“That’s just the way I am.”

When we hear this, someone is usually telling us, “Get off my back” or “Accept me as I am.” Often it’s a response to criticism. It could be about chronic lateness, thoughtlessness, broken promises, physical or verbal abuse, or infidelity. Whatever it is, we’re asked to let it go.

In the end, this is a ploy to get us to lower our expectations based on the dubious idea that certain bad habits are an intrinsic part of character and therefore beyond our control. We’re expected to believe it’s foolish and futile to expect a person to change.

There are, of course, lots of things that are beyond our control: short stature, big bones, receding hairline. Fortunately, character is different. That’s completely within our control. The poor and the rich, the slow and the smart, the plain and the pretty all have an equal opportunity to become people of character.

Sure, character can be influenced by heredity and environment, but it’s determined by choice. No disposition, circumstance, or experience is so powerful that it forever fixes our character. That is never finished. It’s constantly shaped and sculpted by the choices we make to nurture or ignore our more noble instincts and to surrender to or overcome negative impulses and corrupting temptations.

When it comes to what we demand of ourselves or others, we should never lower our standards. Character is a function of choice. Weaknesses and bad habits are not excuses not to get better.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.

Michael Josephson
http://www.charactercounts.org/

Ending the Blame Begins With … Me.

by Kristin E. Lindeen
“The QBQ! Daughter”

Have you ever made a mistake? Dropped the ball? Caused a problem? I have. And I hate it when that happens.

Before joining QBQ, Inc., I served as a university academic advisor helping incoming students pick their classes. Jessica, a co-worker, and I counseled one new student, a single mom with two little ones who was hesitant about attending college. The three of us worked closely to set a schedule that worked for her. But on the first day of school, it turned out that she’d been put in the wrong class-wrong subject, wrong time, wrong location. Bad news for an incoming student. Especially, a busy mom.

Well, we all huddled and after some creative scheduling, the problem was solved. The student-our customer, my customer-was happy.

So, feeling personally accountable, I did a postmortem to see what went wrong and what I could learn from it. I tried to ask all the right questions of myself-I mean, after all, I was raised on QBQ!

“What could I have done to clarify?”
“How could I have made sure to follow up?”
“What can I do to be more careful in the future?”

Later, I wandered into Jessica’s office and started sharing about the whole mess. But while I talked, Jessica was only … nodding! My frustration began to build. You see, to be truthful, I was accepting my responsibility for the problem, and rightly so. Yet, what I really, really wanted my co-worker to say was, “Well, Kristin, I could have done more, too.” When it got right down to it, I would’ve happily agreed to take, say, 70% of the blame, but she could and should take 30%. In fact, I would’ve negotiated to 80/20 if she’d wanted to. I just needed her to state I am accountable, too!

Has this ever happened to you? You’re asking the right questions, admitting to your involvement in a problem, practicing PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY!!!, but no one else is owning up to their part!? It’s not an easy position to be in. Honestly, as I was telling her, “I could have done this or that differently…” I wanted to scream out, “And you, Jessica, could have done something differently and it’d be really super for you to admit it!!”  What’s ironic, is this coworker even had the QBQ! book sitting on her desk.

That was the day I realized that practicing personal accountability by using The Question Behind the Question is a choice-MY CHOICE-and not one that I can force others to make. In her office, I suppose I could’ve asked Jessica to read the QBQ! book again, but that probably would not have enhanced our working relationship. Personal accountability is just that: personal. I can’t make someone else be accountable. My job is to eliminate blame from my life.

Since I became a QBQ, Inc. team member and began speaking and conducting workshops on my dad’s (John Miller) material, I have learned that organizations struggle mightily with this blame thing-what it looks like, why it happens, what its costs are, and how to stop it. There’s even a bit of confusion about blame. Some recent client statements:

• Our executives actually like to ask “Who dropped the ball!?” because they feel it keeps individuals from hiding behind systems and processes.
• So, blame creates fear? What’s wrong with that; isn’t fear a motivator?
• As a manager, why shouldn’t I blame my staff … they’re the ones not reaching their goals?
• OK, I know I shouldn’t blame others, but does that mean I should take all the blame all the time?

I believe in simple, so let me simply quote the QBQ! book: Accountable people don’t blame anyone. Not even themselves.

It’s true, solving problems, excelling in our work, building relationships, and reaching goals are all driven by introspection, humility, continuous learning, passion, accountability, and hard work. Never finger-pointing, accusations, recrimination, and blame. Let’s call it quits on The Blame Game today. We can do better. Are you with me 100%?

If not, that’s okay-it begins with me.

Kristin E. Lindeen

William James
1842-1910, Psychologist, Professor and Author

“You know, some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment; and that you have to live each day like it’s your last.   Life is long. You’re probably not gonna get hit by a bus. And you’re gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years.”   ~ -Chris Rock, from his film “I Think I Love my Wife”

Well I don’t just think…. I know I love my wife.  I strive to make choices everyday that keeps me out of the path of buses and other things that can wreck and destroy my life, my marriage and my family. 

Life goes by very fast…but at the same time ”life is long.”  Far too long to live choices made selfishly or without thought of consequence to others.  The question is bigger than ”Can I live with this choice for the next 50 years?  It’s more like “Can everyone impacted by this choice, live with it for the next 50 years?

Decisions determine destiny…. let’s work to make them wisely!  ~ Kirk out

How One Guy Used “Reciprocity” to Make a Quick Half-Million Dollars in a Single, Incredible, Fun-Filled Weekend

BM, a friend who’s in the furniture business, and his girlfriend just got back from a trip to southern France. They flew into Nice, BM told me, where they stayed at a very nice hotel and were treated to a gourmet meal. The next day, they were driven to a private chateau outside Cannes — where they and about 70 other couples were wined, dined, and sumptuously entertained for two solid days, dawn to dusk.

All the guests, including my friend, were furniture sellers or their companions. Their host, MT, was a wholesaler who wanted to introduce them to his new pieces. He was giving them the gift of this fabulous weekend — no formal strings attached — in the hopes that they would reciprocate with purchases.

It was a bold move. The entire weekend, BM figured, cost MT $300,000 — a lot of money, especially during a period of slowing sales.

Did it work?

“Definitely,” BM said. “Everyone was buying stuff.”

“Why?”

“He had good, well-priced items.”

“But was that the only reason? Don’t you think all that wining and dining had something to do with it?”

“Well, of course. It had a lot to do with it.”

“So how much do you think he made?”

BM thought about it. “I spent about eighty grand. And I’d say the average order was about fifty grand.”

“So that’s $50,000 times 80 buyers?”

“Right.”

“$4 million.”

“Right. Wow!”

“At what kind of margin?”

“At those good prices, not that much — but, still, maybe 20% or 25%.”

“Say 20% of $4 million. That’s $800,000. And MT’s cost of putting on the whole thing was $300,000. Sounds to me like good business.”

“Not to mention the friends he made.”

Friends that will probably remember the weekend he treated them to for the rest of their lives.

Reciprocity can be a very effective sales tool. It works well with people you don’t know, as yesterday’s holiday-card experiment proved, and it works even better with existing customers, who are likely to accept free gifts without as much skepticism.

I intend to figure out how each of my clients can make better use of this powerful tool. I make the same recommendation to you.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.  ~–Elbert Hubbard

It’s Veteran’s day, and I won’t cheapen it with a feeble effort and some patriotic platitudes. Rather I will attempt to express something from my own experience and from my own heart.

I would like to share with you a personal story of an opportunity I had while serving a 4 year active duty enlistment with the 3rd Ranger Battalion at Ft. Benning Georgia. I also got to serve a short stint with the 10th Mountain Division while at Benning. Part of my service included being assigned to the dreaded “Funeral Detail” Which I was informed would be a mostly boring assignment to honor recently deceased veterans. The funeral detail was a 30 day duty assignment where I would be in charge of the seven man team who did the 21 gun salute, during the funeral services of any active or retired serviceman who passed away within a 2-3 hour driving radius of our post. Also assigned to our detail was a service man to play Taps, and the crew assigned to carry the deceased veterans casket and attend to the folding of the flag from his casket and passing it to the spouse or next of kin.

I cannot think of any other assignment or duty I performed during my enlistment that was as personally rewarding to me as this one. The absolute depth of humility and gratitude I felt for these men, whom I did not know, was surprising to me then as a young and mostly immature soldier. But my knowing them did not seem to be important…knowing that they had sworn to “uphold and protect”, that they had worn the uniform of a soldier, that they had been willing to put their life in harms way for a cause greater than themselves, seemed to be more than enough. I remember clearly the intense feelings that came to myself and my squad each time the sound of Taps reached through our ears to our hearts, each time the shots rang out, and each time our sacred flag was folded with reverence and respect. It seemed during those moments that the soldier we honored that day was some revered national hero, someone whom had single handedly won the day. As if the soldiers we honored at those services somehow represented every soldier who had every fought in or been to battle… the presence or sense that I felt during those sacred moments was if there were literally thousands of soldiers there at that moment, coming to pay their respects, to give reverence and honor to one of their own. On the sometimes long and mostly quite bus rides back to base as I reflected on the feelings of the day…I could easily imagine the deceased whom we had honored being welcomed from this life into the next by the Warriors and Soldiers of yesterday’s battles into a Army of with perhaps a different uniform, maybe a different commanding officer and weapons…but still fighting for the same cause…. A cause of Justice a cause of Mercy, Be-Cause of Freedom.

The fanciful romantic musings of a young Christian soldier?…Maybe so. One thing is for certain though…Funeral Detail was anything but mostly boring and honoring veterans dead or alive is no singular activity. Honoring one is honoring all, honoring all is honoring the one. Today I will find at least one veteran, I will thank him for what they have done, what they were willing to do, what he/she is doing right now and what they may be asked to do tomorrow. My experience on that funeral detail taught me anything it taught me that honoring one….truly can be honoring all…and in honoring them all we miss not a one.

God Bless America and the Soldiers Who’ve Fought for Freedom Kirk Weisler, Former Sgt, 3rd Ranger Bn. , 10th Mtn Division, 19th Special Forces

Hooah and thank you!

I like Jack London’s quote. I think that too often people are in “exist mode”–they strive to simply survive instead of thrive. One of my mottos is: “Live everyday of your life.” “Live” as in truly alive, engaged. One of the ways I do this, is by focusing on the little things, which make such a big difference.

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize that they were the big things.” -Robert Brault

“The purpose of life is a life of purpose. -Robert Byrne

Thanks Tom

Let us use our time wisely and live fully.   Let’s be be fully engaged this week in work, at home and at play.

 Kirk Out