Author: Bob Dailey

Bob Dailey. Born and raised in Southern California...now in Oklahoma. Graduated from (and met my future wife at) Cal Poly Pomona, in 1988. Married to Janet 37-plus years. Father of two: Julianne and Jennifer. Grandfather of 9! Held many leadership positions in small, medium, and large companies (and even owned a company for about 7 years). Tractor operator, competitive stair climber, camper, off-roader, occasional world traveler, sometimes mountain biker, and writer.

Ode to the Rusty Chain

It used to be important. Its strength was unquestionable.

Ever noticed it sitting there, sometimes coiled neatly, but usually just piled in a corner? It used to be important. Its strength was unquestionable. Its purpose was clear.

Now it sits, out of sight, and out of mind. It waits for a call to action that will never come. Many of its links are bent and twisted. Rust has taken its shine and luster. Time has sapped its strength.

The rusted chain rests. Its inevitable return to Nature has begun.

It has no memories. Its time and experience will add no wisdom. It has no strength of character. No moral values to impart. No lessons to teach. Nothing to pass on to future generations.

It is, after all, just a chain.

Thinking about Redemption

“It comes down to a simple choice, get busy living, or get busy dying.”

If I’m flipping around the TV and happen to fall on The Shawshank Redemption, I stop what I’m doing and watch. It may just be starting. Andy is erroneously convicted of murdering his wife. Or, it could be in the middle, as Andy and Red’s lifelong friendship is building. It could be the end as Andy makes his triumphant escape by climbing out of the hole he dug in his cell and swimming down a 500-yard sewer pipe to freedom. Doesn’t matter, I’m in until the end.

I could go on about all the nuances of the plot, the symbolism, the character development, and the thematic genius of the movie, but I won’t. Well, maybe just a little.

I’m focused on one quote from the movie:

“It comes down to a simple choice, get busy living, or get busy dying.”

Throughout the movie, Andy Dufresne is hit with life-crushing challenges. He takes each hit, feels overwhelmed, and even mourns being the victim. He then gets up, dusts himself off, and takes control. He decides to get busy living. The alternative is unacceptable.

His redemption isn’t just his ultimate escape from the prison, but the redemption all of the people he touches along the way. Andy brings a new perspective to everyone around him. He helps the other prisoners find their own value. He sets in motion a long, and silent, quest for justice. Even as a prisoner, he controls the direction of his life, and his own redemption. It isn’t the world around him, but the world within him that points the way.

Each of us get to make choices…every day:

Make progress, or make excuses.

Add value, or take it away.

Be an asset, or a liability.

Build trust, or erode it.

Help, or hinder.

Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.

Get busy living, or get busy dying.

I don’t know the full definition of redemption, but I’m sure it lies in these choices.

Your Future Called…Here’s 10 Things You Should Know

People will dictate the future. It won’t be a poll, the Internet, social media, or some secret government agency.

The future will start, as always, with ideas. The ideas that become reality will be those that capture the imagination of strangers, most never knowing the origin of the ideas they now “own” emotionally.

People will dictate the future. It won’t be a poll, the Internet, social media, or some secret government agency. People, acting in the pursuit of their own self-interest, will decide with their votes at the ballot box, and the way they choose to spend their dollars.

Nothing predicts your future better than your own attitude and expectations.

The future belongs to those with personal motivation, determination, and a willingness to fail in pursuit of success.

Your future is finite, just like everyone else’s. Enjoy today as your prepare to greet tomorrow.

99.9999% of your success will happen when you open yourself to helping others succeed first. Of course, you already know that since you listen to Zig Ziglar.

The mark you leave on the world starts and ends with those closest to you. Everything else is a bonus.

Learn to teach and you will never stop learning, or helping others. This is closely related to number 6.

You are the only arbiter and defender of your core values. Think about your core values, understand why you have them, and live them to the fullest, every day.

History continues to find its way into the future. Study history. Study the people who drove history. Learn the lessons history provides like your future depends on it…because it does.

What’s Your Personal Net Promoter Score?

Consistent excellence (awesomeness) drives higher NPS…

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption to our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider to our business. He is a part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to do so.

–Mahatma Gandhi

By now, you’ve probably heard the term Net Promoter Score (NPS). It’s a system that focuses on the answer to one simple question:

On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is not likely and 10 is very likely, would you recommend this company/product/service to a friend or colleague?

That’s it. One question that sums up a customer’s entire experience…and also measures their loyalty. A person who responds with a 9 or 10 is a promoter, 7’s and 8’s are passive, and 1-6 is a detractor.

Promoters are not only loyal buyers, but they go out of their way to spread the good news about a company they like.

Passives are just that, passive. Their loyalty is weak…a fair-weather friend. They can be swayed easily to switch to another company if an alternative presents itself.

Detractors will go out of their way to spread bad news about a company. They’ve had a bad experience, and are happy to tell everyone about it.

Thousands of companies monitor their NPS. Perennially high NPS companies include Apple, Starbucks, Nordstrom, USAA, Amazon, and Trader Joe’s. Each invests time, energy, and money to deliver excellence, above all else, to their customers.

Consistent excellence (awesomeness) drives higher NPS.

How much time are you investing in your personal NPS? Are you paying attention to the impact you have on those around you? Are you consistently delivering excellence to those you care about the most?

How would the people you serve (family, friends, co-workers, employees, managers, strangers) answer this question about you:

On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is not likely, and 10 is very likely, would you recommend ______your name here_______ to a friend or colleague?

More importantly, how do you answer this question about yourself?

Seven Steps to Creating Your Goalprint

People who buy shovels don’t want shovels…

There’s a classic quote in business:

People who buy shovels don’t want shovels. They want to make holes, or fill in holes as quickly and easily as possible.

Chances are pretty good that you’re selling shovels to someone. Or, maybe you dig the holes?

Either way, the planning, the shovel, the digging, and the hole itself are all merely steps along the way to achieving someone’s goals.

Your goals? Maybe…that all depends on whether you know what your goals are.

The funny thing about goals is that no one has the same goals. They may share some, or agree on goals to pursue together. But, no two people have the exact same goals.

Each of us has a goalprint as unique as our fingerprint. It captures our passions, our dreams, and the specific goals we’ve laid out for our lives. Partially-developed goalprints live in our subconscious mind, until we take the time to bring them into our conscious mind and fully define them.

Consciously defining our unique goalprint isn’t easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is.

Here are the seven steps for creating and living your personal goalprint:

1. Define five things you are most passionate about, and how you plan to center your life around these passions over the next five years. Not willing to focus your life on this list of passions? Maybe these aren’t really your passions.

2. Define at least seven things you plan to experience over the next ten years. A quasi-bucket list, only with a ten-year horizon. Notice this isn’t a list of seven things you want to experience, rather a list of the seven things you plan to experience. How many of these involve the things you are most passionate about?

3. Money isn’t everything, but it does make the world go around. With this in mind, write down how much money or assets you plan to have set aside for big ticket expenditures (i.e., home purchases, kids’ college, retirement, something you were passionate about in item 1, etc.) in one year, five years, ten years, and twenty years. What income do you need to hit these targets? Start saving now, if you haven’t already.

4. Define what you plan to be in one year, five years, ten years, and twenty years. This can be personal, professional, or anything else you define as what you plan to be. Keep working until your “what” supports what you’ve listed in the first three steps.

5. If you’re blessed with a spouse, or a soon-to-be-spouse, compare and discuss your answers in the first four steps above. What do you have in common? Are your goalprints compatible? How will you each accommodate and support your spouse’s goalprint in the coming years?

6. Hold yourself accountable for fulfilling what you’ve laid out in your goalprint as you make decisions in your life. Enjoy defining success on your own terms.

7. Repeat this exercise once a year.

Unlike fingerprints, our goalprint will change and grow over time. That is, if we have the courage to let it.

____________________

If you found this or any other post on EnCurUj.com valuable, it would mean a lot to me if you would refer your friends to my site. Thanks!

Beyond the No Wake Zone

True adventure happens out past the buoys…

I get seasick easily, especially on sailboats (and fighter jets). I’ve been on a few sailing trips. They all had one thing in common. Once we’re outside the no wake zone, my nausea starts. Things go downhill from there until my head is buried under a towel and I try to sleep until we get to dry land. Needless to say, I avoid sailing trips.

I don’t have a problem on cruise ships, except in rough seas. Cruise ships are engineered to deliver a smooth ride for their passengers. Most swells go unnoticed. Passengers wake up in a new port almost every day, and the food and entertainment are usually spectacular.

Harbor cruises work for me. I can handle cruising around inside the no wake zone, looking at all of the boats in their slips, the nice homes on the shoreline, and passing other boats as they make their way out to sea. Christmas time, with all the lights and decorations is the best. It’s relaxing and safe. There are no swells to cause nausea and seasickness.

Every sailor knows the opportunity for new discovery lies beyond the no wake zone. True adventure happens out past the buoys, past the breakwater, and out in the wind and waves. Riding around in the harbor, or lazily enjoying a multi-course dinner on a cruise ship are fun and sometimes exotic. But, neither compare to the adventure of plying the seas in a forty-foot sailboat, with your hand on the tiller.

What about the risks? Staying on shore has risks. Cruise ships certainly carry risk (and sometimes, viruses). We may take comfort that others are managing our risks for us, but nothing is risk free. Storms and rough seas will hit, no matter who drives the boat. Understanding the risks, planning and preparing for them, and facing our challenges head-on is the only consistent winning strategy…at sea, and in life.

What about seasickness? I remember talking with a sailor in Tahiti. We had flown in for a vacation, and met my mother-, and father-in-law, who were sailing their boat across the South Pacific. The sailor was a friend of theirs. I mentioned my problem with seasickness, and how it would prevent me from making such a voyage.

He laughed and said, “The seasickness usually passes after three days at sea. After that, it’s an adventure of a lifetime.”

He was right.

Balancing Attention

Attention is the currency we use for spending time…

I’ve read countless articles and blog posts about work/life balance. They generally focus on the rigors of managing a business in a 24-hour-a-day cycle. Some are from the manager’s perspective, and others are from the worker’s point-of-view.

Most articles mention sacrifices. How families, spouses, kids, friends, and even our own health and welfare, are forced into the back seat while our hero focuses on the challenges of his/her career path. There’s usually some kernel of wisdom…justification for the decisions being made by all involved.

Achievement rarely happens without hard work, focus, determination, sacrifice, and making the (hopefully) right choices. What are the right choices? That varies for each person.

One thing that doesn’t vary for each person is the value of their time. Time is the most precious and fleeting commodity in our lives. We can’t control time. We only control how we spend it.

Attention is the currency we use for spending time. Like time, our attention is limited. Unlike time, we control our attention. We decide what deserves it, and what doesn’t.

Work/life balance isn’t really about the demands of the job. It’s not about the oppressive boss who demands our continuous availability, or employees who need input and direction at all hours. It’s definitely not about checking our email or social feed every fifteen minutes.

Regardless of its details, if there is such a thing as work/life balance, it comes down to two things:

Realizing that we decide where to focus our attention.
Whether we decide consciously or not, our actions make our attention decisions a reality.

Photo credit: Diane Anderson (my wonderful mother-in-law), who focuses (pun intended) a lot of her attention on making beautiful art with her camera.

The Candy Store

Imagine you’re a candy lover…

Imagine you’re a candy lover. You like all types of candy. Actually, that’s not so hard to imagine for most of us.

Imagine you’re placed inside a candy store. Every type of candy is there. All of your favorites, and some that you’ve always wanted to try, are right there for you. New flavors arrive all the time.

You get to have as much candy as you want. No worries about calories, sugar content, cavities, or the inevitable sugar crash. Just great candy, and it’s all yours.

Two rules:

you only get thirty minutes
you can’t take any of the candy with you

I’ve come to view life as that candy store…especially since I’ve been in here for at least fifteen of my minutes.

Here are seven things I’ve learned about the candy store, so far:

It’s important to get the lay of the land before grabbing handfuls of candy.
The best flavors are the most subtle, and often take time to enjoy.
Some candy flavors mix well, others, not so much.
I’ll never be able to taste all of the candy in the store, and that’s okay.
There are just about as many sour candies as there are sweet. The sour ones help me appreciate the sweet flavors even more.
Most of the candy melts in your hand if you hold on to it for too long.
The best candy, whether sweet or sour, is the candy that you share with those you love.

The Bargains We Make

I bargained with Life for a penny…

I came across this classic poem recently:

My Wage

I bargained with Life for a penny,

And Life would pay no more,

However I begged at evening

When I counted my scanty store.

For Life is a just employer,

He gives you what you ask.

But once you have set the wages,

Why, you must bear the task.

I worked for a menial’s hire,

Only to learn dismayed,

That any wage I had asked of Life,

Life would have willingly paid.

–by Jessie Belle Rittenhouse (1869-1948)

My Question for You

What is your bargain with Life?

Are you working for a penny, or something more?

How about your end of the deal?

Are you even keeping score?

If we get out of Life,

Only what we ask,

I say go for the Moon,

And reach for the stars.

But, are you willing to bear the task?

Will This Be On The Test?!?!

I’m told that this is one of the top questions students (and parents) ask of teachers.

Test questions in school come in many standard forms: true or false, multiple choice, essay…just to name a few. Oh yeah, and word problems! Decipher the riddle, find all the numbers that fit into formulas, and arrive at an answer (hopefully, the correct one). And, of course, remember to show your work.

We’re taught in school that there is only one correct answer to most questions. Columbus discovered the New World in 1492, not 1493. It takes two hydrogens and one oxygen to make water, not two oxygens and one hydrogen. The student’s job is to learn (memorize?) the correct answers and then “ace” their test by answering all of the questions correctly.

It’s no wonder students ask what will be on their tests. After all, their grade is in play. Who wouldn’t want to know what they should study, and what they can ignore? So much is riding on the outcome.

Tests outside of school aren’t as easy. The questions don’t come from our teachers. Variables are often missing, and formulas rarely provide one definitive answer. They aren’t always fair. They don’t come with a study guide. There’s no advice about what should be studied, or ignored. Real life tests come from our family, friends, customers, co-workers, managers, elected officials, our children’s teachers, strangers, and ourselves…on a daily basis. A lot more than a grade is in play with most of these tests.

Attention to detail, listening to what is said and unsaid, curiosity, creativity, openness to risk, connecting with others we trust, and a clear sense of right and wrong are the guides we have in answering the real life test questions we face.

What’ll be on your next test? Everything you’ve experienced in life up to this point, and probably a few things you haven’t seen before. Here’s hoping you studied well.

Test Question: What’s the connection between this post and the sunrise photo?

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My Wage

My Question for You

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