Long time friend and T4D subscriber Lynne from the UK wrote me this simple yet profound e-mail yesterday.  Read it thoughtfully - don’t rush and miss the invitation it extends to all of us….as it reveals the “secret” to making someone’s day. 

Kirk,

It was still dark, I’d been stuck in traffic, my day was looking gloomy….and then a colleague arrived…she smiled, she waved…she look pleased to see me, like seeing me had made her day brighter.   WOW!  What a lift.  So that’s the secret to making someone’s day…act like seeing them has just made yours.  

Please to ’see’ you Kirk.  

Lynne 

Day by day, what you do is who you become.

Thank you LYNNE

“Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.”~Ken Hakuta

   WORD TO THE WISE: PRECIPITOUS

Now here is a fun word..PRECIPITOUS... I challenge you to use it 3 different times today - you know slip in all suave and sly like.  Go ahead try it out.

Something that is “precipitous” (prih-SIP-ih-tus) is steep — like a precipitous cliff or mountain. We also use the word to mean (1) “headlong” (a precipitous fall) and (2) “rash” or “sudden” (a precipitous attempt).

The quotes that follow this intro speak of love lost - the subject of today’s T4D is about losing something perhaps nearly as precious….DATA or our digital minds.  A couple weeks ago my hard drive took a serious even deadly turn for the worse…and I lost it all. 

The hundreds and maybe thousands of IT professionals who subscribe are saying, “Yeah, but Kirk you had a back up right?”   The answer is “Of course I did!”….kinda. 

I have a copy of Norton’s Ghost - an installed copy!  And I use to use it regularly.  The last time I had done a legitimate back up was early November.  What changes had taken place since then?  Massive ones, especially considering December was a great month to re-write my presentations, contracts, and really dig into my new book projects.  Yes, I was bummed.

I was fortunate that I had recently done some training at a cool company called “DriveSavers” so I knew who to call.  Their team saved my bacon, and my drive.  They also provided the needed emotional counseling that you can imagine a person in my situation might need.

After they did their miracle work - I was sent a nearly perfectly restored image and was fortunate to have not lost a single critical file.  All I lost was some sleep and some time…what I gained was far more valuable. What did I gain?  A tremendous love and respect for the folks at DriveSavers…and a very very strong RE-Commitment to diligent data backups. 

To see the Drive Saver team in action - click here.

To book mark their webpage - click here or go here http://drivesavers.com/

To avoid losing sleep, love, and data… back up your stuff…and do it today!

Kirk Out

‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.  ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tis better to have data and lost it, than to have never had data at all?  Kirk

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. ~ Kahlil Gibran  (Tell me about it)

I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken — and I’d rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived. ~ Margaret Mitchell  (With DriveSavers you can put the pieces back together and love again!)

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.  ~ G. K. Chesterton (SO BACK IT UP!!)

(From Chris Boudreau)  Kirk,   Last year I subscribed to your T4D and find it thought provoking at times.  A little boost of self reflection is good to keep one on track and I thank you for your T4D as they help me to keep focused on the important stuff. I have been using some of your thoughts and messages to inspire my managers to keep them thinking as well. So I thank you for your messages and encourage you to keep them coming.

Here is a message that I used a while back with my managers which some of them have framed and hung in their offices for their daily reminder.

Manager’s Poem

I am a Manager

I am here to LISTEN not to work miracles

I am here to help you DISCOVER what you can do not do it for you

I am here to help you IDENTIFY your options not to decide for you

I am here to discuss STEPS you can take not take them for you

I am here to help you DEVELOP you OWN STRENGTHS not to rescue or cure you

I am here to assist with HELPING YOURSELF not to take responsibility for you

I am here to provide SUPPORT, ENCOURAGEMENT AND ACCEPTANCE

I am a manager.

Author unknown

(From Chris Jones) Fundamental Team Operating Principles  

1. I will speak for myself.
2. I will replace “yes.. but..” with “and”.
3. I will move beyond judgments of right and wrong, to the neutrality of “what works” and “what does not”.
4. I will ask for what I want.
5. I will approach problems from the perspective of “whose needs are not being met” or “who is caught in the outcome”.
6. I will support others to make their own discoveries.
7. I will do what I say I will do. I will only make agreements I can keep. I will keep all agreements I make. Renegotiation is the exception, not the norm.
8. I will identify assumptions to create greater level of understanding and co-operation.
9. I will hold a win-win intention.

Don’t Send Your Ducks to Eagle School by Jim Rohn (Excerpted from Leading an Inspired Life)

The first rule of management is this: don’t send your ducks to eagle school. Why? Because it won’t work. Good people are found not changed.

They can change themselves, but you can’t change them. You want good people, you have to find them. If you want motivated people, you have to find them, not motivate them.

I picked up a magazine not long ago in New York that had a full-page ad in it for a hotel chain. The first line of the ad read, “We do not teach our people to be nice.” Now that got my attention. The second line said, “We hire nice people.” I thought, “what a cleaver shortcut.”

Motivation is a mystery. Why are some people motivated and some are not? Why does one salesperson see his first prospect at seven in the morning while the other sees his first prospect at eleven in the morning? Why would one start at seven and the other start at eleven? I don’t know. Call it “mysteries of the mind.”

I give lectures to a thousand people at a time. One walks out and says, “I’m going to change my life.” Another walks out with a yawn and says, “I’ve heard all this stuff before.” Why is that?

The wealthy man says to a thousand people, “I read this book, and it started me on the road to wealth.” Guess how many of the thousand go out and get the book? Answer: very few. Isn’t that incredible? Why wouldn’t everyone go get the book? Mysteries of the mind…

To one person, you have to say, “You’d better slow down. You can’t work that many hours, do that many things, go, go, go. You’re going to have a heart attack and die.” And to another person, you have to say, “When are you going to get off the couch?” What is the difference?

Why wouldn’t everyone strive to be wealthy and happy?

Chalk it up to mysteries of the mind, and don’t waste your time trying to turn ducks into eagles. Hire people who already have the motivation and drive to be eagles and then just let them soar.

Let’s make this an Eagle week…heck, let’s make it an EAGLE YEAR! 

SOAR HIGH and don’t Duck  ~ Kirk

Kirk

One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community.   Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

          This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as I live it is my privilege - my *privilege* to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I love. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got a hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.  ~ George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

 My dear friend Jim said this a while back….and it’s true, so true!

8 hours x  5days x 50 weeks x 30 years does not equal a life.   ~  Jim Cain

Thoughts on Culture

Execution The Discipline of Getting Things Done…( A Culture Focused on Execution)bldg block 2

People generally don’t think themselves into a new way of acting.  More often, they act into a new way of thinking.  In other words, new norms of behavior often only emerge when people change their beliefs rather than their values.  Beliefs are dependant on training, experience and what the people within the organization are thinking.  Behaviors are those beliefs turned into action.  Therefore, to change a culture, start by changing the way people act.

Make Your Culture Count and Start with YOU- Act like you believe it matters…because it matters how you act.  ~  Kirk Weisler

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.  - Walter Lippmann

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.   - Peter Drucker

Never confuse movement with action.”   - Ernest Hemingway

Listen closely to others, it shows courage - then think for yourself, it shows consciousness - then take action to create and add value for others, it shows character.  - Kirk Weisler (Hey, I said that?!)

Kirk Out

Kirk Out