Message of the Day - Won't you Be My Neighbor?

Good Morning,

 

Last week I read "The World According to Mr. Rogers" (http://www.amazon.com/World-According-Mister-Rogers-Important/dp/1401301061). This is a delightful book with a lot of great insight into living a full and happy life. While the thought of this information coming from Mr. Rogers may sound childish, it is far from it.

 

Mr. Rogers shared with us many different truths of life. He also taught us in a way that makes it safe to learn and experience these truths. His kind and loving approach to sharing information knocks down the barriers to learning often put up by ego, fear and ignorance. As a kid I was fascinated by Mr. Rogers, and as a teenager and young adult I was put off by his simplicity and blandness. As an adult, I am once again fascinated, but on a whole new level.

 

One of the most powerful of the messages Mr. Rogers shares with us in this book is that it is okay to have feelings, and more importantly that is okay to share our feelings in a healthy way.

 

In our hustle-bustle world of emails, instant messaging, text messages, etc., we often become rigid, putting our 'game face' on to get through the day to accomplish our goals. In a sense we turn off our emotions and feelings and roll up our sleeves like a hardened soldier. Those showing any emotion, happy, sad or otherwise, stand out or are even seen as weak.

 

The turning off of our feelings, though, detracts from our humanity. It lessens the wonderful nature of what makes each of us unique and can even mask what has helped endear us to others. Repressed feelings over time become dangerous, both mentally and physically.

 

The challenge for some is how to appropriately express their feelings to others. For some, the challenge is even more basic, to show any emotion whatsoever in public. Our society has even glorified the 'Ice Man' or the 'Ice Princess' mentality of showing no emotion. Even though it may be cool, it is still unhealthy.

 

When we can freely share our feelings, even if we get a bit sappy every now and then, we help our emotional and mental health. We reduce our stress and improve our overall mental health.

 

So how do we start if we are not used to sharing emotions?

 

We can smile at others when we feel happy. We can practice telling people how we feel about something, even if it is upsetting. If we feel we are going to lose it, then take a walk and get composure prior to trying again.

 

And if we are truly struggling with this, it is okay to seek professional help for someone to talk to and help straighten out our thoughts and feelings.

 

Because in the end, it is okay to have our own feelings and be ourselves, just like Mr. Rogers has shared with us for many years.

 

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 - By Our Example

Good Morning,

 

My current read is "Toy Box Leadership: Leadership Lessons from the toys you loved as a child" by Roy Hunder and Michael Waddell (http://www.amazon.com/Toy-Box-Leadership-Lessons-Loved/dp/B0029LHX8K/). The book uses different toys as examples of leadership and what we can learn from them. For example, on the chapter covering Lego's, the leadership lessons are about connecting and communication through connecting, just like what you can do with Legos.

 

The chapter on the Slinky Dog really indicated to me about how we must lead by example. The slinky dog is a toy which has the front and rear ends of a dog connected by a slinky. When you move the front end of the toy in one direction, after a while the back end will follow and try to catch up with the head.

 

Like when we lead, we move forward, there is a a pause as the information (orders and requests) get assimilated and acted upon and then the rest of the organization or team moves forward to follow the leader.

 

The way the leader moves, how fast, how abrupt, how caring, etc. is going to impact are how the organization or team follows. 

 

If we were to think about how we, as leaders, act, and imagine our organization or team attached to us by a slinky, and that whatever or however we do something, the impact will be felt by the organization.

• If we are brash, the impact on our organization will be brash.
• If we are meek, the impact on our organization will be meek.
• If we pull too hard on our organization, we will stretch them out and maybe lose them.
• If we don't hard enough, the organization does not go anywhere.

Our personal example, that is, what we do, has a definite impact on others working with us, and using the dog slinky metaphor, it is actually easier to envision the repercussions of our actions as leaders.

 

It is fitting to see these toys work to provide lessons for us for life.

 

I am looking forward to finishing this book and seeing what we can learn from Mr. Potato Head and the little green army soldiers.

 

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 - Facing Opposition

Good Morning,

My current read is "Excellence in Leadership" by John White (http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/4570-0.html). This book talks about Leadership in extreme environments under tough conditions and share secrets used by one of history's exemplars of leadership under pressure, Nehemiah. Nehemiah wnnt to the ruins of Jerusalem and organized the people to rebuild the city walls amid opposition, attacks and subterfuge.

One section of the book that jumped out at me was facing opposition. As leaders and as every day people we face all kinds of opposition. This opposition can come from more than other people who are at odds with us. It can come from distractions, from unforeseen complications and from every day life.

These challenges may not be as brutal as facing Terry Tate, Office Linebacker, throughout the day (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbSpAsJSZPc&feature=related) but it may feel that way when you get that next crisis email from the boss or worse, from the bosses boss or higher up.

These situations send ripples through out days and before we know, if we are not focused, our day ends up far from the destination we had set for it when we started that morning, or if we are even more organized, the night before.

Building flexibility into our day is one way to cope with the various forms of opposition to our time and resources as mentioned in a previous message.

Another way to keep on track is to keep reminders, note pads with high level to do's on them so that when the crisis or challenge or full body tackle is over, we can get back to what we had planned to and thus need to do.

Of course, with the changes in the day, our priorities change and what we planned for in the morning may no longer be the highest priority, and as such, we need to rethink our goals and then move forward to where we need to be from that point.

Doing spot checks for our goals each day is something that will help us get to where we need to be, and allows us both flexibility in how he face the onrush of opposition from interruptions, challenges, and attacks from others when they occur.

Remember your goals, why you are doing what you are doing, the big picture, in each of these spot checks. And when you keep that in mind as you rethink your options for going forward, it will help ground you and keep you on course.

How you start the day is often not how you end the day. The paths we take through the day often are not those we chose, but it is our choice how to react to these challenges and more importantly, when the challenges and distractions have ended, it is our choice on how we do our spot checks and get ourselves back on track.

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/
Follow Me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/sberenberg
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Message of the Day - Uncovering our own Super Powers

Good Morning,

We all have superpowers and we all have the potential to be superheroes to others. Unfortunately not every body knows what their superpowers are. And while we may wear our superhero gear, we may not know which superhero we truly are.

The challenge is when we think we know what the superpower is and it isn't our superpower things can get silly and even dangerous. I remember a scene from the classic TV sitcom Taxi where the drivers all had to go out and get different jobs. My favorite was Reverend Jim. He went our selling vacuums and you can see how well he did http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9DwRcioFWM&NR=1.

I too sold vacuum cleaners; Kirby's, and was very good at selling them. To this day, I cannot fathom buying another vacuum other than a Kirby, some 14 years after I stopped selling them. It seems I have the super power to selling or persuasion.

While I have always been a salesman of some sort, I could not be a superhero at it. I have an Achilles Heel in my selling. I cannot get passed living off of commissions. No matter how good I am, that weakness will cripple my sales skills like kryptonite to Superman.

Finding our true super powers and marrying them to our super identity is a task that can take years. I know that I have am still looking for my super alter ego, but I am getting closer. My strengths flourish around working with others, and helping them. In this way I can do my selling and persuasion to help others with the knowledge I have gained.

When you look at yourselves, what skills and powers do you see? What abilities do you know are above and beyond the average? What abilities have others told you that you are truly great at? Look there. And mind you, if the skills are around being annoying, realize that several folks have turned those skills into successful careers (Peewee Herman, Don Rickles, Spongebob and Patrick and Barney).

After finding those skills you are really good at, that you have super powers with, start looking how you can apply them to helping others. When you start finding that matching skill and venue, you will start to see your superhero self. Your skills do not have to out of this world, just extraordinary.

And being a super hero is not just spandex and capes. It is being yourself. Johnny the Bagger (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xgq1rSR38zg) is a super hero. Here doing something ordinary in an extraordinary way can may you a super hero.

Remember, it's not what you look like, or how you dress, it is what you do, and how others feel about it that makes you a super hero. Dad's and Mom's you get it easy, you can be a superhero every day with your kids. Now flex those super muscles and share your powers with the world!

Now before you go out and soil someone's carpet, make sure you know your true super powers and at least have a clue what your super hero identity is.

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 - Building Up Your Home Base

Good Morning,

 

My current read is Thomas Cleary's 'Human Element' (http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781570622052). Thomas Cleary has translated many books on ancient Chinese and Japanese wisdom. One of my first reads back in the 1990's was his translation of Sun Tzu and the Art of War.

 

In the 'Human Element', there are many choice nuggets of wisdom. One of those nuggets which appealed to me was about the merits of strengthening your home base to help you better reach out and operation more effectively outside your home.

 

This bit of wisdom has multiple meanings.

 

First is means literally that by making our home life stable, we can venture outside of home with calm supportive knowledge that we have a loving and caring home waiting for us. On the other hand, if your home life is fractious and chaotic, it will limit your ability to operate outside of the home due to the constant thoughts and attention spent on fixing or even just dealing with home.

 

Another meaning of this is our area of expertise. For example, if your strength is absorbing and employing information, then when you work in those areas, you will do well. As you venture into new areas, like leadership, or training, or other areas, then your success moving into these different areas increases with the level of stability in your home base of skill.

 

Whatever meanings that can be derived from this concept, they will all support the cause of strengthening the home base so that we can move out into new areas with greater certainty and likelihood of success. To strengthen our home base, we need put our attention on making it better. Making our true home better, our main area of skill, or whatever, takes our honest effort to do what is right for our home base and ourselves.

 

If we cannot be honest with ourselves and accept where we are and our part in getting there, we will continue to have a shaky base. A shaky base will cause ripples through everything else we do. Just like building a pile of building blocks. The higher you go, the less stable you are, and that is magnified if you have an unstable base.

 

It all comes down to use being honest with ourselves and helping building a solid core base of operations for whatever we do in life.

 

From there, as we confidently expand outward, the sky is the limit.

 

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 - Smart Planning Saves Time

Good Morning,

 

Some more wisdom on time management. My current read is a time management book originally written in 1990, "If you haven't got the time to do it right, when will you find the time to do it over?" by Jeffrey J. Mayer (http://www.amazon.com/Havent-Time-Right-When-Will/dp/0671733648/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265367796&sr=8-1).

 

Part of reading a 20 year old book on time management is musing over the suggestions as using in boxes and out boxes as well as to dictate letters and memos to your Secretary and there are such technology tools as P.C.'s and Lap-tops emerging on the scene. The book mentions there is email, but from the 1990 perspective. It is actually fun to see what efficient use of time was in 1990 when businesses started doing more with less.

 

Humor aside, this book does have some good ideas which are helpful for today's world. Some strategies just never go bad. One of these is to create a master list of all of our activities which need our thoughts and will take up more than 10 minutes of our time. If find it interesting that when I start these lists, that more and more comes back into focus. That is projects and to do's that I had long since forgot out, since last Tuesday when a wave of new challenges, fire drills and requests arrived.

 

The concept that I think has the most impact for us is placement of activities. If you work in a congested area like in the downtown of a city, then lunch hour is going to be packed. Instead of lunch at 12:00 PM, go at 11:30 AM, when the restaurants and food courts have not filled up yet and get faster service. The crowds have not figured this out yet (and the book was written 20 years ago).

 

If you leave work at 5:00 PM and have a wall of traffic to contend with, rearrange your after work needs to allow you to leave at 5:45 PM you might find less traffic and you get home only 20 minutes later than if you left at 5:00 PM. And have less stress to boot.

 

This applies to scheduling meetings, going shopping. I remember shopping at 3:00 AM one morning at a 24 Hour Store (not on Black Friday), and I was able to search the entire store with very little competition.

 

I remember visiting Epcot Center in Florida where I was able to see the entire center in one day without rushing. There were crowds, but it was considered a very light day for a Sunday. Superbowl Sunday. Just before the fireworks in the lake, the score of the game was even being broadcast. So by going to a venue during that specific time, we were able to do far more in less time.

 

We can be creative in finding ways to save time.

 

Enjoy, and save time!

 

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 - Getting the Most out of the 30 Hours in Each Day

Good Morning,

 

You may be looking at the title of this message and wondering what I have been smoking lately. Bear with me on this.

 

Our time is extremely valuable. It is a commodity that we only get to spend once and no matter how much we scrimp and save, time flows at its own rate (and faster when we are having fun).

 

One facet of time management that I have found most helpful to me is how you look at time management. Basically, either we manage our time, or our time manages us. Most of us spend a lot of time in the 'being managed by our time' boat, rather than truly managing the time we have allotted to us.

 

Why is that?

 

When our lives get crazy (not a long walk for most of us), we cling more and more to our free time and mull over in our heads what we are going to do with this free time we so proudly have saved.  In fact, we often overfill that save up time and a more ambitious list of to dos then we can possibly accomplish in that time.

 

For example, we have an evening off after work. We decide we will read a book, take in a movie, cook dinner and clean up and do some house cleaning with this time (its only 3 hours) and we have filled nearly twice that (with a short movie).

 

One remedy for this is to step back from our voracious plans and plan less. That is, plan to have stuff to do, which we have no plans for.

 

Wait a minute. This stuff coming out of the woodwork is what often kills our best laid plans.  If we plan our time with gaps so that when these sudden issues invariably come up, we have the time to deal with them.

 

We can then look at time management from the prospective of not filling up our time. Leaving gaps in our day. Over time we end up planning large portions of our day, and then leave gaps for the just in case stuff. We feel like we have an entire day planned, yet we have room for those unexpected to dos. It is almost as if we have more than 24 hours a day to use.

 

Planning for gaps and downtime then helps us get the most of the 30 hours in each of our days.

 

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/
Follow Me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/sberenberg
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Message of the Day - The Dangers of Entitlement

Good Morning,

 

In our local paper, an Artist panned a local Museum which invited art submissions from both professionals as well as amateurs. Then, these pieces of art are to be sold at a low price, commemorating the year the museum opened. This artist did not want the art of amateurs to share the same space as their professional work, and at the same time, they did not want their work shared at a low price.

 

I find it harsh that a professional wants to put a fence around their industry and keep those they feel unworthy out. This feeling of entitlement is actually dangerous to their industry. By keeping others out, they close the door on future generations of their own. They keep the amount of interest in the industry down, and reduce the new apprentices, journeymen and masters from joining their ranks.

 

Our culture is built around upstarts who decided to enter the realm of the masters when they were far from it. My uncle loves the word 'Parvenu' which is a person who gets into higher social circles due to their own wealth and ability.

 

What would our world be like if IBM, GE, Westinghouse and their ilk did not allow Microsoft and Apple onto the scene? What if Microsoft did not allow Google? What if Google did not allow Facebook? What if Facebook is allowed to stop the next big thing created in someone's basement (or even their parent's basement).

 

We should be open to others being interested in what we do, both professionally and as a hobby. I say not only hold the door open, but take the door off the hinges and allow those who want to dabble to do just that.

 

We will find a lot of wannabees in our midst, but who is to say that one of those wannabees isn't the next prodigy? We have the opportunity to share our wisdom and experiences with them and help groom our successors.

 

I applaud all organizations and individuals who resist the urge to be elitist and open the door for our future.

 

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 - Brute Force Vs. Finesse

Good Morning,

 

Most of my life I had dabbled with reading the larger books on various subjects. One that I had wanted to just dive into back in 2006 was the Bible. I decided one day to open the book to page one and start reading. I gotten through about fifty chapters or so and had it put it down. I could not take it anymore. No amount of force or willpower was going to help me keep going. And not until a year later did I take on that task and complete it, but this time, I used finesse instead of sheer force.

 

The second time is was with a plan, I divided the task up by 365 days. In that way, I tore through the entire book in small sections. With patience and a plan, I was able to accomplish what brute force of will could not.

 

Why is using a planned approach to tasks preferable to just rolling up our sleeves and diving into them?

 

For smaller tasks, and those which I hate doing, the brute force approach is usually the best way. Just to get it over with.

 

When tasks get more complex or larger, the ability to stick with it comes into play. Keeping up the momentum becomes an ever growing challenge when we just push our way through. We have to sell ourselves on keeping on keeping on. Like holding our arms straight out to our sides, it becomes harder the longer you do it.

 

When we have a plan, and use some finesse, we have the steps in place to fall back upon when it starts getting rough.

 

The challenge with the plan is to be patient and not toss it to the side in our urge to get it done sooner or worse, NOW.

 

With a little self discipline and a plan, many larger tasks can be torn down to size and chugged through with no problem.

 

Like the story about the dad who had his son take a pocket knife to a board each night. The boy would hold the board and pull the blade across the board. Each night, the cut got deeper. After about a month, the board fell in two. Persistence with a plan did with ease what brute force might not have ever accomplished.

 

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/

Follow Me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/sberenberg

502-533-9336