With respect you entered your work place with respect you depart when you resign. Do not burn bridges. Don’t bad mouth your company or your previous bosses even if they deserve it. They may be your customers in the future. In business, yesterday’s enemy is very often tomorrow’s friend.”
My first boss would still buy me a cup of coffee every time we meet. It’s a wonderful experience.
There is this cute little book entitled Life’s Little Instruction Book and it is a good one. Sold many copies. But what intrigued me was a guy named Charles Sherwood Dane who came out with an article entitled: Life’s Little Destruction Book.”. And I want to share this with you.[1] But I will add some comments and revise it a little to fit our local context.
In essence, what the article is saying that these are the things you can do in order to destroy your life:
There’s plenty more but we don’t have time.
Here’s the thing. There is a big difference between education and culture. Some people are educated but they do not have culture.
This is why you need to be kind to bacteria. To many people I know…they are the only kind of culture they have.
Learn to be tactful…sensitive and kind.
But the best way to attract people is to be Christ-like. Read His story in the Bible.
He showed love all the time. And that’s the reason why it’s been many years now…and there are still so many who are attracted to Him. Include me in the list.
God bless you.
[1] TAKEN FROM “LIFE’S LITTLE DESTRUCTION BOOK” BY CHARLES SHERWOOD DANE
John Maxwell says “Most people overvalue talking and undervalue listening, even those in people-related jobs such as sales. But the truth is effective communication is not persuasion. It’s listening … listen twice as much as you speak.” Too many people love the sound of their own voice with no one interested at all. God has given us two ears and one mouth so we could listen more and speak less.
What is your philosophy in life?
This does not mean that you have to be a philosopher but you and I live with our own philosophies and our philosophy in life will determine for us our destiny for success or failure.
Oliver Goldsmith says: “There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher.”
Listen to this crazy philosophy from an unknown philosopher. He says:
Over the years, I have engaged in considerable deep thought about (among other things): Our place in the universe, ancient civilizations, human migrations, international conflicts, local and world economics, ozone depletion, the human genome, cloning, pollution, racism, local and world politics, population growth, extinctions, natural disasters, the environment, health care, the Internet, human relations, the space-time continuum and other aspects of relativity, and other factors that affect mankind’s struggle to exist.
After all of that deep thought, I have arrived at this conclusion: When all is said and done, in spite of or because of what we may or may not do or think, it is just as likely as not that, for better or for worse, everything will turn out one way or another, sooner or later.
Sounds profound but means absolutely nothing.
But the truth is that a sound philosophy for life will bring about a better life.
Listen to what the late popular speaker Jim Rohn has to say about the challenge of life. It’s a philosophy for success. Jim says:
Here’s the great challenge of life – You can have more than you’ve got because you can become more than you are.
I have found that income seldom will exceed your own personal development. Once in a while income takes a lucky jump, but unless you grow out to where it is it will go back to where you are.
Somebody once said if you took all the money in the world and divided it among everyone equally, it would soon be back in the same pockets. However, you can have more because you can become more. You see, here is how the other side of the coin reads – unless you change how you are, you will always have what you’ve got. The marketing plan won’t do it. It’s a good plan but it won’t work without you. You’ve got to work it. It is the human effort that counts. If you could send a sales manual out to recruit – wouldn’t that be lovely? The major thing that makes the difference is what YOU do.
In order to have more, you need to become more.
The guy says “If I had a good job I would really pour it on, but I have this lousy job so I just goof off.” If that is your philosophy you are destined to stay there. Some people say if I had a lot of money I would be really generous, but I don’t have much so I’m not generous.
See, you’ve got to change that philosophy or you will never have “the lots of money”. Unless YOU change, IT won’t change.
Amazingly, however, when we throw out our blame list and start becoming more ourselves – the difference is everything else will begin to change around us.
My philosophy changed when I discovered the Bible.
Blessed is he who does not walk in the counsel of the jerks and losers, stand in the path of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers…but in the Bible he meditates day and night…and in what ever he does, he prospers.
The thing is I first need to become more before I can be given more. And this is an irrefutable principle for life.
From an anonymous author comes this great story.
Carl was a quiet man. He didn’t talk much. He would always greet you with a big smile and a firm handshake. Even after living in our neighborhood for over 50 years, no one could really say they knew him very well.
Before his retirement, he took the bus to work each morning. The lone sight of him walking down the street often worried us. He had a slight limp from a bullet wound received in WWII. Watching him, we worried that although he had survived WWII, he may not make it through our changing uptown neighborhood with its ever-increasing random violence, gangs, and drug activity.
When he saw the flyer at our local church asking for volunteers for caring for the gardens behind the minister’s residence, he responded in his characteristically unassuming manner. Without fanfare, he just signed up.
He was well into his 87th year when the very thing we had always feared finally happened.
He was just finishing his watering for the day when three gang members approached him. Ignoring their attempt to intimidate him, he simply asked, “Would you like a drink from the hose?” The tallest and toughest-looking of the three said, “Yeah, sure,” with a malevolent little smile. As Carl offered the hose to him, the other two grabbed Carl’s arm, throwing him down. As the hose snaked crazily over the ground, dousing everything in its way, Carl’s assailants stole his retirement watch and his wallet, and then fled.
Carl tried to get himself up, but he had been thrown down on his bad leg.
He lay there trying to gather himself as the minister came running to help him. Although the minister had witnessed the attack from his window, he couldn’t get there fast enough to stop it. “Carl, are you okay? Are you hurt?” the minister kept asking as he helped Carl to his feet. Carl just passed a hand over his brow and sighed, shaking his head.
“Just some punk kids. I hope they’ll wise-up someday.” His wet clothes clung to his slight frame as he bent to pick up the hose. He adjusted the nozzle again and started to water.
Confused and a little concerned, the minister asked, “Carl, what are you doing?”
“I’ve got to finish my watering. It’s been very dry lately,” came the calm reply.
Satisfying himself that Carl really was all right, the minister could only marvel. Carl was a man from a different time and place. A few weeks later the three returned. Just as before their threat was unchallenged. Carl again offered them a drink from his hose.
This time they didn’t rob him. They wrenched the hose from his hand and drenched him head to foot in the icy water. When they had finished their humiliation of him, they sauntered off down the street, throwing catcalls and curses, falling over one another laughing at the hilarity of what they had just done.
Carl just watched them. Then he turned toward the warmth giving sun, picked up his hose, and went on with his watering.
The summer was quickly fading into fall. Carl was doing some tilling when he was startled by the sudden approach of someone behind him. He stumbled and fell into some evergreen branches. As he struggled to regain his footing, he turned to see the tall leader of his summer tormentors reaching down for him. He braced himself for the expected attack.
“Don’t worry old man, I’m not gonna hurt you this time.” The young man spoke softly, still offering the tattooed and scarred hand to Carl. As he helped Carl get up, the man pulled a crumpled bag from his pocket and handed it to Carl.
“What’s this?” Carl asked.
“It’s your stuff,” the man explained. “It’s your stuff back. Even the money in your wallet.”
“I don’t understand,” Carl said. “Why would you help me now?” The man shifted his feet, seeming embarrassed and ill at ease. “I learned something from you,” he said. “I ran with that gang and hurt people like you. We picked you because you were old and we knew we could do it. But every time we came and did something to you, instead of yelling and fighting back, you tried to give us a drink. You didn’t hate us for hating you. You kept showing love against our hate.” He stopped for a moment.
“I couldn’t sleep after we stole your stuff, so here it is back.” He paused for another awkward moment, not knowing what more there was to say.
“That bag’s my way of saying thanks for straightening me out, I guess.”
And with that, he walked off down the street.
Carl looked down at the sack in his hands and gingerly opened it. He took out his retirement watch and put it back on his wrist. Opening his wallet, he checked for his wedding photo. He gazed for a moment at the young bride that still smiled back at him from all those years ago.
He died one cold day after Christmas that winter. Many people attended his funeral in spite of the weather. In particular the minister noticed a tall young man that he didn’t know sitting quietly in a distant corner of the church. The minister spoke of Carl’s garden as a lesson in life. In a voice made thick with unshed tears, he said, “Do your best and make your garden as beautiful as you can. We will never forget Carl and his garden.”
The following spring another flyer went up. It read: “Person needed to care for Carl’s garden.” The flyer went unnoticed by the busy parishioners until one day when a knock was heard at the minister’s office door.
Opening the door, the minister saw a pair of scarred and tattooed hands holding the flyer. “I believe this is my job, if you’ll have me,” the young man said.
The minister recognized him as the same young man who had returned the stolen watch and wallet to Carl. He knew that Carl’s kindness had turned this man’s life around. As the minister handed him the keys to the garden shed, he said, “Yes, go take care of Carl’s garden and honor him.”
The man went to work and, over the next several years, he tended the flowers and vegetables just as Carl had done. In that time, he went to college, got married, and became a prominent member of the community. But he never forgot his promise to Carl’s memory and kept the garden as beautiful as he thought Carl would have kept it.
One day he approached the new minister and told him that he couldn’t care for the garden any longer. He explained with a shy and happy smile, “My wife just had a baby boy last night, and she’s bringing him home on Saturday.”
“Well, congratulations!” said the minister, as he was handed the garden shed keys. “That’s wonderful! What’s the baby’s name?”
“Carl,” he replied.
You know what?
Great story.
You know what?
Carl’s garden bloomed!
It was not a very good time.
I had an appointment with a potential client in one of those high rises in Ortigas and people were rushing to their respective offices. Squeezed like sardines inside aluminum cans people were pressed together inside the small cubicle. A lady’s hair was right in front my face and I can smell the shampoo scent. In fact I could smell different shampoo scents as we traveled up the different flights.
The thing that is so noticeable about elevator rides is that there is no talking inside. People are either looking down at their shoes or looking up at the lighted buttons. Occasionally interrupted by words like, “excuse me” as people get off their floor that is pretty much the sight you see every time you take an elevator ride during peak hours. This reminds me of a story told by Tony Campolo about his own experience inside an elevator.
Tony says: I seem to be particularly dangerous when I get on elevators. Our society teaches us to turn and face the doors and stand there quietly. But in my younger days, I loved to turn around and face the others in the elevator with me and say something like, “You’re probably wondering why I called this meeting.”
Once when I was in the elevator of a New York skyscraper filled with very serious- faced business people, I smiled and said, “Lighten up. We’re going to be traveling together for quite a while. What do you say we sing?” Incredibly, they did! I don’t know whether they were intimidated by me or just wanted to have some fun, but businessmen and businesswoman with attaché’ cases in hand and businesswoman in their power suits joined me in singing, “You Are My Sunshine.”
When I got off at the seventieth floor, one man got off and walked down the hall with me, wearing a big smile on his face. I asked him, “Are you going to do the same meting I’m going to?”
“Nah, “he said.” I just wanted to finish my song.”
And this popular author Campolo is right.
There are many people I know who do not even have time to sing a song let alone finish it. Caught up with the rat race they have forgotten that life is not all out work or making money or building a career but life is about being still, being thankful and having a song in the heart.
Most people want to be happy. But they do not know what they want.
Happiness is so temporary. Happiness is so fleeting. Happiness is so elusive.
What people need is joy.
Joy comes from the inside while happiness is so dependent on happenings.
Tim Hansel says: “Happiness is a feeling. Joy is an attitude. A posture. A position. A place.” But I like what Dwight L. Moody has to say about joy:
“Happiness is caused by things that happen around me, and circumstances will mar it; but joy flows right on through trouble; joy flows on through the dark; joy flows in the night as well as in the day; joy flows all through persecution and opposition. It is an unceasing fountain bubbling up in the heart; a secret spring the world can’t see and doesn’t know anything about. The Lord gives his people perpetual joy when they walk in obedience to him.”
And so that is the key.
Sports Illustrated writer Jeannette Bruce once spent two-and-a-half years taking judo lessons, progressing steadily through the entire spectrum of self-defense “belts.”
“On one rainy night,” she said, “it all seemed worthwhile. The thing every judo student dreams of happened to me. I was walking down Sixth Avenue about 9:00 p.m. when a man stepped out of a dark doorway and tried to snatch my purse. How prepared I should have been, how ready to smash him to the pavement with a flourishing foot sweep!
“Instead … I hit him over the head with my umbrella!”
I suppose most of us can identify with Jeanette in some way. We get a great opportunity to do something worthwhile and blow it by doing or saying something stupid. Or when faced with temptation, we know how to resist the enemy because we know all the right Bible verses to fend for ourselves. However, instead of putting on the “whole armor of God,” we seek to overcome in our own strength–and fail miserably.
However, when we do fail, the important thing is to get up, learn from our mistakes, and go on having learned to put our trust in God in every situation in which we find ourselves.
Cripple him, and you have a Sir Walter Scott. Lock him in a prison cell, and you have a John Bunyan. Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge, and you have a George Washington. Raise him in abject poverty, and you have an Abraham Lincoln. Strike him down in infantile paralysis, and he becomes Franklin Roosevelt. Deafen him, and you have a Ludwig van Beethoven. Have him or her born black in a society filled with racial discrimination, and you have a Booker T. Washington, a Marian Anderson, a George Washington Carver. . . . Call him a slow learner; “retarded,” and write him off an uneducable, and you have an Albert Einstein.
The Wright boys resolved that they would make a machine that would fly. The citizens of Dayton called them “the crazy Wright brothers,” but they kept on with their experiments. The first contraptions they made did not fly, but they tried again and again.
Samuel Morse was told by the United States Congress that they would just as soon give money to build a railway line to the moon as to vote funds for him to build an experimental line over which he expected to send messages. Morse had made some resolutions, and in 1844 he sent over the wires the message, “What Hath God Wrought!”
Fulton resolved that he would propel a boat by steam, and he did.
Ford resolved that he would make a horseless carriage, and he succeeded.
Westinghouse made some resolutions or he would never have invented the air brake. The promoters of the first railroad made some resolutions, too, or the railway would not have gone through to the West.
Carey was a man of faith and courage, and although the heads of the church tried to discourage the young man, he determined that he would carry the gospel to the ends of the entire earth. Many have resolved and broken their resolutions. Thousands have started and have fallen out by the way. But not many people have really gotten anywhere who did not set a goal for themselves and make a start toward that destination. Not many have done anything worth while without a determination to do. Says C. L. Paddock
Don’t give up. Trust in God, learn the lessons and move forward.
Philip Yancey made an interesting observation. “It’s easy to see why people like the sea gull. I’ve sat overlooking a craggy harbor and watched one. He exults in freedom. He thrusts his wings backward with powerful strokes, climbing higher, higher until he’s above all the other gulls, then coasts downward in majestic loops and circles. He constantly performs, as if he knows a movie camera is trained on him, recording.
“In a flock, though, the sea gull is a different bird. His majesty and dignity melt into a sordid slough of in-fighting and cruelty. Watch that same gull as he dive-bombs into a group of gulls, provoking a flurry of scattered feathers and angry squawks, to steal a tiny morsel of meat. The concepts of sharing and manners do not exist among gulls. They are so fiercely competitive and jealous that if you tie a red ribbon around the leg of one gull, making him stand out, you sentence him to execution. The others in his flock will furiously attack him with claws and beaks, hammering through feathers and flesh to draw blood. They’ll continue until he lies flattened in a bloody heap.”
If we must select a bird to serve as a model for our society the sea gull is not the best choice. Yancey has suggested that we consider the behavior of geese, instead. Have your ever wondered why these remarkable birds fly in “V” formation? Science has recently learned that the flock actually travels up to 71 percent faster and easier by maintaining this pattern. The goose on the point of the “V” has the most difficult assignment, resulting from greater wind resistance. Thus, that lead position is rotated every few minutes in the air, which permits the flock to fly long distances without rest. The easiest flight is experienced at the two rear sections of the formation and, remarkably, the strong geese permit the young, weak, and old birds to occupy those less strenuous positions. It is even believed the constant “honking” of the flock is a method by which the stronger birds encourage the laggards. Furthermore, if a goose becomes too tired or is ill and has to drop out of the flock, he is never abandoned. A healthy bird will follow the ailing one to the ground and wait with him until he can continue in flight. This cooperation within the social order contributes greatly to the survival and well-being of the flock.… There are times it seems our society consists of 200 million solitary sea gulls, each huffing and puffing to do his own thing, but paying an enormous price in loneliness and stress for his individuality.(1)
What a tragedy it would be if the only creatures you find in the work place are seagulls and not geese.
Give someone a well-deserved increase and see how the other sea gulls react.
Promote someone to a higher position and notice how the other sea gulls would begin to move into their battle formation.
How hard it is to let people know that it is not their business to mind other’s business but their own.
How harder it is for people to know that the mark of a great person is in his or her ability to rejoice with another person’s success.
The winning company is always a company whose people know and understand teamwork.
Motivational speaker Jim Rohn says: “You cannot succeed by yourself. It’s hard to find a rich hermit.”
And Patricia Fripp says: “A team is a group of people who may not be equal in experience, talent, or education but in commitment.”
And what does the Bible have to say about this?
Speaking to believers, the apostle Paul says: “This should be your ambition: to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we commanded you before. As a result, people who are not believers will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others to meet your financial needs.”
I guess for those who are sea gull types of people in the work place the only good thing for them is this: leave them out in the ocean and watch them fly – maybe forever?
(1) James Dobson, The Strong-Willed Child
I’ve got a question for you.
If your organization needed to make 15 percent of your workforce redundant, do you think executives would have any qualms about letting you go?
When crunch time comes (and to some companies I know, they are in it already….), When there is a call from the top to downsize, or if they will have to replace you with a cheaper alternative – a computer or an outsourcing company – do you think that they would hesitate for even one moment? These are sobering thoughts but thoughts that are very important nevertheless.
All things being equal, your performance, your skills, your accomplishments are important but perhaps more important than all these is the fact that you have to be likeable.
There are people we admire and then there are people we like. There are people who are good in what they do. People who deliver results. People who possess dynamic and strong personality. People who get what they want when they want it and in ways they want it; we do admire people like these; but the truth is we’d go out on a limb to help those we like not those we admire. This is where interpersonal skills come into the picture. The best scenario of course is to have people we both like and admire but these are usually the exceptions and not the rule.
So how do these people get us to like them? What is it about them that we like?
Two words actually. It’s called interpersonal skills.
A business school came out with a survey saying that people skills is actually many times more important than product knowledge and over the years of my own business experiences, I have found this to be true.
Interpersonal skills is a major component of emotional intelligence. Consider where you work and the various people you come into contact with through work. Who is the best manager in your organization? What is it that they do that makes them a good manager? Are they good because they are smart and clever? Or good because they are charming and supportive, charismatic and enthusiastic? You will be surprised as you sit down and make a careful assessment of these. I would hazard a guess that it is the latter case. We may respect people who are clever, insightful, and sharp. But we like the ones who are positive and socially skilled. And, more often than not, we go out of our way to help people who we respect and like rather than the ones we admire.
Emotional Intelligence in one sentence, is the ability to identify, understand, and manage moods and feelings – in both ourselves and other people.
This involves 3 domains of expertise:
Make yourselves likeable. Do not try to impress people all the time. Rather than making yourself interesting, why not make yourself interested and the funny thing is that the people you lead finds you becoming more interesting in the process.
Work is work but it is only a tiny component of life. And so in anything you do, whether you are in a position of leadership or not, never forget that it is nice to be important but it’s more important to be nice.
A dying business man on his death bed called for the family:
Is mommy here? – Sweetheart, I’m here.
Are all the children here?
Yes, they all are here. Where’s Danny – I’m here dad.
Where’s Stephen? – I’m here dad.
Where’s Connie? – I’m here dad.
The dying dad says: Now if all of you are here, then who’s taking care of my business?
Looks like the dying businessman is rich or is he?
I love this story. It’s entitled The Richest Man in the Valley.
A rich landowner named Carl often rode around his vast estate so he could congratulate himself on his great wealth. One day while riding around his estate on his favorite horse, he saw Hans, an old tenant farmer. Hans was sitting under a tree when Carl rode by.
Hans said, ‘I was just thanking God for my food.’
Carl protested, ‘If that is all I had to eat, I wouldn’t feel like giving thanks.’
Hans replied, ‘God has given me everything I need, and I am thankful for it.’
The old farmer added, ‘It is strange you should come by today because I had a dream last night. In my dream a voice told me, ‘The richest man in the valley will die tonight.’ I don’t know what it means, but I thought I ought to tell you.’
Carl snorted, ‘Dreams are nonsense,’ and galloped away, but he could not forget Hans’ words: ‘The richest man in the valley will die tonight.’ He was obviously the richest man in the valley, so he invited his doctor to his house that evening. Carl told the doctor what Hans had said. After a thorough examination, the doctor told the wealthy landowner, ‘Carl, you are as strong and healthy as a horse. There is no way you are going to die tonight.’
Nevertheless, for assurance, the doctor stayed with Carl, and they played cards through the night. The doctor left the next morning and Carl apologized for becoming so upset over the old man’s dream. At about nine o’clock, a messenger arrived at Carl’s door.
‘What is it?’ Carl demanded.
The messenger explained, ‘It’s about old Hans. He died last night in his sleep.’
So who is the truly wealthy person?
I guess the next question I have to ask you is this.
Are you truly wealthy?
The wealthy person is one who is rich in his relationship with Christ. This is why he could say with all of his heart that he lacks nothing.
Many people I know derive their personal worth from what they have.
Acquisitions. Possessions. A personal collection of expensive things that ordinary people cannot afford. They love stuffs. And they need to have them coming all the time. What they fail to understand is that there are now so many things in their closets that no longer make them happy. But the acquisition continues.
Many people derive their personal worth from what they do.
These are achievers. They just have to accomplish goals. Ask them why they have to do this and their answer is simple, “Because I just can’t stop at this point.”
And when the very thing they work on fails, they feel that they are complete failures. And so they have to go to the next project and this vicious cycle continues.
There are also people who derive their personal worth from what they know. They want to be scholars and experts in everything. They show off what they know and feel good when they know more than the average person does. They flaunt their knowledge and display arrogance because this is the way for them to feel important.
So what do we have here? People who are having, doing, knowing…but then deep inside they are not happy.
Happy and fulfilled people realize that they get their personal worth not from what they have, not from what they do but from what they are. It’s not having, it’s not doing, it’s not even the knowing but it’s the being.
They realize the importance on building their character and improving it day to day.
They love to have stuffs too, they love accomplishing things and they love to learn but they know that things, accomplishments and knowledge are mere vehicles on improving their character and personhood.
These people are deep because they have an intimate relationship with God.
They have a greater mission in life. And that is to share God’s love with others and to help others know God too.
They get their worth from Christ who has given them a new leash on life and can now see things in a deeper sense. Suddenly, all the having, the doing, the knowing pales in comparison with the loving and the understanding that God loves them and Christ has given His life for them.
This is true wealth, the missing link in the quest for fulfillment.
Take heed to what C.S. Lewis has to say: God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
So be rich but be at peace and be fulfilled too.
