Aug 27
2:21 PM Tuesday August 24, 2010
by Tony Schwartz
I’ve been playing tennis for nearly five decades. I love the game and I hit the ball well, but I’m far from the player I wish I were.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot the past couple of weeks, because I’ve taken the opportunity, for the first time in many years, to play tennis nearly every day. My game has gotten progressively stronger. I’ve had a number of rapturous moments during which I’ve played like the player I long to be.
And almost certainly could be, even though I’m 58 years old. Until recently, I never believed that was possible. For most of my adult life, I’ve accepted the incredibly durable myth that some people are born with special talents and gifts, and that the potential to truly excel in any given pursuit is largely determined by our genetic inheritance.
During the past year, I’ve read no fewer than five books
May 28
BY AMBER SINGLETON RIVIERE
I was recently interviewed by Betsy Talbot of Married With Luggage, who wanted to know how I managed to bring big projects to completion so quickly. Here are the biggest three steps for me in getting things done.
Step 1: Prioritize.
The first step is to prioritize. This applies to decicinding what projects you take on in the first place, as well as prioritizing the tasks you do each day.
You have to first decide what projects will get your attention. As a business owner, you might have a hundred different ideas for creating revenue streams or even new marketing strategies you
May 12
1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
4. That good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
7. People favor underdogs but follow only the top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
The Paradoxical Commandments were written by Kent Keith in 1968, when he was 19, a sophomore at Harvard College. They were part of The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council, his first booklet for high school student leaders. Here is how it all came about. Read the rest of this entry »
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Kent Keith,
Leadership,
paradoxical commandments,
silent revolution
Feb 07
Steve Jobs, the entrepreneurial genius who co-founded the Apple Corp., is a very charismatic leader of technical people. When his group was designing Apple’s new Macintosh computer, Jobs flew a pirate flag over his building. Its purpose was to signify his team’s determination to blow the competition out of the water. Rather creative motivation.
Good leaders and managers have creative ways to motivate their employees.
Robert Waterman Jr. wrote about Chiyoshi Misawa, founder and president of Misawa Homes — the largest homebuilder in Japan. At least once every decade he “dies” to arrest the momentum of out-of-date assumptions and policies. He sends a memo to his company that formally announces “the death of your president.”
This is his way of forcing the whole company to rethink everything. When employees resist change because they are used to the old way of doing things, Misawa declares: “That was the way things were done under Mr. Misawa. He is now dead. Now, how shall we proceed?” Read the rest of this entry »
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