Born without eyes

I normally do not watch the show Extreme Home Makeover. I can not tolerate being yelled at. I understand that this is a gimmick and the show does great things, but personally it gets in the way of the message.

That small pet peeve aside, I was blessed to watch the show last night. For those that missed the show, copy the link at the bottom and select the Hughes Family.

The show demonstrated so well the benefits of the power of choice over resignation. The Hughes' are obviously very special people who refused to surrender to the injustices of life. When their first son, Patrick Henry, was born, the doctors stated that there were a "multitude of anomalies".

I remember when my son was born; I was hypersensitive to the words and actions of the docs and nurses. A comment like “multiple anomalies” would have made my anxiety level ring the bell.

As it turned out, Patrick Henry was born without eyes and his arms and legs were not capable of full extension. His parent’s initial reaction was predictable. According to Mrs. Hughes, she stayed up at night and thought of all the things her son would not be able to do.

I strongly believe that this is a necessary part of the healing process. However, so many never get past this “stage". They continue to wonder what they did to deserve a “disabled” child and how will they possibly cope.

This is the point where the words and actions of the family began to impact me.

Mr. Hughes stated that he and his wife came to the realization that this is what they had been handed and it was time to get to work. They were determined to give their son the same chances they would give an able bodied child. Mrs. Hughes stated that they did not hide or coddle him. They put him out there and pushed him to be outgoing. They did not dwell on the handicaps.

Mr. Hughes took a nighttime job so he could spend time with his son. Since he could not play ball with his son, he exposed him to music. This mutual admiration for music created a bond between father and son and music quickly became the center of Patrick Henry’s life. He plays the piano, trumpet and writes music. He learned to focus on his strengths and make the best of what he had.

In watching this show I believe that most would concentrate on Patrick Henry, and deservedly so. He is an incredible human being. However, my focus was on the parents.

The choices they made when Patrick Henry was born totally impacted the life their son is now enjoying. By not allowing negativity to rule their life, they created an environment where young Patrick Henry would be confident in his abilities and his place in this world.

In addition, many would talk of the sacrifices the parents made for their son. Not the Hughes. They believe they are blessed. While this may be true, I think they created their own blessing by making the choice to build an environment that was filled with love, but did not coddle their son. They pushed him to learn and use the assets he had and not focus on those he did not have. Most importantly they were there as his support system.

The Hughes’ are givers, not takers. At the end of the show it went almost unnoticed that Mr Hughes stated that the house is something that the family will continue to earn, they will continue to give back. That absolutely floored me.

At the end of the show, Patrick also made a couple of very profound statements.

• “God made me blind and unable to walk. Big Deal” and
• “My message to not only people my age but to everybody is that it doesn't matter what types of disabilities you are born with or the problems you face on a day to day basis, if you set your mind to achieving a goal, than you can do it.”

Now is that an attitude.

It is so easy for us to make excuses for not achieving our goals. Sometimes it takes the actions of people like the Hughes to show us the lameness of our efforts.

http://dynamic.abc.go.com/streaming/landing?lid=ABCCOMGlobalMenu&lpos=FEP

Money’s impact on choices

It is interesting to me how money changes the dynamics of the choices we make.

We are currently in a transaction with another Company that has turned sour. I understand that I am very biased in this discussion, but the point is not who is right or wrong, it is the frame of mind in which the parties enter the negotiations.

The president of the other company is convinced that he is right and is unwilling to discuss anything other than the fact that he and his Company were wronged. For arguments sake, let’s assume that he is correct (which he is not). Let’s look at the positive choices he could have made:

1. Before the transaction, he could have provided the customer with such good customer service that they would never even think of going to another vendor. Keeping in touch with the needs and expectations of the customer is paramount in any business transaction.

2. He could have called his team together to review what happened and learned from the transaction.

3. He could take the information he learned from number 2 above and redesign his process to assure it would not happen again.

4. If he found in his review that they did everything right, he could write a letter or have a conversation with the customer explaining the value they brought to the transaction and request another chance.

5. He could understand that business and life are not fair, learn from the transaction and go get more business.

6. He could quit looking at it as a transaction and start looking at it as a relationship that needs to be protected and cherished.

Now let’s look at the negative choices that he could make:

1. He could call the customer and whine about how he was wronged.

2. He could call a lawyer to teach the @&#*^Q(%’s a lesson they will not soon forget.

3. He can be closed minded and not learn from the process.

4. He could blame another party for his misfortune and penalize them for his perceived wrongdoing. In this circumstance, he cannot possibly be enjoyable to be around. In addition, his anger will be a cancer to all around him and eventually it will infect all levels of his organization. This negativity will become the culture of the Company.

Unfortunately for all involved, he may make all four of the negative decisions. It will be his and his Company's loss. They have the potential to lose financially, but more importantly, culturally. Positive energy can not manifest itself in a negative environment.

It is my belief that this “gentleman” would have acted differently if this transaction did not have dollar signs attached to it. He started counting his money before he earned it. By giving your customer value before, through and after the transaction, you lock them up and they become an annuity. More importantly they become your advocates and you do not have to sell. They do it for you.

Teenage Attitude

“Your Attitude determines your altitude”

While I am not sure who coined this quote, I have had the privilege to meet the young lady that has brought it to life.

When Christina walks down a hall, she leaves a stream of smiles on the faces of all she passes. Her internal joy for living could not possibly be contained within her petite frame. It demands exposure. While others need a stimulus to be happy, not Christina…she is the stimulus.

Bringing joy to those around her is not her intent; it is just an added bonus she gives to the world.

At a very young age Christina learned that her attitude is her choice and she decided to love herself and enjoy life. She has had as many setbacks as those that choose to whine about life’s inequities; she just looks for ways to make them tolerable, if not enjoyable.

This weekend Christina led a group of girls into battle against the power house that is Carmel girls swimming. Although Carmel has an unbelievable string of State Championships (I think 21 prior to this year), the Southeastern Girl’s swim team believed in their chances of unseating the reigning champions. It is my belief that the fear of Southeastern, brought the Carmel team together for an incredible state meet performance.

The amazing part of the meet for me however was the maturity and spirit shown by the Southeastern girls. They may not have won the meet, but they swam and dived fantastically and enjoyed the moment. I took several photos and it was very apparent that the team morphed itself into a group of Christina’s. They took joy in each others successes and sympathized with those that did not meet their goals. Most of all, they enjoyed the camaraderie of their peers. This team will miss Christina in the pool but even more out of the pool.

I recently had a father of a fellow swimmer state that Christina gives him better hugs than his own kids. I could not agree more. While most kids have a goal to make millions of dollars, Christina’s goal is to make millions of people smile. She may have to change that “M” to a “B”. I think she has already made millions smile.

She also has a mission to find someone as “cool as her”. That will be very difficult. With several years head start, I have found very few in that class. Christina, I cannot thank you enough for the gift of your friendship.

Preparation

"In sales, or any business effort, or career position, the person who will emerge victorious most of the time, is the person who wants it the most. The victory we call success goes to the best prepared. It appears that there are very few people who are willing to put forth the effort to get from where they are to where they want to be. Most make excuses and blame others for their own poor choices" (Jeff Gitomer)

I could not state this any clearer. It continues to amaze me how often I hear of all the obstacles to success rather than the steps necessary to succeed. It is prudent when mapping the road to success to outline the barriers; however, this is only to develop plans to circumvent these challenges. It is not to build these threats into the 300 pound gorilla hiding in the closet with the sole intent to assure our demise.

This is a very important point. If we do not have a map and a vision of success, we can not possibly move from where we are to where we want to be.

Once we have that road map, we must make the choice that we will put in the preparation time to assure success. Recently, my daughter learned a new dive. She was so excited. When the next competition came, she attempted this dive with less than stellar results. She could not believe how much harder it was to execute the dive in competition. After the meet, she was able to successfully throw the dive several times.

The next day in practice, her coach had her throw the dive 30 times. She did not like it and came home and stated that he was punishing her for missing it in the meet. She obviously missed the point. Her coach understands that the road to success is through hard work, repetition and patience. By continually working on the proper mechanics of this dive in practice, she will be able to have her mind and body take over in competition.

The difficult part of this equation is that in this continual practice of the proper mechanics, there will be numerous bad dives. Most people would call these mistakes or failures. I prefer to call them learning experiences.

More is learned from mistakes than successes and many times more opportunities come out of adversity.

Financial Crisis Lessons

“He who is aggressive when things are dicey sometimes comes out ahead. The bank that pulls in its horns and doesn’t want to do anything is going to miss out” (Mike Renninger)

As with the rest of the country, the financial institutions in our area have been beaten down by the credit crises. These institutions are faced with some incredibly difficult decisions that could make or break their future. However, the structure of most of these decisions was made long ago. The strength of the institutions balance sheet will determine whether they can be a hunter or will be hunted.

By making sound decisions when all around them were driven by greed, certain financial institutions can now aggressively go after value opportunities in the market. In addition, they do not have the black eye of bad press on their lending loss write-offs.

Oh the beauty of a strong balance sheet. With it, you have opportunities. Without it you have many sleepless nights. The opportunities certain financial institutions will enjoy in the near future are the byproduct of good choices made in the past. These choices will allow them to add to their war chest at bargain prices.

This phenomenon is not isolated to the financial institutions. Every business goes through ups and downs. It is important to make good choices in both the good times and the “bad”. By evaluating market conditions, industry trends, competitors, products and many other factors, companies can get a competitive advantage.

It is interesting. I seem to find that those that are conservative during good times and aggressive during down times seem to get the advantage.