Quotes on Living Deliberately, Leadership, Resilience & Courage

On Living Deliberately

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
~ Steve Jobs

Good things happen to those who hustle.
~ Anaïs Nin

Each person’s task in life is to become an increasingly better person.
~ Leo Tolstoy

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
~ Anaïs Nin

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
~ Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

On Resilience

In the midst of winter, I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.
~ Albert Camus

Life only demands from you the strength you possess.
~ Dag Hammarskjold

I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”
~ Dr. Seuss

We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.
~ Stephen Covey

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
~  Confucius

On Leadership

Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate and to connect with people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives.
~ Oprah

A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.
~ John C. Maxwell

If you want to know the temperature of your organization, put a thermometer in the leader’s mouth.
~ Rick Warren

On Courage

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
~ Anaïs Nin

Courage is not limited to the battlefield or to the Indianapolis 500 or bravely catching a thief in your house. The real tests of courage are … the inner tests, like remaining faithful when nobody’s looking, like enduring pain when the room is empty, like standing alone when you’re misunderstood.
~ Charles R. Swindoll, Growing Strong In The Seasons Of Life

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing.
~ Theodore Roosevelt

Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.
~ Edmund Burke

DC Council Polices Self on Financial Conflicts of Interest

The Washington Times story, “Ethics rules let D.C. Council members shield outside income” by Jim McElhatton brought my attention to a serious conflict of interest related to financial disclosure rules for DC Council members.  According to the story, DC rules require lawmakers to make public outside income sources only if an employer or client did business with the city government or stood to gain from pending legislation during the past calendar year and they are left to police themselves on conflicts of interest.  This in itself is a conflict of interest.  Pure compliance with the law is insufficient.  Rules related to financial disclosure must be more comprehensive to deter abuses.

Applying the Golden Rule in Business

“All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets.” ~Jesus

“That which you hold as detestable, do not do to your neighbor.” ~ Talmud

“None of you is a believer if he does not desire for his brother that which he desires for himself.”  ~ Islam

“Here certainly is the Golden Maxim: Do not do to others that we do not want them to do to us.”  ~ Confucius

The Golden Rule is existent across cultures and religions.  The exact words can be different but the meaning is the same.

Treat others as you wish to be treated.  

This maxim should be the basis for interacting with colleagues, in the workplace.  It’s usually the first thought one has when asked to consider business ethics.  When faced with real-life ethical dilemmas at work, we start to see the “gray” area.  A corporate ethics campaign poster read, “Between right and wrong is a troublesome gray area.”

The way employees handle ethical or moral dilemmas they face at work is generally determined by the organization’s culture or ethical temperature and this is tempered by the top management of an organization.  When the manager does the right thing and makes it known that all employees are expected to do the right thing, the organizational leader gains trust from employees, clients, stakeholders and cultivates an ethical culture.  And, this is also good for business.

Tips for Ensuring Ethical Behavior at Work

“One of the true tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”
~ Chinua Achebe

1. Do the right thing and help others do the right thing too.
2. Take responsibility for your actions and encourage other to take responsibility for their actions.
3. Be a Role Model. We learn from each other.  Working with integrity and ethically  positively affects colleagues and the work environment.  It is especially important for managers to set the right tone and do the right thing.
4. Follow the Golden Rule. Treat others as you wish to be treated.
5. When In Doubt, Ask. If you aren’t sure an action is permissible or if an activity in your work, ask a colleague, manager, HR, compliance or ethics officer.
6. Disclose.  It is important to disclose any potential ethical breach or possible conflict of interest.
7. Be Informed. Keep informed of policy changes and laws in your field.
8. Trust Your Feelings.  If a situation feels uncomfortable or wrong, check it out.
9. Respect Differences. We are all different.  Respect other’s culture, language, history, and ask questions and listen when you don’t understand either someone’s behavior.

I’ll be adding more to this section and welcome contributions and suggestions.

Teaching Resilience & Empathy

“I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big bat. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!”
~ Dr. Seuss

Talking to your children in an age-appropriate manner about their feelings teaches them to express their emotions and fears. It gives them the language needed to understand themselves, accept reality, move forward and grow.

Talking about moving past negative emotions and overcoming fears, helps children think about solving problems for themselves and to deal with difficult situations.  We can help our children by talking about practical ways to solve problems.

Sharing our own feelings and emotions gives children strength.  It shows them that we empathize with their feelings. It helps them feel heard and understood.

Empathy is taught through modeling and practice.  It is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes.  In practice, we can teach empathy by demonstrating empathy for others.  It can be taught naturally using situations arising regularly by talking about what is happening and asking the child to think about how others might feel or how they think they would feel in the situations you are seeing.

It’s important to let children know it’s okay to be angry or afraid sometimes.  It’s how we deal with emotions that matter. In teaching resilience and problem solving, talking through the causes of problems and coming up with practical solutions together help children solve their own problems later.

On Resilience

In the midst of winter,
I finally learned
there was in me
an invincible summer.
~Albert Camus

Resilience is the ability to triumph over adversity.

Reading through the morning’s stories, one in particular caught my attention about wrongful foreclosures. It told the stories of people whose homes were foreclosed on in error.  One man had even bought his house outright.  These individuals had their lives turned upside down from one minute to the next and there is nothing they could have done to avoid it, and they were forced to fight for what was already theirs.

Reading each story, I imagined how it must have felt to them – helpless, frustrated, angry, hopeless, outraged, trapped?

These are events that will mark their lives always.  Some will persevere and triumph.  They will move on and live productively.  Others will live out the horror of the nightmare for the rest of their lives.  The difference in the way the events affect them is resilience.

Resilient people are able to move on, be creative and succeed in life when faced with obstacles.  They accept their reality and take steps to move forward.  These are our problem-solvers.  They are able to bounce back and adapt.  While they may feel they cannot control everything happening in their lives, they are able to focus energies on solving those problems which they can.

Live Deliberately

We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.
~ Stephen Covey

I went to the woods to live deliberately, to front the essential facts of life and learn what they had to teach; and not, when it came time to die, discover that I had not lived.
~ H.D. Thoreau

Take control of your own destiny.  Life does not happen to people.  We are able to make choices and live deliberately and actively.

Raising Children to be Healthy, Happy & Kind

Suggestions for Parents

• Teach the golden rule through action.  Treat others, as you would like to be treated.
• Be honest – and communicate honestly with your kids, at their level of comprehension.
• Listen and observe – listen to what your children are saying and pay attention to changes in behavior.
• Give love, hugs, kisses and “time-in”, dedicated “Mommy Time” or “daddy time”, when nothing else matters – no blackberries, iPhones or computers.
• Keep a healthy sleep routine – get enough sleep and make sure the kids have enough sleep; kids who sleep well, also eat well.

Wikileaks

What changes to cause dedicated employees to betray company confidences?  What causes patriots to commit treason?

Many organizations have policies on the sharing of non-public information.  What changes within an organization’s culture for its employees to betray confidences?  What changes within a one-time dedicated staff member to rationalize the sharing of such documents?

The illegal disclosure of documents published on Wikileaks is an extreme case of inappropriate disclosure, one that can damage relations between governments, cause wars and one that puts a great many lives in danger.  What I would like to examine is the transformation of committed staff into a secret enemy of the corporation.