Message of the Day - Yes Virginia There is a Santa Claus, he is You.

Good Morning,

 

As mentioned in prior posts I like watching the Norad Tracks Santa website which shows Santa’s progress of delivering gifts around the world (my favorite video is the 2006 promo showing Santa getting a fighter escort http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPoCtPmjqEc). This site shows how interconnected we all are around the world and how Santa Claus and Christmas represent a time for celebration, reflection, a time for giving and being thankful.

 

At work on Christmas Day, when talking about Santa’s progress (there is an Android app for it you know) one of my co-workers smirked and said: ‘You know Santa died a long time ago’. Getting beyond the jokes, jabs and other flavors of comments, I responded “No, Santa is alive and well”.

 

I shared how Santa is alive and well in each and every one of us. That we can see it all around us, as we each have an opportunity to be Santa for someone else.

 

Then one of my coworkers shared that their daughter and her husband are just starting out and had a medical issue requiring some medical treatment, resulting in a $700 bill which they could not afford. A few days later a cashier’s check arrived in the mail from some unknown source for $700.

 

They may not know who sent it, but I do. It was Santa.

 

I shared that story with a teller at my bank later that week and she told me about a lady who went to a K-Mart and paid off the Christmas layaways for all the customers of that store. That is, all but one penny for each. When the customers came to pay off their layaways and found the balance to be only one cent.

 

They didn’t know who gave them that gift, but I do. It was Santa.

 

At the office I told people that each and every one of us can be Santa.  I asked if anyone participated in an Angel Tree program getting a gift for some family or person they did not know. Several said yes. I said “You are Santa to that family or person”.

 

By our actions to help others, we become Santa. We may not be ole jolly Saint Nick, with a faster than the speed of light sleigh, 9 reindeer and an army of elves making gifts in a northern factory, but we can make the difference in the lives of others just the same.

 

While Christmas may be over for this year, the generosity of a giving spirit does not have to go into hiding for another year.

 

We can be Santa all year long. And it does not have to cost us much in time or money.

 

·         Pick up a package of diapers or baby formula and drop it off at a women’s shelter or clinic.

·         Bring some gently used winter clothes to a shelter or other collection point.

·         Contact a local church and see what they are collecting to help others (supermarkets often have great sales, like 10 for $10 on common items).

·         Pay the barista at your favorite coffee shop for another coffee and ask them to gift it some unsuspecting customer and maybe you can start a day long pay it forward marathon where it seems like Santa just showed up for each and every person.

·         Contact the Ronald McDonald House and volunteer to clean up and prepare a meal for families experiencing tough times with ill children.

·         Go to a nursing home and hang out with some amazingly cool people who have fantastic stories just waiting to be shared.

·         Add your idea or what you did here…

 

Each time we help another we are Santa.

 

And the more Santa is out and about helping others, our world become that much of a better place to live.

 

So yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, he is you.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - Character in Action

Good Morning,

 

I have read many books, earlier this year I surpassed 500. Many of these books are in one way or another about leadership and or leaders. If I were to guess, it would be some 100 books relating to leadership. At this point some of the leadership books I read are not very memorable, that is, it’s something I have read before, in some cases, many times. Due to this I have tried to change my search for new leadership books to be more focused on the lives of leaders and accomplishments of organizations.

 

My current read is by author Donald T. Phillips, with Adm. James M. Loy, USCG (Ret.), who also wrote a wonderful book called “Lincoln on Leadership”. I have also read Mr. Phillip’s book, ‘Founding Fathers on Leadership” which also help spark my interest in our founding fathers.  In internet searches I found another book by the same author called “Character in Action: The U.S. Coast Guard on Leadership” (http://www.amazon.com/Character-Action-Coast-Guard-Leadership/dp/1591146720). The title intrigued me and I put it on my wishlist on Amazon. Thanks to an early Christmas present from my buddy Kiwi, I ordered it and five other books off my wishlist (I love buying used books with Amazon Prime!).

 

So I started diving into Character in Action and was grabbed from the get go. If reading this book does anything for you, it will give you a new profound respect for the U.S. Coast Guard. The book ties together leadership lessons with real life stories of Coast Guard operations to give more depth to each lesson.

 

One of the most compelling factor I found in the book is the Coast Guard’s bias toward action.  The USCG trains their people not so much for possible situations, rather they train for what they do on a daily basis. They are a small organization with a smaller budget and have had to do a lot with a little and have found what works and keeps the entire organization moving.

 

So how does an organization which is more likely to act than not, which has less resources than many would consider necessary have so many successes?

 

They train their ranks to think for themselves. No so much what to think, but rather to review a situation, weigh the outcomes and make a decision. They push the decision making down to the front lines. So much so, the top brass focus their efforts on supporting their field commanders, not the other way around.

 

The organization partners with anyone and everyone who can help them. In these partnerships, the USCG takes the back seat and often does not get credit for successful operations. They are more concerned with the success than the credit. Due to these longstanding and strong relationships, in times of need, their friends and allies are almost always there to help out.

 

The USCG gets their new members into the field as soon as possible and has them doing important work immediately. They also share the importance of the work so that everyone knows what is at stake. They help provide guidance along the way to ensure both successful performance of duties and the continual growth of their staff.

 

I could go on and on, but I must tell you that this leadership book is one of the best I have ever read. Being a fan of Alexander Hamilton does not hurt either. If you were not aware, he created the precursor to the coast guard, called the Revenue Marines, in 1790. There is a lot of tradition in the USCG and this book shows it loud and clear.

 

The Coast Guard have a great model on leadership, and I hope to bring some of it to my company and organizations I work with.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - Express Yourself as Yourself

Good Morning,

 

My current read is “Trout on Strategy” by Jack Trout (http://www.amazon.com/Jack-Trout-Strategy/dp/0071437940/). He with his former partner, Al Reis, authored such marketing greats as ‘Positioning’ and ‘Marketing Warfare’, which is my favorite marketing book.  In this book, Jack Trout recounts much of the information that he has previously written and compiled into a book pulling together the best method of laying out strategies for success.

 

While this is a marketing book, the principles within it work all areas of life. This is true because of how pervasive marketing, itself, is.

 

Anyway, some of the material is on simplicity and some on clarity where the points brought out are to convey our message with both simple and clear language.  That we should communicate in one manner in all situations. For example, how we talk is how we should write.

 

Please don’t confuse this one method of communication with a monotone person or someone who only knows one volume…too loud.

 

In essence we should be ourselves as we speak, as we type and as we text or any other form of communication.

 

Conversely, we should not spice up our language with fancy words to impress others, as it often both backfires and confuses (folks don’t understand and they end up not being impressed).

 

As our most basic form of communication is our speech, we can use that as a basis for other forms. For example:

 

When we send a message, send it like we would speak it.

 

When we make a presentation, lay it out as we would speak it.

 

Changing our goals from giving an impressive presentation to one that is readily understood and flowing naturally can have a much better impact than that of trying to do something over the top.

 

Besides, if we end up impressing others with our over the top performances, it is only a matter of time until they see the true us.

 

So why not just be ourselves and express ourselves as ourselves?

 

Sounds simple enough!

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - Perseverance and Luck

Good Morning,

 

At the end of my latest dental checkup, the dentist entered the room and after looking at my teeth he smiled and said I was lucky.

 

Seven years after losing my front eight teeth my remaining teeth were still doing well. In other words, I get to keep them for another four months until my next check up.  

 

About seven and a half years ago, after starting to see my dentist, he noticed something wrong with my teeth and recommended I get tested for diabetes by my primary care physician. The tests showed I was a member of club. Maybe it was all those Mountain Dew Code Red’s I loved to drink all the time. Anyway, the diabetes had somehow caused the bone around my front teeth to go away. I was told that it was only a matter of time until the rest would have to be pulled. That was in December, 2004.

 

So now, each morning, either home or away, I spend a lot of time working on my dental hygiene. Flossing, proxy brush, wet brush (using the tooth brush with only water), then with tooth paste and finally the gum stimulator.

 

I probably spend more time on my teeth than many do on their hair.

 

It is with this continued diligence that my dentist says I am lucky.

 

I believe it is a combination of diligence and luck, but without the diligence, the luck would most likely be of the bad variety.

 

By putting in the extra effort and consistently doing more, I have changed the odds against me.

 

This same approach to life can also work in other areas as well.

 

The harder we work, the more consistently we work harder, the better we will do, and the ‘luckier’ we will find ourselves.

 

That is, we will be able to capitalize on opportunities due to our preparation and practice, that would have not been open to us otherwise.

 

By stepping it up and keeping constant effort, we can improve the chances of our success in all endeavors.

 

In a word, perseverance creates success and capitalizes on luck.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - Responsibility for Decisions

Good Morning,

 

I must warn you, this message has a little, ok, a lot of passion in it.

 

In leadership we make decisions, and these decisions can and often do have effects which extend beyond the scope of the situation the decision was made for. And as leaders, we need to understand this and be responsible for our decisions and those who feel the change. 

 

In many cases, decisions are made for business reasons, to save a company, to help a customer, to appease the stakeholders, etc.  In some cases, these decisions are made due to ideological reasons. This is more highly prevalent in non-profit and government sectors.

 

When the decision costs jobs, and depending on in what venue decisions are made, lives, we need to be accountable for those decisions.

 

Why is that job being lost, why is the life being sacrificed?

 

As leaders we need to answer these questions, and these answers must be well founded or there can be heck to pay.

 

This morning, as I was walking Bo, the temperature was in the mid teens. The coldest day so far this fall. And as I walked I thought about a shelter I heard about in New York who took people off the streets in whether like this. That this shelter is Christian and as part of their caring for those they took off the streets included teaching the Bible. The New York Government decided to pull their funding from this shelter because of the way they help people, specifically because of the use of the Bible.

 

This was an ideological decision, and I can understand that constituents of state of New York may not approve of this type of care.

 

Yet, there was a bigger part of this decision which really bothered me.

 

No other shelters were set up to compensate for the reduced capacity of these shelter. That the people who were out on the streets had one less place to go because of this decision. That people could die in the cold (and it gets COLD in New York, I lived there for 33 years).

 

Because of an ideological decision by the government, people could die. That makes those who made the decision accessories to whatever befalls those who would have had a place to be warm and well fed and now have to stay on the streets.

 

What do we tell the families of those who die because this decision? The money pulled should be given to either create a new shelter or expand an existing shelter, so as to not allow people to get sick and die.

 

That decision was irresponsible.

 

We, hopefully, will never have to make decisions which have such repercussions, but as leaders we may never get that chance to live and work in completely sterile environments where our decisions have no further impact than the people in front of us.

 

The challenge as leaders is to think a bit longer into our decisions and try to understand what impact they will have before we make them.

 

And as leaders, we must take responsibility for the decisions we make.

 

We can and should learn from each situation, to help us make better decisions as we go forward.

 

Remember, our responsibility as a leader starts when we take on the role, and often does not end, even after we leave the position, as the decisions we make why being a leader often last longer than we do.

 

Something to think about.

 

 

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
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Message of the Day - Causitive Living

Good Morning,

 

As a kid I remember the Space Invaders video game which first came out in the arcades and then on Atari. The invaders, in a neat formation, started their march slowly to the side and then down on space closer to your base and then marched to the other side. Back and forth, closer and closer. Then to add another level of stress, the invaders sped up as they got closer or the fewer of them that remained. And, of course, when you clear a level, the next level is just that much faster.

 

 

When you play that game, or any game with the same ‘speed up’ concept, you have to match that speed with a focused plan of attack. When you have the system down, that speed becomes manageable.

 

I remember staying with my uncle and aunt in Brooklyn, NY one weekend and as we were preparing to go out for some visits, sightseeing, lunch and dinner, a friend of my uncle and aunt’s came over. He laid down on the couch and started playing Space Invaders.  When we returned about eight hours later, we found this friend, still on the couch, still playing Space Invaders. More than that, he was playing that same game.

 

The increased speed of the attackers had become routine to him, and he just handled it in what seems like a monotonous focused manner.

 

Our lives are like those games. They are speeding up with all of our time-saving tools, increases in technology and how our society just embraces these changes, which causes all of society to pick up pace just like those Space Invaders making the step down closer to your base, and picking up the pace in the process.

 

We are doing more and more, and have less time for a lot of what we consider important to us. We do so much more each and every day, yet we often feel like we have done nothing by the end of the day.

 

Part of this is the lack of focus on what are the priorities in our lives.

 

In that focus, we have to do two things well if we want to take back control of our lives.

 

The first is obvious, but still very hard to accomplish. We need to stop doing those things that just sap away our time. For me, it is at night, before I go to sleep, I go the web and check Fox News or CNN just one more time to see if there is anything new going on in the world since the last time I checked 10 minutes prior.  Or, it’s visiting YouTube to find and watch a video of some comedy routine or music video from the 1980s. And what do you see when you look at these sites? Other videos you ‘might’ be interested in. Next thing you know 30 minutes is gone, which I could have used to get more beauty sleep. And boy do I need that!

 

We all have things we can stop doing which we know are a waste of time.

 

The second is not so obvious. This is to stop doing those things which we like to do, which we need to do. In my current read ‘Simple Life’ by Thom and Art Rainer (http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Life-Time-Relationships-Money/dp/0805448861), the authors talk about how we need to thin down all the things we are currently doing, often which are ones we like to do. That we need to make tough decisions on not doing things which can sap our time and impact our lives while giving a less of a return our efforts.

 

The key point is that in stopping doing these items, these things are nothing bad. Like helping out in a charity event. That is a good thing to do. If you have five events you are doing and little time to spend with your kids or your job is being impacted, then one or two of those charity events may need to be handed off to someone else or even dropped.

 

So how do we decide which good items in our lives we should stop doing?

 

There are many ways, and one that I prefer is to look back at our core values. What is it that makes us us? And then look at our activities and rank them by how closely they align with our values. Then drop the ones which have the least alignment.

 

If everything you do is aligned to your values, then look at your current needs, and reassess under the lens of current needs.

 

To help us live better lives, we need to live more causatively. We need to divest ourselves of the bad behaviors.

 

And if that does not give us enough time back, we need to dig deeper.

 

To focus our efforts on only the key activities which support our values and look to drop others.

 

It could give us a lot of time back throughout our days, weeks, and so on.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - Not an Island

Good Morning,

 

This past weekend, besides taking time to be thankful for many of things that I am blessed to have in my life, I found some surprising, to me at least, things about myself.

 

On Friday, I started sewing some patches on a new Adult Leader Boy Scout Uniform shirt I purchased close to a year ago, but had not fully prepared. I had already put on two patches, one of them was sort of crooked, but passable. I found the guide showing where each patch went and started adding a square patch on the arm just under one of the other patches.

 

I lined up the patch and used pins to hold the patch in place as I sewed it on.

 

This was nothing new to me, I am an Eagle Scout and have sewed patches on uniforms off and on for the last 30 years or so.

 

Well…first I miscalculated how much thread I needed to go all the way around, even though I thought I premeasured. Then with the second set of thread, I sewed the arm to the back of the shirt. Finally when I fixed all the mistakes and with my third length of thread I finished the job and it only took the better part of two hours (with the standard distractions).

 

Looking in horror, the patch was cockeyed. And not by a little, some eighth of an inch off, very noticeable.

 

After saying a few choice explicatives I threw in the towel. I cut the thread I sewed on the patch on (what a mess) and then proceeded to pin on all the other patches that were to go on the shirt. The next morning, I dropped the shirt off at a local tailor and paid him to put them on for me. I know it will look great.

 

It was not a difficult task. It was not something I had never done before. Heck I did some of it last year with better results.

 

Why was I unable to do a seemingly simple task like I could in years past?

 

Besides the obvious ‘goof-ball’ answers you are all thinking, there is a deeper reason.

 

As we age, we change.

 

I remember when I was in my mid-twenties, I was asked by a 70 year old co-worker, to help do some plumbing work under his house. He was great at all sorts of work and I wondered why he did not crawl under his own house to change the elbow.

 

As I did the job and crawled out, his wife was there and as my coworker looked on embarrassed, she said, ‘sometimes you have to admit that you can no longer do some work’.

 

While I am not 70, yet, I am getting older. Had I rolled up my sleeves and spent another four or five hours sewing on patches, I may have done a better job, or I might have thrown the whole lot of fabric into the garbage.

 

Sometimes we need to step back and acknowledge we are not an island.  That we need help. 

 

It is a humbling thought, but one that will save us a lot of stress and grief…. And in my case, embarrassment.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - Leadership Yarn - Leadership Lessons from the Boy Scouts

Good Morning,

 

My current read is a book on Leadership which focuses on helping youth become leaders, it is “A Scout Leader's Guide to Youth Leadership Training: Working the Patrol Method” by four Eagle Scouts (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0041O9PUM/).

 

This is a different kind of leadership book from many I have read, but it is one of the best in how it conveys information in a practical and ‘real’ sense.

 

Throughout the book are many, many ‘Leadership Yarns’ or stories which explain, highlight and show examples of the information being delivered within the sections of the book.

 

Yarns have long since been a part of Scouting. It has been found that many people learn better when the information is placed within a story format. And with us adults, this has not changed. Such authors as Patrick Lencioni, Spencer Johnson and Ken Blanchard have provided us with wonderful lessons through the use of allegories (One Minute Manager, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Who Moved My Cheese, etc.).

 

The use of stories to break down the concepts being taught with multiple relevant tales is a powerful tool to help create successful teaching moments.

 

I remember my days in Boy Scouts, and I am proud to say, I am an Eagle Scout. Those days were ripe with tales from the different leaders who showed me many of the skills that I still have and use today.

 

When faced with challenges to passing along information, it might be worthwhile to try finding a story which expresses the lesson and use that instead of the normal training methods.

 

It just may be the breakthrough you need to get the important points across.

 

And by the way, this book is a great tool for those both inside and out of Scouting. I highly recommend it for anyone, but especially for those who are working with younger team members, or those who are moving into leadership roles for the first time.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - A Personal Touch

Good Morning,

 

I find that we can all give a personal touch to everything that we do. No matter how mundane an activity may seem, we can make it better by giving a little pizzazz or personality of our own.

 

A perfect example of this was when I received a package from Simple Truths (www.simpletruths.com) with two books I ordered.

 

Many of us make purchases over the internet, from catalogs etc., and get packages of all sort arriving at our home or places of business. Often there is the package, the packing material, the product, the invoice and maybe some promotional materials.

 

We seldom think further of who packaged our item, or who shipped them, etc.

 

So it was a nice surprise to find out that my two books were, in fact, packed and shipped to me by a lady named Rosy. I know this because there was a simple postcard in my package with her photo, signature and a note saying that it was her pleasure packing my order, and a hope that I would enjoy their products.  

 

I stopped to think about all the people who would also open a package that Rosy packed for them. I also thought that when I put in my next order that I hope that Rosy packs it for me.

 

It also reminded me about the story about Johnny the Bagger (another Simple Truths book and video). It is great to see that lesson put into action.  Simple Truths works hard to add that extra special touch (http://www.simpletruths.com/about.asp).

 

That personal touch was a nice change. I have received hundreds packages over the last few years, and seldom have I felt the warm tidings when I opened them. That postcard added a warm human element to what is normally a non-event in our lives.  

 

It also shows that we, too, can add a personal touch to almost any part of our lives, and to the lives of others and make them better.

 

What is the personal touch you could start adding to what you do every day?

 

If you want some ideas, let me know and I would love to help.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
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http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/
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Message of the Day - How Can We Possibly Expect...

Good Morning,

 

This passed  evening I went out to get pizza to prepare us to sit outside in the moderate cold and hand out candies to the trick-or-treaters. And there were, of course, some very cute kids in some interesting costumes.

 

I went to the Little Caesars down the road, and it must have been a hive-mind idea as the line went out the door. Pizzas were been sent out of the store just as fast as the team behind the counter could make them, and they were hustling. Some were hustling with costumes on. Anyway, I placed my order and stood in the crowded waiting/order area where there were only three seats, all filled.

 

As one seat opened up, I took it as I was next in line to grab a seat. I smiled at the four year old sitting her dad’s lap. Maybe thirty seconds after I sat down, I saw a lady with her young daughter pay for her pizza and look for a spot to wait in. So I got up and offered her my seat.  A few minutes later another seat opened up and I sat down again.

 

The lady thanked me for giving up my seat for her. That so very few men do that these days. I then apologized for all of them. She mused that I was apologizing for the failure of what seemed to be all other men to show common courtesy to a lady, especially one with a young child with her.

 

This got me thinking. We have so many problems in our country and in our world. We keep getting more and more bad news. Hitting 7 Billion inhabitants on this third rock from the sun was not something to celebrate.  There are financial woes, security woes, and the list goes on.

 

Some of us are looking for ways to resolve our problems and others are looking for more hand outs from an already strained government.  Yet, on the grander scheme of things, there is little that each one of us can do to resolve the global problems. We would need to be of some stature, have some amount of resources, etc. to enact major change on a global stage.

 

That may make many people apathetic, you know, the ‘who cares’ mentality.

 

Well, I am here to tell you that there is something that we all can do to help improve our world. It may not be something that is going to move mountains, or balance the budget, but it is something that is going to make a difference in the life of others.

 

What we can do is show some common courtesy to our fellow man and woman.

 

If we can be nice to others, it will make the situations we face easier to face. It can defuse heated situations, etc.  And when we are nice to others, it often is paid forward, with many others feeling the benefits down the road.

 

It is something that we can do no matter how bad things get in our lives.  It is a choice we own.  It should be common sense.

 

Yet, like my experience in the pizza place, it is not very common. This is not my first rant on this. And sadly it won’t be my last.

 

Sure it sounds inane to complain about not giving up a seat for another with greater need, but it is the baseline of culture and civilization.  If we can’t get that basic level of respectful action right, then how can we possibly expect to get more complex issues resolved?

 

It starts with each and every one of us.

 

The next move is yours. What are you going to do?

 

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

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

Good Morning,

 

Last Friday, Karen and I attended Temple Shalom for the celebration of the Sabbath and Simchat Torah (where the Rabbi and Cantor read the end of the Torah, or the five books of Moses).  As part of the ceremony, the Torah is brought out and is re-rolled up back to the beginning. That is, back to the book of Genesis. During this time, as the Torah is being re-rolled up, the Rabbi and Cantor were pointing out parts of the Torah as it moved by. There was the Ten Commandments, the Tabernacle, and many other parts of the scripture.

 

This made me think about our lives and how we sometimes have to start over. When I moved to Louisville, I had worked in call centers for some six years at this time and moved to management. After not finding a job right off, I started over and took a position as an front line phone representative.  I signed up with Kelly Services and got a job as a front line analyst. I was a Kelly Girl!

 

Starting over opened the door for me to find something bigger and better for me, which included changing from a person who lived a majority of my life for personal gratification to one who lives to help others.

 

Had I fought the drive to start over and held out for management, I would have certainly went down a different path (I had already looked for some six months in Washington DC and that did not bode well either).  The time I spent looking for a job would have grown longer and the situations in my life would have not been so open for me.

 

By giving up the urge, the ego driven urge, to hold out for management and not start over, I took what some would call the harder path of going back to square one and doing it all over again. In reality, the return to the beginning turned out to be a far better path, and easier.

 

We all are going to face situations and times in our lives where we will have to make that decision to press forward in our endeavors or look to step back a few paces and start over.

 

Some people will consider starting over as failure. Failure only happens when we quit. By going back and starting over, we give ourselves a renewed chance for success. We also reinforce these chances for success with re-learning skills we already knew and of course using our skills to hit the ground running.  

 

What may seem like taking two steps back and one step forward is really taking a few steps back, and then one or two forward, and then a few more forward and so on.

 

If you are faced with a situation where you just cannot feasibly move forward. Your goals seem dashed, your resources drying up, and your willpower just about spent, then it may be time to look to get back to the basics and regroup.

 

Find a baseline from your past and look to step back to it. And then start your path to success again.

 

It may just be the ticket you need to get to your goals and dreams.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

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

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Message of the Day - Through Our Eyes

Good Morning,

 

Many years ago, I worked for an artist. He was an artistic genius, and at the same time, unpredictable and tyrannical in how he led his business.  I remember a time when someone driving a cement truck had backed into this artists SUV and put a hole through the back window. He brought the vehicle back to the office, where I worked for him, and asked me to pull out the window. I did so and prepared to throw out the shattered glass. The artist stopped me, I believe there was some yelling and denigrating involved, but I stopped what I was doing as the artist piled up the glass and showed how he would use it to display jewelry in one of his boutiques.

 

When looking at his idea through his eyes, it was masterpiece. The shattered auto glass looked like ice. The jewelry would sparkle and reflect off the glass and make the jewelry look even more appealing. It was genius.

 

How I have wanted to be able to do what the artist did. To be able to look at something and see its potential as art clear as day. When sharing the story about this artist with another person today, it turns out I am not alone in my desire to see like the artist did.

 

Sadly, I don’t have that kind of artistic ability and beyond that I am really bad at many other things. For example, fashion, I have no fashion sense. I know people are desperate when they ask for my opinion on whether something looks good or not (for the record I did once match stripes and plaid).

 

I suspect many of you reading this also don’t have that seemingly magical ability to spot potential artwork when you see it. Or like me, have limited abilities in other areas as well.

 

This, actually, is a good thing.

 

If we all had the same abilities and further, we all had amazing abilities, life would be kind of boring. Finding the magic in the potential would become commonplace, or worse, boring.

 

The good news is that each of us do have some special abilities.

 

I know folks that no matter what kitchen you put them in, or what ingredients you give them they can make a fantastic meal.  I know people who can sell snow to Eskimos. I know people who can write like Hemingway in short spurts.  

 

Through their eyes, these abilities are natural, or commonplace. While they may not have the abilities they see in others, which they think are wonderful, they do have theirs.

 

You have yours and I have mine.

 

One of the abilities I seem to have, or I am told I do, is to see something positive, a teaching event, in almost all places and happenings. This may be one of the reasons I am still writing messages of the day and learning and grow daily tips for all this time.

 

Through my eyes, this is who I am , and I do not see it is as anything magical or wonderful. I just do it.

 

Through your eyes, your abilities and skills might also seem commonplace to you.

 

Through the eyes of others, we may just be the coolest thing since sliced bread. (Note: while sliced bread is cool, and back in the day it may have been the coolest, it is not on my top ten coolest things list).

 

If we get down on ourselves because we seeing our friends doing what we consider to be amazing, like magic tricks, and we see ourselves as only able to do the basics, we miss the point.

 

We all have our areas of specialty. Almost like the movie ‘Mystery Men’. Each of those superheroes had one basic ability that was not so super, but when they believed in themselves and used their abilities they saved the city.

 

While we are most likely not superheroes (although I suspect my friend Kirk Weisler is), we are all capability and in the right situations, can be quite amazing when we need to be.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.berenberg.net

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

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

502-533-9336