see at a strip club. Don’t even get me started on the pants-at-half-mast creepiness.

I always enjoyed listening to stand up comedians. The good ones worked at crafting a joke. Today it appears as if they can’t tell a funny story, one that is just plain funny on its own, they swear as much as possible to at least get a nervous laughter out of the audience, or the audience laughs just to show how cool they are. Carlin and Pryor colored up their act so I guess the young guns feel they need to do the same in order to be successful. I believe people laughed at Carlin and Pryor in spite of their language not because of it. It seems to me they were just as funny on regulated network TV. I never heard of anybody coming out after a comedy show saying they wished the comedian swore more but some how comedians seem to think increased swearing is the answer to a “bad audience.”

I wonder what words can we use now to show real emotion? What does the “F” word even mean today? When a woman conservative politician can be called the “C” work on a major cable network, are there any words off limits?

Compare "Leave it to Beaver" and "Ozzie and Harriett" to "Two and ½ Men." If I found myself in an alternate universe when I was 10 years old and "Two and ½ Men" appeared on our black and white Zenith I wouldn’t understand 2/3s of the 1/2 man.

My question is what happens when we go too far? Can we go too far? As a conservative I naturally tend to not take a fence down until I know why it was put up. Change, just because we can, doesn’t sit easily with me. How far can the TV sitcoms go? In order to set themselves apart, it seems they feel they have to “out-raunch” the competition. Will we have an all nude channel on cable soon? Soft porn is already there, will the network shows begin easing into soft porn in order to stay competitive? After that what? Hard core followed up next season by snuff films?

I guess maybe our parents and grandparents wondered the same and we survived, but are we surviving in the best possible world? The way society evolves is like the elastic on your old man’s underwear. Once it’s stretched it ain’t going back. Our grandchildren will live in a very different world than the one in which we live and we have created, and they will be OK because they will know nothing else.

But I guess the big question is, “Is a child better off over his or her life time being shielded from “adult” things until reaching a certain age, or should our children be taught to read using "Hustler’s Letters To The Editor?" I guess we had better hope it’s the latter because I see nothing on the horizon to stop it.

Now, “Get off my lawn!”


Lesson:  Change is neither good nor bad, or is it?

SAY WHAT?

"Find out what others are doing and do something else."

This sage piece of advice was offered on a self-improvement audio tape. It sounded logical to me.

Innovation is a key (on a packed key ring) to success. If you do what everybody else is doing, you'll get what everybody else has got. You are an indistinguishable piece on life's game board. For you to stand out in those areas of your life in which you would wish to stand out while doing what everybody else is doing, is pretty unlikely.

Therefore innovation is good---but wait.

"If you want to be successful, find people who are successful and model them."

This equally sage piece of advice was offered on another self-improvement audio tape (by the same speaker I might add), and it sounded logical to me.

Obviously learning from other people's mistakes is an excellent way to learn. If you don't learn from others' mistakes, you have a long, winding and bumpy road ahead. Then obviously, learning from other people's success is an equally excellent way to learn. So you should model the productive behaviors of those you feel have attained the degree of success with which you would be happy and eliminate the behaviors of those you would charitably label as "losers."

Therefore innovation is bad.

"Do something else" or "model the leaders"--I'm confused.

Lesson:  Listen to others for ideas not truths. Truth is what works for you.

FROM THE INSIDE OUT

The medical profession is known for it but I believe every profession should accept it as their guiding principle. Truthfully, I believe it should be the guiding principle of life in general! "It" is: DO NO HARM.

Think about how much better everyone's life would be if each individual (who makes up everyone) did no harm? How much better would your time here on earth be if all people dedicated their lives to not harming themselves, their family, their community and their environment?

Shouldn't you dedicate your life to doing good? "Good" sounds like something you should be doing, but I believe first you do no harm, and if you have time left over, then you can do some good.

Imagine a twenty-four hour period where you just take care of you; you eat all the appropriate food groups, sleep your eight hours, and exercise your mind and body. You treat each member of your family with honor, love and respect. You are a contributing member to your community, and you are gentle with the environment. Sounds like a full day eh? Once you've done all of that, you're now free to spend the rest of your day doing good, if there is any good left to be done.

Lesson: If we each take care of our self there will be nobody left to take care of.

SO MUCH TO DO AND SO LITTLE TIME

I found a list of "to do" items in a book I took from my brother Bill's office.

This would not have been an event worth remembering, much less included as a lesson, if it hadn't been for the fact that I got the book when we were cleaning out Bill's office after his death.

A "to do" list for a person who has died set me to thinking.

These were items in Bill's hectic, get on and off an airplane, take a taxi, check into a hotel, make a difference in the lives of people, check out, get on an airplane and start all over again, world. These were activities he believed he needed to accomplish to make his life and the lives of those he touched, meaningful.

Bill was, when you sort through all of the adjectives, a teacher. While he was my younger brother I followed him into the world of improving organizational performance by concentrating on the fulfillment and growth of each individual. Granted I may not be very objective for many reasons, but I believe Bill's work was important. Bill gave it everything he had and was darn good at it.

He took his work and his life seriously (a family trait), so those "to do" items were to Bill a real commitment. But to see them in the context of life and death definitely put "9 a.m. meet with Dean" into perspective.

I would like to restate my philosophy of life -- You're born, you die, and in between you do something. As simple as this philosophy is to understand, it takes most of us our entire time here on earth to figure out what that "something" is.

When Bill was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus (Warning: not taking consistent heartburn seriously may be harmful to continued life), we spent time together just talking. Talking about things other than business was something we hadn't done in years. (Warning: not taking consistent time out with someone you love may be harmful to living a life worth continuing.)

I had recently read an article in Reader's Digest on 50 things the author wanted to do before she died. I told Bill that I couldn't think of more than two or three things that I wanted to do, Bill felt the same way. This meant that we had either done everything (which we knew was not the case), or our "possibility gene" had atrophied.

This exercise reminded me of one of the most depressingly accurate quotes I had ever read. Jean De La Bruyere said, "There are but three great events in a person's life: birth, life and death. Of birth he is insensible, he suffers when he dies, and he forgets to live, While Jeano was probably not the life of the party, he was sure reading my mail.

Being unaware during birth is true. Suffering at death will also to some degree be true, but it's the forgetting to live piece, true for far too many, that's the most disturbing.

It's most disturbing because while you don't control your birth or the amount of suffering you experience at death, you do control whether you remember to live.

Over time, when you take life too seriously and your "to do" list gets too long, you close out all other possibilities. You're born, you work on your "to do" list, then you die. If you don't fancy that as your epitaph, what are you doing to change it?

Because of some errant cells my parents lost a devoted son, Joan lost a loving husband, I lost my brother/friend and you lost -- Bill. In his life he taught thousands of people how to work. In his death, he taught me to live.

Lesson: If you don't live a life, you don't have a life.

 

ANOTHER WAKE UP CALL

I was feeding the horses when life changed.

Just slinging hay and singing along (under my breath so as not to scare the horses) with a county and western tune on the radio the morning of September 11, 2001.

After every major national tragedy some deep-voiced radio guy or TV talking head will say, "We have lost our innocence." That's true, but we have also gained something. We have gained intelligence. The more you know, the less innocent you are.

I first remember losing my innocence (in the sense we are speaking--stay with me here), and gaining intelligence when John Kennedy was assassinated. After November 22, 1963, I realized how vulnerable our presidents are. When a president visits New Mexico I feel a sense of relief when he leaves. (No Dallas here today.) I lost another chunk of innocence and gained intelligence during the Viet Nam war and Watergate, I now know the depths to which politician can rise.

Intelligence gained and innocence lost at the World Trade Center. The universe apparently doesn't want any of us walking around here for 187 years so when we get closer to cures for the likes of cancer, nature gives us suicidal terrorists. Life will not be won, and death will not be beaten. I have been reminded of that lesson this time by strangers whose names I can't pronounce and whose beliefs I can't comprehend. I won't forget again.

Living, it has been said, is the only game where we learn the rules as we play the game. So, if we stay alert at all, the longer we live the more time we get to know how life works. We lose innocence and gain intelligence minute by minute. We understand mortality. We see everyday that good guys don't always win and bad guys don't always lose. We recognize that life has a plan of its own, which may or may not have anything to do with us. Just about the time we really have it figured out, the whistle blows and the game is over. I get it.

Lesson: In life's school the teacher never sleeps.

GOLF BAGS AND SHOULDER PADS

"Winning is everything!"

Vince Lombardi

"Nuts!"

Tom Payne

There has to be more to life than "winning." What about love, friendship, learning, growing? Aren't those more "everything" than -- winning?

But the more I thought of it, the more I believed the coach was right -- winning is everything. But first you must define the game, and when you know the game you're playing, you'll know the skills you need to win.

If the game is to score more points then the opponent by getting the ball across the goal line either by carrying, passing or kicking, then you need to master the skills of running, blocking, kicking, and passing.

But if the game is to knock a little white ball around with a club as few times as possible, then the required skills are different than the running, blocking, etc. game

So when coach Vince said, "Winning is everything," if he meant you should strive to be the best in the game you're choosing to play (and that game can be anything from the game of shopping to the game of life ), I agree with him completely.

A problem arises when there is an unclear definition of the game. You're all dressed and practiced up for golf, and you find yourselves in a football game. You're confused. This is happening to many people today. The game is changing and the players are not. People are walking around with golf bags slung over their shoulder pads.

While anything is possible, it's a poor bet that you'll win a game you don't know you're playing. Define the games that are important to you; stop playing the games that aren't. Acquire the skills needed to win, and go for it.

Lesson: Know the game, master the skills, and play to win.

THE BIG MO

Can you motivate another person?

If you think you can, consider this. Each day when you get up you have a purpose for the day. Maybe this purpose is nothing formal; you probably haven't written it down or even said it out loud, but it's there. Your purpose drives your actions for the day.

Have you ever dragged yourself out of bed in the morning and had a purpose for the day of just making it back to bed that night no more behind in the game of life than you were right then? You decide to spend the bulk of the day reading newpapers or watching old movies on TV. You have no interest in interacting with others or initiating any of the projects jammed in your dusty "To Do" jar. You're already looking for the day to be over, and you haven't been out of bed for two minutes!

On a day like this, imagine you're sitting in your well worn recliner, the one with your butt marks groved into it and doing your best to avoid all human contact, when your spouse, partner, significant other, just returning from a motivational seminar, comes up to you -- and of all things -- motivates you. Now you're walking around the house the whole rest of the day being motivated, and you didn't want to be! Does that even make sense?  You may do what you're told, but are you motivated?

Can we motivate another person? No.


Lesson: All motivation is self-motivation - there is no other way.

BIG BOSS, BIG DADDY

Your prize new hire comes to you and says, "Boss, I want to run this division in five years. What do I have to do to accomplish my goal?"

You lean back in your chair and summoning up your years of hard-earned, managerial wisdom you say, "In order to be a success in this business you must be a creative, innovative, risk-taking, participative leader who is flexible, knowledgeable, accountable, consensus-gaining, empowering, and one heck of a teamworker."

You go home that night quite satisfied with yourself.

After dinner your son presents you with his report card. Featured prominently is a big "D," and I don't mean Dallas.

You maintain your fragile composure; you're proud of yourself. You lean back in your chair and summoning up your years of hard earned parental wisdom you say, "You wouldn't get these grades if you would just concentrate and stay focused on what's important. You need to be more motivated, and you need to study more like I used to do when I was your age. Now go to your room and hit those books. You can do it; I have confidence in you.

Having set your employee and son on the right path, you go to bed feeling you have done quite well today.

You haven't done squat!

If people want different results, they need to DO something different. Neither your employee nor your son really know what to DO. For results to change, people need know what measurable and observable behaviors to perform, not be set adrift to sink in a verbal sea of traits, attributes and characteristics.

When you told your son to hit the books--with what, a bat or a loaf of stale French bread? When you tell your employee to be a flexible, risk-taker what will it look like if he is. Should he touch his toes in a crowded elevator?


Lesson: To change it's important to know what to be, but it's critical to know what to do.

OLD GREEKS AND CHINESE

"If we don't change directions, we're likely to wind up where we're headed." Old Chinese proverb

As true as this statement by the old Chinese is, why do we keep repeating the same behaviors and expect different results?

We drive to work the same way, listen to the same radio station, meet the same coworkers for coffee, go to the same place for lunch with the same people, drive home the same way at the same time, eat dinner at the same place and time, watch the same TV shows, read the same newspapers, drink the same beer with the same neighbors, go to bed at the same time and wonder why our life is so "the same."

This approach is nothing new. The Athenians, alarmed at the internal decay of their republic, asked Demosthenes, an orator and political leader, what to do. His reply: "Do not do what you are doing now."

Unlike today's political leaders, Demosthenes was profound in his simplicity. He recognized the power and consistency of cause and effect.

What are you willing to give up, to do differently, to get a different result?

Lesson:  Doing the same thing and hoping for different results will put you in the fast lane to the nervous hospital.

LOOKING FORWARD IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR

When I was young (post dinosaur, pre Disneyland), we had an amusement park in Chicago named Riverview. Riverview was the home of the "Bobs," advertised to be one of the biggest, baddest roller coasters in the world.

Once or twice a year my buddies and I would take the bus to Riverview, spend the day, and come home tired, broke and sick. Ah! the good old days.

I would always ride the monstrous Bobs, not because I enjoyed 11 minutes of having my stomach follow me at a respectful ten feet, but because it was the macho thing to do. (I did say I was there with my buddies, didn't I?)

Climbing into the wildly-painted coaster car I'd make sure I was settled as far back in the well-worn, cracked-leather, Lysol-smelling seat as my anatomy would allow. I would then jam the safety bar as tightly up to my waist as my anatomy would allow. Then with the precision of a concert pianist, I would place my sweaty digits into the finger indentations chiseled in the bar by thousands of previous macho and femcho thrill seekers. In basically that position, I would ride the fast, foreboding, fearsome Bobs.

Eventually revitalization caught up with the Riverview section of town. No more amusement park, no more Bobs, one more parking lot.

Now when I reminisce on my Riverview experiences, I realized what a wuss (didn't have that word in those days, but you get the idea) I was. I think if I were to go on the Bobs today when we started up the first hill, I'd push that sissy safety bar away and stand up when we hit the first dip. I'd take my shirt off and wave it wildly in the air screaming, "I'm the king of the world!" during the whole electrifying way down.

That's what I would have done (looking back from the safety of my Lazy Boy and knowing I'll never have to ride the Bobs again). But the Bobs are gone and so, thank God, is my opportunity to try out the new wild and crazy me.

I think of my love/hate relationship with the Bobs when I hear speakers and writers reveal studies of senior citizen and what they wished they had done in their lives--how they wished they had ridden their "Bobs."

The senior studies ask the question, "If you had your life to live over, what would you do?" The answers are sprinkled with phrases like:

"Be more reflective."
"Take more risks."
"Be relaxed."
"Be silly."
"Make more mistakes."
and of course "Pick more daisies."

I am always intrigued by these revelations. What our elders say is pure truth --for them. They are looking back on a life they will never have to live again. They are often economically secure, work life is over, kids beyond their influence, finally settled on their last spouse, many friends gone and death is the next big adventure.

Everything the older folks say is also purely logical and understandable looking BACK on life. Saying, "I should have taken more chances" when you're 85, and the consequence of taking chances no longer exists, is much easier than taking chances at 25 with the consequences of those "chances" looming ahead.

Would I be such a wild and crazy, roller-coaster type guy if the Bobs still existed, and I was sitting in that wildly-painted car heading up the first hill?

There is a time and a place in our lives for everything. What the younger folks believe makes life worthwhile (accomplishment and challenge) is as true for them as what the older folks believe (take more risks and make more mistakes). The secret is to DO what makes you happy WHEN it makes you happy. Don't pick daisies if you would rather work just because someone else said you should want to be a "picker." As long as the accumulation of wealth makes you happy -- then accumulate wealth. When it stops making you happy -- pick daisies.

What produces unhappy people is people spending their lives not doing what seems right for them at the time, but doing things others believe is right for them.

While you might think I'm putting down the results of these studies, I'm not. I believe the reminders these studies provide are critical to taking the edge off for people living in an uncertain world, but are these activities doable? Even having been exposed to the studies at 25, when we turn 85, we will wish we hadn't taken life quite as seriously. And we'll be certain to pass that sage advice on to any 25-year-old that will listen, thereby starting the "advice given, advice not taken" cycle all over again.

We humans seem hell bent on learning through making our own mistakes. Maybe that's what makes us human. It seems every generation mocks the old ways and blindly follows the new. This blanket rejection is understandable because many of the "old ways" won't work today, but that doesn't mean all of them won't work

If the human condition does not facilitate our learning effectively from others experiences, then by default our learning must come from our own experiences. This is a cosmic dirty trick because by learning through our own experiences the leaning comes just after we need it.

Life is not long enough to learn the rules as we go, Keep your options open and disregard the 85-year-old advice that won't work at 25, but before you do make sure you're right. The stakes are higher than the Bobs. Remember the second mouse gets the cheese.

Lesson: Your propensity for self-learning may make you human, but it doesn't necessarily make you a smart human.

AN OLD SAW THAT CUTS

"Don't go near the swimming pool until you learn how to swim."

I overheard a neighborhood mother provide that interestingly perplexing instruction to her five-year-old son. At some level the statement made sense. The saying, "Don't bite off more than you can chew" makes the same sense.

But it's not good sense.

You can't learn how to swim unless you go near the pool, and you'll never know just how much you can chew until you've bitten off too much.


Lesson: Saving yourself from ever failing may save you from ever succeeding

THE TARNISHED GOLDEN RULE

It was after a particularly long and tough football practice.

We all lumbered on the bus that would take us back to our warm, safe (i.e. away from the coaching staff) dorm rooms. I settled in for what I expected would be an uneventful ten-minute ride back to the college campus. My expectations were not met.

The bus sat; we waited, waited and waited some more. Just before our tempers got to the mean side of ugly, the bus door opened and in flew the head coach hissing through clenched lips and flared nostrils.

"You guys stunk up the place tonight. I won't even ride on the same bus with you -- I'm walking back, now get out of here." He slammed the bus door and stormed into the frigid, black Wisconsin night.

There we sat, in silence, dirty, grimy, tired and thoroughly chewed out.

The reality of the situation hit me --WE did such a poor job that HE was going to walk miles in the cold Wisconsin night! I'm sorry but I had to laugh (quietly). My bemused assessment of the ridiculousness of the situation was not shared by everyone. My teammate sitting next to me said, in a wavering voice, "How can you be laughing, the coach thought we did such a s____y job that he won't even ride with us."

I recognize I was a bit old to be first getting this basic insight, but at that moment, I finally got it -- not everybody is motivated by the same thing!

The coach "walking" brought me to stifled laughter directed at the coach and my teammate to frustrated disappointment directed at himself.

My football coaches, in both high school and college, attempted to motivate me, and everybody else, through fear. It wasn't until my senior year in college when the local newspaper wrote a complimentary article about me, and I had one of my best games that next week, that I realized I was motivated by praise. If my coaches had praised instead of criticized, I don't know how good I could have become.

I had the opportunity to observe Vince Lombardi working with the championship Packers of the '60s. One of the major reasons Vince was so successful and is remembered, is because he spent the practice praising those who needed praise and raising hell with those who thrived on raised hell.

How are you motivated? How are those you wish to motivate, motivated?


Lesson:  "Do unto others as you wish others to do unto you" doesn't always work when it comes to motivation.

GETTING AND GIVING

"I give them eight hours of my blood, sweat and tears, and they give me money and a dental plan. We're even."

That certainly is a good start in defining a low-grade, give-and-take, internal relationship with a job, but I don't believe anyone's work is that shallow. If you wish to be excited, passionate and truly committed to what you do for a living, you need to look outside of the job itself for your getting and giving.

Getting

Nothing is wrong with getting. How excited, passionate and committed you are doesn't matter, if you can't make a living at that which you're attempting to make a living at, you can't keep doing it. The bottom line prevails. First things first, work must support you in the manner in which you wish to be supported before you can move on to passion, excitement and commitment.

But all can't be about getting.

What you get from your job: money, benefits, social status, self-esteem, an extended family, and a home away from home often may seem to occupy an all-too-large chunk of your relationship with work. How about what you give through your work?

Giving

The job you do must be recognized by your department, your company, community, and some segment of society as beneficial, or you could not make a living at that pursuit.

How do others benefit from what you do for a living?

Consider the hardy, robust relationship you would develop with your work if you focused at least as long on the benefits you provide as you do on the benefits you derive.


Lesson: What you give with your work is every bit as important as what you get.

BOB AND PATTY: A FABLE

His name was Sir Bob the Bombed, and he was the drunkest knight in the land.

Sir Bob was a member in good standing (and standing was not always easy for Bob) of the knights of the round table. The shape of the table is important because with Bob staggering around and bumping into furniture on a regular basis, if it had been a square table, it might have severely damaged the trunk of Bob's family tree. (This will become important later in our story.)

Falling off his horse, relieving himself in his armor, forgetting his own name and mistaking turtles for rare roast beef on a hard roll were daily occurrences for our hero.

Sir Bob was a mess.

Princess Patty the Pure, on the other hand, put the newly driven snow to shame. Be assured the vile devil alcohol never crossed her lips. Patty had not "known a man," (she didn't even know she didn't "know") nor would she say manure if she had a mouthful. Princess Patty was a lady in every sense of the word.

Helping peasants learn English as a second language, playing Mr. Potato Head with the children of the palace, and giggling over "Knock, Knock" jokes with her handmaids pretty much filled out Patty's days.

Princess Patty was class.

The Princess had only one discernable flaw; she was enchanted with that wild and crazy knight, Sir Bob. Bob, on the other hand, had only one discernable virtue; he had the hots for Patty.

Patty thought, as has been many a woman's downfall throughout time, she could change Bob. While Bob, as has been many a man's downfall throughout time, didn't think at all.

This thinking (and non thinking) led to Bob slurring the big question to Patty. Patty was delirious as was Bob, but for different reasons.

The king, anxious for some little kinglets, agreed to this odd coupling.

From here our little fairy tale begins to unravel.

In an act Patty wished to forget, and Bob could not remember, a child was conceived. Sir Bob the Bombed and Princess Patty the Pure produced wee Willie the Wise.

We have a nuclear family about to blow.

By virtue of his newly acquired status, Bob was invited to attend all of the biggest parties in the kingdom. In the beginning everybody loved Bob. Putting the lantern cover on his head always got a laugh. It got to a point where everybody was laughing at Bob -- except Patty.

Patty tried with all the force of her niceness to cover for Bob. "He's had a bad day; he's draggin' from fighting the dragons." "His horse broke down this morning; that's why he was late for his meeting with the peasants' union." "He was out in the rain and the hinges of his armor rusted, so he couldn't take Willie to the father/son games at the castle."

After years of making excuses for Bob, cleaning up after him, doing all the parenting, beating herself with a big blame stick and crying into an uneasy sleep every night, Princess Patty the Pure was a wreck.

One morning Patty woke up (alone as usual) with a startling insight - she'd had it up to the top of her bejeweled crown!

She made an appointment with the in-castle support group (Princesses Who Love Drunken Knights Too Much). Patty found out five things at her PWLDKTM meeting: 1) She was not alone. 2) She was important. 3) Bob was not in charge of her happiness. 4) Willie needed her all the more now. 5) If a change was going to be made, Bob would have to make it.

So Patty got on with her life. Bob on the other hand still didn't get it.

Three hazy years later, on day three of a three day binge, Bob rode into the castle courtyard looking for a little excitement. Patty had long since moved to another part of the castle, and Willy was too busy building a replica of the castle in his sand box to even acknowledge someone who meant so little to him.

Bob leaned over to scoop Willy up. The sight and smell of this drunken mess terrified Willy and he screamed. The loud noise spooked Bob's horse, Wild Turkey, who reared up and came back down -- right on Willy.

Now Bob had everything he worked so hard for - nothing.

He lost the wife who once loved him and the child who once trusted him. He needed to find someone to blame -- how about the horse, the castle help, the economy, his father (Albert the Abuser), the king, the distillers of the demon rum - somebody/something/anything.

Bob wandered the kingdom for the rest of his days looking for who was responsible for his rotten, stinking life. He accused the weather, fifty farmers, plenty of peasants and a partridge in a pear tree. He still couldn't find the right something to blame.

Bob woke up one morning and found the bird singing outside his window was a vulture. He lived his final days the same way he lived his entire life - without a clue.

As Bob breathed his last drunken breath, still committed to finding who was to blame, he glanced into his armor hanging on the wall, beheld his gnarled, knotted, twisted reflection and died. Sir Bob the Bombed died never knowing he finally had found the only person on the face of the earth who was entirely responsible for Bob.


Lesson: When looking for someone to be responsible for your life, you need look no further than your armor.

BUT I THOUGHT YOU....

"My wife Jean and I stood in the reservation line at the Holiday Inn in Las Vegas. We didn't have a reservation, just stopped in on our way from LA back to Albuquerque. I had been to Las Vegas before and could easily do without it. Jean had not been there, and I thought she would want to stay. "

"My husband Tom and I stood in the reservation line at the Holiday Inn in Las Vegas. We didn't have a reservation, just stopped in on our way from LA back to Albuquerque. Tom had been to Las Vegas and he must like it because he suggested we stay the night. I could easily do without it."

 Those two people stood in the reservation line at the Holiday Inn in Las Vegas. They didn't have a reservation, just stopped in on their way from LA back to Albuquerque.

Lesson: Don't put yourself out for others until you're sure others wish to be put out for.

WORK IS NOT A FOUR LETTER WORD

My mission in life (if I choose to accept it) was to help people generate excitement for, passion about and commitment to what they do for a living. This is even more challenging than it seems when you consider the complexity of simply defining the meaning of "what you do for a living."

For example:

JOB -- a task, an undertaking.
WORK -- activity directed towards the production or accomplishment of something.
CAREER -- a chosen pursuit, life work.
PROFESSION -- an occupation requiring advanced study in a specialized field.
OCCUPATION -- an activity that serves as one's source of income.
TRADE -- occupation requiring skilled labor.
VOCATION -- occupation for which one is especially suited.
CRAFT -- skill or ability in something, especially in arts.


While the differences in definition may seem like pure semantics, I believe it to be more. Do you consider what you do for a living to be a job or a career? Does that difference make a difference in the excitement, passion and commitment you bring to what you do for a living?

Also why do you do what you do for a living?

In a recent study folks who today are 70-90 years of age said work meant survival. Forty to 70 year olds see work as a source of material wealth. Those younger use work as a means of self-expression.

So placed under the giant, multi-colored golf umbrella of "workers" are those who perceive they have a "job for dollars" and those who have a "career for self-expression" who are children and grandchildren of those who had a "trade for survival." All are or have been gainfully employed in the eyes of the statisticians but may not be equally excited, passionate, or committed to what they do or did for a living.


Lesson: Life is too short to live in a way that's not worthy of you.

LOYALTY IS DEAD, LONG LIVE LOYALTY

Loyalty on the job today is a slippery concept.

When I started with Megatel Corp. in the early '60s, loyalty came up in conversation about as much as the term "political correctness." If pressed for a definition of loyalty in the "old days," we would have described loyalty as: "You come to work on time, don't lie cheat or steal, do eight hours work, don't bad mouth the company and only take sick days when you're sick."

The loyalty we expected from the company was a decent wage in a safe environment and life time employment if we performed and kept our end of the loyalty pact.

Even more basically -- "You don't hurt me, I won't hurt you."

Organizations flinched. In the 1980s when the economy went south (figuratively and literally), we got to see the true organizational definition of loyalty.

Workers have good memories. The worker of tomorrow will never have the same loyalty as the worker of yesterday, and that's good. Today's loyalty is more truthful. I won't hurt me and you won't hurt you. It's every man, and woman for him, her and themselves (enter political correctness).

This seemingly self-centered approach will work just fine. What will keep us productive is the realization that working together is in the best interest of each of us separately.

But how you relate to others will change at a very gut level. For example, I contend that you should have an updated résumé or its equivalent. You should be answering want ads, talking to headhunters, attending job fairs and networking -- not so you will leave your current employer, but so you can leave.

When I was speaking and training and I mentioned this giant step toward independence to audiences inevitably someone would say, "Isn't it disloyal to take company time to work on a résumé or to go on interviews?"

My response is, "Do you believe management is waiting until after business hours to decide to get rid of you?"

I won't hurt me and you won't hurt you.

Loyalty on the job today is a slippery concept.


Lesson: Organizational loyalty is still alive; it's the old definition that's dead.

YOU CALLED ME A WHAT?

Wetback.

What does that word mean to you? It meant the end of a promising radio career for a local talk show host.

Mr. Talk Show's repeated use of the word on the air to make a point, made a point. The point he made was if you say "wetback" on the air in New Mexico, you're fired. Whatever happened to "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never harm me?"

This episode got me thinking, why do some words bother us and others do not? Some Mexican-American listeners were bothered not at all by the "w" word and others were aggravated to the point of picketing the radio station. It can't be the word itself; it must be what that word (or any word) means to each individual who hears it.

So if you are in charge of what words mean to you, can't you choose not be hurt by them?

Maybe words bother you most when you give them some validity. When I was a public speaker, if some one approached me after a program and told me I babble without obvious direction, I might be bothered at some level if I felt that might be true. But if the next person came to me and told me my head was blue, being called a "bluehead" wouldn't bother me at all because I know I'm not one of the colorful Bluehead clan.

It's not only the word, but who said it. If upon leaving a program, a domicilly challenged person sucking Ripple wine out of a bottle wrapped in a brown paper sack told me he heard my talk while rummaging through a dumpster in the alley outside of my meeting room, and I "stunk" even more than the dumpster. I guess I don't much care. But if the "stunk" word was laid on me by one of my peers in the National Speakers' Association, I would exhibit a distinctly different reaction to the same word.

Words by themselves mean nothing. You give words all the meaning they have for you.

Maybe the power of words for good and bad in your life depends on your sense of self-esteem? The better you feel about yourself, the tougher it is to find a word to hurt you.


Lesson: When you're offended by a word, it says more about you than it does about the word.

A WELL KEPT SECRET

Do motivational speakers drive you up the cliché-covered wall with anecdotes like:

"You can be anything you want to be, you just need to want it enough. That desire combined with power visualization and measurable, observable goals will get you anything you can conceive. What you can believe you can achieve."

All semi-rubbish.

Even with desire, visualization and goals, some people get squat. Why?

I'm about to give you the secret missing ingredient to attainment of all of your life's dreams and desires. Here it is, ready--

LUCK.


Somewhere along the way you need a great big, fat dose of good, old-fashioned luck.

Of course you must be prepared, have the vision, set meaningful goals and practice the proper skills, but without the big name record producer randomly wandering in for a Jack and water, the singer is still the lounge act at the Holiday Inn.



Lesson: A life without luck is a life without.

THE POTENT POWER OF THE PAST

"I am the way I am because 30 years ago, when I was five years old, my mean old Aunt Mildred used to lock me in the closet for punishment."

FAMILY UPDATE -- Aunt Mildred is now dead. fifteen years ago the house with the closet was demolished for a new freeway.

REALITY CHECK -- The closet and Aunt Mildred are gone forever. Nothing she did can be changed. Everything she did exists only in your mind. You are the only one who controls what continues to live in your mind.

I'm not a trained therapist, but I do give myself some credit for common sense. Using the unchangeable past to determine what you can or can not be in the changeable future, is not, to me, common sense.

ENSLAVING LOGIC -- You can't change the past, and the past determines the future, therefore you can't change the future.

Internalizing that frighteningly flawed statement, you become a totally powerless, ineffective puppet destined to live your future under the control of the puppeteer of an unalterable past.

That's too much power to give away.

EMPOWERING LOGIC -- You can't change the past; the past determines nothing; the future is yours to create.

To paraphrase Dr. Martin Seligman from his book, What You Can Change and What You Can't, effective therapy has the best success rate over the long term if the therapy contains two factors. The therapy focuses on the future and it involves taking responsibility.

Let's give Doc Martin an amen.


Lesson: What's done is done and can't be undone. What's to be done is to be done, and it's up to you to do it.

THINK AND GROW RICH

Take 100% of the people -- 80% with the most wealth, 20% with little wealth. Confiscate all the money from the 100% and distribute it evenly. As the story goes, within 5 years you'd have the same 80% with the most wealth and the same 20% eyeing up dumpsters. (If you wish you can substitute 99% and 1%)

I happen to believe this classic, economic discussion/fight, starter. Some people just know how to make money and cannot see themselves without wealth. Others, are just the opposite. So it would appear self-image and money-making knowledge are major ingredients in wealth accumulation.

Let's look at knowledge. Knowledge can be, but doesn't need to be, obtained through formal education. Life experiences of making and losing money help one understand at both an academic and a visceral level how to get the 80% back. But knowledge is the easy part. The uphill battle is changing monetary self-image.

How do you see yourself and money? Are you the kind of person who earns in the $20,000-$40,000 range? (After all, given your education and the income level your folks labored in, how could you ever expect more?) Do you earn $60,000 to $99,999.99? (Top that six-figure mark and spontaneously ignite?)

If you are a $40,000 person, you wouldn't see a six-figure opportunity if it bit you in the assets, but if you're a six-figure person, that's all you'd see. Might you have a monetary, self-image thermostat? You set it at a level most comfortable for you. If you go over, you shut down; if under, you crank it up.


Lesson: Money is in your head before it's in your wallet.

THE NFL REGULATION FOOTBALL

(The following also appeared in the Chicken Soup for the Sports Fan.)

The year was 1964. The place was Chicago. A man I worked with had acquired a couple of special, all-leather, NFL-regulation footballs, inscribed -- 1963 Chicago Bears, and was selling them at a good price.

My first son was on the way. (This was in pre-ultrasound days, but I figured we had at least a 50/50 chance it would be a son. It was a chance I was willing to take.) I bought the football. I had my son's "coming home from the hospital" gift -- an all-leather, NFL-regulation football, inscribed -- 1963 Chicago Bears. That was something special.

Several years later, young Tom (we were not too creative in the name department) was rummaging around in the garage as only a five year old can rummage when he came across the special, all-leather, NFL-regulation football, inscribed -- 1963 Chicago Bears. He asked if he could play with it.

With as much logic as I felt he could understand, I explained to him that he was still a bit too young to play carefully such a special football. We had the same conversation several more times in the next few months, and soon the requests faded away.

The next fall, after watching a football game on television, Tom asked, "Dad, remember that football you have in the garage? Can I use it to play with the guys now?"

Eyes rolling up in my head, I replied, "Tom, you don't understand; you just don't go out and casually throw around an all-leather, NFL-regulation football, inscribed -- 1963 Chicago Bears. I told you before; it's special."

Eventually Tom stopped asking altogether, but he did remember. A few years later he told his younger brother, Dave, about the all-leather, NFL-regulation football, inscribed -- 1963 Chicago Bears that was special and kept somewhere in the garage. Dave came to me one day asking if he could take that special football and throw it around. It seemed like I'd been through this before, but I patiently explained, once again, that you don't just go out for no reason and throw around an all-leather, NFL-regulation football, inscribed -- 1963 Chicago Bears.

Soon Dave, too, stopped asking.

A couple of months ago I was in the garage looking for some WD-40 (which, with the aid of a rubber hammer, I use to fix about everything I choose to fix), when I noticed a large box that had "coveralls" written across it. I couldn't remember bringing along any coveralls when we moved from Chicago to Albuquerque, so I opened the box. There, long forgotten, was the all-leather, NFL-regulation football, inscribed -- 1963 Chicago Bears.

It wasn't special anymore. It wasn't special at all.

I stood alone in the garage. The boys had long since moved away from home, and suddenly I realized the football had never been so special after all. Children playing with it when it was their time to play would have made it special. I had blown those precious, present moments that can never be reclaimed, and I had saved a hunk of leather filled with stale air. For what?

I took the football across the street and gave it to a family with young children. A couple of hours later I looked out the window. They were throwing, catching, kicking and letting skid across the cement my all-leather, NFL-regulation football, inscribed — 1963 Chicago Bears. Now it was special!

You may not have a football stashed away in a coverall box, but do you have dishes that are too good to use, furniture that's too expensive to sit on, clothes and aged bottles of wine for that special occasion that never comes? Are you "doing more with less," "doing better faster," and "sticking twelve hours of work in a ten hour bag," to get more "things," while at the same time not using, or even appreciating, the "things" you do have? Are you letting the one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-repeated moments — the footballs in life — get away?


Lesson:If you save something long enough, you lose it.

PARAPHRASING FROM THE GOOD BOOK

Eight Beatitudes for Personal Success

1) Blessed are the honest for they will never need a good memory.

2) Blessed are those who value their friends for they will have many.

3) Blessed are those who don't take themselves too seriously for they will

giggle more than gag.

4) Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape.

5) Blessed are those who communicate for they are our teachers.

6) Blessed are those who know where they're headed for when they get there they'll know where they are.

7) Blessed are those who contribute as members of the community for without them we are all less.

8) Blessed are the healthy for they shall live long enough to exhibit the other seven beatitudes.


Lesson:Beatitudes are attitudes.

CHANGING LANES ON PURPOSE

Ever drive a car whose front wheels aren't properly aligned? Then to feel the excitement of being a playful little kid again, you let go of the steering wheel until you were just about to become one with the guard rail?

I hope you have because I have, and I'd hate to have been the only one!

With improper alignment, if you let go of the steering wheel, you go -- wherever. With proper alignment, if you let go of the steering wheel, you go where you're pointed.

The same is true with your internal alignment. How aligned is what you do with what you believe? If you are properly "aligned," your internal beliefs and external behaviors are in sync. You can "let go" and be assured you will travel in the direction you intended.

"I should be doing it."
"But I don't want to do it."
"They are making me do it."
"If I don't do it, somebody will get me."
"So I'll do it."
"But I don't want to do it."

'Fess up, have you ever had that conversation with the person in the mirror?

I hope you have because I have, and I'd hate to have been the only one again!

If you have it's a sure bet you've experienced stress. Behaving in opposition to the way one believes (being out of alignment) is a major cause of negative stress today.

On the other had, when what you think and what you do is in alignment; that harmony, that's integrity, that's peace.

If your behaviors and beliefs are not aligned, and you "let go," you'll be bouncing off the metaphorical guard rail in short order. Just drift mentally for a moment and you lose your direction. To end up where you wish to go when you are not properly aligned takes constant pressure, means more work, produces more stress and could ultimately cause a "blow out."


Lesson: Choose not to give your body a double message. When confused the body tends to attack itself.

CERTAINTY, OR NOT

What do you know for sure?

I don't mean this just as a casual greeting like "Wazzup?" I really mean "What do you know for sure?" What do you know that's always been true and will continue to be true?

To test your answer, ask yourself, "Does everyone you know believe the same thing?" Do you think everybody alive believes the same thing? I'm going with no. All you can really say is, "This is what I believe. This is what I know for sure, and I will continue to live my life according to that belief-- until I believe something else."

Short of death, there is nothing universally "for sure."

You'd believe everything if you could, but you can't; too many conflicts. You also cannot believe in nothing. (If you did, you'd be saying you believe in nothing, which is believing in something.) That leaves picking and choosing what, for you, will be the beliefs, the "for sures," the rules by which you live your life.

What causes us so much stress in our lives is our belief that the way we view the world is "for sure," and others who can't see it that way obviously just don't get it. Our never-ending mission in life then becomes bringing others to the one true meaning. Think about your work stress. How much stress is caused by your frustration over things not going the way you believe they should go? Should they? Why does it need to be your way? Could your way possibly be "wrong?"

How about when you send that letter in to the boss for her approval. You have been working on that mini-masterpiece for two days, crafted every word, and designed every sentence. You have a great pride of authorship. She changes a significant portion because the boss thinks it reads better her way. Who's right? Some who read the letter might prefer the boss's way, some yours. Is it worth getting nuts about? As Dave Berry wrote: "In the song 'Home on the Range,' where it says 'the skies are not cloudy all day' does that mean the skies are cloudy, but not all day, or does it mean that the skies are totally cloud free all day? Also do the deer and the antelope play with each other?"

What do you know "for sure?" Searching for absolutes outside your own skin is useless and stressful.

The deep thinkers keep telling us we should not be judgmental. Things aren't right or wrong, they just are. While I believe being completely non-judgmental is a worthwhile goal of mankind, and a significant reducer of stress, I also believe it to be impossible. Working toward the meaty goal of reducing stress through non-judgmentalism would be much easier if we didn't see the world as full of "for sures."

Some "sure" things in your life you change because the change is in your best interest. Some you change because life's experiences show them to be false. Either way changing "for sures" is tough because it doesn't leave you anything to wrap your arms around. And stress can pull us apart when we don't have anything to hold on to.


Lesson: Nothing in life is for sure, and that's for sure.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

What are the WORST things that could happen to you in the next 24 hours?

When asked that question people generally lock on to the following events:

Death
Accident
Serious illness

Now the brighter side of that question: What are the BEST things that could happen to you in the next 24 hours?

I would ask you to stop reading and give serious thought to your answers to this "best/worst" question. Your answers must be personal (could happen to YOU) and could happen in the next 24 hours of your life.

[Pause here for thinking.]

What did you discover?

As this is a highly personal exercise I can only speak for my highly personal self, I found the greater likelihood of something bad happening in my life in the next 24 hours than of something good happening.

If you find more good than bad, (promotion, birth of a child, inheritance from an uncle you didn't know existed, and if you did know him you wouldn't miss him anyway)--congratulations! Then move on to the next 24 hours. The day after the best thing occurred, what's the best/worst that can happen?

After a few rounds of this exercise reality sets in, you're going to die. You'll probably be very sick before you die. As a human, you are an accident waiting to happen.

The conclusion I came to is, for most of us a twenty-four hour period is considered good when the bad stuff doesn't happen!

In a world where "big bads" are certain, and "big goods" are uncertain, what's the upside of this life?

When this fact first burrowed into my brain, I thought I had just paid in full for a life's membership in club pessimism. (What would be the use, they would only loss my membership anyway!) But the more thought I gave it, the more I realized the "best/worst" question might well be the mother of all life's lessons.

If "big bads" are certain, "big goods" are uncertain, then the joy of living HAS to be in experiencing and wallowing in the multitude of "little goods" that makes up every minute of every day.

Everything from eyes open in the morning to eyes shut at night, the list of what is good in your life is endless (The sunrise/sunset, the touch of a loved one, the lick of a dog, or the touch of a dog and the lick of a loved one, whatever). The things you can appreciate in your life are everywhere. The "little goods" have been the fodder of best selling books, grist of motivational speeches, lyrics of pop songs and the prattle in poems. The pleasant little thing in life have been embroidered on doilies, slapped on posters and forwarded by every well meaning friend with access to e-mail.

Most of the "little goods" seem, on the surface, to be sloppy, sentimental, simpering, syrupy and sappy, yet without fully embracing the sun, friends and dogs in your life, your knowledge of the inevitability of "big bads" could drive you nuts.

That is why it is so important to savor every moment of the "little goods". Maximizing the good things is conceptually easy because there are many more "little goods" in a life than "big bads". A life is wasted when you let yourself become so fixated on the few "big bads," you let the many "little goods" that make life worth living go by unnoticed.


Lesson: Everything you have ever loved in life will someday be taken from you--but you have them now.

MINDLESS MOMENTS

The following testimonial for a brand of fly traps appeared in a Horse and Livestock equipment catalog:

"I bought two of your Fly Traps. I thought it was a good deal. I counted 2,972 flies in one trap. I would recommend them," Darrell Haywood, OK

I would ask you, if you have never tried number-crunching insects, to suspend judgement about the way Darrell chooses to use his time. Maybe in Haywood, OK dead-fly counting is considered a good job!

Darrell seems like the kind of guy whose hand I'd like to shake (after he washed it). He seems like the kind of guy that doesn't care what others think about what he does with his waking moments. He seems like the kind of guy who would admit to a magazine, (that has circulation outside of Haywood, OK.) that he physically tore apart at least one old fly trap and handled a minimum of 2,792 dead and decaying flies.

What Darrell-like thing do you do? I have a hobby collecting something I can't even name. For the last twenty years I've collected those little plastic fasteners that attach tags to new clothes. (This collecting is something I do while not actively engaged in obliterating ignorance from the face of the earth.)

Life is tough; it's full of good things you need to work at appreciating, and bad things you need to work at overcoming. With all that work going on, consider carving out those special little brainless moments dedicated to the likes of collecting plastic fasteners and counting dead flies.



Lesson: Not everything you do has to make any sense to anybody.

EASY TO SAY, EASY TO DO.

"What I want to do with my life is to make a difference." Ever hear anyone say that? Ever heard yourself say that?

My philosophy of life is simple: You're born, you die and in between you do something. That "something" can be butcher, baker, candlestick maker, doctor, lawyer, Native American Head Administrator, prince, pauper, pawn or a king. You will occupy your time on earth doing something. There are only a few of us who will be remembered by the rest of us for that something we do, good or bad. Most of us must be content to be the "rest of us," and that's just fine.

You may not make a difference to the multitudes, but at your death, I believe, you will have made a difference to somebody, and so, many of us seek to make that difference through work. Mistake.

An employee can attempt to make a difference through work, but that's a tough road, because an employee is only one half of the equation. His or her organization is the other half. Do you really believe when the founders of companies had a business idea, garnered capital, adhered to all government rules and regulations, hired a bunch of strangers, negotiated for real-estate, and experienced many sleepless nights, they did it all for the purpose of providing you an opportunity to "make a difference?"

Did the founders bring their burning desires and passions to life to provide you and me an extended family, a home away from home, a place to go each day for fulfillment, challenge, an enhanced quality of life, The American Dream, and a home base from which to make a difference? Of course not, but somehow workers were willingly, happily, unconsciously, and voluntarily led down that yellow brick road to the loving, caring and all-benevolent organization.

Today's employees were influenced by previous generations to believe an organization should care about their hopes, dreams and aspirations and on the job they would be doing something worth doing, something that made a difference. So people tried to combine the "making a difference" at work concept with the "making a salary" concept and found themselves ordering Maalox by the case.

Those who are living their lives with the pressure relief valve open are those who have realized their passion to make a difference transcends the workplace. They don't have to be employed to make a difference. They vow to make a difference wherever they are and in whatever they are doing. This is an important lesson because the framework in which you live your life is continually changing, and if you tie your life's purpose to something transitory like your job, there is trouble in River City.

The young and naive tend to give their organization more responsibility for their whole person than it wanted or should have had. As workers mature they came to realize their organizations used them as much as they used their organizations -- both for selfish reasons. Employees are to their organizations, like it or not, interchangeable pieces.

Work is just one element of your life, one way to express yourself, and one of many way to make a difference. Your being on this earth does not have to be justified through your work, volunteerism, parenting or all the other "somethings " you do. Just being here you have made a difference.

Lesson: Different people have different ways to make a difference.

WHAT TO DO, WHAT TO DO?

George Santana, a renown professor of philosophy at Harvard University (and to my knowledge no relation to Carlos), paced up and down lecturing to his captivated students. The professor walked deliberately to a window overlooking a garden of spring flowers, stood silently for a long time and finally said, "I very much fear that last sentence will never be completed. You see, I have an appointment with April." George Santana never lectured formally again.

The professor decided he didn't want to profess anymore. He was going to lead a different life. Good for him. How many different lives have you lead? How many different lives would you like to lead?

Answering these questions will require a life time-out to analyze what you have done and what you want to do. When in that taking-stock mood will you be mentally breaking out your best bottle of champagne in unbridled happiness over your life choices, or breaking your best bottle of champagne over your head in abject frustration?

If you were a lawyer, do you wish you had been a potter, a potter a lawyer? Maybe you lived in the city and wished you lived in the country or been a country bumpkin longing for the life of a city slicker. Do you wish you had been married, single, single living like married or married living like single? How would you have been in the religious life or as a Hell's Angel? Would you like to have lived the life of a senior vice president of a large corporation or a rescuer of Labrador Retrievers? Do you wish you had guided your life with the purpose of making more money, or do you wish you were more of a rose smeller? How about living as a musician on the road or a magician with a toad?

As they say, life is short, but it's wide. Different ways to live a life do not have to be mutually exclusive. If you choose the path that will lead you to being a vice president of a large corporation that doesn't mean you can't rescue Labs on the side (or for the more adventurous, be a vice president on the side). Consider retiring when you've had enough bossing people around, and then you can rescue dogs in your next life. How about being a lawyer until you're forty and then a potter until you're eighty, then on to the Hell's Angels.

You can lead one life with very little planning at all, just show up. To lead more than one life requires planning, and the sooner the better. What causes senior frustration moments is realizing you are just flat-out too old to hit the road as the circus human cannon ball that you now realize was your life's dream. While you may read about 95-year-old skydivers (Notice you only read about them once.), they are obviously the exception. The truth is there are ideal times in life to do certain things so you always must be thinking ahead of the game. You can give the road less traveled by those your age a try, but remember the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.



Lesson:There are many ways to live a life, pick out a half dozen or so and get going.

A DAY AT THE MOVIES!

Sammy Davis Jr., a physically handicapped, racial and religious minority, and a basically unattractive (relatively), little guy, was a multi talented movie star. I, on the other hand, a healthy, attractive (relatively), racial and religious majority-- am not. I'm sure there is a lesson here, but that has nothing to do with the point of this story.

In 1989 Sammy played the role of a dying tap dancer in the film, Tap. Sammy's movie daughter was, admonishing him for continuing, in a weaken condition, to sneak out with his old cronies and dance. Sammy told her, "If I stop dancing I'll still be dying, I'll just be bored doing it." Then he said the most powerful line in the movie, "I am a tap dancer". As simple as that line was it set the priorities for the life of Sammy's character. A dancer was who he was. It was his priority. It defined him. His life's purpose was to serve the dance.

While Mr. Davis Jr.'s character was fictitious, there is also the true story of Karl Wallenda. Karl founded the high wire act, The Flying Wallendas. Ten years prior to Karl's "work related" death he was asked about his feeling for the tightrope. He said, "Being on the wire is living, everything else is waiting." A wire walker was who Karl Wallenda was. It defined him. It was his priority. His life's purpose was to serve wire walking.

Two characters in one of Warren Beatty's earlier movies Shampoo were discussing Beatty's character, and one said something like, "He's a hairdresser, right?" The other character said, "He's not a hairdresser, it's just what he does." Doesn't sound like WBs purpose was to serve hair.

When the lid of the old pine box closes, and they fiddle you on home, wouldn't it be nice to know that you spent your alive time serving that which to you is you?

Lesson: Some do what they do, others do what they are.

GOOD OLD GOLDEN RULE DAYS

"When they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods, neither fit for hunters, warriors nor counselors, they were totally good for nothing!"

Indians of the Six Nations declining an offer to send some of their young men to William and Mary College because of previous experiences.

Totally good for nothing seems a bit strong. I'll bet when those Native American young men returned from absorbing the white man's teachings they were good at differentiating between their equals and those less equal. They had perfected deviating from their roots in the permanent earth and could enthusiastically lust after material, temporary goods like the best of the white students. The little learners could skillfully prefabricate stories to make life easier for themselves, distrust others with the best of them and fully understand that religion was in a building on a certain day of the week rather than in all of creation at all times.

I'm sure they could also speak English, spell, diagram a sentence, recognize Roman Numerals, add, subtract, multiply and divide--they just couldn't run, live in the woods, hunt, make war or counsel--Indian stuff.

What is the role of formal education? While the role changes over time, schools, hopefully, have basic marching orders to teach what the students need to know to prosper (however defined by the community). This may sound easier than it is. Readin', Ritin. and Rithmatic' or Runnin', Huntin' and Counselin'?

Let's look at the traits that differentiate us from the animals; some examples are: imagination, ability to change, capacity to experience emotions thereby generating tears and laughter, potential to make choices, lack of fear of the vacuum cleaner, and directed by a purpose higher than instinct and/or tradition. On the downside, we humans have the potential to lie, cheat, steal and kill things for no particular reason.

These traits, good or bad, are traditionally not covered in formal education. Should they be or should formal education limit itself to the hard, quantifiable skills, and leave the running, hunting and counseling to life? I think so.

Some core life skill learning (i.e. coping with disappointment, learning from failure, exuding confidence, taking responsibility, being trustworthy--the modern day equivalents to running and hunting), will occur as a byproduct of sitting in a schoolroom all day with a bunch of people. Life skill learning in a classroom is not to be underestimated, but teaching a student to cope with life's disappointments shouldn't be formal education's primary objective. Teachers have a full enough day teaching the three R's

None of the input I have needed to cope with life's sucker punches was covered in formal education, but I had the life skills when I needed them. Keep your radar up and for gosh sakes STAY AWAKE. Some days I have learned as much from my dogs as I have from the "experts" on the TV. Selectively place your learning eggs in the education basket, (render unto education what is education's), or you'll find yourself stumbling through life with a wall full of diplomas but be "totally good for nothing."



Lesson: Learning is not always where we expect to find it, but it can always be found.