Message of the Day - Distracted off course

Good Morning,

 

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting up with a friend of mine who was visiting town for a local Horror Convention. He is an actor, producer and full of stories of many sorts. Most of all, he is a good man. In spending time with him at the convention and then at dinner at my house with my family, I had many of my writing ideas from the past come back up.

 

Ideas that had been simmering for as long as a decade or more. These projects would take months if I were to pursue them, and while I would enjoy doing them, they would take me away from the writing that I am currently doing. And as of late, I am not doing as much writing as I would like. I have about nine more weeks of college and then my time will open up a bit. A bit, but not enough for these projects.

 

As I shared them with my friend, I realized how silly and poorly thought out my ideas sounded. I felt like a real wanna-be for sci-fi writing.

 

I then remembered my strength is sharing what I observed in life around me, and from the books that I read.

 

The next day as I was walking Bo and praying, I realized that these projects, as enticing as they sound are really just a distraction for what I truly love to do, which is help others.

 

Maybe someday when I retire,  I can work on a novel or screenplay, but until that time I need to remain focused on my mission.

 

When we get distracted off the paths we are heading, we need to remind ourselves of what our mission is. And while our mission can change through our lives, it should not be at the drop of a hat.

 

 

My Mission Statement:

 

Use my knowledge, experience and available resources to help others overcome challenges, navigate difficult times, achieve new heights or otherwise improve their lives.

 

This is where I am going to keep my focus.

 

To help others, and invest into myself to help others better.

 

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

 

Message of the Day - What Relationships Can Do

Good Morning,

My hair dresser, Sally, is a very successful businesswoman. It is not because she has become a millionaire, or that she has created some new process or style being used the world over.

No, she is very successful because she understands the power of having strong relationships. Relationships with her customers, with those she is a customer of, and the people of the community she lives and works in. My wife has been a customer for over 20 years, and she is one of many.

A while back she was telling us of a conversation with the owners of the strip mall that she has had her shop in for the last 25 years. They were talking about tearing down some buildings and doing some major remodeling. They told her that no matter what happened, that she would have a place for her salon. They would create a space for her.

Why? A Hair Salon is not usually a huge money maker?

Because there is power in a relationship.

After building a strong relationship over 25 years, it becomes an easy decision on who to continue to do business with and who to cut ties with.

True relationship building is just like Dr. Steven Covey says, investing daily in the emotional bank account of others. So that when problems arise, you can take a withdrawal. Take too much and you are overdrawn, and then you risk closing the account entirely.

By pouring ourselves into each relationship we value, we can build such a strong bond, a trust, that through thick and thin, these bonds hold.

When we try to quickly build up a relationship for selfish reasons, people just know. In other words, folks know when you are ‘sucking up’ to them.

Building Relationships with business partners, friends and even family members, is a key building block to success in life.

The stronger our relationships, the better equipped we are to embrace the challenges we face each and every day. And when our challenges come, and you need help, do you know who to call? Will they help? Will they care? It all depends on the relationship you have invested in and built.

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

 

 

Message of the Day - Perfection within Our Imperfection

Good Morning,

 

I am constantly reminded of the fact that I am not perfect (no need for help on this one you folks in the peanut gallery  J ).

 

Maybe it’s the bed that I just can never make right each morning, no matter how many times my spouse shows me.

 

Maybe it is the water that drips from the pet’s water bowl when I seem to overfill it some days.

 

Maybe it is the horrible fashion choices in color-coordination I make when dressing each day (even though everything my wife purchases for me is fashionable and coordinated).

 

I am imperfect.

 

And you know what, that is ok.

 

Wait!

 

Is this guy who writes and talks and lives and breathes self-improvement really saying that not being perfect, or even more so, not striving for perfection is okay?

 

Well…. Yes.

 

Why?

 

First, we live in an imperfect world.

 

No matter how good something looks, or how pretty someone is, or how smart someone is, or how well constructed something is, you will invariably find flaws the closer you look at it or them.

 

The lady with the perfect body has an eating disorder. The man with the perfect car has a wife and kids who would rather he spend more time with them than his car. The woman who has earned a promotion a year for the last four years running has no personal life to speak of. The man with the perfect physique reached a plateau on muscle mass and found some other ways to help bulk up. The preacher who exemplifies piety has a closet with an army of skeletons in it. The closer you look at the shining armor, you will inevitably find chinks.

 

So what is the message?

 

To improve ourselves, but understand that we are flawed.

 

We can learn and grow daily, but at the same time, we must know that we will never achieve perfection (nor should we strive for it). In the law of diminishing returns, we will find that after a certain point of effort the incremental improvement gets smaller and smaller.

 

Instead of putting all of our effort in being the best at something, forsaking all else, we should strive for better. Not perfect.

 

And in that path, looking to better ourselves, we can some measure of perfection within our own imperfections.

 

We are not perfect, but as long as we strive to better ourselves, then life gets better.

 

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

 

 

 

Message of the Day - Size and Clarity (Less is Not Always More)

Good Morning,

 

I have been called long winded in my messages, and on some level that is true (unless you are considering my speaking, in which case, that is definitely true). That is, until I came across an interesting fact about the world’s longest sentence in English.

 

William Faulkner in his work “Absalom Absalom” has a sentence which is a measly 1,287 words. Some other works like James Joyce’s Ulysses has a sentence with some 12,931 words. And others list even more words in a single sentence. Luckily I could not actually find these sentences on the web, or I might have been tempted to copy them here to show my messages are shorter….

 

The shortest sentence, in comparison is one (1) word, for example “Really?” or “Yes!”.

 

To the point:

 

Getting a message across using written or spoken language is almost always going to require the use of words. Sure there are gurgles and burps which convey a treasure trove of information, but the sentence is often the tool of choice when sharing information.

 

Shorter is better, and even shorter is even better, but if there is no clarity, then less is really not more.

 

In our drive to simplify and streamline, we need to make sure that we do not lose our message in the process.

 

One tool that I have been using to help reduce the size of my communications (yes, I have been trying) is twitter sized messages.

 

Using the website www.ping.fm, I have been sending out Learn and Grow Daily Tips of the day which are 140 characters or less. These usually entail messages that are too short for messages of the day, and can be stated in a few short sentences. When I craft them, I am forced to edit and reduce my verbiage to provide a short clear statement.

 

I believe that this has been helpful in increasing my message clarity while also reducing word count.

 

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

 

 

 

 

Message of the Day - If leaders plan on keeping their people in the dark, how to they expect their people to see?

Good Morning,

 

In my current read “Simple Church” by Thom Rainer & Eric Geiger (http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Church-Returning-Process-Disciples/dp/0805447997/) one of the points of the book covers clarity. Clarity in mission as well as clarity in process and clarity in execution. The other three points are Movement, Alignment and Focus.

 

One of the key points of clarity is that it is better to understand, but not necessarily agree with, the mission, than people who are  committed to it, but do not understand it. 

 

Why?

 

Without understanding, people try to find the reasons why. And where to they find the understanding if they don’t have it? One would hope from the leadership team, but that is sadly not always the case. Worse yet, when people  cannot find the understanding for the mission,  they sometimes just make it up, often with justifications of why they are doing what they are doing..

 

That may not sound like a problem, but wait. When people are creating their own understanding of why the company is on some sort of mission, they often come up with a different understanding than other team members.

 

What happens when you have a room full of people who all have different understandings of why something is the way it is?

 

In a word… chaos.

 

For the leaders of that team, welcome to ‘herding cats’.

 

If leaders plan on keeping their people in the dark, how to they expect their people to see?

 

By sharing the reasons why a company, a team, an organization is taking on a mission, or starting some sort of project, the team can get behind it with the SAME understanding. They may not like it, or agree with it, but they will understand it.

 

With the same understanding (Clarity) across the team, group or organization, work gets done (Movement), that is in (Alignment) with the mission and the overall organization is (Focused) on the same goals and results.

 

Looking at it from the front lines; if you were to ask an average team member why are they working on some project, don’t you think that having that person KNOW why, would help them do a better job?

 

Unfortunately, that is not the case. The norm is that we are told what to do, and expected to do it. Maybe somewhere down the line we are shared a reason why we did what we did, but our efforts to get the job done were often disjointed.  You know, with the folks who have no clue why they do what the do just doing the needful for no other reason they were told. In this scenario, there is often a need for course corrections, coaching, retraining and motivation to get the cats all going in the same direction.

 

It might just be simpler, and more beneficial to just share why.

 

Give Clarity to why a project is needed, and repeat that same message as needed (and it will be needed) and the results could be amazing.

 

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