Fear is the Mind Killer

“Fear is the mind killer,” wrote Frank Herbert in the novel, Dune.  When people are overcome with fear, they freeze.  They stop thinking.  They stop behaving rationally.  They are paralyzed. 

Growing up, everyone experiences points of fear where we freeze for an instant or perhaps longer.  Some freeze at the top of a high dive.  Others freeze when sledding or skiing down a steep slope.  For some, it’s facing a fastball.  Many lock up when forced to stand up in the front of the classroom and give a speech or report. 

If we try, all of us can remember a point in childhood where we froze, where fear became our mind killer, if only for a few moments.  A degree of fear in childhood is healthy.  Many of us would not have survived childhood without fear acting as a brake against our more idiotic notions. 

What’s beneficial for preventing an eight year old boy from trying to sail off the roof of his house, using a beach towel as a parachute can be devastating among an adult who is struck by one or more of life’s setbacks and freezes, forestalling any act or motion. 

I’ve seen it with the business owner who all but loses his business in a tough economy.  Confronted by a series of setbacks and reversals, he becomes locked in place.  He spends more time on Facebook than prospecting.  He stops trying because he’s convinced he can never succeed again.  As long as he’s convinced he can’t succeed, he won’t succeed.

I’ve seen it with the business executive whose career doesn’t pan out as planned.  Rather than try for new career in a new company, he mails it in.  He retires without notifying anyone and each day… just… shows… up.  He’s scared to apply with another company.  He’s worried that he’s too old.  He’s afraid he’ll have start over.  He’s questioning his sense of worth.

Fear has frozen these people in place.  They worry that no move can make things better and any move might make things worse.  Life ceases being a proactive event.  Afraid to change, they do nothing.  They wait for things to happen to them. 

The great business philosopher, Dr Seuss, wrote about this in the classic motivational book, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go.”

The Waiting Place…

…for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go, or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a yes or a no or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a better break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or another chance.

Everyone is just waiting.

Fear has trapped these people in hell.    The only way out is to take action.  Take a risk.  By taking a risk, risk failure.  Risk it again and again and again, if necessary.  The only certainty is success will ever elude those who refuse to reach out for it.

As a child you failed and failed and failed before you learned to walk.  Failure precedes success as naturally as falling precedes walking.  Few men experience one success after another from the outset in a repetitive string of victory.  Most find it only after tasting failure, and usually after much more than a taste.

If you find fear becoming your mind killer, break the cycle.  Take one positive action today, no matter how small.  Tomorrow take another.  Take another the day that.  Progress is made by putting one foot ahead of the other, over and over again. 

The mere act of action breaks cycle of fear.  When fear no longer halts you, it no longer holds power over you.  It all begins with one small act.

As Dr. Seuss put it, “Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying.  You’ll find the bright places

where Boom Bands are playing.”

© 2011 Matt Michel

The Raving Fish Got Cheesed And Didn't Get It

Are you a fan of business parable books? You know, the little books that spin a fictional tale with underlying meanings that pertain to business. Fish, Who Moved My Cheese and Raving Fans are just a few examples.

Perhaps this is a tale of my own ignorance, but I hated parable books with a passion. Once I reached the age of fifty however, I began to mature. Looking back it wasn't the books that cheesed me off, it was corporate America's mandate: "Here is a copy of Fish. Read it. Afterwards we'll have a meeting to discuss how your morale KPI charts. We're expecting a significant increase."

Other than Mark Matteson's work, parable books had been off my radar for a long time until recently reading, They Just Don't Get it! Leslie Yerkes' book is about those times when you're trying to tell someone something and they just don't get it and what you need to do to transform their resistance into understanding.

Holy light bulb Batman! You mean if I read Leslie's book I'll be able to transform my technicians into correct-paperwork-completing-machines? Maybe. Maybe not. I'll give you one hint but you really need to read the book. Transformation begins with that really good looking person in the mirror.

A super huge red flag moment for me came when I read what some others had to say about They Just Don't Get It! To sum up: "I could read five bullet points about the book, get it, and save fifteen bucks." At first I thought wow, they don't get it! Then I thought, no, their left brain gets it. If they could only step off the Hamster Express for just a few minutes and engage their right brain a whole new world of possibility will pop right before them. At this point their left brain will kick back in and say, "the return on this fifteen dollar investment will pay back in 1.15 days."

Next week I'll offer suggestions on how to read business parable books using the right side of your brain.

Photo credit, Jan Tik

Famous Failures

It doesn't matter how many times life knocks you down. It only matters how many times you get up. If you doubt it, take 76 seconds to watch this video.

Calvin Coolidge on Persistence

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jacobgarcia/ / CC BY 2.0

To complement Lance Armstrong, here is Calvin Coolidge on persistence...

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Lance Armstrong on Perserverence

This humorous clip carries a powerful message about perseverence.

The ROAD - A secret to small business success

This is a nice, short, motivational video you can watch to give your week a good start!

Creating Positive Imprints on the Self-Image

For most of us, just competing in the Olympics would be a lifetime highlight. Winning an Olympic medal would be the thrill of a lifetime. After Lanny Bassham won an Olympic Silver Medal in rifle shooting he says he spent the next four years apologizing for being number two.

“A silver medal in the Olympics is the best you can do in the world and still lose,” says Lanny. “You are the world’s best loser.”

Lanny didn’t like losing. He decided he wanted to do something about it.

He says, “I came home from the Olympics motivated to find out, how do you manage the mind under pressure?”

“My problem was not holding the rifle,” he adds. “My problem was thinking. My problem was the mental game.”

After trying a sports psychologist, Lanny decided to talk with the people who were the best in the world. He talked Olympic Gold Medalists. He talked with a lot of them and based on the things he learned, he created a system he calls “Mental Management®.”

Lanny applied his system to himself. He returned to the Olympics and took home the gold, followed by a several world championships. Today, his company trains athletes, performers, and business professionals on the mental game.

One element of the mental game is the imprinting we do on the self-image. Our self-image constrains our performance and it is influenced by imprinting.

There are two types of imprinting. First is the imprinting of actual performance. Once we accomplish something, we are confident we can do it again.

The second type of imprinting is imagined. It’s our self-talk. Do you see yourself achieving a goal or failing to achieve it? Either image is imprinted on your self-image.

Your self-image cannot distinguish between an actual imprint and an imagined one. As individuals, we need to focus on the outcomes we desire, not our mistakes. As parents and managers, we similarly need to direct people to focus on positive solutions and outcomes.

Unfortunately, we live in a society that focuses on the negative more than the positive. Even if you are an upbeat person, you are likely to fall into the trap of focusing on the negative.

“Ask people how they did after a performance and they’re likely to talk about what they did wrong,” says Lanny. “We live in a culture where it’s become socially acceptable to talk about what we did wrong first, and to talk about what we did wrong more than what we did right.”

Don’t focus on the mistakes your people make. Focus on the things each can do to perform better. That is creating a positive imprint. That is building the self-image.

“We build self image by what we cause them to picture,” notes Lanny.

If you want to learn more about Lanny Bassham or order his books, CDs, DVDs, or other products, visit his website at Mental Management®.

Faith and Fear For 2010

“Faith and fear are different aspects of the same thing,” said Gina McWilliams.

Wow. I’d never thought of it that way. Gina had. Gina lost her right leg below the knee in an automobile accident at age 25. Her left foot was severed and reattached. Since the accident, she had 37 different surgical procedures.

As a single woman and an athlete, Gina knew fear. She says that fear can be an overwhelming companion. If she let fear take over, she would never leave her bed. She faced fear of falling when she got into her wheelchair, fear of falling when she got into her van, fear of not being able to find a handicapped spot, and on and on. Fear can be a constant companion.

Fear is belief in a negative future. Fear is a belief in the unseen. It is belief in things that may or may not be realized.

Gina rejected fear. She chose faith...

Read more at Contracting Business Hotmail.

The Miracle Mile

This short video uses the words of Roger Bannister, talking about running a 4-minute mile in a dramatized fashion. Bannister's words are equally applicable to life, which is the point of the video. Watch it. It's good.

The Math of Achievement

I don't know who figures stuff like this out, but I bet it was either someone attending a meeting that lasted too long or someone waiting for Windows to reboot. Anyway, this is based on an email I received...

How do you give 100% in life? It's not merely hard work. All of us know people who work hard their entire lives without ever achieving much. Hard work may get you most of the way there, but there must be something more.

Certainly knowledge is important. I can think of many times in my life where I worked hard, but not smart. I didn't know better ways to get something done. Once someone showed me a better way, I was able to get more done for the same amount of effort.

However, even knowledge and hard work is not sufficient. Together, they can get you close to 100%, but something's still missing. What's missing is attitude. Without the right attitude, you'll never give 100% in life. And you'll never receive life's full bounty in return.

Here's a way to illustrate it mathematically...

First, we convert the letters of the alphabet to numerical values:

A = 1
B = 2
C = 3
D = 4
E = 5
F = 6
G = 7
H = 8
I = 9
J = 10
K = 11
L = 12
M = 13
N = 14
O = 15
P = 16
Q = 17
R = 18
S = 19
T = 20
U = 21
V = 22
W = 23
X = 24
Y = 25
Z = 26

Now, we assign the values to each letter in the words hard work, knowledge, and attitude.

H = 8
A = 1
R = 18
D = 4
W = 23
O = 15
R = 18
K = 11

K = 11
N = 14
O = 15
W = 23
L = 12
E = 5
D = 4
G = 7
E = 5

A = 1
T = 20
T = 20
I = 9
T = 20
U = 21
D = 4
E = 5

Finally, add up the numeric totals for each word and divide by 100. Hardwork = 96%. Knowledge = 98%. Attitude = 100%.

Sure, it's a mere coincidence, but it illustrates the point well. Hard work gets you close. Knowledge gets you closer. But you'll never give or receive 100% without the right attitude.

Fish

My buddy Bubba is a pretty good fisherman. He rarely has a dry haul. He could probably be a professional guide. No, he should be a professional guide, because he’s not much of a businessperson. I wonder what kind of fisherman he’d be if he fished the way he runs his business.

Read the rest at Contracting Business

Don't Quit Computer Wallpaper

Remember Edison

Often success lies just beyond the horizon of failure. Napoleon Hill was given letters of introduction by industrialist Andrew Carnegie to study the country’s top achievers. Hill captured his research in his classic book, “Think And Grow Rich.”

Napoleon Hill wrote, “Before success comes in any man’s life, he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat, and, perhaps, some failure. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit. That is exactly what the majority of men do.”

“More than five hundred of the most successful men this country has ever known told the author their greatest success came just one step *beyond* the point at which defeat had overtaken them. Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one when success is almost within reach.”

One of the people Hill met and studied was Thomas Edison. No one illustrates the value of persistence and tenacity better than Edison. Many people know that Edison failed 2,000 times in his effort to find the filament for the light bulb. But did you know his attempt to create a better battery resulted in the failure of 50,000 tests?

A discouraged assistant figured even Edison would quit after 50,000 failures. “You must be pretty downhearted with the lack of progress,” said the assistant.

“Downhearted?” replied Edison, “We've made a lot of progress. At least we know 50,000 things that won't work!”

Edison’s kept at it, through 50,000 failed tests, through ten years, and through one million dollars of his own money until he developed the nickel-iron alkaline storage battery, which is still used today!

Maybe you don’t have Edison’s tenacity. I know I don’t. Yet, when I think about Edison, I find I have just a little bit more tenacity. Edison inspires me. Edison helps me see failure in a different light. It’s not failure. It’s progress. Edison helps me to stay positive while I’m making progress.

“Don’t Quit” is an inspirational poem many people have read that may have been written about Edison. Though many claim to have written the poem, its author is lost.


Don’t Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and debts are high,
And you want to smile but have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won if he'd stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow,
You might succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man.
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might captured the victor's cup,
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown,

Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar,
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit,
It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.

For a nice winter wallpaper featuring the poem, “Don’t Quit” to boost your attitude and tenacity, click here to visit the "Free Stuff" section of the Service Roundtable.

Vinnie's Learning (Dis)Ability

http://www.flickr.com/photos/txberiu/ / CC BY 2.0

Vinnie grew up in an Irish Catholic family with four brothers and two sisters in the upper Midwest. He described his childhood family life as everyone “pounding he heck out of each other, never liking to lose.”

It was largely a typical childhood, in a typical family. Largely. Vinnie’s childhood was distinguished by a learning disability. In the third grade, he was diagnosed with dyslexia. He had trouble spelling. He had trouble reading. He had trouble writing. He struggled to make C’s. Vinnie said he “went to those classes, SLBP, slow learning behavior problem.”

“You just think that you're not as smart as all the other kids,” Vinnie said. He described his childhood dyslexia as “nearly incapacitating.”

“You feel like you're stupid. You feel like you're in the back of the classroom, you don't get it. It's coming natural to everybody else and you feel stupid.”

“I have such bad memories,” recalls Vinnie, “sitting in the back of a classroom, being told, you know, everybody is going to read a paragraph, and skipping ahead to my paragraph and being mortified and trying to read it enough times so that I wouldn't stutter and stammer, getting called on, even in high school. And it gets to me and I'd be going, ‘ah, ah,’ horrible reader — ran from the problem.”

“I hid from the problem. I did just enough to get by. I was a good athlete so that got me by, that gave the confidence to go forward.”

Playing football, Vinnie managed to attend a local college. Academically, little changed.

“I'm taking a class pass/fail and hand a paper in,” Vinnie recalled. “It comes back. It’s got a big red F on it. I'm not there the day it comes back. I show up at lunch the next day and a buddy of mine had picked it up and it's laying there on the lunch table and it's got a big red F and underneath it says, ‘I don't know how in the hell you got into college. I don't know how you're going to graduate. This is the worst paper I've read in 10 years I've been teaching.’”

Vinnie’s life changed when basketball coaching legend, Al McGuire spoke at Vinnie’s university. Vinnie said, “He talked about how he was dyslexic and he grew up, he got his way through high school and college cheating. And on a basketball scholarship and went back after they won the national championship and taught himself how to read and write.”

Vinnie thought, “If this guy can do it, I got to do it. So, I went back and I taught myself the fundamentals of writing, and I started reading for the first time. My mom and dad had been on me for years. So, I finally picked up ‘Trinity’ by Leon Uris. I plowed through it and I was hooked.”

Vinnie began reading voraciously. He read book after book, but gravitated towards Tom Clancy type action thrillers.

He began to see his dyslexia in a different light. “Every time I sat down to read one of these books, I knew what was going to happen. It was the weirdest thing. It was the gift.”

It wasn’t just books. He could watch a few minutes of a TV drama and anticipate the ending. He could foresee actual events in the real world years in advance.

“Part of it is the dyslexia,” he explains. “It's the way the brain is wired. I think we just think in a leap frog fashion if that makes sense.”

Vinnie earned his degree and took a sales and marketing job with Kraft General Foods. He did well, but felt stifled in corporate America. He quit his highly paid position to become a Marine pilot.

Unfortunately, Vinnie was medically disqualified for the flight program. He eventually got a medical waiver and left the Corps.

Now what? The dyslexic Vinnie decided he wanted to write a novel and took a job tending bar to pay the bills.

“He treated it as a full time job, he'd work eight hours a day on it,” said the owner of the bar. “He basically worked here nights and then he would write during the day, all day long.”

He finished the novel and sent it off to New York publishing houses, but it was rejected. And rejected. And rejected.

“I had 60-plus rejection letters. I put them all up on a bulletin board where I wrote every day. And I'd say, ‘I'm going to prove you people wrong.’”

And yet, it wasn’t easy. “There were moments when I was bar tending at O'Gara's and I would get another rejection letter and I'd think what am I doing. Why am I doing this?” he confessed.

He drew inspiration from the experiences of writers. He said, “It was a great source was strength that Clancy and Grisham had been rejected by every publishing house in New York City. So I figured, ‘You know what? I'm going to stick with it.’”

Vinnie self published his book. People told him he was crazy, but had a plan. He was going to sell enough books in his market to catch the attention of a New York publisher.

“Once at number one at Twin Cities,” Vinnie said, “It got picked up by Simon and Schuster. And now, the 11th book just came out this past month.”

“Anybody who knew me growing up calls me Vinnie,” says best selling author Vince Flynn.

His first book, the one he self published, is titled “Term Limits.” I’ve read it. It’s a page turner.

One after another, Flynn's books are successes. He's popular with kings and presidents. Flynn's been invited to the White House by Presidents Clinton and Bush. He was flown to Jordan by King Abdullah, who is also a fan. Not bad for the guy who wrote the worst paper a college professor read in 10 years of teaching.

Cursed with dyslexia, Flynn realized it gave him a different set of capabilities. It enabled him, for example, to write about a terrorist attack on the United States by Islamic radicals four years before 9/11. Today he sees the curse as a gift.

“I'm a horrible speller,” Flynn said in a recent interview when he was discussing his dyslexia. “I omit words. My editor, Emily Bestler, she deals with this all the time. I just leave words out of my manuscript, I'm typing so fast and I come up with creative ways to spell things, but what I didn't know is it's a gift.”

Flynn added, “The ad agencies of the world, the creative people on Broadway and in Hollywood, they're all — it's just a disproportionate number of dyslexics.”

Flynn’s story is one of looking at a disability as a different ability, at a curse as a gift when viewed from another perspective, and at obstacles as challenges to be overcome. Had life been easier, he might not have climbed so high.

How high do you want to climb?

Churchillian Proverbs

Winston Churchill overcame a childhood speech impediment to become one of the world’s great orators and writers. He was also a visionary, standing nearly alone in warnings about the rise of national socialism (i.e., Nazis). The combination of keen insight, the ability to turn a phrase, and a lengthy career as a writer and speaker resulted in lots of quotable material. Here are some of my favorite quotes from Churchill. Enjoy them. These are gems!

1. Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.


2. Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.


3. We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.


4. Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.


5. Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.


6. The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.


7. You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.


8. We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.


9. Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.


10. It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.


11. The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.


12. The first quality that is needed is audacity.


13. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.


14. The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.


15. The price of greatness is responsibility.


16. The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.


17. There is no such thing as a good tax.


18. A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.


19. A joke is a very serious thing.


20. A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.


21. A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.


22. All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.


23. An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.


24. Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.


25. Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.


26. Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.


27. Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.


28. Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.


29. Eating words has never given me indigestion.


30. However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.


31. We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.


32. I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.


33. I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.


34. There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.


35. These are not dark days: these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.


36. If you are going through hell, keep going.


37. Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.


38. No crime is so great as daring to excel.


39. No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.


40. One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!


41. Play the game for more than you can afford to lose... only then will you learn the game.


42. Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.


43. This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.


44. To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.


45. True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.


46. We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.


47. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Surging Ahead In a Storm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lrargerich/ / CC BY 2.0

One of Jeb Blount's recent Sales Gravy podcasts struck a nerve with me. It's the perfect description for using a weak economy to surge past your competition.

Blount described a pair of cars driving down a highway at a high rate of speed. One car is miles ahead of the other. The second car is driving a little faster and slowing closing the gap, but the distance is far enough and the first car is fast enough that it will take a long time to catch up and pass the leader.

Even so, it's uncertain the second car will pass the leader. The leader could accelerate. The second car's rate of speed could slow slightly. Thus the gap between the two may narrow, hold, or grow.

However, the tough economy, like a heavy storm, slows all cars. The leader, fearful of driving in these conditions, slows, and may even pull over and stop. This opens the possibility for the follower to surge ahead and pass the listless leader. When the storm passes, the former leader will have to regain momentum and play catch up. He may never catch up.

Today's economy is like driving in the storm. Many of your competitors are so afraid of hydroplaning and spinning out of control that they pull over and try to ride out the storm. This creates an opportunity for you. Take advantage of it!

Do not take your foot off the gas. Don't drive your company wildly, but don't slow down out of fear of what might happen. The economy is too resilient to stay down for long. Despite state and federal policy blunders (e.g., spending wildly on transfer payments rather than infrastructure investments, raising the minimum wage, increased trade restrictions, increased regulation, tax increases, flat out stupid energy policy, a climate of uncertainty, etc.), the economy is still growing.

No downturn is permanent. This one will not be an exception. While it may not feel like it, all economic signs point to a slow, gradual recovery. Remember, unemployment is a lagging indicator and will not start to fall until the recovery is well underway.

Now... right now... today is an opportunity to surge past your more fearful, conservative competitors. You may not encounter another economic climate as favorable as this one for aggressive individual company action for decades. Take advantage of it. Surge ahead!

Failed (or not)...

I didn't know about a couple of these...

You Can't Send a Duck To Eagle School

The world's greatest mechanic, if he's gruff, rough, and rude, is unfit to work in residential service.

Johnny The Bagger

This is a great video for a Monday morning. It shows how everyone can make a difference. It shows how an attitude of service can permeate an organization. Just as one person can poison an organization, one person can inspire those around him.

Rudy... A Story of Perseverance

It's a mistake to call Rudy a football movie. It's a movie about perseverance and overcoming adversity that happesn to take place in a football setting. Still, it is a football setting. The movie never fails to inspire me.

If you aren't familiar with the movie, Rudy is an undersized, unathletic, dyslexic kid who dreams of playing football for Notre Dame. No one believes in him, especially not his family. Over time, however, his enthusiasm and his tenacity gradually win believers. The clip below shows Rudy during spring training, trying to walk on for a position on the scout team.



Rudy makes the scout team and is eventually promised the opportunity to suit up for one game the following season. A head coaching change dashes Rudy's hopes. Approaching the final game, Rudy still hasn't made the roster. He quits. The stadium groundskeeper, Rudy's boss, gives Rudy a motivational speech in the following clip.



Even the most enthusiastic, self-motivated person needs external motivation from time to time. This is why it's important to attend events like Brand U, HVAC Comfortech, and the Las Vegas Roundtable. The world beats you down, but events like these lift you up.

Rudy thinks about the groundskeeper's message and returns to practice. His teammates rally to his cause, the coach relents, and Rudy leads the team on to the field. But standing on the sidelines in pads doesn't mean Rudy will be listed as a member of the team. For that, he needs to play.

With time fading, the football players on the sideline start chanting Rudy's name. This is picked up by students in the stands who read a profile on Rudy in the school newspaper. In the clip below, Rudy gets his chance, with his parents, brother, and friends watching from the stands.



By now, you probably realize that the most incredible aspect of the movie is that it's a true story. In the film, the real Rudy is actually sitting behind the movie Rudy's father.

The next clip summarizes the entire movie in a couple of minutes.



HVAC contractors might find it interesting that the film has an air conditioning connection. Alan Mintz, CEO of Energy King (formerly Buckeye Ventures) is an Associate Producer of Rudy.

If you haven't seen the movie, rent a copy. It will inspire you. Think about Rudy the next time you consider giving up. Like Rudy, you're capable of more than you know and more than others believe is possible.

Paycheck Pump Up

I get a lot of great ideas from Juan Cardona, owner of JC Heating & Cooling in Cross Lanes, West Virginia. He's one of those guys who spills ideas without consciously realizing it. I got another today.

"I really liked this," Juan wrote in Facebook about the Mabel & The Wal-Mart Greeter story. "Every employee is getting a copy of it in this week's payroll check."

I often talk about seeking out large area employers for the purpose of getting a discount card or promotion stuffed in employee paychecks. After all, that's one envelope people are guaranteed to open.

It never occurred to me that a contractor could use the same approach to communicate with his (or her) own employees. Take a cue from Juan. Stuff a motivational message in every paycheck at least once a month. While you could do it every week, infrequency probably increases readership.

And for a lots of information to choose from, keep reading Comanche Marketing!