The weather was perfect today, so I spent eight hours with no breaks working in my garden barley denting what needs to be done.

At about hour five Bette Davis’ comment “Old age ain’t no place for sissies” kept cycling through my brain and boy, is it accurate!

So I decided what other words of wisdom that great lady might have for us.

I like this thought, “Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.” I like it because it really works and you end up accomplishing stuff that is truly amazing.

Davis’ other work insight that really hits home is this, “Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.” You don’t have to be an actor to benefit from this; apply it to every facet of your life and you’ll find the sky is bluer, the sun warmer, people are more interesting and work is more like play.

Terminating relationships, whether an employee or friend, is very difficult and many times people do anything to avoid doing it and it’s hard to say which is worse, especially when we feel sorry for them. But before backing off, it is good to remember Davis’ comment about what they do to us.

“The weak are the most treacherous of us all. They come to the strong and drain them. They are bottomless. They are insatiable. They are always parched and always bitter. They are everyone’s concern and like vampires they suck our life’s blood.”

I’ve always gone my own way, sometimes it was easier, more often more difficult, but even so, I think I’d rather have Sinatra’s words on my tombstone than Davis’, “You know what I’m going to have on my gravestone?”She did it the hard way.””

The final thought I want to leave you with is one that applies more often in hindsight than at the time. “Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; but now I know it.”

Image credit: Aura983 on flickr

In a post last spring, I listed Warren Bennis’ leadership skills and in 7 follow-up posts discussed why today’s managers find it hard to do their job without these skills.

But, in fact, everybody needs them in today’s world; they’re the skills that help you live a better life, raise kids and make a better world—no matter who you are or what you do.

Many of my posts touch on the same facts, but we’ll zero in on more how-to information in this series.

Bennis says that “leaders are originals, whereas managers are copies,” but what does that mean to an individual?

Foremost, it means that you think for yourself, instead of buying into an ideology, religion or what parents, friends, colleagues or the commuter who sits next to you every day say.

That doesn’t mean that you always do things differently or ignore everything you hear, but it does mean that you reserve your right to question, modify and partly or totally reject whatever it is.

This isn’t always obvious. Most adults honestly believe that they are originals, but they forget that their MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) has been shaped since childhood by all those outside forces.

This is even truer of business and political leaders who are rarely original; rather they conform to a general pattern laid down by pundits, benchmarks, and expectations.

As an individual, your MAP is still your own. You can reject all or part of the external forces and, as it used to be said, ‘do your own thing’.

Being an original means that you choose what is best and what to do in each given situation; it means taking in all the wisdom, mundane advice and foolishness and synthesize them into the best decision that you’re capable of making.

As you’ve probably figured out, being an original isn’t the easy way to go. It’s far more comfortable to be a copy; to follow without question the ideology, religion, parents, friends—anyone or anything that takes away the fear of making the wrong choice.

I’ve always been an original, much to my family’s consternation when I was growing up, and to many of the bosses I’ve had since; I even adopted Frank Sinatra’s My Way as my personal theme.

I don’t really remember feeling scared as I careened through my early life doing what I thought was right, but I do know that I learned what my thought process was called when I was in my early twenties. From then on I did it consciously and it’s never let me down.

It’s that process that I want to share with you, because it works.

It’s called “worst case analysis.”

What you do is look at what you’re planning and think about the absolute worst thing that could happen if you do it. Then think through whether and how you would deal with that result. If you can handle it, then you go forward; if it’s too much you go back to the planning board. Works every time.

Do this, and at the end of your life you, too, will be able to say,

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows –
And did it my way!

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