The check’s in the

                         

mail. I’ll get back   

                              

to you Friday. 

                                                         

I’ll send you that

                                

update the minute

                           

it comes in. As soon

                                       

as we get an invoice.

                                                                  

When shipment

                                       

arrives. But I never  

                                                                        

got your note. Your

                               

email must have

                         

gotten lost in  

                            

Cyberspace. Oh,

                          

that?That was a

                     

“warning”?

                                                                                                                             

     You’ve heard it all, right? Maybe you’ve even said some of it yourself. But when your intentions are genuine and sincere, nothing can be more frustrating than hearing a pile of excuses . . . from a customer, a prospect, a supplier, an investor, an employee, a boss.

     So, what’s the magic answer? It’s somewhere within yourself. You may not be able to control the attitudes that give birth to replies like these, but you can control your own attitude. You, in fact, are the only one who can.

     And by controlling your own response to the excuses you hear, you are cultivating an opportunity for yourself to set a true leadership example. By setting an example, you:  

A) Keep your emotions out of the fray and

B) May actually influence the offender to re-visit her or his initial behavior or verbal representation of it, and reconsider a better, more productive, higher integrity avenue.

     Perhaps you’re not Henry Ford or Bill Gates or Mary Kay, and the idea of changing the world is not on your breakfast plate, but — as a small business owner or manager or entrepreneur — you are in an extraordinarily unique position to make a difference for yourself, for your family, and for those you work with, simply by choosing to respond instead of react.

Besides, if you never react,

you can never over-react!

     People offer excuses to cover their own feelings of inadequacy. Most of the time, you can probably count on excuses being not so much intentionally dishonorable as a shortcoming of the person who’s offering them up in the self-esteem category. Some people who feel they can’t get positive recognition will opt instead for negative recognition because it’s at least some recognition.

     Humans crave recognition. And some recognition always beats indifference.

The opposite of love is not hate.

It’s indifference!

     When you hear excuses, appreciate the insecurities behind them. When it’s possible to overlook them, do it and then make a point of offering (genuine) appreciation for instances of getting a job done without a presentation of reasons why it didn’t get done.

     Offer more encouragement than you might usually provide. Be kinder than you might usually be (because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle). Appreciate differences in perso0nalities and behaviors and help others to grasp the choosing behavior idea through your examples.

     Excuses are a way of life, but they are not always intentional or dishonorable. When you give the benefit of doubt to others, you may get bit in the butt a few times, but you’ll be serving the important purpose of minimizing anxieties and demonstrating productive leadership traits most of the time.

     The captain who keeps an even keel and balanced ship through stormy seas marks every journey with success.

 302.933.0116    Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You.

God Bless America and America’s Troops.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

“Dreams which have

not been interpreted 

are like letters from

the Self which have

not been opened”

— TALMUD

Here’s the thing, the most successful business people in the world all share some common traits and all share one common status of being self-actualized. This means that they have each learned some in-depth things about themselves and have used that information to figure out what makes them tick.

Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Steven Jobs, Mary Kay, Henry Ford, Dale Carnegie (Add your own), have all been students of themselves in the processes of designing and developing their businesses.

Do you know what makes you tick?

One way to get a better fix on the answer to this question is to write notes to yourself the minute you wake up in the morning about any dreams or parts of dreams you can remember . . . a “dream journal” if you will. By forcing yourself to take up this practice and jot something down every morning, a few things will happen:

1. Odds are good that after a few days, you will begin to remember more and be able to record more. In this case, more is better.
2. Repetitive patterns or scenes or thoughts or images may begin to emerge that will help you interpret more and learn more about your SELF which can boost your business big-time.
3. The more you remember and write down, the more likely you will be to feel less stressed, and to be more productive both on and off the job.

Is this information to share with your white-shirt-and-tie corporate brother-in-law? Probably not. I wouldn’t in fact recommend sharing the idea with anyone until you start to see some results for yourself. Why does the idea seem too off-the-wall bizarre? Because it’s not in any business textbook and most of those who benefit by the practice don’t discuss it for fear of . . . well, you understand.

A primitive Malaysian hunting and gathering tribe called the Senoi (Bing or Google them if you’re interested in more detail) have a generations old practice of waking each morning and talking about their dreams from the night before with others in their tribe. They reportedly go from one tribal member to another until they feel satisfied with the interpretation of their dreams.

Wackos, right? Wrong. The tribe is free of stress, free of disease and free of mental illness.

Imagine if you could be enjoying that luxury right now. Is it mumbo-jumbo or dark magic? Not likely. Since almost all research ends up demonstrating that disease of all kinds has a psychosomatic base that inevitably evolves from stress, it shouldn’t be surprising news.

When a group of people (regardless of how primitive) devotes part of every day focusing on, exploring, and identifying stress sources, that group is going to experience less stress. Less stress means less disease and less mental illness.

Keeping a daily “dream journal” is one way to help yourself (which means you will also be helping your business) beginning immediately. And it’s FREE! (Oh, right, a blank book and a pen!)

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You!

Make today a GREAT day for someone! 

2nd only to the government,

big business gets an F

All of us who own and operate or manage a small or medium sized business know that the world’s most incompetent excuses for “businesspeople” reside in dark, damp little squirrel holes of government and academia buildings. They are the poster boys and girls for business stupidity.

But right after these poor ignorant, unrealistic souls, maybe not even a full rung lower on the ladder, are the braindead, money-wasting corporate executives who spend half their lives in limos, cabs, commuter train barcars, business class airline seats, and fancy restaurants.

These are the hot-shot 9 to 5 executives who travel better, eat and drink better and live better, higher-income lifestyles than either the government doo-dahs or the academic muckity-mucks.

But that doesn’t make them smart, or productive, or successful.

Most of them are none of those.

It simply makes them people who don’t have what it takes to start and build and grow their own business ventures, but who are not quite as stupid as those who work for those who get elected.

They are also a hair more savvy than those who merely pretend to know what it’s all about, and who instead of doing, end up teaching young people how to do and not do the things they themselves don’t know how to do and not do.

It’s interesting to me, by the way, that so many of these corporate suits seem to think they are Henry Ford’s and Bill Gates’s and Mary Kay’s when they get anywhere near a calculator or Excel spreadsheet.

Reality is that this country is in dire economic straits today because of corporate mentalities that STILL don’t get it, that STILL are unproductive, that STILL squander taxpayer (and stockholder) money left and right. (Actually, I have fresh evidence from today, if anyone’s interested in details.)

What’s wrong with all this is not just the consequences of incompetence but the systems that breed it: educational institutions, government agencies, and Fortune 500 corporations.

How do I know this? Before spending most of my career as a small business owner/operator, I was a college professor, a government employee and a Fortune 500 executive. That’s like the been there, done that thing.

Thankfully, I saw early on that none of these (academia, government, corporate) paths held out any promise of a successful life journey for anyone with energy and ambition and common sense and basic business instincts.

And here’s what I conclude: 

. . . when we can ween ourselves from societal dependence on misguided government, fantasyworld academia, and thieving corporate America . . . and put wind behind the sails of small business . . . only then, will we turn this ship around! 

# # #  

 Hal@TheWriterWorks.com or comment below.

Thanks for visiting. 

Go for your goals, good night and God bless you!