You Are Enough

Your life is speaking to you.  What is it saying?

Oprah Winfrey aired her last show this past week.  We watched it. 

I marvel at the influence this woman has had on so many people for twenty-five years.  She doesn’t hold a ministerial license.  She is not a doctor of anything that I know of, yet she is and has been one major player in so many people’s lives.  She has touched the heart-strings of America. 

I want to recap a thought that she left us with in her last TV appearance.

She said, 

“You alone are enough.” 

That one concept makes me stand up and shout “YEAH!

Oprah said ‘we block our own blessings because we don’t feel enough.  We don’t feel good enough or pretty enough, worthy enough, rich enough.”

The world teaches us that.  Does it seem to you that everywhere you turn someone or some institution is always trying to find fault with you? 

I worked for a retail company who made a big deal out of that fact that the employees always needed coaching.  We could have an incredible week or month in sales, yet there was always something that they could find fault with. 

What a tragedy!

That mentality pervades society today. 

When are we ever enough?  Even at my absolute best, is that enough?  Am I ever good enough?  Handsome enough?  Pretty enough?  Slim enough?  Do I make enough money?  Do I walk right?  Sit right? 

The list goes on.

Oprah went on to say this:  “You are worthy because you are born.”

Wow!  I love that.  “You are worthy just because you are born.”  I want you to grab onto that concept and think about it, believe it, internalize it and live like somebody of worth. 

You are a worthy individual. 

You are enough!

Your life is speaking to you.  What is it saying?

The Go-Kart Chronicles

When I was four we lived in Nashville.  One summer Sunday afternoon my brother, Donny, and I decided to make a go-cart.  We began rummaging around our home and in the basement we found some old boards, nails, four wheels from an old wagon, and a rusty saw. 

Donny, age seven, took on the responsibility of “boss”.  He would tell me what to do and I did it to the best of my four-year-old abilities.  After we gathered our stuff together for this manufacturing feat we began laying out our go-cart. 

One of the boards needed to be sawed to a shorter length so Donny grabbed the old rusty saw and went to work.  I watched. 

He fought with the saw and the board, but just did not make any progress.  That old saw just would not cut that hard old cedar board. 

Finally, he assigned me the task of holding the board still while he sawed.  Back to work we went, with teamwork as our motto.  Donny sawed and I applied as much pressure as my thirty-two pound frame could muster.  Unfortunately, that was not enough.  The board still danced all over the saw horses.

Donny stopped sawing, looked at me and said in a stern voice, “Put more weight on the board!”

He then resumed sawing. 

I was holding onto the board with all my might, and then I had a flash of insight.  I reasoned that if I could get a better grip on the board then I could hold it really still. 

Just as I rose up to reapply more pressure on the board Donny made a big pull on the saw.  The saw came loose from the board.  Donny hit himself in the head with his saw hand; and then he got mad.  He got mad at me, at the saw, at the board, and at our go-cart project, but he took it out on me. 

He grabbed me by the head with his left hand and with the saw in his right hand he laid the saw on the top of my head and gave me two or three swipes with the saw blade.  As he sawed my head he muttered, “I told you to hold that board still!”

My head took four or five stitches and this story has given us some great family laughs in retrospect.

I think there are some principles in this story, and here they are. 

Gather your Supplies (Gather the Facts)

Before beginning any undertaking gather as many of the supplies or facts as you can before you begin.

Sharpen Your Saw (Read, study on the subject at hand)

Put a sharp edge on your most critical tools.  After gathering your stuff, sharpen, clean, organize and prepare them so that you know where they are, and that they are in as good a working order as can be. 

Get a Grip

Get a Grip.  Understand the basics to the best that you can.  Hold on to essential facts and keep a steady hand on your thoughts and the direction in which you are headed.  If you need to make an adjustment, let the critical people on your team know.

Hurts Heal

Hurts heal and stitches eventually come out.  If you make mistakes it is not the end of the world.  Patch up what you can, seek professional help when needed, and apply the appropriate remedy to promote recovery as quickly as possible.

Laugh It Off

If you make a mistake, laugh it off, learn from your mistakes, and move on.  Besides, it gives you something to remember in the future. 

Now, let’s go make a go-cart!

Why I Believe in Hope

Let’s take a stroll down the avenue.  “Well, look over there,” someone says.  “That’s nothing but a pile of rocks.”

The heart with hope sees the same pile of rocks and says, “Oh, look.  They are going to build a beautiful cathedral on this corner.”

How is your hope factor?  Are you full of hope, or are you running on fumes of despair?

Can you see the rainbow of promise?

Can you breathe deeply of the optimism around you, or are you hearing the hum of negativity?

I love what Emily Dickenson says.  “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” 

Hope begins in the dark.  When the world says “give up”, hope whispers “Try it one more time.”

Hope is an anchor for my soul.

Hope promises something better to come along.

Hope sustains in the dark hours.

Hope energizes.

Hope sharpens my vision of things yet to be.

As long as I draw breath I shall have hope.

I believe, therefore I have hope.

To hope is to risk pain.  To try is to risk failure, but risk and pain must be endured because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. 

Do you believe in hope?

Setting People Up for Success

In an age when so much of our business focus is on our last great success, I wonder what has happened to the individual in the process.

You see, I am a big believer in people. I’ve given speeches and written articles on It’s All about People. I’ve even named this blog with that handle.

When I have been charged with the management of individuals my first thought has always been “what can I do to help make you a success?”

It still is. That is why I write and speak along these lines.  I want to help people become better at what they do. I desire to provide the right tools, the thorough training, and the proper mental stimulation they need.

The bottom line is that I want to set people up for success, not failure.

I once worked for a manager who held his cards close to his vest. By the time I came to work for him I had worked in three other divisions within the same company. I had learned a few things, most of which was that each manager for whom I worked had their own slant on certain aspects of the job and the paper work.

It seemed that for the first month I did more to irritate my new manager than I did to enhance our working relationship. For instance, in the nightly paper work, I arranged and stapled the documents in the same way I did in my previous assignment. Mark, my new manager, had his own peculiar ways and order in which he wanted the paper work done.

One morning, in a rather stern tone, he pretty much raked me over the coals for not follow “proper procedure” as he put it. All I had been doing was performing in the way I had been allowed in three other departments, yet they did not match up to his particular way of doing things. He did not properly set me up for success.

How can you set your people up for success? Do you have rigid rules and guidelines and do you communicate them in a fair and clear way? Do you have a proper training program for every person and every job that matters in your organization? Do you want your people to succeed?

Set your people up for success. Give them training, guidelines, samples of the correct procedures that you want followed.

And above all, choose your battles. Not everything is a major skirmish. What is important? What is necessary and what is nice to have but not going to break the business if it is not followed to the letter?

Set your people up for success.