Life Lessons on a Bike

It was hot. I was tired. My legs hurt and I was wondering, “How did I get myself in this mess”? It started out as a dare. Then it seemed like an exciting adventure. At the end of day one I just wanted to throw in the towel, call my Dad and go home. My challenge? I was attempting to ride my bicycle across the United States of America. It was day one, and I was only 35 miles into my 3237 mile trek!

I learned two lessons that summer as I rode my bicycle from Solana Beach, California to Rehobath Beach, Delaware: “gear down” and take life one day at a time.

The first lesson, take life one day at a time:
On May 28th, our first day, I was convinced that I would be riding for the rest of my life and panic set in. By taking it one day at a time, even one hour at a time the daunting task began to seem possible as the miles, mountains, Great Plains, Mississippi River went by. The Ohio Valley, the West Virginia Mountains, our Nation’s capitol and then the final road into Robeth Beach, Delaware on July 4th came and went. Yes, it was fun. The accomplishment was even greater. Knowing that I did something that for most people would seem impossible to do, by taking life one day at a time.

The second lesson, “gear down”:
The reason I was in so much pain the first day is that I wanted to be the first to the top of the hill. I want charging up in high gear. Yes, I made it and was totally spent. As I learned to “gear down” it took a little longer but I was rested at the top and could enjoy the vistas. “Gearing down” allowed me to be consistent, avoiding the highs and lows that would have certainly derailed my journey either through discouragement or injury.

I know we live in challenging times. Here are some tips to get to the top and enjoy the vista.

1. Live and enjoy each day.
   
2. Realize that tomorrow will come, be present today!
   
3. Remember there is a difference between fore thought and worry thought.
   
4. Finally, “gear down” to increase your efficiencies and over all effectiveness.

These tips allow us to enjoy the trip and not be blinded by the final destination.

I have discovered a little secret in life that I will now share with you. No matter what you do, hiring the right person, closing the challenging sale, sweeping the floors, or riding your bike across the dessert in 120 degree heat. . . . .

Stay focused on what you can do rather than focus on what you wish you could do.

The Turkey Bowl - Life Lessons, Hiring the Right Talent

A life lesson about success from a family tradition is included in this 2 minute read.

Family traditions are all about creating oneness and connections with family and memories that last a life time. One tradition in our family is the annual Turkey Bowl Thanksgiving morning. Ten am is kick-off at Plum Bottom (the name given to our family farm by our Native American neighbors 200 years ago). Everyone is welcome, family, visiting friends, men and women. My brother Dave lines the field 60 yards by 30 yards.

The rules are simple:
- 7 players on a team (quarterback, three linemen, three eligible receivers)
- 3 one thousand rush count
- 30 minute rolling time per half
- 6 points for a touchdown
- one point for the extra point
- no kicks

As you can imagine it eventually boils down to a guy thing; your team winning and the team captain displaying the turkey trophy on their living room mantel (the year I won my wife put it in a box in the basement). It’s a great conversation starter with guests.

The team captains have two important tasks:
1. Picking the teams
2. Selecting the most outstanding player at the end of the game.

By dinner time, all over the hill, the participants older than 28 are really hurting and can barely walk. Of course, at dinner in the various homes mental highlights are replayed with the ball thrown farther, guys running faster, and jumping higher than anyone could believe. Like many holiday traditions this is all in fun and forgotten until the next year.

This year. . . . could be different. A ringer is coming to dinner from California, Jeremiah my son-in-law to be. Somehow we need to get him on our team. He is fast, unknown and will give his team a real advantage. The key, my team captain has to pick him. The strategy has already begun. . . . . smile

The point, the team captain who picks the best players wins every year. This is something we have known since kindergarten and it is as true today as back then, whether you are winning the family Turkey Bowl or hiring your management or sales team.

Do you want to win? Then determine to pick or to recruit the right talent. Yes, I know, we can coach people and see improvement. To win our Superbowl in life and in business we need to pick the right players who have the talent and skills to help us win today.

What will you do today pick and recruit the right people?

Motivation

What can a High School student teach us about motivation? Find out in this short, 2 minute, story.

Spring of 9th grade my junior high coach, Jon Walk and my father threw down a challenge that motivated me to give up my summer of leisure. They dared me to become the starting quarterback of my High School football team. As a result, I got up early every morning for 68 days and threw over 400 passes daily to increase my arm strength and prefect my quick release and drop back footwork.

Before starting my summer workouts I needed to learn three things to be successful. They were the proper:

• technique for gripping the football
• throwing motion
• footwork

To do this I spent two weeks at camp with Coach Bob Phillips. In the summer of 1975, Coach Phillips was the Penn State University quarterback coach. Coach Phillips first taught us the fundamentals. Then we practiced throwing under his watchful eye for 6 hours a day. Without this experience with Coach Phillips my self-imposed summer throwing schedule would have been useless.

Yes, in the fall of 1975 I won the starting varsity quarterback role for my High School. I was truly motivated by being challenged, and without the learning and training in football camp the challenge would have gone un-met.

Today in business I see and hear the same challenge from managers at all levels in organizations. They want to learn the art of motivation. The challenge most managers face is that motivating someone to do something they do not want to do is more involved than just a fiery speech or presenting an award that creates excitement and awe. More often than not, motivation of human potential starts much further up stream.

• It starts with vision (becoming the starting quarterback).
• Then we can move on to education (camp with Coach Phillips).
• Training with appropriate coaching and encouragement (6 hours a day with Coach Phillips, 400 passes a day on my own).
• And finally celebrating the success (playing as starting quarterback).

Remember, as the motivator you also need to be motivated. Who motivates you?

I dare you this year to educate and train yourself to be the best at what you do on planet Earth!

Life Lessons from Abe

Be inspired by a true story of what a 15-year-old learned from a 60-year-old! It’s about a 2.5 min read that’s well worth the time. At the end, tell me what you think.

It was a hot June Saturday in 1975. My dad had informed me the night before that I’d be helping Abe, our farm hand, pick rocks the next morning. To say I was not excited about the next days work would be an understatement.

Abe grew up as an Amish man and converted to the Mennonite faith early in life. He worked for our family for almost 40 years. Abe loved to work, always finished what he started and never worried about time. I, on the other hand just want to get started, finish as soon as possible and get ready for my baseball game later in the day. We met at the tool shed and threw two crowbars into the truck. I sure hoped we did not run into any rocks we would need the crowbars for because that could take . . . . f o r e v e r.

Rocks in Pennsylvania need to be picked after the fields had been plowed and before the ground is worked for planting. To pick rocks, two or three men walk behind a flat bed truck and when they find a rock they throw it on the flat bed. There are always plenty of rocks to be picked.

This morning it was just me, a 15 year old and Abe. The good news, I got to drive the big truck even though I was a year away from getting my PA drivers license. The bad news, Abe was a perfectionist and did not want to miss a rock. Within minutes of arriving at the field Abe had the crowbar out wedging a giant rock from the soil. I began to think I might miss my game and we might be here forever. And where did all these rocks come from anyway?

Two hours into our job we had made one pass through the field. The truck was half full and I was tired and thirsty. The temperature had soared to at least 85 and it felt like 100. Abe, who was 60 years old, seemed happy. He was singing, whistling, smiling and occasionally reminded me of missed rocks. I had walked by them hoping he would not notice, after all a few rocks left, who really cared.

After that first pass we took a short break. Abe found ways to encourage me, to catch his enthusiasm for picking rocks. Abe said, “A job was only worth doing if it was done right the first time. Rework was a waste of time and it was actually stealing from your employer.” For Abe work was simple: do the best you can do, and do it right the first time. I was feeling guilty knowing that I might not have met his expectations and I was determined to do better on the second pass.

Ten minutes into the second pass I lost my renewed enthusiasm and just wanted to be done. So I asked Abe the question that had been haunting me since we began. “Abe how much longer will we be picking rocks?” Abe looked at me with the most bewildered look and simply replied “We’ll be done when all the rocks are picked.”

Abe recently died at age 93. What a mentor he was in my life. Helping mold me and teaching me life lessons within the tasks of picking rocks, holding a hammer, building a cement block wall, picking cherries, butchering hogs, building a hot fire to cook the head meat, pouring concrete, gathering eggs, framing a wall, painting a fence, sweeping a barn floor, unloading hay, or doing small chores right.

Abe taught me how to live:

• Be committed to excellence
• With a work ethic to finish well
• Enjoy what I have
• Always give thanks to God, not just in prayer but in how I lived, for His blessings on my life.

Who has inspired you with a life lesson?

Globalization and Business

I recently did an interview with Ben Lawrence for his eZine. The interview focused on the current business environment and what could be done to move forward.

Interviewer: How is globalization affecting your business?
John: Recently I was asked to train a local executive from a fortune 500 company who was becoming a VP of a Global position. Specifically he almost was not given the promotion because he lacked global people skills. Meaning he had little patience and or tolerance for different work schedules and attitudes towards work in various European markets where he now will be a leader. Fortunately, for this new Global VP Dale Carnegie human relations principals are global in perspective , for example, “try honestly to see things from another persons point of view” once understood and implemented builds relationships cross cultures.

Interviewer: What are the biggest changes you've seen in your business in the last 10 years?
John: Companies that “get it” invest in developing their people. Twenty years ago I would have high level executives tell me we hire quality people if they need training they can not work here. Today, what is good can always be made better. So what if you are currently good with people what if you got a little bit better? Can you imagine if Tiger Woods thought he was as good now as he will ever be? Tiger knows better than anyone else he needs to continue to work on the habits that do not come natural to him. That’s training at its best! No, that’s results!

Interviewer: What are the biggest challenges facing your clients' businesses today and the biggest challenges facing senior executives?
John: People Strategy. To build a global culture that allows execution of business strategy to make their visions of a profitable organization realized.

Interviewer: How can business overcome these challenges? How can senior executives overcome them?
John: Establish a clear global vision, mission, and core values that can be understood and implemented across various cultures. Then building in clear leadership competencies at all levels in the organization, so that real business results can not just be realized, but exceeded.

Interviewer: What's the single most important question that business leaders are forgetting to ask themselves? Their team?
John: "What is the wise thing to do?"

Interviewer: The best advice you ever received was:
John: From my First Dale Carnegie Class in 1985, the ten two-letter words that changed my life: “If it is to be it is up to me!"


Now it's your turn, readers. . . .
What do you see as the challenges facing companies, teams and employees in this global economy?

John R. Rodgers is the franchise owner for JR Rodgers & Associates, Inc., one of the world's largest and most highly ranked Dale Carnegie Training® franchises.

How to Ignite Your Personal Development Plans (PDP)

Does this sound familiar: we spent all this time getting all excited about doing the analysis and then writing the plan and dreaming about what might, could, should happen, but then. . . little if anything is ever implemented.

I have recently been involved in some high level executive coaching and this is a common frustration at their level and below.

Here is the challenge. . . options are limited. Basically your choice is to engage in one or more of the following activities:

1. Self-directed learning opportunities
2. Experiential learning opportunities
3. On–line learning opportunities
4. Educational learning opportunities
5. Training in competencies

To do any of the above you need to be ignited! None of the above activities will happen just because you have a great PDP (Personal Development Plan).

You can not change directions sitting still, you've got to move!

Dale Carnegie has been in business for 97 years. Moving people, by building confidence and courage, to do what they do not want to do. Remember the old sage Albert E. N. Gray who said "successful people form the habits of doing things that failure do not like to do."

Be ignited, take a Dale Carnegie Course this summer. Has time been your excuse? Then enroll in our new and exciting three day immersion course today. . . I dare you!

Selling -- The Fundamentals!

Every summer for years, our family vacationed in the small fishing village of Noank, Connecticut where my wife’s parents still live. On one visit I learned a lot about the community’s leading youth sales professionals.

Early one afternoon I visited the town park in the middle of Noank with my three youngest children: my son Sam, and his twin sisters Jillian and Kaitrin. Each of them sat in a swing. I pushed each in turn.

Behind the swing set, a black wrought iron fence enclosed the park. On the other side was the sidewalk and Main Street. On this hot summer afternoon two young entrepreneurs sat on the sidewalk selling lemonade. As I pushed my kids in the swings, I listened into the sales’ conversation.

I heard the oldest boy Mike (he looked about ten-years-old) say, “Let’s just go home. No one is buying. This is a complete waste of time.”

The younger boy, Tim (who looked about eight) said, “Yeah. We can drink the lemonade ourselves.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” replied Mike. “We paid for the fresh lemons. Let’s just put the lemonade in the refrigerator and try again tomorrow.”

As I listened I thought about how often sales people talk themselves out of doing business. We wait for the phone to ring and hope that somehow, without too much effort, business will find us. Just like my two soon-to-be-clients sat, hoping cars would stop and people would enthusiastically jump out, with smiles on their faces to purchase glasses of lemonade.

With a smile I asked across the fence, “So boys, how are your lemonade sales going today?”

Tim jumped up and moved toward me, “Not so well. It must be too hot.”

Mike nodded his head in agreement.

“Good news, guys,” I said. “I am a highly paid sales consultant and if you are interested I can help you sell out in 30 minutes guaranteed.”

Tim’s eyes lit up but Mike looked skeptical.

“Here is the deal,” I said. “My fee will be three small glasses of lemonade for my kids. I ask you a few questions and then you must promise to do exactly what I tell you to do. Deal?”

They agreed.

“Ok, first question. Why are you selling on this side of the street? You see cars stop on the other side of the street at the stop sign.”

Mike looked at me as if I was from another planet and I feared I was to be fired before I even got started. “Mister,” he said, “In case you hadn’t noticed the only shade tree on the street is right here.”

Like many sales people he prioritized pleasing methods over pleasing results. People, old and young, look for the easy way to sell. I could not help wonder how many of my sales people were sitting under their shade trees instead of taking initiatives and make things happen.

I convinced the boys to move to the other side of the street. The next step I told them was that when people stop at the stop sign you need to have a powerful message to get them to buy.

“Can you give me a fact about your lemonade?”

“It’s the best lemonade in Noank!” Mike shouted.

“That’s a claim. Give me a fact.”

Tim jumped in and hit the nail on the head. “It's fresh hand squeezed lemonade!”

“Now we’re talking! Now connect the fact to a need.”

“The ice-cold, hand-squeezed fresh lemonade will quench your thirst.”

“Good. Now all we need is to entice customers is a deal.”

Both boys quickly agreed that they would sell one glass for $1.25 or two glasses for $2.00.

With enthusiasm the young boys picked up their lemonade stand, walked across the street and started shouting to every car that stopped, “Ice-cold, fresh, hand-squeezed lemonade that will quench your thirst how many glasses do you want…

Of course, I made the small correction, “Say ‘do you want one or two glasses?’” They both smiled and within minutes they had created traffic jam on Main Street Noank.

I still laugh years later thinking about how excited the boys were when they sold out of their lemonade. They thanked me and gave me the remaining lemonade--a third of my fee (one glass) and ran home. Note to self - get your fee at the front end.

From selling lemonade to high tech computers to big and small equipment to Real Estate, to consulting projects the fundamentals never change:

• Do the right activity, in the right place.
• Communicate the benefit of your product, good or service.
• Tell how it will meet your customer’s need with enthusiasm and turn your frustration into real business results.

Rethinking Goals for Spring!

Don’t confuse New Year resolutions with goals. I have read and heard thousands of New Year Resolutions over my life time. Consider this…95% of them all fit in one of four categories:

1. I am tired of being Fat
2. I am tired of being Poor
3. I no longer want to be Stupid
4. I now want to do something Exciting before I die

In most cases resolutions make us feel better for 7 days or less then reality sets in when we have to make choices that are unpleasant. Well maybe next year we say wink wink... Goals go deeper and can be long lasting because they are adaptable and flexible. Goals become stepping stones to your future rather than your future. Goals initiate action which always produces results beyond just hoping. My challenge to you is to get beyond resolutions by setting a pathway for real results in your life by setting meaningful goals.

For example, no one would walk up to an Airline ticket counter and say “please give me a ticket.” To where would be the natural response of any professional receiving such a request. Of course it sounds ridiculous and so does living and working without goals.

Knowing where you are going is critical to you arriving. Vision and mission give us a destination and a purpose. Goals give us steps to achieve our vision and mission. Goals take us from our current reality and transform us to our future potential in helping us fully understanding what could be and should be regardless what is. Goals give us hope and encouragement when we are most discouraged and are tempted to lower our expectations.

Goals should be set in all areas of life. (Family, work, mental, physical, financial, social, spiritual, community) To become a well rounded individual progress and growth should be obtained in each of the above life areas. When was the last time you did an analysis in each of the above mention areas? I dare you to look at your check book over the last year and determined where you spent your money, in fact, to make this more real color code each check entry, or produce a bar graft to determine in which life area you spent or invested the most dollars.

I encourage each of us to set goals for the New Year and check on them regularly to determine progress. Remember when setting goals apply the tried and true method in using the acrominum SMART:

S—specific is it clears
M—Measurable easy and obvious
A—Attainable or realistic ask for professional advice, remember big steps start with small steps
R— Relevant to you! Few if any others will really care
T—Timetables that are reasonable

If It Is To Be It Is Up To Me! My favorite ten two letter words.

John Rodgers,
CEO JR Rodgers and Associates, a Dale Carnegie franchise