I just received this email from Mac Anderson, Founder of Simple Truths, a company that creates motivational books and videos. It directly relates to what we’ve started talking about, so I thought I’d share it with you. I hope you enjoy it.
Allan
From Mac Anderson:
Something magic happens when we accept personal responsibility for our behavior and our results.
But, it's not easy, because it's human nature to "pass the buck". I (Mac) know there have been times in my life when my business was struggling where I found myself blaming others, blaming the economy, blaming this, blaming that! But as I've gotten older (and a little wiser) when things go wrong in my business, or my life, I can always find the culprit...in the mirror.
In every instance, it always comes back to choices I've made in my life that put me exactly where I am today. I have to say, that this one "tweak" in my attitude may sound like a little thing, but it has made a big difference in my life.
What does all this have to do with change? Plenty!
As a manager, one of the most important things you can do in times of change is to get your people to understand how their taking personal responsibility, their recognizing problems as opportunities, will not only help the company, but will help them as individuals. In other words, sell the idea of...what's in it for them?
Authors B.J. Gallagher and Steve Ventura wrote a great little book about achieving success through personal accountability titled: Who Are "They" Anyway? I like their list showing how each individual in the company can benefit by adopting a "personal accountability attitude":
You have more control over your destiny
You become an active contributor rather than a passive observer
Others look to you for leadership
You gain the reputation as a problem solver
You enhance your career opportunities
You enjoy the satisfaction that comes from getting things done...the power of positive doing
You experience less anger, frustration and helplessness - all leading to better physical health
You realize a positive spillover effect into your personal life at home
According to Gallagher and Ventura, the most important words of personal responsibility are as follows:
The 10 most important words:
I won't wait for others to take the first step.
The 9 most important words:
If it is to be, it's up to me.
The 8 most important words:
If not me, who? If not now, when?
The 7 most important words:
Let me take a shot at it.
The 6 most important words:
I will not pass the buck.
The 5 most important words:
You can count on me.
The 4 most important words:
It IS my job!
The 3 most important words:
Just do it!
The 2 most important words:
I will.
The most important word:
Me
Frank Tyger said it best...
"YOUR FUTURE DEPENDS ON MANY THINGS, BUT MOSTLY YOURSELF."
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
New 3% Club Calendar
The New 3% Club - Knowing and Fulfilling Your Purpose
Date Agenda (Subject to adjustment)
July 27 Course overview, Discussion of gifts (spiritual and natural), Dreams
Aug 3 NO MEETING
Aug 10 Choose Success (lesson 1 with homework review)
Aug 17 Choose who you want to become (lesson 2 with homework review)
Aug 24 Core Values - What are they? What are yours?
Aug 31 Core Values - What do yours mean to you?
Sept 7 NO MEETING
Sept 14 Why Change? What is your burning platform?
Sept 21 What are your dreams? What has God placed in your heart?
Sept 28 Research and Evaluation of your Dreams
Oct 5 NO MEETING
Oct 12 Setting your long-term goals
Oct 19 Milestones and short- term goals
Oct 26 Developing new patterns - incorporating your goals into your daily schedule
Nov 2 NO MEETING
Nov 9 Time Management
Nov 16 Maintaining your goals and self-motivation
Launching the New 3% Club
Greetings!
This week we kicked off the first session of what I'll call the "New 3% Club." Knowing and fulfilling God's purpose for your life. The sound of that just didn't roll off the tongue, so apologies if I condense it to the former, but I promise you the latter will be at the heart of our time together.
Below are the two documents that I distributed on Sunday. Note that this week is a "buy" week and we'll not have a meeting in order to allow people to continue ministering at the Detention Center. I mentioned to the group Sunday that originally I'd looked at this as a 3 month commitment, but with the current schedule plan of taking off the first Sunday each month, we'll be meeting through November.
I hope by now everyone has started thinking about your personal goals for this time together. This series of meetings and the associated work that you do will change your life. The amount of change and success that you enjoy depends entirely up to you! During these weeks together, we'll begin developing a strong understanding of what God put inside of us. What are our gifts and talents? What are the most important things in our lives - our core values? And what would we like to do with those gifts, talents and values?
If that all seems a bit daunting, don't worry! We'll step through the process together and help each other along the way.
Note, if you know anyone else who had interest in getting involved with this, there is still time to do so. Please encourage them!
We're still awaiting the books to arrive, and I'll be in contact with you as soon as they become available. Hopefully SOON! I left a message with Pastor Ernie to see what he could find out about the order and expect a good report shortly!
I'll give you a few things to consider as we await the books, just to help start you thinking. The first chapter in the book Success is Not an Accident is entitled "Choose Success" and tells us that being successful in any area, requires us to make a decision. We must choose to be successful. To do that we must first understand and define what "success" means to us. Every one of us will have different thoughts and understanding of what success means. For one person it might be landing a good job at a local restaurant busing tables. For someone else it might be getting a promotion to a management position. For a third person it might be getting to the place financially that they can retire comfortably. The interesting thing is that what you consider successful today, will probably change as time goes on. Eventually we'll be working to develop long range goals in areas associated with your core values. This will allow you to see how a progression of smaller "successes" will lead to accomplishment of much bigger long term goals. Today getting that job at Denny's busing tables sounds great, being promoted in five years to a management position is wonderful, and eventually having enough financial resources to retire comfortably might be a good long term goal.
Newberry talks a lot about YOU taking responsibility for your choices - your past, your present, and your future. He tells us to eliminate excuses; to take them out of our vocabulary! He encourages each of us to become a doer - refuse to be a victim.
In the homework section he asks us to:
1. Write out your personal definitions of success and failure.
2. Draw a line down the center of a paper and on the left write down everything in your life that you can control. On the right, all the things you have no control over.
3. Write out 20 of your positive characteristics.
4. Write out 20 o your past accomplishments.
5. Write out 20 of your greatest blessings.
6. Write out 20 blessings you expect to be grateful for 9 years from now.
7. Describe your ideal day in detail, from the moment you wake up until you drift off to sleep. Include as many emotion-provoking details as possible.
Get started! We don't have the books yet, but let's make a decision for that to be the first excuse we eliminate from stopping us from knowing God's purpose and plan for us! AMEN!
This week we kicked off the first session of what I'll call the "New 3% Club." Knowing and fulfilling God's purpose for your life. The sound of that just didn't roll off the tongue, so apologies if I condense it to the former, but I promise you the latter will be at the heart of our time together.
Below are the two documents that I distributed on Sunday. Note that this week is a "buy" week and we'll not have a meeting in order to allow people to continue ministering at the Detention Center. I mentioned to the group Sunday that originally I'd looked at this as a 3 month commitment, but with the current schedule plan of taking off the first Sunday each month, we'll be meeting through November.
I hope by now everyone has started thinking about your personal goals for this time together. This series of meetings and the associated work that you do will change your life. The amount of change and success that you enjoy depends entirely up to you! During these weeks together, we'll begin developing a strong understanding of what God put inside of us. What are our gifts and talents? What are the most important things in our lives - our core values? And what would we like to do with those gifts, talents and values?
If that all seems a bit daunting, don't worry! We'll step through the process together and help each other along the way.
Note, if you know anyone else who had interest in getting involved with this, there is still time to do so. Please encourage them!
We're still awaiting the books to arrive, and I'll be in contact with you as soon as they become available. Hopefully SOON! I left a message with Pastor Ernie to see what he could find out about the order and expect a good report shortly!
I'll give you a few things to consider as we await the books, just to help start you thinking. The first chapter in the book Success is Not an Accident is entitled "Choose Success" and tells us that being successful in any area, requires us to make a decision. We must choose to be successful. To do that we must first understand and define what "success" means to us. Every one of us will have different thoughts and understanding of what success means. For one person it might be landing a good job at a local restaurant busing tables. For someone else it might be getting a promotion to a management position. For a third person it might be getting to the place financially that they can retire comfortably. The interesting thing is that what you consider successful today, will probably change as time goes on. Eventually we'll be working to develop long range goals in areas associated with your core values. This will allow you to see how a progression of smaller "successes" will lead to accomplishment of much bigger long term goals. Today getting that job at Denny's busing tables sounds great, being promoted in five years to a management position is wonderful, and eventually having enough financial resources to retire comfortably might be a good long term goal.
Newberry talks a lot about YOU taking responsibility for your choices - your past, your present, and your future. He tells us to eliminate excuses; to take them out of our vocabulary! He encourages each of us to become a doer - refuse to be a victim.
In the homework section he asks us to:
1. Write out your personal definitions of success and failure.
2. Draw a line down the center of a paper and on the left write down everything in your life that you can control. On the right, all the things you have no control over.
3. Write out 20 of your positive characteristics.
4. Write out 20 o your past accomplishments.
5. Write out 20 of your greatest blessings.
6. Write out 20 blessings you expect to be grateful for 9 years from now.
7. Describe your ideal day in detail, from the moment you wake up until you drift off to sleep. Include as many emotion-provoking details as possible.
Get started! We don't have the books yet, but let's make a decision for that to be the first excuse we eliminate from stopping us from knowing God's purpose and plan for us! AMEN!
Monday, July 28, 2008
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