Success has as many definitions as there are people and the best ones are those that are private. You know, the ones you think about at 3 am or hug to yourself as you fall asleep at night.
Most of the quotes about success follow predictable lines and there are enough to count instead of sheep if you’re having problems sleeping. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad choice for today, it just means I had to look a little harder to avoid boring you.
Oh well, in a salute to the norm we’ll start with Harry F. Banks comment, “For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.” Or we can translate it to Miki-speak and say it’s all in your MAP.
And that means, as Adlin Sinclair said, “You are the embodiment of the information you choose to accept and act upon. To change your circumstances you need to change your thinking and subsequent actions.”
Lily Tomlin hit the nail on the head when she said, “The road to success is always under construction”
And Anon backs that up with a nice little play on words, “Success comes in cans; failure in can’ts.” (I love language plays like that.)
Albert Einstein offers up a great formula for success, “If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.” Funny how many people forget just how critical ‘Z’ is to achieving ‘A’.
But it is T.S. Eliot who offers up the real truth of the subject, “Success is relative: It is what we can make out of the mess we have made of things.”
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Earlier this year I was working with a client, Jim, on various management approaches, such as offering good feedback and open sharing of all information, i.e., not dribbling it out over multiple requests, that he wanted to integrate into the company culture. During the conversation he asked me “What can I do to open the minds of some of my managers?”
Unfortunately, there is really nothing you can do to force a person to change the way they think, but there is much you can do to encourage it. I honestly believe that the fastest, as well as the most potent, way to encourage change is good old VSI.
I used to believe that people had to perceive the need for change before they could change, but based on experience I’ve found that if they see benefits to themselves from doing things differently they will start moving in that direction and the results can be almost surreal.
Jim had a manager who was known for making his people come to him constantly to get the information necessary to do the work they were assigned. His attitude/actions resulted in higher-than-normal turnover in his group, but he insisted that he wasn’t doing anything and people could get the information at any time, so there was no correlation.
Using VSI, Jim and I worked out a two-prong approach to change his behavior.
20% of his annual bonus was tied to reducing his group’s turnover by 30% (which would bring it in line with the company as a whole); and
Jim started doing to the manager as he did to his group by forcing him to come and ask and then dribbling out the information he needed to meet his targets.
Part of the manager’s reaction was straightforward—he grumbled a bit about the retention bonus. But the surreal part was in his reaction to the information plug—nothing, not a word or an action to acknowledge what was going on.
However, he must have noticed, because within days of it starting he was giving more complete information to his people.
Not all at once and not very graciously, but he loosened his hold on the information flow, so did Jim. If the manager backtracked Jim tightened up and the manager learned that to get he had to give.
At first, his people were cautious, not really trusting the new openness, but after about a month the results started and after six weeks they took off like a rocket—productivity and retention zoomed north, while grumbling and discontent headed south and on into oblivion.
But the surreal part is that, in spite of his people commenting publicly on how differently he was handling assignments, meetings, etc., to this day the manager claims that nothing changed and certainly not him.
Do you like to impress people? Do you want to be seen as intelligent; a person who is going somewhere?
Then here’s a secret few people think about.
Successful people are usually great communicators and the hallmark of great communications is clarity of thought. What people don’t think about is that clarity applies to all communications—including insults.
Practice clarity in all your communications and if it’s necessary to insult someone, and at times it is—or at least it feels that way—your insults should be offered with the same clarity and a whole lot of class.
The need for clarity is obvious—you want the person you’re insulting, and anyone else who is cognizant of it, to not only know your opinion, but to be impressed with your elegance.
Any idiot can say, “She’s dumb” or “he’s a *%$# jerk,” but those insults have no real meaning.
In fact, the minute you resort to expletives to describe a person or action you prove yourself to be a person of small intellect and smaller vocabulary.
Clarity is the key—using the fewest words, while allowing no question as to meaning or intent, as is shown by these three historic figures.
Clarence Darrow: “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
Abraham Lincoln: “He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I know.”
Oscar Wilde: “He has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends.”
Additionally, when you’re insulted, especially by someone with clarity and class, you want to respond in kind as was done here.
George Bernard Shaw sent a note to Winston Churchill saying, “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend… if you have one.”
To which Churchill responded, “Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.”
No question as to what either thought of the other.
Mark Twain was a master of perfectly barbed clarity, “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”
And before you think that the art or the clear and classy insult is a thing of the past, take a look at three modern examples,
“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” –Billy Wilder
“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.” –Robert Redford
And I absolutely love this one,
“He had delusions of adequacy.” –Walter Kerr
Practice with a friend, it’s fun and you will acquire a skill that sets you apart.
There are many wise words attributed to Chinese Proverbs and these certainly qualify, “A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion.” These days, public opinion vies with “leaders” for the same followers—those who don’t want to bother thinking for themselves.
Bill Cosby has the right response to that, “A word to the wise ain’t necessary, it’s the stupid ones who need the advice.” Of course, they don’t listen, but that never stopped anyone from trying.
Following Gandhi’s teaching is a good way to move towards wisdom, “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” Now, that is really smart advice, ensures that you have a great past, a wonderful present, and is the closest you can come to guaranteeing the future.
Leo F. Buscaglia said, “We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn’t. Success often lies just the other side of failure,” and I think he’s on to something. As dark as things seem now we’re all going to emerge from this stronger.
Abraham Lincoln really understood that; he said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Too bad so many on and around Wall Street failed that test, but it does take us full circle to the proverb that started this week and a powerful motivation to make your own decisions.
The best way to succeed is to identify the things you do well and that make you, by your own definition, happy.
The most important words in the above sentence are ‘by your own definition’.
Embracing external definitions of success that don’t really match your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™), or forcing yourself into a role that everyone except you thinks is right, not only leads to unhappiness, but to broken health and wrecked relationships.
Follow these 4 steps on the path to success.
Find your own definition of ‘happy;
recognize that the definition will change many times throughout your life as you change;
Southwest Airlines, like Zappos, has a corporate culture that is head and shoulders above most and is the envy of their competitors.
Southwest’s culture is so important that the company walked away from a deal to buy Frontier Air Lines.
It is that culture has helped Southwest weather the current financial storm and it zealously guards that culture because it knows it is the true foundation of its strength..
As Gary C. Kelly, Chairman, President and CEO, said in the during the Q2 Earnings Call,
“Excluding special items, we reported a second quarter profit of $59 million and that was $0.08 a share. And I would say given the deep recession that that is a very solid performance and, of course, I’m very proud of our people on every front. We continue to manage through the economic crisis with a lot of change and all the while our folks are delivering a very high-quality operation and outstanding customer service, so I’m very, very proud of them.”
The call was primarily with analysts, although many investors probably joined it, and the introduction included the following statement,
“This call will also include references to non-GAAP results; therefore, please see our earnings press release in the Investor Relations section of our website at Southwest.com for further information regarding our forward-looking statements and for a reconciliation of our non-GAAP results to our GAAP results.”
So if you’re Southwest and known for a fun culture, how do you incorporate that into something as eye-glazing as explaining GAAP, AKA Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, at your annual meeting?
Easily. You just ask David Holmes, known as the Rapping Flight Attendant, to explain it.
Last week when I was looking for Ted Kennedy quotes I ran across this one from Frank Dane, “Life is strange. Every so often a good man wins.”
I liked it so much that this week I went looking to see what else Dane said; I found other insightful comments, so tried to track down a bio on Dane—no luck.
More quotes, but nowhere could I find information on who he is or what he does.
I’m sharing the quotes anyway and if any of you know more about him please share your knowledge in the comments.
Obviously, Dane did not have a great respect for those in politics…
“Never vote for the best candidate, vote for the one who will do the least harm”
“The news of any politician’s death should be listed under ”Public Improvements.””
“Where the criminals cover their crimes by making them legal.” [On Washington D. C.]
However, he did have a wonder grasp on finances and success…
“Remember when $25, 000 was a success? Now it is a garbage collector.”
“A set of rules laid out by professionals to show the way they would like to act if it was profitable.”
“Blessed is he who talks in circles, for he shall become a big wheel.”
My favorite is his comment on us, us in any country, city or any conceivable grouping…
“Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the rage today and it will set the pace tomorrow.”
Success has as many definitions as there are people and the best ones are those that are private. You know, the ones you think about at 3 am or hug to yourself as you fall asleep at night.
Tuesday I shared my version of 
Based on reader reactions, 
I liked it so much that this week I went looking to see what else Dane said; I found other insightful comments, so tried to track down a bio on Dane—no luck.
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