Aaron Rodgers, the Super Bowl MVP, is an example of the tortoise beating the hare. Rodgers was not recruited by any Division I universities. He had to start his college career at an obscure junior college. Cal was recruiting a tight end at that junior college when they happened to notice Rodgers. They gave a scholarship to both players. But Rodgers was not the reason why they made the recruiting visit. After a stellar career at Cal, experts predicted that […]
In business and in life, we talk a lot about winning in the context of competition or contests—of beating others to show we’re better at something. Winning means that someone else loses. It’s a “zero sum game.” While a “win-lose” proposition has its time and place, I’ve found that most situations require a different approach. I recall something Coach John Wooden, a great man and influence in my life, once said: “Winning takes talent, to repeat takes character.” Sure, winning […]
There are a lot of aspects to Habit 1, Be Proactive. The most important aspect to me is that “if there is a will, there is a way;” whatever I need to improve about myself, I can with discipline and humbleness. Constant self-improvement has been vital for me to be successful in my business and personal life. I had to improve on a lot of things. Many of them were quite hard. Initially, my biggest obstacle was my speech. I […]
The book begins, “Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is a another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels perhaps there isn’t.” When I read this seventeen years ago to my daughter, I thought “I am […]
Rescue efforts for the 33 men trapped in Chile’s San Jose Mine have come to a triumphant close with the recovery of the last miner, Luis Alberto Urzua, the 54-year-old foreman credited with helping the men survive 17 days before they were discovered. Their 69-day ordeal—the longest entrapment in human history—is finally over. I marvel at how the world has united behind these brave men and the Chileans determined to save them. Live video from within the mine and hourly […]
I was deeply moved when I heard the story about Victor Perez, a Fresno man who rescued an eight-year-old girl from the clutches of a kidnapper last week. After spotting a pickup that fit a description aired on the morning news, quick-thinking Victor gave persistent chase, eventually forced the suspect to stop and helped free the young victim. We can learn from Victor’s decisive actions that fateful morning. An unemployed construction carpenter, Victor had seen hard times, laboring in the […]
My son and I recently met Jerry Sanders, the founder of AMD – a computer chip manufacturer and one of the giants in the history of Silicon Valley. Jerry was telling us that people often confuse “doing things right” with “doing the right things.” He said it was vital to “do the right things ” as doing the wrong things right ends in failure and burnout. Peter Drucker makes the same point in The Effective Executive. So how do you […]
How do you approach a touchy, but important, subject with someone at home or at work without damaging the relationship? This has always been a challenge for me, and for most people I know. Because we are afraid the conversation will damage the relationship we tend to avoid it or dance around the issue, which in the long-term is more damaging. An effective conversation starts with first understanding what you are trying to accomplish with the conversation? Do you want to […]
I had a conversation with an employee the other day concerning self-development. He believed it was vital at this stage in his career to get to the next level and asked me for my advice. My suggestion was for him to have an intense student mentality right now and to ask for and follow suggestions from his mentors, whether he agrees with the advice or not, as long as he feels the advice is ethical. Why follow advice that you […]
One of the best books written by sports greats is When the Game was Ours by Larry Bird and Earvin Magic Johnson, with Jackie MacMullan. Larry Bird and Magic Johnson will always be linked as two competitors. They are linked like Muhammad Ali versus Joe Frazier and Wilt Chamberlain versus Bill Russell. They first competed against each other in the NCAA basketball championship, which has the highest ratings of viewers of any game in history. They then competed against each […]