THE ACHIEVEMENT DIGEST "TAD" Issue No. 79
“Achievement is always an act of the will.”
 Gene Griessman, Ph.D. Editor
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QUOTES TO PONDER AND USE IN PRESENTATIONS AND CONVERSATION
BRAIN POWER
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
--F. Scott Fitzgerald (American author of novels and short stories, including “The Great Gatsby;” 1896 -1940)

REPEATED LIES
“Tell a story five times, and it’s true.”   --traditional saying  
(Editor’s note.  Masters of propaganda have understood this concept for a long time, and it is often used in politics and in the media today.  Experiments have shown that subjects will disbelieve their own direct observation if it is repeatedly challenged by a false statement.) 

THE DANGER OF FAMILIARITY
"There are no conditions to which a man cannot become used to, especially if he sees that all around him are living in the same way.”  --Leo Tolstoy  “Anna Karenina” (Russian author; considered one of the world’s greatest novelists; 1828 -1910)

OTHER PEOPLE’S FAILURES
“Avoid situations in which someone else’s failure can cause you to fail.” 
--Gene Griessman  “99 Ways To Get More Out Of Every Day.”

BALANCE
“A high achiever's career can be like a walk on a high wire—tipping to the right, then to the left.  The realistic way to achieve balance is through compensation, through counterbalancing. --Gene Griessman “99 Ways To Get More Out Of Every Day.”

THE TOOL-MAKING ANIMAL
"We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us."
--Marshall McLuhan (Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar;1911 –1980)

WHY SOME IDEAS SUCCEED  
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” 
--Max Planck (Nobel-award-winning physicist; considered the father of quantum theory; 1858-1947.  Editor’s note: There are several paraphrased variants of this statement: “Truth never triumphs — its opponents just die out.”  “Science advances one funeral at a time.”)

SITUATIONAL IMPERATIVES
“A brooding artiste or tantrum champion may thrive within a short-lived film production, but television rewards those who are able to meet deadlines and get along with their co-workers.”--Tom Bissell (Contemporary author of “Extra Lives” and contributor to The New Yorker)

HOW TO COMMUNICATE
"Composition is a discipline; it forces us to think…If you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down and then cut out the confusing parts."
—William Safire (Speechwriter for Richard Nixon, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, and syndicated columnist for The New York Times, 1929 –2009)

AN HONEST PRAYER
“God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones that I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.”   --Anonymous

RECOMMENDATION FOR HIGH ACHIEVERS: BE A CONTRARIAN
Just because everyone else is doing it that way is no reason for you to do it that way.

Do not be afraid to be a contrarian when planning your day, your tasks, or your life. You may pay a price if you are a nonconformist. Perhaps a dear one.  But consider that a cost of doing business. 

Contrarians buy when others are selling, sell when others are buying, and work when others are sleeping.   Contrarians are trying the new when all around adore the old. 

Here’s good advice from Christopher Morley: “Read every day something no one else is reading. Think every day something no one else is thinking.  It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity.” This is very good advice for beating the rush, making unexpected discoveries, standing out from the crowd…and saving time.

The renowned architect John Portman believes that being a contrarian has contributed to his success and his worldwide fame.  Portman told me that he reads Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Self-Reliance” every year.  Emerson did not use the word contrarian, to my knowledge.  He preferred nonconformist.  Emerson wrote: “Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist.” 

Emerson recognized that nonconformity is not just a life philosophy, but also a time saver. “The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it scatters your force,” Emerson wrote.  “It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character.”

ASK THE EXECUTIVE COACH
Question: I am forever starting projects that I never get around to finishing.  Any advice?

Answer: Abandoning a project can be intelligent.  Sometimes.  Your subconscious mind may tell you that it is not worth the investment, or that now is not the best time to bring it to market.  Or you may discover that the project is a huge waste of time. 

But if you abandon projects repeatedly, it’s probably a bad habit that needs to be corrected. 

First, do some self-talk.  Tell yourself that you will not be a slave of the clock. Just because the clock says quitting time doesn’t mean you have to quit—not if working 30 more minutes will wrap up the job.

I know it’s tempting to quit, especially if you’re juggling priorities. Or quitting just because you’re tired.  But, it’s important to finish each job once you start if you possibly can. 

Quitting is habit-forming.   But so is finishing the job.   Replace one habit with the other.   Phase in the new habit to displace the old one. 

Do whatever it takes. Grit your teeth. Take deep breaths. But finish. Sometimes you have to act as though you’re an exhausted jogger who sees the finish line in the distance. Force yourself to run those last few yards.

It’s better to make one big effort than it is to start and stop multiple times—and your finished work will look better, too, because it will have fewer seams.

(You can participate in my executive coaching program by phone.  For a description of the program, click http://www.theamericans.us/Executive%20Coaching.html.  Or give me a call at 404-256-5927.  We have an introductory rate for people who want to see if executive coaching is right for them.)

THE LINCOLN LOG:  WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR LIEUTENANTS DISAGREE WITH ONE ANOTHER

William Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, and Gideon Welles, his Secretary of the Navy took opposing views on most issues. How Lincoln dealt with his competitive cabinet officers can be a useful lesson for today’s executive. 

Here’s an excerpt from Craig L. Symonds “Lincoln and His Admirals”:  “Usually, Lincoln brought the two men together and let them hash it out, but on occasion he played the role of arbiter, meeting separately with each man to let him explain his position, weighing and measuring the power of their arguments, then deciding for himself.”  (2008: pp. 220, 221)

A LESSON FROM HISTORY: 

In 1900, the Wright brothers left Kitty Hawk earlier than they had planned, sad and discouraged.  They had endured months of crash landings and injuries trying to make their contraption fly right.   On the way back home, Wilbur told his brother, "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly." 

There’s a similar story from the life of Abraham Lincoln.  Lincoln was so disappointed with his speech at Gettysburg that he told a friend that day, “That plow won’t scow.”   Lincoln was using a farmer’s expression.  A plow that won’t scow is so dull that it won’t break the soil to make a furrow.  Yet Lincoln’s dull plow of a speech has come to be known as The Gettysburg Address. 

What do these stories have in common? 

Neither Wilbur Wright nor Abraham Lincoln really understood importance of what they had done.  The Wright Brother’s seeming failure ushered in a new world of flight, and Lincoln’s speech raised the hopes of a discouraged nation.  Today it is considered one of the finest pieces ever written in the English language. 

Often you just know that what you did wasn’t very good.   But sometimes you are wrong.   Very wrong.

FEEDBACK
“I don’t know when I’ve ever enjoyed 3 days with a speaker so much in all my 10 years of being a VISTAGE chair.  You were wonderful to work with, and the members clearly got great, valuable takeaways from your presentation.” 
--Jean Lauderbach  (Lauterbach is chair of VISTAGE groups in the Cincinnati area.)

“Keep up the excellent work teaching and imparting vision from (Abraham Lincoln), a very principled man.” 
--John Calvin, Wheat Ridge, Colorado

“Thank you for sharing (TAD).  What an amazing wealth of resources.” 
--Jennifer Throndsen, ELL Coordinator, Federal Programs, Palmer, AK

“Gene: Thanks to your including my comment (in a recent issue of TAD), and the great personal compliment, the traffic to my web site roughly tripled.   I appreciate your inspiring writing.”  
--Randall Reeder  www.willrogerstoday.com 

“Another great e-zine, which had the following quote: ‘The most important conversation you will ever have is the conversation you have with yourself.’ Here is my take-off on that quote:

“Life is a conversation. The most influential person we talk with all day is our self, and what we tell our self has a direct bearing on our behavior, our performance, and our influence on others. A good case can be made that our self-talk creates our reality. Many psychologists believe that by thinking negatively, we cause ourselves mental and physical stress. Stress is related to perceiving the world as manageable or unmanageable.”   
--Marvin Marshall, Ed.D.  (Dr. Marshall is author of two highly praised books “Discipline Without Stress” and “Parenting Without Stress” plus many other resources.  You can learn more about his work at www.MarvinMarshall.com.)

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