The Secret of a Great Life

Many people have said that the secret of a great life can be found in the Bible. This turns away many folks who may not be religious and who under no conditions would consider becoming a Bible scholar. I'm going to make it easy for all of you. I say that the secret of a great life may be found in the first five words of the Bible! Do you think you can handle that much studying? The first five words are: In the beginning God created... The secret of a worthwhile life is to be like God and create. You may create anything that is in your sphere of interest, but to emulate God, your creation must be constructive rather than destructive. Further, this should not be a one-time thing! You have to try to be creative in every situation throughout your whole life. The one-great-joke-comedian doesn't make it. Neither does the inventor who had one great idea at age twenty, and then spends the rest of his life bragging about that invention, even when it becomes decades-old technology. Every day can contain at least a little creativity: a new recipe variation, whistling a made-up tune, a prayer aimed at a stranger, a neater arrangement for your room, a kind word for someone who feels depressed, a puzzle solved, a few sentences or paragraphs toward a new story or book. Center your thinking on creativity, and you will soon add some zing to your daily routines. It's not variety, but rather creativity that is the spice of life.

Chicago Bears - What Are the Odds?

Yesterday, when the Chicago Bears played the Jacksonville Jaguars, two of their defensive players, Charles Tillman and Lance Briggs, intercepted passes and ran them back for touchdowns. Not only that, but these same two players intercepted passes and ran them back for touchdowns in the Bear's previous game against the Dallas Cowboys. I'm told that this is the first time that the same two players have ever done this in two successive NFL games. What makes the tandem of Charles Tillman and Lance Briggs even more unusual, is that they both wear double integer numbers (33 for Tillman and 55 for Briggs), and they both have double consonants in the spelling of their names. All of these extremely unusual facts suggest that whenever we are facing a task with the odds stacked against us, we should remember that even when the odds of success are very small, they are never zero. If you have enough priority and incentive to warrant tackling such a task, go for it. Charles (Peanuts) Tillman and Lance Briggs have shown that ridiculous odds can be overcome. Maybe they'll even do it again!

Stop Sending Your Money to China

I frequently advocate that people in the USA should Buy American products and services. It's time for outsourcing to end, and everyone in the United States, citizen or not, has a vote in this process. We vote with our purchasing decisions. Whether you are buying a tube of toothpaste, a household product, or a new car, buy something that is made in USA or has the maximum amount of US content. We have to break the cycle of sending our money overseas to China and others so that they can lend our money back to us at high interest rates. Every time you buy a US product you keep money in circulation within the USA; you increase demand at US companies which creates jobs for US workers; and you give incentives for those companies to invest in new equipment and learn how to make better and more competitive products. The economy started downhill when American companies started having products made overseas to enhance short term profits. It's time to think long term and rebuild American manufacturing capabilities. The one and only solution is your looking for the Made in USA label. The government in Washington can't fix the situation, but you can, one purchase of US goods and services at a time. Each US purchase is a vote for prosperity. Read those country of origin labels...Vote early and often.

Priorities and Checklists

I've been away from working on this blog for a while, mostly because my competing time obligations said that something had to give, and this blog turned out to be it. All jobs that compete for your time should be assigned priorities. When I do this, I find that one of two things happens. Either I do the right thing and tackle the top priority job, or I do the wrong thing and tackle lower priority jobs that are easier to accomplish. Recently, I have been doing the right thing - working on my latest novel. In my book DECISION TIME! Better Decisions for a Better Life, I discuss the importance of setting priorities, but I overlooked the self-satisfaction priority of accomplishing something. Sometimes it is important to your ego to be able to check some tasks off of your long list. At these times it is natural to do a few easy and short things so that you eliminate any feelings of guilt and feel free to tackle the high priority difficult and long job. Writing in general, and working on my next book in particular, is usually my top priority. However, I find that I do better writing if I take some steps to clear a few tasks off of my list first. You have to strike a balance that suits your own personality. Procrastination should not be an option. Do something; it's better than nothing.

This Speech Has Been Long Overdue.

Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric Company has made a speech that is worth reading in its entirety. He says things that our leaders should have said long ago. Click on the title of this post to read it.

Everything's Relative

It's hard to believe that it's late spring or meteorological summer, with a long string of temperatures of 60 degrees F or less. It feels quite chilly even though it's June. However, I have to remind myself that most people around here (Illinois) would have given almost anything to get temperatures this warm a few months ago. Our bodies and brains adjust their expectations so that we notice significant deviations from the normal temperature, even as that normal temperature varies over the course of the year. Similarly, a day is longer for a young child than it is for an older person because it is a larger percentage of the life experienced up to that point. This is why time seems to accelerate and whiz by as you grow older. A day, week, month, or year becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of your life. The allure of travelling to exotic places decreases as the number of those trips increase. A tourist and a traveling salesperson have different impressions of the same trip.
All of this is to say that there are very few absolute goals in life. You might as well be satisfied with what you have, because the value of looking for more decreases as you keep seeking additions to what you already have. Enjoy the journey. It's more interesting than accumulating destinations just for the sake of saying you've been there.

Local News vs. World News

I have a relative who only watches and listens to local news. He isn't at all concerned with what happens on the larger world scene. I tend to closely monitor the national and international news while only briefly reviewing the local news. Who is correct? The answer is probably that we are both correct because we have different points of view. My relative is more concerned with his day-to-day costs, taxes, and laws that impact his lifestyle. I am more focused on long-term trends and national/international developments that will have impact on my personal life in the future. The fact that different people have varying viewpoints and priorities is a good thing. Because of this sort of situation, you can have negotiations and family plans where both parties are satisfied with the outcome. If we both wanted exactly the same thing, one would come out of a negotiation the winner and the other the loser. Progress is made when you can satisfy all parties without having winners and losers. To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy, people and countries all act in their own enlightened self-interest. We will have coexistence, peace, and prosperity to the extent that those self-interests are not mutually exclusive.

The Fourth Principle of Negotiation

The fourth principle of negotiation is that decisions proceed from the bottom to the top. For this reason, it may be useful to have some low priority points on which you are willing to give in to your opponent's viewpoint. They may mean little to you, but after you have relinquished something, it is reasonable for you to expect your adversary to offer you something in return. Not only are smaller points agreed before larger points, but also in formal team negotiations there is a "pecking order" for the personnel who participate on both sides. Junior personnel discuss minor matters and are authorized to agree upon them. More senior personnel are required in order to reach an agreement on the more important matters.

The Second Principle of Negotiation

The second principle of negotiation is that you must make it very clear to your opponent which are your top priorities and how determined you are to achieve them. These goals should be reiterated and should seem to be inflexible for as long as possible. There is acting involved in such posturing, but the objective is to find out which party most desires a positive outcome to the negotiations. That party will usually show the first sign of flexibility. If no such flexibility is seen on either side, progress may have to be made as the result of setting a deadline or introducing a third party to mediate the process. A final alternative to inflexibility is to walk away from the negotiation process. If and only if your opponent believes that you are truly willing to stop the process, he may show flexibility and allow movement toward success of the negotiations.

The First Principle of Negotiation (Excerpt from DECISION TIME!)

The first principle of negotiation is that you must be sensitive to the needs of others when you set priorities for what you hope to accomplish. If all parties have the same list of priorities, then it is unlikely that the negotiations will be successful. However, it is usually the case that there will be differences in the priority lists for the two or more parties to a negotiation. This will allow a final outcome where more than one party comes away from the process having satisfied his top priority goal. By being sensitive to the desires of others, you can set your priorities into a structure that makes negotiation success more likely.