The best time of the day was when I gave of myself

Good Morning,

 

The last few years I have helped with the Crusade for Children in Louisville (http://crusadeforchildren.org/). This is a huge fund raiser to help special needs children in our area. I have even donated increasing amounts of money each year.

 

This year I have stepped it up and volunteered. Instead of handing off cash to people on the corners collecting, I stood on the corners of the streets and collected.

 

It was hot, it was muggy, and it was a busy intersection.

 

It also was the most fun I had all day.

 

Some people gave a little, some gave a lot, but in the end, for my few hours of commitment, hundreds of dollars was raised.

 

All to help people I may never meet.

 

What can be better than that?

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

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

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

 

Click on the book to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

502-533-9336

 

There Can Be Joy in Inperfection

Good Morning,

 

Having Goals and Goal Setting, forming strategies and action plans have been a mainstay of our culture for some time. Goals are good, although there are times when our goals can cause us a lot of grief and disappointment.

 

Goals too easily achieved can cause a sense of invincibility or even boredom. Solution, make harder goals.

 

Goals too hard to achieve can cause a sense of inadequacy or even depression. Solution, make easier goals.

 

In making easier goals, we have to understand that we are not going to be perfect in everything we do. That not hitting our goals does not mean that we are bad or inadequate.

 

A runner, in their first week of running, who eyes the breaking the 4 minute mile will have a hard time achieving that goal. Facing those challenges, someone could assume that they will never be able to hit the mark and give up.

 

A better approach is to look at not achieving goals in a different light, such as an organization looking to improve itself by setting goals not to compete with local competitors, but with world class organizations.  While they may never get as good as the best, they will certainly get better than the local competition. In this case, not achieving the goal is a good thing as achieving the goal itself was never the goal, rather the improvements gained along the way.

 

Understanding that we are imperfect people (pause for effect), we can find greatness right where we are in our own imperfection.

 

That, though, does not mean that we stand still, rather we look to improve ourselves by working toward goals, even it if it only by reading a few pages a day, listening to a few minutes of a podcast or chatting with a mentor in passing.

 

When we learn and grow daily, we improve ourselves, and when we don’t place unobtainable goals in front of ourselves, we reduce our stress of attempting to achieve the impossible while we find joy in our imperfections.

 

We may never be the best in anything we do, and that is okay. Focus on what we can do, and take the next step up.  Then tomorrow, do it again.  

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

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

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

 

Click on the book to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"

502-533-9336

 

 

 

Life Comes in Waves

Good Morning,

 

Yesterday, while shopping at Target for groceries and stuff, I was talking to the checkout clerk who had opened up her register because there was a back up of people checking out.

 

She mused that throughout the day, people will just show up in waves at the checkout.

 

There is no pattern, you see people coming in, but they checkout at different times, depending on how much stuff they bought, how long they looked for it, how long they reviewed and compared it, etc.

 

I shared working in a call center is the same way. We get spikes of calls coming from people which can see all but random. Sure if there is an outage, we will get a spike depending on how many people are impacted, but often there are spikes because people in different parts of the world, in different roles, doing different work, etc., just decided to call.

 

These waves seem to also impact our lives. That is, there are days that are just busy for no apparent reason, things just happen all around us and keep us moving from sun up to sun down. And there are days that it is just slow. I like those days.

 

Waves can last days, months, or years.

 

And like standing on the beach of an ocean, how we prepare or brace ourselves against the waves often determines who we stand up to them, or get knocked over.

 

Life is like that too.

 

The more we prepare for life, by learning and growing daily, the better we embrace ourselves to withstand the waves the come our way in life.

 

Through my years of reading, learning and doing, I have found that I have a greater ability to handle the waves that seems to come no matter how hard I try to slow down my life.

 

How are you doing when the waves come? 

 

What do you do to prepare?

 

What should you be doing if you keep finding yourself knocked over by the latest wave?

 

 

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://learnandgrowdaily.com

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

 

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

502-533-9336

 

Focusing on Teamwork and winning!

Good Morning,

 

Living in Louisville, at this time of year, especially this year, one cannot ignore the amazing and gut wrenching journey of the Louisville Cardinals Men’s Basketball Team as they enter the Final Four of the 2013 NCAA Championship for the second year in a row. Many things drove them to succeed in their match up with Duke on Sunday’s (Easter) game.  And for that matter, the Women’s Team which also beat the number one seed.

 

In a post game interview for the Men’s Competition, Peyton Siva shared one of the drivers that helped this team get to where they are now and hopeful for a championship win in the week to come.

 

He said that Pride was the issue in the 2012 season. That the team had to cast Pride out of the door and embrace humility.

 

He said the most important name on each of the team’s jersey’s wasn’t the one on the back (each players name), it’s the name on the front, the team name.

 

Each player focused on being a team, and winning for a single cause, for their injured player, Kevin Ware.

 

These two illustrate two elements for an unstoppable team.

 

·         Being a team, and not individual players.

·         Having a single focus.

 

Both are simple concepts, yet both are often difficult to accomplish. So many individuals out there, with their own goals, vision and focus.

 

Work toward being one.

 

And win.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://learnandgrowdaily.com

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

 

Just Right

Good Morning,

 

There is always the potential that there is someone out there in the world who is better than us in anything that we do.

 

There is also always going to be someone out there who is worse than us in anything we do.

 

Truthfully, though, none of that matters.

 

 

What really matters then, is that at any given time and place, when there is a call for help, we are the best we can be in what we are asked to do.

 

Then, to those we help, we ARE the best in their time of need and although there are others who may be better, we were the ones there to help.

 

Remember, as we Learn and Grow Daily to improve ourselves, we just need to be who we are and help with what we know, and we will be just right when the time calls for us to step up.

 

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

 

What legacy will you leave?

Good morning,

 

My current read is “Raising a Modern Day Knight” by Robert Lewis (http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Modern-Day-Knight-Fathers-Authentic/dp/1589973097/). In the book the author talks about a father's role in guiding his son to authentic manhood. It is a great book for fathers, men and everyone else.

 

In one section of the book Robert Lewis talks about leaving a legacy and in it he talks about how the legacy that is often left is not the one that was intended. As an example he uses the Gettysburg Memorial event which happen on November 19, 1863.

 

David Wills was appointed by then Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin to oversee the burial of soldiers at the battle of Gettysburg as well as coordinate the Memorial. David Wills did a masterful job and coordinating the ceremonial burial and sometimes reburial of each of the soldiers from the battle.  He also had to plan for the Memorial service itself and make it huge to build on the change in momentum the battle had caused in the Civil War.

 

His plan was to invite Secretary of State Edward Everett to give the keynote speech at the Memorial. Edward Everett was a well-known speaker in the day and had given many very popular speeches in very high profile events. Almost as an afterthought David Wills invited President Lincoln to also speak with request to keep it short.

 

As you know at this event Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address. After Everett’s 2 hour speech, a camera man took his time before photographing Lincoln, only to find the speech ended within minutes, and he missed the photo. This 200+ word speech is taught in schools and remembered by many, many Americans. While we may not know all the words, hearing fourscore and 20 years ago, is something that jogs are memory back to this famous speech.

 

Many of you probably never heard of Edward Everett prior to this message. A man who was the one who was supposed to leave the legacy of this event. Yet I hope we all know of Lincoln.

 

As in our lives those things that we wish to be remembered by may not be what we are remembered by.

 

Often it is not the big grandiose accomplishments that we do in our lives that we are remembered for. It's often the small often forgotten things that we do that have the most lasting meaning in the lives of others.

 

It's those things that we say and do in the everyday conversations activities are lives that often stand to have the greatest impact in the lives of others and become our legacy.

 

It’s often those things that the we figure no one sees us say or do that become our legacy.

 

Our legacy is not made by us it's made by what others remember of us.

 

Every day we should consider our actions and how we treat others, basically our character.

 

This is how we will be remembered more often than not.

 

How would you like to be remembered?

 

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

 

 

Following the Wrong Expectations

Good Morning,

 

Back in December, I went back into surgery to have a steel rod removed from my leg. This rock was placed in my leg in 2010 to correct it improperly healed broken leg. Prior to the surgery I consulted with the doctor on how long the healing would be from this latest surgery. The doctor said if I had the surgery on Friday I would be back at work on Monday.

 

This set the expectation that the recovery from the surgery would be very quick compared to the one from 2010 which took nearly 2 months.

 

After the surgery, I focus on achieving that expectation by getting back to work as soon as possible. I had the surgery on the first of six days off, which gave me twice the amount of time the doctor said I would need to be able recover from the surgery. During this time I pushed myself to be able to walk, climb stairs, drive and other normal functions.

 

I was able to get back to work after the six days off and did normal work of the most part for three days. There was a problem though, the amount of time that I truly needed to recover from the surgery was far longer than three days. In my process of getting myself ready to go back to work I push my body further than it needed to be pushed.

 

I ended up spending the next four days with a combination of bed rest and super light-duty. I had to make up for trying to live up to an incorrect expectation.

 

How often in life delete push ourselves to meet in expectation which in and of itself is unreal or just wrong?

 

I am not sure if I were to go back to the doctor if I would get a different expectation than the one he originally gave me. He is the best in the world at what he does. It just may be in my case that expectation would not fit my circumstances.

 

This goes for all expectations, we need to be flexible and understand that what we expect to be true, what we expect to happen may not be what happens.

 

We need to be flexible and understand that expectations can be moving targets.

 

Charles Darwin once said that is not the strongest species or the most intelligent that often survives but the one that is most readily adaptable to change.

 

One we follow expectations and do not waver, we open the doorway to going down the wrong path if we are not ready to be flexible and change our expectations to reflect the reality that we see around us.

 

Like changing gears in my recovery from surgery I had to change the expectations that I was originally given. If I had not I would've found myself back in the hospital or worse.

 

Having expectations is good, knowing that they may change is better, and adapting to those changes is best.

 

I am well on my way to full recovery and have a better understanding that even if expectations are given by professionals, or even the best in the world, I need to be ready to change with the reality that is around me.

 

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