Ph.D. in Leadership,
Short Course:
Make a careful list
of all things done
to you that you
abhorred.
Don’t do them to others,
EVER.
Make another list
of things done
for you that you
loved.
Do them for others,
ALWAYS.
Dee Hock,
Founder &
former CEO
VISA
I.
is
1%
inspiration
and
99%
perspiration.”
Thomas Alva Edison
II.
wait
until
you
feel
motivated
to
do
it –
DO IT
and
you’ll
feel
motivated.”
Robert Ellis Gilbert
What do you do in your free time?
Me?
I google “commencement addresses.”
I’m not kidding.
I love reading these short, insightful, and, hopefully, inspirational speeches.
I love the “life lessons” most. The part when the speaker relates what they known now that they wished they knew then.
Here’s part of a good one . . .
In 2007, Daniel Ritchie, chancellor emeritus of the
Here’s my favorite part . . .
In looking back now over these many years, I have learned a few other things that I think might be useful to you. I have a few suggestions -- just a few -- on how to make your life not only a success, but a joy.
Finding joy in life doesn't have so much to do with what you know. It's about values and character. Let me tell you about a personal experience.
When I graduated from business school, I looked around at my classmates and divided them into two categories -- those that I would like to work with and those that I wouldn't.
The latter group, I called the snakes.
I was really dividing them up according to my assessment of their character. I wanted to work with people of integrity, loyalty, and honesty -- because I valued those qualities even more than knowledge and skill.
I decided that I would watch my classmates over the years to see how they turned out.
Frankly, the early years were a big surprise!
The snakes were winning hands down.
I worried that maybe I'd gotten life figured out all wrong. Maybe this integrity and caring stuff was for the birds.
But over time, the tide began to turn.
Now, more than 50 years later the good guys are winning by a huge margin and most of the snakes have been run over.
You see, it's a real advantage to be a snake if people don't know you are one, but, sooner or later, they figure it out. And once they have, it's over. You can never change their minds. Also, I've noticed that it isn't much fun being a snake.
There's a reason why caring people with integrity, loyalty, and honesty succeed.
To succeed, any organization, whether a business organization or any other kind, must have teamwork. Real teamwork, requires people who trust one another and care about one another.
In short, you have to be trustworthy. If everybody's just in it for their own fame or fortune, I guarantee you that the organization will be a loser. Over the course of history, mercenaries have never won a war. You have to believe.
And what is true of organizational behavior and success is equally true of societies as a whole. Moral decline recedes economic and social decline. A society of snakes can't function over the long haul, because people are not meant to be selfish, solitary units. To survive and flourish people need to - and must - rely on each other. Snakes can't do that. And we know a society of snakes certainly is no fun.
Now, what I'm telling you, most of you know already. In fact, the human race has known these truths for a very long time.
We in the West have the Golden Rule, which tells us to do unto others what you would have them do unto you.
Across the globe, Confucius said not to do unto others what we would not have them do unto us.
Pretty much the same idea, with a cultural twist.
We've known these things for thousands of years. Sometimes we just forget them.
I remind you of them today because today begins the real test of your life and person. Today marks the beginning of what you've prepared for all these years. And with an education from the
Now you just need to make two promises to yourself.
First, that you will never, ever, under any circumstances, compromise your personal integrity.
And, second, that you will find a life purpose, if you haven't already, that goes beyond yourself.
It can be to grow a fine family, improve the environment, support a cause or serve your God.
I can tell you, after many years of personal experience and observation, that a self-centered, selfish life isn't very satisfying or rewarding.
So, just do these two things: Maintain your personal integrity, no matter what. And have a life purpose that goes beyond yourself.
You will be successful.
You will feel fulfilled.
And you'll have a great time, which is very important.
Brian Dyce, the former CEO of Coca Cola, delivered the following commencement address many years ago . . .
Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls in the air.
You can name them -- work, family, health, friends, and spirit -- and you're keeping all of these in the air and you will soon understand that work is a rubber ball.
If you drop it, it'll bounce back.
But the other four balls -- family, health, friends, and spirit -- are made of glass.
If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged, or even shattered. They'll never be the same, and you must understand that and strive for the balance of your life.
"How?”
Don't undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is
because we are different that each of us is special.
Don't set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you.
Don't take for granted the things that are closest to your heart. Cling to
them as you would your life; for without them, life is meaningless.
Don't let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future. By living your life one day at a time, you live all the days of your life.
Don't give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.
Don't be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect -- it is this fragile thread that binds us to each other.
Don't be afraid to encounter risk -- it is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.
Don't shut love out of your life by saying it's impossible to find -- the quickest way to receive love is to give, and the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly, and the best way to keep love is to give it wings.
Don't run through life so fast that you forget not only where you've been but also where you're going.
Don't forget that a person's greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.
Don't be afraid to learn -- knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.
Don't use time or words carelessly; neither can be retrieved.
Life is not a race but a journey to be savored each step of the way. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift. That's why we call it the present.
Somehow I can’t believe
there are many heights
that can’t be scaled by a
person who knows the
secret of making dreams
come true.
This special secret,
it seems to me,
can be summarized
in four C’s.
They are
Curiosity,
Confidence,
Courage and
Constancy
and the greatest
of these is
CONFIDENCE.
When you believe
a thing,
believe it all over,
implicitly and unquestioning.
Walt Disney (1901-1966)
Is today’s story a great story?
There’s only one way to tell.
If you read it and like it so much that you re-tell it to someone else – it’s a great story.
From The Speaker’s Book of Quotations by Henry O. Dormann . . .
One of the favorite stories [the great writer] James Thurber told is of a conversation he had with a nurse while he was in a hospital.
“What seven letter word has three u’s in it?” he asked.
The nurse thought for a while and then replied, “I really don’t know, but it must be very unusual.”
Op-Ed Columnist
New York Times
June 17, 2008
THE FROZEN GAZE
By DAVID BROOKS
Rocco Mediate’s head swiveled about as he walked up the fairway of the sudden-death hole of the U.S. Open on Monday. Somebody would catch his attention, and his eyes would dart over and he’d wave or make a crack. Tiger Woods’s gaze, on the other hand, remained fixed on the ground, a few feet ahead of his steps. He was, as always, locked in, focused and self-contained.
The fans greeted Mediate with fraternal affection and Woods with reverence. Most were probably rooting for Rocco, but only because Woods, the inevitable victor, has risen above mere human status and become an embodiment of immortal excellence. That frozen gaze of his looks out from airport billboards, TV commercials and the ad pages. And its ubiquity is proof that every age finds the heroes it needs.
In a period that has brought us instant messaging, multitasking, wireless distractions and attention deficit disorder, Woods has become the exemplar of mental discipline. After watching Woods walk stone-faced through a roaring crowd, the science writer Steven Johnson, in a typical comment, wrote: “I have never in my life seen a wider chasm between the look in someone’s eye and the surrounding environment.”
The coverage of him often centers upon this question: How did this creature come about? The articles inevitably mention his precocity (at age 3, he shot a 48 on the front nine of a regulation course) and provide examples of his athletic prowess: Once Woods tried out four drivers that Nike was experimenting with and told the lab guys that he preferred the heavier one. The researchers thought the clubs were the same weight, but they measured and Woods was right. The club he’d selected was heavier by the equivalent of two cotton balls.
But inevitably, it is his ability to enter the cocoon of concentration that is written about and admired most. Writers describe the way Earl Woods, his lieutenant colonel father, dropped his golf bag while Tiger was swinging to toughen his mind. They describe his mother’s iron discipline at home. “Old man is soft,” Kultida Woods once said of her husband. “He cry. He forgive people. Not me. I don’t forgive anybody.”
Tiger was the one dragging them out on the course to practice. At age 6 months, he was put in a baby chair and had the ability, his father claimed, to watch golf for two hours without losing focus.
As an adult, he is famously self-controlled. His press conferences are a string of carefully modulated banalities. His lifestyle is meticulously tidy. His style of play is actuarial. He calculates odds and avoids unnecessary risks like the accounting major he once planned on being. “I am, by nature, a control freak,” he once told John Garrity of Sports Illustrated, as Garrity resisted the temptation to reply, “You think?”
And for that, in this day and age, he stands out. As I’ve been trying to write this column, I’ve toggled over to check my e-mail a few times. I’ve looked out the window. I’ve jotted down random thoughts for the paragraphs ahead. But Woods seems able to mute the chatter that normal people have in their heads and build a tunnel of focused attention.
Writers get rhapsodic over this facility. “Woods’s concentration often seems to be made of the same stuff as the liquid-metal cyborg in Terminator 2: If you break it, it reforms,” David Owen wrote in Men’s Vogue.
Then they get spiritual. In Slate, Robert Wright only semi-facetiously compared Woods to Gandhi, for his ability to live in the present and achieve transcendent awareness. Analysts inevitably bring up his mother’s Buddhism, his experiments in meditation. They describe his match-mentality in the phrases one might use to describe a guru achieving nirvana. He achieves, they say, perfect clarity, tranquility and flow. We’re talking about somebody who is the primary spokesman for Buick, and much of the commentary about him is on the subject of his elevated spiritual capacities.
And here we’re getting to the nub of what’s so remarkable about the “Be A Tiger” phenomenon: He’s become the beau ideal for golf-loving corporate
The ancients were familiar with physical courage and the priests with moral courage, but in this over-communicated age when mortals feel perpetually addled, Woods is the symbol of mental willpower. He is, in addition, competitive, ruthless, unsatisfied by success and honest about his own failings. (Twice, he risked his career to retool his swing.)
During the broadcast of Monday’s playoff round, Nike ran an ad that had Earl Woods’s voice running over images of his son: “I’d say, ‘Tiger, I promise you that you’ll never meet another person as mentally tough as you in your entire life.’ And he hasn’t. And he never will.”
You can like this model or not. Either way, the legend grows.
I.
is
constancy to purpose.”
British Prime Minister
II.
One
Course
Until
Successful
Author
III.
action
beats
brilliance
any
day.”
Professional speaker
IV.
“The problem isn’t that you can’t focus.
You’re always focusing.
The problem is: Are you focusing on the right thing.”
Yard by yard,
it might be hard,
but
inch by inch,
it’s a cinch.
Norman Lear, television writer and producer . . .
My grandfather told
me when I was about
ten, as we stood at
the edge of a lake
in
that each time I threw
a stone into the water
I was raising the level
of the lake.
I threw another stone.
It wasn’t happening.
So I threw a rock.
I still couldn’t see the
level of the lake rising,
but my grandfather
asked me if I saw the
ripple.
Years later I understood
what he was getting at.
The ripple is what we all
have to be satisfied with.
That’s what we all have
to work our hearts out for –
to make a ripple.
Then we won’t see it
but the water level
does rise.
Aoccdrnig to rseaecrh
at Hravard Uinervtisy,
it deosn’t mttaer waht oredr
the ltteers in a word are,
the olny iprmoatnt tihng
is taht the frist and lsat
ltteers be in the rghjit pclae.
Tihs is bcuseae the
huamn mnid deos not
raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe.
Is failure, disappointment, and rejection going to make you better or bitter?
The choice is yours.
Lolo Jones is one of the best in the world in the 100 meter hurdles. She’ll probably win a medal in the Olympics this August.
Here’s what she had to say . . .
“I’m inspired by failure.
The process of defeat –
picking yourself back up again
is the hardest thing in the world.
But you emerge stronger.”
Thanks, Lolo . . .
The following is a list that been around for a while.
1. At least two people in this world love you so much they would die for you.
“FIND
WHAT
YOU
REALLY
CARE
ABOUT
AND
LIVE
A
LIFE
THAT
SHOWS
IT.”
-- Kate Wolf (1942 – 1986)
folk singer and song writer
My favorite ball player is eight-year old Adam Bender from Kentucky.
“The
ultimate
measure
of
a
man
is not
where
he
stands
in
moments
of
COMFORT
and
CONVENIENCE,
but
where
he
stands
at
times
of
CHALLENGE
and
CONTROVERSY.”
“I’ve had enough. I’m giving up. I quit.”
Climbing is a sport, but climbing in the mountains, like ocean racing or crossing a desert takes place in different conditions from those of common sports.
A climb is not a sort of game that can be stopped at any time.
Even if you are at the limits of endurance, if your feet are like lead, if nothing but extreme effort of will keeps you going, even if lightning is flashing across the sky, you cannot sit down and say, “I’ve had enough. I’m giving up. I quit.”
And even when you do get to the top, the rock is still not half finished.
This is undoubtedly the hardest of rules to accept, but it is nevertheless an attraction:
On every crest the climber must ride his whole self.
Author unknown
“Hard work
beats
talent
when
talent
doesn’t
work hard.”
“Your
competitor’s
name
for
your
#1 customer –
their
#1 prospect.”
sales trainer extraordinaire
“The Common Denominator of Success”
lies the fact that:
WINNERS
HAVE
SIMPLY
FORMED
THE
HABIT
OF
DOING
THINGS
THAT
LOSERS
DON’T
LIKE
TO
DO.
Albert E.N. Gray
life insurance expert
Gramps still drove his big 18-wheeler even though he was in his 80s.
One day, while he was eating lunch at small roadside bar, three tough young hoodlums parked their motorcycles, came in, and started drinking.
After they had a couple of beers, they started getting on Gramps’ case.
They taunted him, started eating some of his food, and threw some beer in his face.
Gramps, trying to ignore their taunts, quickly got up and paid his bill without saying a word.
One of the hoodlums, upset that they couldn’t provoke the old man into a fight, said to the waitress, “What a wimp, he wasn’t much of a man was he?”
The waitress, looking out the window, said, “No he wasn’t much of a man and he isn’t much of a truck driver either. He just backed his truck over three motorcycles.”
WHY GET MAD . . . WHEN YOU CAN GET EVEN!
The following quote from a commencement address given in 2004 at
One
of the
greatest feelings
in life
is
the conviction
that
you have
lived the life
you wanted
to live –
with
the
rough and smooth,
the
good and the bad –
but yours,
shaped by
your own choices,
and
not
someone else’s.
Quality isn’t about money,
it’s about caring.
It’s about wanting
to be the best
because there is
personal pride
at stake –
an individual
declaration
of identity
with the product.
There is always a market
for the best,
all over the globe.
It’s an obvious and well-known
fact that mountain climbers
don’t like to buy
discounted climbing ropes.
And there’s the joke
about the parachute
offer for sale --
“Cheap, slightly irregular,
but used only once.”
When something is as
important as life and death –
and all business decisions
should be --
quality is irreplaceable.
Hap Klopp,
Founder,
The North Face
(world’s largest producer
Of outdoor adventure equipment)
Once upon a time,
there was a
chicken and a pig
who were the best of friends.
They lived in a very poor
town where no one ever
seemed to have enough food.
One day, the chicken
had an idea
how to help the poor,
hungry townspeople.
She approached her
friend the pig and said,
“I know how we could help
everyone in town.”
“What could we do?”
questioned the pig.
“Well, I could give the
eggs I lay and you
could make some of your big
body into a ham so that we
could have ham and eggs
breakfast for all the poor,
needy people,” the chicken
explained.
“I understand your concern,”
answered the pig, “but
what is just a donation for yo
is a total commitment for me!”
Let’s talk about you . . .
when you go to work or school,
do you “donate” your
time or do you
“totally commit”
yourself?
Total commitment is the absolute
secret of success.
Totally commit – it won’t kill you!
Rob Gilbert
