Paradoxical Commandments

by Kent Keith

• People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
• What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
• People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
• Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world your best anyway.
• People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
• If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
• If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
• The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
• Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
• The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway

Never let the opinions or actions of another stand in the way of you doing what you know you should.

Have a terrific day!

Coach Morse

I got a great chuckle out of this one... Definately sad but true! A real head shaker, but kudos to the unknown author of this very clever, and oh so accurate, modern day parable.

Enjoy...

A Modern Parable -source/author unkown

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (General Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order; American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents and 1assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the "Rowing Team Quality First Program," with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices, and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses, and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.

Sadly, The End.

Sad, but oh so true! Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last 30 years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages. Toyota has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results: Toyota makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses. Ford folks are still scratching their heads...

Have a terrific day!!
Coach Morse

Understanding Leadership

During my interview on May 10th, one of the topics WBO's Chris Curtis asked me about was the principle of understanding leadership that I talk about in chapter two of my book, "Take Charge - Get Results". One of the prevailing causes for failure I see, time and time again, is the absence of leadership. So while it's on my mind, I thought I'd share a short summary with you here:

"Understanding Leadership: Leaders are responsible for all outcomes (good or bad), not just some of the time, but all of the time. Leadership is not about giving orders, but about accepting the primary responsibility of leadership - to take charge. The common expectations of leadership - to lead, to guide, to enlighten, to direct, and to inspire action, - all stem from the acceptance of this primary responsibility. It is leadership that sets the course and provides direction for all achievement. Make a decision to take charge."

In the most basic sense, we are in charge of ourselves. Ultimately, we are responsible for that which we choose to do or say, so in order to achieve real success, we need ourselves to lead ourselves.

Best of luck!
Coach Morse

Stupid Is What Stupid Does

Here's an interesting excerpt from the book 'Goals' by Brian Tracy...

"The Role of IntelligenceIn Gallup interviews of thousand of men and women to determine the root causes of success in life and work, the importance of "intelligence" was mentioned again and again. But when the researchers pressed for a definition of "intelligence", they recieved an interesting answer. Intelligence was not defined as a high IQ or good grades in school. Rather, intelligence was most commonly defined as a "way of acting."

In other words, if you act intelligently, you are intelligent. If you act unintelligently, you are unintelligent, irrespective of the grades you may have recieved or the degrees you have earned.

And what then, by definition, is an intelligent way of acting? An intelligent way of acting is anything that you do that is consistent with achieving the goals that you set for yourself. Each time you do something that moves you closer toward something that you really want, you are acting intelligently. On the other hand, an unintelligent way of acting is doing things that are not moving you toward your goals, or even worse, are moving you away from your goals.

To put it bluntly, doing anything that does not help you achieve something that you have decided that you want for yourself is acting in a stupid manner. The world is full of people who are acting stupidly every day, and they are not even aware of what a negative effect this is having on their lives"

hmm.... something worth pondering, eh?
Coach Morse