A couple months ago I had the opportunity to listen to a great speaker who talked about the importance of relationships. Our relationships in life really define our experience. And as we develop them, nurture them, and take care of them as the precious jewels that they are, we will find satisfaction in life. Now this speaker talked about 4 types of relationships we must make sure are “right” or are in harmony in order to be happy. These 4 are also in order of importance with #1 being the most important and on down.
Inward Relationship
The number one most important relationship we must develop in life is our inward relationship—how we treat our self. Without a good inward relationship, we are destined to struggle. If we do not respect, build up and take care of ourselves, how can we expect anyone else to do so? Developing our inward relationship is so important! Think about it, how do we talk to ourselves, how do we treat ourselves? If we are constantly criticizing or putting our self down than we need to change. We need to build ourselves up, talk positively, look for the good within us. We need to not take ourselves too seriously and forgive ourselves when we make mistakes or fall short of our expectations. This is our most critical relationship that we must take care of and develop in order to have success in life.
Upward Relationship
The next critical relationship is our upward relationship or our relationship with God or our Supreme Being. Having a genuine relationship with God helps us to care for others and our self. It helps us be grateful, humble, and wise. It builds confidence in the fact that we are unique, special and cared about. It comforts us in times of difficulty and distress. It gives us hope that we can do better and that life can be better. Developing our upward relationship is important to success and satisfaction in life.
Downward Relationship
How do we treat others who may be viewed as “below us” in terms of how the world sees it? How do we treat our subordinates at work, or our children, or the janitor who cleans our office? How do we treat those who are not as fortunate as us? Seeing them as people and treating them with respect and dignity and helping them when prompted to is so important to our personal satisfaction in life and says a lot about who we are as a person. We must take care of our downward relationships and see people as equals. We are all just people—all with very similar fears, worries, and problems. Treating all people equal and helping others when possible is looking out for those downward relationships.
Outward Relationship
Finally our relationships with our friends, co-workers, spouse, family, and others. These relationships with our peers is important for our well-being and happiness. We must seek to always value them and avoid taking them for granted. Relationships even with our closes friends and family members can be ruined and destroyed quickly if we do not constantly nurture them. Don’t take lightly the responsibility to protect these relationships.
Relationships are so crucial to our overall satisfaction and development in life. We need to become masters at nurturing and developing all of our relationships including our inward, upward, downward, and outward relationships. After all, if we don’t have each other, what value do we have in life? As we learn to master our four critical relationships in life, our satisfaction and success will significantly increase.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Yes We Can!
I realize this is a catchy phrase or slogan often used for political speeches, campaigns, and agendas. But this is not the purpose of my title or blog this morning. Though it is election season, my desire it not to push a political agenda but rather to create a revolution of self-belief. I want everyone to believe and say a resounding “yes we can” when it comes to being successful in life. If we as people could simply believe in ourselves, our capacities, talents, abilities, we could become so much more, contribute such greater amounts to our society, and have such a stronger influence on others for good. Yes each of us can have a profound impact on this world! We just have to believe it!!
At my business, one of our core values is Greatness. We define greatness as doing our personal best every day and helping others to do the same. This is what we all strive to do. Imagine if each of us strived to do our personal best each day in everything we do. Imagine if we tried to be a better employee or employer each day, a better husband and father, a better member of our community, a better son, daughter, sister, brother, a better friend, a better person. Imagine if this was everyone’s mantra in life—to do their personal best each day—how different would the world be?
Now if greatness is defined as doing our personal best every day and helping others to do the same then everyone can be great! It does not matter our experience in life, our backgrounds, our education, our talents or hobbies, our positions at work, our circumstances, our socioeconomic status, everyone has the capacity and ability to be great every single day. Though different from everyone else, each of us can do our personal best every single day. There is no one that can stop us other than ourselves. We decide and we can do it!
Now doing this is not easy and we will falter at times and have bad days. That is part of life. But if we can commit to this, to greatness, we will begin to make great strides of improvement. And as we improve each day, it will become a little bit easier the next day. Again this is absolutely not easy but with focus, effort, and determination, it can be done. I’ve seen it at my place of work.
I’ve heard said, “Life by the yard is hard but by the inch it is a cinch.” Thus each of us can strive to do this just one day, that’s it. And then after we do it one day we can then try for another, and then another one after that, until it becomes who we are. If we do this one day at a time and wake up each morning with a determination to do our personal best for that day and that day only, we will obtain success in life. There will be no stopping us!
So, Yes we Can! Yes we can be something special! Yes we can do something great! Yes we can have a profound impact on the world! The only one that can hold us back is ourselves. Because each of us has the capacity, talents, and ability to be great every single day! I truly believe this and so should you! Yes we can!
At my business, one of our core values is Greatness. We define greatness as doing our personal best every day and helping others to do the same. This is what we all strive to do. Imagine if each of us strived to do our personal best each day in everything we do. Imagine if we tried to be a better employee or employer each day, a better husband and father, a better member of our community, a better son, daughter, sister, brother, a better friend, a better person. Imagine if this was everyone’s mantra in life—to do their personal best each day—how different would the world be?
Now if greatness is defined as doing our personal best every day and helping others to do the same then everyone can be great! It does not matter our experience in life, our backgrounds, our education, our talents or hobbies, our positions at work, our circumstances, our socioeconomic status, everyone has the capacity and ability to be great every single day. Though different from everyone else, each of us can do our personal best every single day. There is no one that can stop us other than ourselves. We decide and we can do it!
Now doing this is not easy and we will falter at times and have bad days. That is part of life. But if we can commit to this, to greatness, we will begin to make great strides of improvement. And as we improve each day, it will become a little bit easier the next day. Again this is absolutely not easy but with focus, effort, and determination, it can be done. I’ve seen it at my place of work.
I’ve heard said, “Life by the yard is hard but by the inch it is a cinch.” Thus each of us can strive to do this just one day, that’s it. And then after we do it one day we can then try for another, and then another one after that, until it becomes who we are. If we do this one day at a time and wake up each morning with a determination to do our personal best for that day and that day only, we will obtain success in life. There will be no stopping us!
So, Yes we Can! Yes we can be something special! Yes we can do something great! Yes we can have a profound impact on the world! The only one that can hold us back is ourselves. Because each of us has the capacity, talents, and ability to be great every single day! I truly believe this and so should you! Yes we can!
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Beautiful Discipline
About a month ago I read an interesting short article by author Patrick Lencioni called “The Beauty of Discipline”. In it he explained that discipline was essential to success in life and I agree completely with him.
The truth is, having discipline at times is annoying, difficult, boring, methodical, repetitive, discouraging, hard, etc. At times it seems to limit our freedom and ability to do what we “really” want to do. Having discipline can make us tired, feel overwhelmed, and even can drive us near crazy sometimes. So why have it at all?
Well, Lencioni mentioned that looking back on his life discipline was the critical piece in everything he now did well as well as the missing piece in those things he never became good at. The same is probably true for all of us. To be truly good at something, it requires discipline. And the more we have of it, often the better we are at it.
For many of us, we have discipline now in hopes that one day we can abandon it. We dream that eventually we will be able to do whatever we want, whenever we want. We imagine that one day we can live a life completely void of discipline and structure. We believe this will be a happier, more fulfilling life and would indeed represent success. These thoughts however are misguided.
You see, discipline is what really gives us satisfaction in life. Without it, Lencioni wrote in his article that he felt empty, sluggish, aimless, wasteful, and so would we without it. (Perhaps we’ve even experienced this on a prolonged vacation or an extended activity that seemed to really be no more than a waste of time.) Discipline gives us purpose, allows us to progress, and helps us feel good about the contributions we are making.
So, though we may dread living a structured and disciplined life, it provides a sense of humility and accomplishment that we cannot get in any other way. Discipline is needed for success and satisfaction. Discipline helps us to cherish those precious moments when we do have some free time. In the end, living a disciplined life is a blessing and will help us accomplish our goals and dreams. A disciplined life is one full of sacrifice, progress, and satisfaction—a life worth living. Discipline makes us better people. Discipline will help us reach our full potential. So the next time we feel we could do without it, we need to remember the “beauty of discipline.”
The truth is, having discipline at times is annoying, difficult, boring, methodical, repetitive, discouraging, hard, etc. At times it seems to limit our freedom and ability to do what we “really” want to do. Having discipline can make us tired, feel overwhelmed, and even can drive us near crazy sometimes. So why have it at all?
Well, Lencioni mentioned that looking back on his life discipline was the critical piece in everything he now did well as well as the missing piece in those things he never became good at. The same is probably true for all of us. To be truly good at something, it requires discipline. And the more we have of it, often the better we are at it.
For many of us, we have discipline now in hopes that one day we can abandon it. We dream that eventually we will be able to do whatever we want, whenever we want. We imagine that one day we can live a life completely void of discipline and structure. We believe this will be a happier, more fulfilling life and would indeed represent success. These thoughts however are misguided.
You see, discipline is what really gives us satisfaction in life. Without it, Lencioni wrote in his article that he felt empty, sluggish, aimless, wasteful, and so would we without it. (Perhaps we’ve even experienced this on a prolonged vacation or an extended activity that seemed to really be no more than a waste of time.) Discipline gives us purpose, allows us to progress, and helps us feel good about the contributions we are making.
So, though we may dread living a structured and disciplined life, it provides a sense of humility and accomplishment that we cannot get in any other way. Discipline is needed for success and satisfaction. Discipline helps us to cherish those precious moments when we do have some free time. In the end, living a disciplined life is a blessing and will help us accomplish our goals and dreams. A disciplined life is one full of sacrifice, progress, and satisfaction—a life worth living. Discipline makes us better people. Discipline will help us reach our full potential. So the next time we feel we could do without it, we need to remember the “beauty of discipline.”
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