Message of the Day: Life Lessons from Sand Castles

Good Morning,

I have been listening to some audio messages from Bob Gass (http://www.hearbobgass.com/) and one jumped out at me. Bob Gass was talking about Sandcastles and how life is like building sandcastles and how they crumble when the tide comes in. He shared how life is like a Sandcastle and the differences between how people embrace the inevitable changes that come.

We build up ourselves like we were building sand castles. We carefully or not so carefully build up the towers and walls and put in the details. The larger our castle, the more we have put into our life.

Then it starts happening. The waves start coming in and wash away some of the sand, causing some of the towers to collapse.

Just like how change comes into our lives. We build up our careers and establish ourselves in our companies and the waves of change come in. We have changes in our lives.

The question then is how do we face these inevitable changes? Do we act like kids on the beach as their castles start crumbling and cheer, or maybe even jump into the pile of sand, knowing we can start over and build another castle. Or do we build up walls and barriers, or even through ourselves in front of the castle to protect it from the tide?

When the tide comes in, the sand castle is doomed. When change comes into our lives, what we know our lives are going to change. We can fight it, we can run from it, we can ignore it, but change is coming.

Maybe the kids have it right. We should embrace change, knowing that we will have a chance to start building our next castle.

The choice is ours.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net
http://learnandgrowdaily.com ←-Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"
http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - Our Job is to Prepare

Good Morning,

In continuing through 'You, the Warrior Leader' I came across a section
about preparation. In a section where a story is shared about a cadet at
West Point after 9/11 who was failing a class and not being deployed like
his buddies, he was conflicted. To him, failing the course was holding him
back from doing his duty. One of the officers on base told him that his duty
was to prepare for all things, which meant getting through that course.

Unless our job is to simply count beans or some other mundane, never
changing, task, we will also need to prepare for what is coming ahead. Since
most of us do not know what is coming ahead, what company programs, what
challenges, etc., we are tasked with preparing for the relative unknown.

This may seem frightening, but it is not as scary as it sounds. There are
many skills and areas of knowledge which, if learned, would help us do our
jobs better and help us prepare for our future tasks and endeavors.

If we work in customer service, we can spend some time doing some research
into best practices to see what other companies are doing. We could read
some books on excellent customer service and see how the best companies are
giving 'knock your socks off' service.

If you are in the financial field, maybe start reading the Wall Street
Journal, or find a blog or two to follow from some industry experts. If you
are in the medical field, the same suggestion applies.

There are many easy to do activities which will help us prepare for the
unknown. The goal should be to add entire new areas of knowledge to our
knowledge arsenal. If we cannot do that, then add bits and pieces.

The worst thing we can do is to do nothing and expect to be safe in such a
turbulent time. Self improvement is more important than ever.

Our job is to prepare for the future that is coming, so get out there and
prepare!

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net
http://learnandgrowdaily.com ←-Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - It hurts more when you fall further

Good Morning,

This past Sunday morning, while walking the parking lot and greeting folks,
I started picking up litter. This was my idea. When walking around welcoming
people to Church, I would often notice some debris every now and then in the
parking lot. Walking around with a bucket and a pole with a grabbing claw on
the end, I noticed a few different responses to my normal well wishes. One
gentleman commented on my picking up garbage as we exchanged hellos. He told
me something to the effect that "it is better that I am doing this because
he would not be caught dead cleaning up other people's garbage".

Okay, it was not as sharp as that, but it kind of felt that way. It also got
me thinking (you know how that happens from time to time….)

When we think we are too good for something, we elevate the perception we
have of ourselves in our own mind. We, in effect, start thinking we are
better than other people, that there are things which are beneath us. The
longer we believe this delusion and pump ourselves up, the higher we raise
our own ego.

When our ego gets so inflated that it is floating hundreds of feet above the
ground (trying a visual of an ego like a balloon floating high above) it has
the potential to deflate or pop and come crashing to the ground.

As we are all people and no one is intrinsically better than anyone else,
keeping this grounded feeling will help us avoid our egos floating in the
stratosphere.

When our inflated ego gets ruptured, and life has a way of popping our ego,
or giving us some other form of 'reality adjustment' we come crashing
down. The higher we saw ourselves, the further we have to fall.

It is sadly funny watching people who blurt out that 'they will not be
caught dead doing (enter action here)' often doing that exact activity
shortly after the announcement.

When we accept that we are every-day people with no one being any better
than any others, we will find that there is no ego bubble to burst. We find
that what we see in ourselves is the true us and we have nothing to hide.

Most importantly, when the reality adjustments come (using that trusty ole
2x4), by being grounded and down to earth, our fall into reality is a small
one. If we allow ourselves to be deluded that we are something better than
everyone else, then when that reality adjustment comes, we come crashing
down.

Remain balanced and be who you are, but remember not to get caught up in
being better than someone else.

We are who we are, and that is fine.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net
http://learnandgrowdaily.com ←-Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - Fix Bayonets

Good Morning,

My current read is "You, The Warrior Leader" by Bobby Welch
(http://www.amazon.com/You-Warrior-Leader-Applying-Victorious/dp/0805431365)
. The first chapter is called 'Fix Bayonets'. Putting all the glory of
Hollywood's image of war aside, the order to Fix Bayonets is a very
frightening order and when I think about it, gives me shivers.

The order is given when all other avenues of action, all other tools are no
longer usable or available. It is an order given prior to going into
hand-to-hand combat, usually when someone is not going to be coming home.

In our lives, we run into times where we run into a Do-or-Die situation and
have to give ourselves or our teams the order 'Fix Bayonets'. Some people
call it a 'Last Ditch Effort' but in reality it is more pressing than
that. Failure means loss of a job, loss of business, loss of a contract,
etc.

When we face those situations where we have to 'Fix Bayonets' we need to
prepare ourselves both mentally and physically to do everything that we can
possibly do to get the job done, or else (when the or else is clearly
visible and known).

That mental state of preparedness, when we know the comfortable and routine
tactics and processes of daily operations are no longer going to 'cut it'
fully consumes us. We need to think fast, and be precise in every action we
take, and every decision we make.

We generally do better in these situations when we have practiced and honed
our skills in thinking and acting fast without error. Sadly, though, very
few of us actually do any sort of practice or training for these situations.
We simply get our 'trial-by-fire' and use what we learn as our experience
to face the next crisis.

Maybe we can learn from this challenge to practice working in tighter
constraints than normal. Maybe challenge ourselves to do a task which
normally takes one hour and do it in 10 minutes. Give ourselves some
practice of fixing bayonets so that when crunch time happens, we have
drilled it and can do our best.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net
http://learnandgrowdaily.com ←-Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - Starting Over

Good Morning,

A few weeks ago I watched "The Ultimate Gift" with my family. I remembered
on scene where 'Red', played by James Garner, was telling Jason that
starting over could be a good thing, that he in fact had started over two or
three times before he became a success.

In thinking about that line and looking at my life, I realized that I had,
in fact, started over two times in my life. The first time was in the June
of 1990 when I was living on ramen noodles, crackers and jelly, sleeping on
pile of blankets with my clothes in boxes. I was in Buffalo, New York at the
time. The second time was in 2003, in Maryland, where after being downsized
and out of work for over 6 months I made that fateful move to Louisville,
KY.

Each time I was given an opportunity to start over. Each time I started
over, I grew to be a better person that I was before. My skills and
knowledge changed. The difference between the first time I started over and
the second time was that I did not invest into myself. I did get better jobs
and learned some new skills, but I did not take personal improvement as
something I needed to do. By serendipitously learning new skills I became
marginally better than I was prior. Unfortunately, it was not good enough to
survive a second crash and burn (you can read more about that in my book).

Now I have spent the last four years actively improving me with college,
reading daily, going to seminars and surrounding myself with people who do
what I want to do and who help me improve myself. That is another key factor
in my life after the second rebuild. I have changed my focus from doing what
I wanted and enjoying my life to helping others.

I am not where I would consider myself to be a success (although some tell
me I am successful). I keep looking for ways to help improve me to help
others and I am a lot happier in life. I am happy with how I have improved,
but I am not satisfied with it. I have a long ways to go.

This happiness and this improvement in my life would not have happened if I
had not had to start all over again...twice.

While I do not look forward to crashing and burning a third time, I do know
that if it does happen, that I will learn from it and be better off from it
moving forward.

Starting over is a great opportunity if you use it as such.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net
http://learnandgrowdaily.com ←-Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day: Forty Ways to Look at Something

Good Morning,

My current read (after leaving my real current read at the office on Friday)
is Gretchen Rubin's "Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill"
(http://www.amazon.com/Forty-Ways-Look-Winston-Churchill/dp/0812971442).
What I like about this biography is that each chapter looks briefly at the
life of Winston Churchill and views it from a different angle. One chapter
is about Winston Churchill the Hero, another is Winston Churchill the failed
Politician, and Winston Churchill the Leader. Each chapter provides a very
different historical perspective to create a much fuller image of the man,
the myth and the legend.

This made me think about how we might be able to use this technique to
understand the different perspectives of ourselves, the people we interact
with and the situations in our lives. When we look at people or situations
we often see them through only one and maybe two different perspectives and
as often the case, there are many more facets to each which we often miss.

If we took a moment to look at a problem or person through a different lens,
we may find truths we never knew. For example we may find someone who is
very annoying to us. Maybe they are loud and obnoxious and due to our
dealings with them, we just rather not have anything to do with them. If we
look at them through the lens of being a loving and caring person, we may
find things in their behavior which we missed when we see them as annoying.

Look at what they are saying and doing and see how it supports that
viewpoint of being loving and supportive we might find something. Maybe they
always call their spouses every morning at 10 AM, and maybe they always open
the door for others. After finding these supporting details, we can see this
person as less annoying.

The challenge is that we often write off someone or something because of
traits which offend or irritate us and we don't take any further steps to
get to know them better. Some folks or situations just turn us off and we
can't think past that abhorrence.

If we give this a try, we may find useful information and potentially whole
new worlds of information about others and such that we never knew.

Like Brad Barton says in 'Beyond Illusions': "Our perceptions and
interpretations powerfully influence our responses and reactions. All too
often, they create the very thing - the very reality - we fear out of (drum
roll please) absolutely nothing."

Maybe we can start looking at those people and situations in a different
way, and find something we did not know before.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net
http://learnandgrowdaily.com ←-Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day: Victory within Defeat

Good Morning,

In my reading of the life and times of Thomas J. 'Stonewall' Jackson, I
read about the Battle of Kernstown in Virginia where Jackson's forces were
defeated, yet the effect of this battle on the enemy, the North, was more
beneficial to the South than if Jackson had actually won. The defeat in the
battle, had caused a victory in the war.

The North did not understand that Jackson had a small force which attacked a
much larger Union army. The thought that someone with such a small force
would actually engage such a large force never crossed their minds. As such,
they thought Jackson's forces were much larger than they actually were. In
response, the North diverted thousands of troops from attacking Richmond
Virginia, the Confederate Capital, to go after Jackson. This changed the
course of the war.

There are times in our lives when we fail at something, and that failure
actually becomes more of blessing than the victory would have been. I know
in my life that if I had succeeded in my Engineering studies in the
University of Buffalo back in the 1980's I would not be where I am today. I
would not have the lovely wife and family I enjoy now, nor would I have had
the life changing events in my life which led me to where I am today. That
failure, dropping out of college, turned to a success further down the road.

When we confront those times when things do not work out as planned, we need
to look at the positive side of the situation if possible. It is in the
positive that we may find a greater good. I am not talking about justifying
failure by coming up with whatever bright light we can find and exaggerate
it. I am suggesting that when something goes wrong, there is inherent good
to be found.

For example, when we fail at a task, we get the opportunity to try it again.
We get the opportunity to think through the process and have another stab at
it. And in that new attempt, we often learn things that we would never have
learned had we succeeded in the first place.

If we do look back into our failures, those events of our lives which we
hold on our wall of shame, we may begin to see the bright light in those
events and see that they actually led to something bigger and better in our
lives.

There is often victory within defeat, if we just look for it.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net
http://learnandgrowdaily.com ←-Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - Training Makes Better Coffee

Good Morning,

 

Have you noticed how McDonald's is now in the gourmet coffee business? They have invested a lot of money in getting the best premium coffee and have even won taste tests against such coffee magnates as Starbucks. McDonald's is obviously trying to enter this highly profitable sector and carve off huge tracks of Starbuck's and other gourmet coffee house's market share.

 

I personally do not see this succeeding over the long term for one simple reason. McDonald's crew members, no matter how willing and able, cannot seem to get my order right more than 70% of the time. About 1 out of 3 visits to McDonalds has me driving away with something I did not order or missing, missing something I did order, or something I ordered prepared incorrectly. This is not a recent happening, it has been the norm ever since I started going to McDonald's drive through over the last twenty years or so. How much training do these employees get before being let loose on the customers?

 

Starbucks has 24 hours, 3 days, of training for each of their 'baristas' to prepare coffee before being unleashed on customers. This plus practical on the job training, produces an efficient machine where my orders have rarely, if ever, been wrong.

 

McDonald's can under-price Starbucks, be more places than Starbucks, but unless they match the training and attention to detail that Starbucks puts into making coffee right, I will not be ordering my gourmet coffee from them. I want my order done correctly.

 

The focus on training is the key. If you give minimal training to people and expect to 'manage' them to higher performance, with hopes of engaging each employee's mental acumen, you may be sorely disappointed. More often than not, there is not a lot of training new jobs and or hires. Folks have to figure out the ropes themselves by either reading the manuals (which are getting thicker and more legalistic every year) or by asking a lot of questions and hoping someone will take pity on them and help them out.

 

This sink or swim mentality will kill any operation or business function because of the both the amount of errors made and lessened morale of the staff trying to muddle their way through.

 

Giving training to get the job done correctly addresses both the issues of quality and morale. Many companies have gotten it right with internal training teams and a focus on constantly improving the quality of training and thus the finished products. Others, put a lot of effort on style over substance, like presenting a high quality product line to compete in a new market without support systems in place to help truly compete.

 

Training does make a better coffee, and I know where to go to get my cup of coffee made right for me.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net

http://www.berenberg.net

http://learnandgrowdaily.com ←-Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

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Message of the Day - The Little Things that Mean So Much

Good Morning,

My current read is "Contented Cows Give Better Milk: The Plain Truth About
Employee Relations And Your Bottom Line" by Bill Catlette & Richard Hadden
(http://www.contentedcows.com/). This book is about treating employees the
right way, not just because it is the right thing to do, rather because it
results in a higher profit for the company.

I like how the authors tie in actual company performance to back up their
points on caring for their staff and going the extra mile. It has been my
belief for many years that treating your staff well makes a huge difference
in the team, department and ultimately the company's performance.

One section which jumped out at me was on how doing the little things, and
not necessarily the job related little things, can have such a huge impact
in the lives of fellow employees but in the overall performance of the
company.

The authors shared tales of CEOs who personally sent out birthday cards to
their staff. In some cases, this was over 1300 employees. In another case, a
CEO sent out congratulations to their employees for personal
accomplishments, even if they had nothing to do with the job.

Another example included getting to know the name of everyone on your team
and in your company. For some folks this is hard, and for others, it is
second nature. The impact though is huge. Like Dale Carnegie once said, a
person's name is the single most important word to them and they love
hearing it. If you can remember people's names, use them. Even if you have
a lot of temps coming through or if your unit has a high turnover, try to
learn everyone's name.

All these little things have a huge impact, much larger than the things
themselves. People notice the little things and in that they see that they
are valued as people and that their company cares more for them. A raise is
nice, but being known and appreciated has a much longer lasting impact on
the lives of those we work with.

Little things may be odd and unnatural to some, who look for a nearly
sterile relationship with their coworkers. These unfortunate people miss out
on the larger picture and bigger dividend the extra effort pays.

Want to take this to an even higher level? Get to know the names of your
coworker's kids and pets. Share pictures with them (thus sharing a part of
yourself with them) and you will spark their interest not only in getting to
know you better, but in working harder because they feel appreciated and the
have value to you and others.

It's the little things we can all do.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net
http://learnandgrowdaily.com ←-Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - The Tighter the Ship the Greater the Pressure

Good Morning,

I remember a time when I worked in Buffalo, New York. Our office
participated in a competition against the other 140 offices around the
world. The contest was statistics based with a caveat that the offices
competed against themselves, based on the previous week's performances.
Small offices could compete with large offices. Our office sputtered for
years and was never really a player. I wanted to get the game going, so I
started working with some of the staff to meet some of their goals. Our
standings in the first few weeks of pushing to meet goals improved. We
normally swam around the bottom. You know, with the ones who normally
imploded.

After three weeks and getting even more staff involved, we hit our first
number one week. It was a great accomplishment. We kept up the pressure and
did it again for the second week in a row. And getting nearly all the staff
involved, we hit number one three weeks in a row. Then the pressure of our
drive for improvement blew a gasket. Sputtering, we ended up about fourth
place in week four, but we won our first month, in years. Unfortunately,
that gasket which blew took us out of the running for nearly half a year.

The gasket was a key staff member who we though was onboard with drive to
improve. When we scrutinized every statistic to find ways to improve them,
we found issues with this one area. Looking deeper into the issue we found
the logged performance was a sham, and had been for years. With our team
doing poorly, this staff member normally shined, and now we knew why. Under
stress and scrutiny, the truth getting out, this fellow transformed from a
top performer to a perpetual problem child who eventually had to go.

Pushing for higher levels of performance, we tightened our ship. We also put
on the pressure for everyone on our team. That increased pressure exposed
our weaknesses, and worse, our unknown flaws.

The time to find those flaws is before the pressure is increased, as the
higher the pressure, the larger the gasket that will blow when a member of
the team cannot take it any more. That they did not know what they were
doing and were hiding behind the general mayhem of the office, or that they
were never really onboard with the project and were just faking it until the
stakes got too high and they bail unexpectedly.

Looking back to this experience in the 1980, knows what I know now, I would
have interviewed each team member every week to focus on them instead of
what stats they could accomplish. This would have more likely routed out the
issue before it tore our ship apart.

When your team ramps up efforts, that is the best time to reconfirm
everyone's true intentions to support the team or not, which can be done
through one-on-ones and other similar meetings.

As everyone has a limit to how much pressure we can take, it makes sense to
understand when it is before it is too late.

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net
http://learnandgrowdaily.com ←-Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - Taking the High Road and Lots of Fried Chicken

Good Morning,

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Over the last few days I have seen or been involved in situations where
people were ready to over-react in response to what they felt to be wrongs
done against them. When I went to get dinner at a local supermarket, people
in front of me did not get the fried chicken breast they wanted, so they lit
into the sales clerk who had little to unavailable product.

This anger, resentment or whatever has little value, no matter how bad the
service was.

Taking a more positive tact will almost always provide a better outcome.

When I came up to the counter to get chicken, I told the lady that I could
live without white meat and would love just to have their great fried
chicken. The supermarket clerk smiled and provided thighs, wings and
drumsticks in place of the chicken breast and tossed in a few free
drumsticks and wings just as a thank you.

When we are faced with bad service or not getting what we want, we can
choose how to respond. We can get angry and spam the world with our rage, or
we can make a positive impact and give people the opportunity to make good
on any miscues.

It may be easier to yell, hoop and holler when we don't get what we want,
but in the long run, does that do us any good? The anger is released for a
bit, and then is often replaced by feelings of shame and guilt. Do we really
want those feelings?

Take the high road and the positive tact. It may just get you more fried
chicken, and it was all good!

Enjoy!

Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net
http://learnandgrowdaily.com ←-Click here to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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