I have a Google alert set up to notify me every time a search on my company or my name gets searched. I received an alert about a blog post that talks about travel and motivation. It turned out that it was based on another product I created through another company that had put out a press release,etc. It is fun to see the links connecting.
Quotes for the week of Septemter 10-14
September 14, 2007 — Stayingintouch
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“A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step”. Mao Tse Tung
“Life isn’t about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain.” An unknown author
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” Author, Anais Nin
“The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one’s life.” The Dalai Lama
“Truth has all the benefits of sham without the disadvantages.” Dutch Proverb
Technorati Tags: Motivational Quotes, Xtraordinary Living, www.productivelearning.com, Rick Itzkowich
Quotes for the Week of September 3-7
September 7, 2007 — Stayingintouch
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3-Sep Labor Day – No QuoteAction sent
4-Sep “You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream.” Author & scholar, C.S. Lewis
5-Sep “The secret of success is the consistency to pursue.” World War I Canadian Soldier, Harry Banks
6-Sep “When a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive” South African Writer, Alan Paton
7-Sep “Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” Helen Keller
Technorati Tags: Motivational Quotes, Xtraordinary Living, www.productivelearning.com, Rick Itzkowich
Hard work is not what it used to be.
September 6, 2007 — StayingintouchDuring our last Mind in Business course in San Diego, we had a very lively discussion on the whole idea of working hard. I just read the following article by Seth Godin that shares many of the same concepts as well as some other ones. I wanted to share it with you because I like the perspective he brings. If you enjoy the article, you may want to consider subscribing to his blog. Let me know your thoughts.
My great-grandfather knew what it meant to work hard. He hauled hay all day long, making sure that the cows got fed. In Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser writes about a worker who ruptured his vertebrae, wrecked his hands, burned his lungs, and was eventually hit by a train as part of his 15-year career at a slaughterhouse. Now that’s hard work.
The meaning of hard work in a manual economy is clear. Without the leverage of machines and organizations, working hard meant producing more. Producing more, of course, was the best way to feed your family.
Those days are long gone. Most of us don’t use our bodies as a replacement for a machine — unless we’re paying for the privilege and getting a workout at the gym. These days, 35% of the American workforce sits at a desk. Yes, we sit there a lot of hours, but the only heavy lifting that we’re likely to do is restricted to putting a new water bottle on the cooler. So do you still think that you work hard?
You could argue, “Hey, I work weekends and pull all-nighters. I start early and stay late. I’m always on, always connected with a BlackBerry. The FedEx guy knows which hotel to visit when I’m on vacation.” Sorry. Even if you’re a workaholic, you’re not working very hard at all.
Sure, you’re working long, but “long” and “hard” are now two different things. In the old days, we could measure how much grain someone harvested or how many pieces of steel he made. Hard work meant more work. But the past doesn’t lead to the future. The future is not about time at all. The future is about work that’s really and truly hard, not time-consuming. It’s about the kind of work that requires us to push ourselves, not just punch the clock. Hard work is where our job security, our financial profit, and our future joy lie.
It’s hard work to make difficult emotional decisions, such as quitting a job and setting out on your own. It’s hard work to invent a new system, service, or process that’s remarkable. It’s hard work to tell your boss that he’s being intellectually and emotionally lazy. It’s easier to stand by and watch the company fade into oblivion. It’s hard work to tell senior management to abandon something that it has been doing for a long time in favor of a new and apparently risky alternative. It’s hard work to make good decisions with less than all of the data.
Today, working hard is about taking apparent risk. Not a crazy risk like betting the entire company on an untested product. No, an apparent risk: something that the competition (and your coworkers) believe is unsafe but that you realize is far more conservative than sticking with the status quo.
Richard Branson doesn’t work more hours than you do. Neither does Steve Ballmer or Carly Fiorina. Robyn Waters, the woman who revolutionized what Target sells — and helped the company trounce Kmart — probably worked fewer hours than you do in an average week.
None of the people who are racking up amazing success stories and creating cool stuff are doing it just by working more hours than you are. And I hate to say it, but they’re not smarter than you either. They’re succeeding by doing hard work.
As the economy plods along, many of us are choosing to take the easy way out. We’re going to work for the Man, letting him do the hard work while we work the long hours. We’re going back to the future, to a definition of work that embraces the grindstone.
Some people (a precious few, so far) are realizing that this temporary recession is the best opportunity that they’ve ever had. They’re working harder than ever — mentally — and taking all sorts of emotional and personal risks that are bound to pay off.
Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you’d rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, tunnel under that barrier, drive through the other barrier. And, after you’ve done that, to do it again the next day.
The big insight: The riskier your (smart) coworker’s hard work appears to be, the safer it really is. It’s the people having difficult conversations, inventing remarkable products, and pushing the envelope (and, perhaps, still going home at 5 PM) who are building a recession-proof future for themselves.
So tomorrow, when you go to work, really sweat. Your time is worth the effort.
Technorati Tags: Seth Godin, Inspiration, Work, Productivity, Xtraordinary Living, www.productivelearning.com, Rick Itzkowich
Quotes for the Week of August 27-31
August 31, 2007 — Stayingintouch
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“When nothing is sure, everything is possible.” British Author, Margaret Drabble
“The best things in life aren’t ‘things’.” Unknown Author
“All the arts are apprenticeship. The big art is our life.” Artist, M. C. Richards
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
Irish Dramatist, George Bernard Shaw
“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance”
Former Harvard President, Derek Bok
Technorati Tags: Motivational Quotes, Xtraordinary Living, www.productivelearning.com, Rick Itzkowich
I owe you an apology plus the cost of shortcuts.
August 30, 2007 — StayingintouchThis morning the phone rang at 5 AM and when my wife answered I assumed it was my sister in-law. She lives in Europe and after 15 years, I’m kind of used to her calling at “off hours.” Unfortunately the call wasn’t from her. It was the daily “QuoteActions” call. Needless to say, this was not good news. The thought that 500 of my clients were receiving a call at 5 AM instead of the regular 8 AM time was very disconcerting.
As I ran to my home office and logged into the server to try to stop the calls from continuing, it was too late. 90% of them had already been delivered, meaning that I was facing the prospect of having nearly 450 people rather upset with me.
While I’m trying to figure out how to minimize the damage, I decided to call my marketing consultant. Even though it was only 5:15 AM I felt rather certain that she would probably be up since I know she has a Wednesday BNI meeting that starts at 6:45am. I was right about her being up. Unfortunately, her husband doesn’t share her same schedule and he wasn’t up. Strike two!
I finally talked to Sue a bit later and we figured out that the best way to deal with this was to offer an apology with tomorrow’s “QuoteAction” and also here on the blog. I’ve talked or corresponded via email with many clients today and all of them were very understanding. Thank you for that.
If you are a “QuoteActions” subscriber and I didn’t personally connect with you today please accept my apologies for calling at such an early time and any disturbance this may have caused you or your family.
But this post is not only about offering an apology, but to also address the topic of “shortcuts.” The reason the calls went out at 5 AM is because I took a shortcut. The system that delivers the calls has a feature designed to prevent this sort of mistake – where the calls get delivered according to the wrong time zone. However this feature adds one more step to the call creation. This has not been an issue because up until now, the volume of calls I need to set up has been relatively small.
However last month’s launch of the “QuoteActions” Private Sponsorship Program has created a new challenge for me. It has been more popular than I initially expected it and the volume of calls I need to set up has substantially increased. I’m in the process of hiring someone to help me do this but in the meantime, I still need to take care of this increased volume.
So last night I temporarily disabled the “time zone insurance” feature figuring that saving the extra step would be significant given the volume of calls I needed to set up. My plan was to re-enable the feature when I was finished. I had successfully done this in the past, so I felt pretty confident it would work. Only problem was that yesterday I forgot to re-set it.
So I have a feeling that this will be one of those lessons that I won’t forget anytime soon about wanting to take a shortcut!
Technorati Tags: mistakes, errors, shortcuts, Xtraordinary Living, www.productivelearning.com, Rick Itzkowich
Quotes for the Week of August 20-24
August 24, 2007 — Stayingintouch
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“There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and second, to enjoy it. Only the wisest achieve the latter.”
Writer, Logan Pearsall Smith
“If you want to be sad, no one in the world can make you happy. But if you make up your mind to be happy, no one and nothing on earth can take that happiness from you.” Indian Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda
“A man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” Chines Proverb
“He who cannot forgive others destroys the bridge over which he himself must pass.” 17th Century Poet, George Herbert
“Courage is very important. Like a muscle it is strengthened by use.” Actress, Ruth Gordon
Technorati Tags: Motivational Quotes, Xtraordinary Living, www.productivelearning.com, Rick Itzkowich
Quotes for the Week of August 13-17
August 17, 2007 — Stayingintouch
If you are currently a “QuoteActions” subscriber and would like to receive the corresponding actions to these quotes, please send me an email requesting them. Just be sure to include this week’s dates in the subject line so I can send you the appropriate ones.
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“A goal should scare you a little, and excite you a lot!” Author, Joe Vitale
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” Artist, Hans Hofman
“Everyone has talent; what is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark places where it leads.” Author, Erica Jong
“I know why families were created, with all their imperfections. They humanize you. They are made to make you forget yourself occasionally, so that the beautiful balance of life is not destroyed.” Writer, Anais Nin
“Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
William Shakespeare
Technorati Tags: Motivational Quotes, Xtraordinary Living, www.productivelearning.com, Rick Itzkowich
You can’t connect the dots going forward
August 17, 2007 — StayingintouchThis is a short video of Steve Jobs 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University. The message he conveys is one that will definitely support Xtraordinary Living. This video is approximately 14 minutes long. Enjoy!
Technorati Tags: Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford University Commencement Speech, Xtraordinary Living, www.productivelearning.com, Rick Itzkowich
Quotes for the Week of August 6-10
August 10, 2007 — Stayingintouch
If you are currently a “QuoteActions” subscriber and would like to receive the corresponding actions to these quotes, please send me an email requesting them. Just be sure to include this week’s dates in the subject line so I can send you the appropriate ones.
If you are not yet a subscriber, you may want to take the two-week $1 trial so that you can find out the tremendous value that these actions add to the quotes.
“A warm smile is the universal language of kindness.” American Writer, William Arthur Ward
“When it comes to ourselves, we are always the exception” An Anonymous Author
“Since God made us to be originals, why stoop to be a copy?” Reverend, Billy Graham
“Kindness is never wasted. If it has no effect on the recipient, at least it benefits the bestower.” Biologist, S.H. Simmons
“Be the change you want to see in the world” Mahatma Gandhi
Technorati Tags: Motivational Quotes, Xtraordinary Living, www.productivelearning.com, Rick Itzkowich
