Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

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Increase Fivefold

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This week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina: What is the Monday Morning Message?

“Increase Fivefold? Say, it will take a life time to do that.” All right, let it take a life time, but begin at once— this very week.

Here’s a little example for you. Suppose you had twenty-eight years to accomplish some definite ideal that would live after you and make the world a better place than you found it. Which of the following would you rather do?

1. Be a preacher and build a church from nothing to 10,000 members.
2. Found and direct a college.
3. Establish and operate an orphanage, and also a home for widows.
4. Edit a monthly magazine of far-reaching influence.
5. Write and publish forty books.

Wouldn’t any one of these five be a life achievement for a really great man? But listen to this: — All five of these lasting works were packed into a short twenty-eight years by one man — the great Charles H. Spurgeon.

Now don’t with just a passing word say, “Spurgeon was a genius,” and then turn to your immediate tasks. He may have been a genius, but remember Carlisle said, ” Genius is an infinite capacity for hard work.”

“Capacity!” Why is it that a man like Spurgeon can live five successful careers when others make a botch of one? It’s because he worked to full capacity.

In the Ford plant an endless belt keeps pushing work at each man to his capacity. Oh, for a push—an endless belt, or, far better still, the inner drive of a great vision such as Spurgeon’s to urge us on to our full capacity this week. To live, to love, to learn, to act at five times last week’s speed! Impossible—not to Purina men and women who scorn little challenges. Gear that life-machine of yours to full capacity and I’ll guarantee at the end of the week you will find your enjoyment in life has increased fivefold. What particular half- filled vessel of your life will you strive to fill to capacity this week?

Set high expectations for yourself and challenge yourself to get the most out of everyday.

Instead of drifting through each day, work with purpose. Keep your goals in mind at all times and continue working to achieve them.

Up or Down?

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This week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina:
What is the Monday Morning Message?

Ever since the day we were born influences, forces, habits, have been fastening half hitches on us and tugging at our lives. Some pull up, some down. Some tug stronger with the years, others weaker. Sometimes we call upon the sturdy lifting fellows to pull us up, only to find the lowering habits holding us back.

You, yourself, know better than anyone else what habits are holding you down. How about cutting loose from one of those down-pulling imps today?

For instance, talking behind people’s backs may be a bad habit you have. Determine that all this week you will not say a single thing behind anybody’s back that you would not say to his face. You will be surprised how many times you will have to leave things unsaid. You will be still more surprised how much stronger the lifting forces will tug when they see one enemy tumbling. They’ll lift you twice as high.

Which down-pulling imp will you cut loose? Which friendly virtue will you strive for?

Wouldn’t it be worth while to give five minutes uninterrupted thought to this message and then ACT?

Do you do things that make you feel bad about yourself afterward? That might be gossiping, overeating, cursing, losing your temper and snapping at your spouse or your kids or anything that makes you feel unhappy or angry.

When you realize that you have a habit like that, make a choice not to do it again.

Leaders

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This week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina:
What is the Monday Morning Message?

Leaders simply fascinate me. I read about them, talk about them. I sidle up to them, hoping some Leadership stuff will rub off on me.

To get a job done, find a Leader.

To distribute a product, sell some Leaders. Few people insist on what they want. A Leader does. Dealers carry what a relatively small number of their Leading customers want. Others follow the Leaders.

A shrewd observer said that when Irene Castle bobbed her hair the sub-debs of Manhattan mimicked her, and finally the buds in Battle Creek and Bloomington followed her example. The skirt line was raised first by a few Leaders on the boulevards — and then on Main Street.

What’s the biggest thing you want to accomplish this week? Put it down on paper. Then pick your Leaders at the specific point of contact to do the job. Your ability to do this will determine just what kind of a Leader you are.

Who are the leaders who can help your business?

These people may be thought leaders who can influence your customers, or leaders who can pull together a team to help you accomplish what you need to do.

If you do not personally know the leaders who can help you, figure out how you can reach them. You may know people who know them, or you may be able to make yourself known to them by doing something for them.

Figure out what you need to do, identify the leaders who can help you reach your goals, then determine how working with you can benefit those leaders.

Living on Turnips

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This week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina:
What is the Monday Morning Message?

During the war, a little community in Germany exhausted its food supply, and was forced to live on turnips. Turnips raw, turnips cooked, turnip soup, turnips disguised in every conceivable way, but only turnips to eat. On an unbalanced, turnip diet, the power of resistance was reduced to a minimum. Statistics from that community showed from four to five times more tuberculosis in the lives of the children who lived on turnips then than there was in a group of children of the same age before the war.

Are you living on turnips—movies, pleasure, loss of sleep, lack of study, no power to concentrate? Life’s program must build up a surplus against a day of need. If you are eating too many turnips, better look out. Why not lay off and take a little more Ralston, Milk, Butter and SPINACH!

Are you locked in to the familiar? Familiar experiences, familiar people, familiar days? When you limit yourself to doing, thinking and believing the same things you hold yourself back.

Open yourself up to the new. Talk to new people and get new points of view. Break out of your routine and do things in a new way. Work in a new place, with new stimuli.

Just as you wouldn’t eat only one food, do not get stuck in ruts in your work and other areas of life.

Making the Most Out of the Least

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This week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina:
What is the Monday Morning Message?

Seven hundred and fifteen years before Christ, Numa Pompilius, king of Rome, increased the calendar from ten to twelve months. He did this by adding two new months—January and February.

By and by along came Julius Caesar, and July was named for him. Then when Augustus Caesar was the big boss he had a bit of conceit too, and wanted his name on the calendar. So he changed the month Sextilis which had only thirty days, to August, at the same time adding a day taken from February.

Now February, the shortest month, is wedged in between two of the longest months, January and March. Although it is the shortest month of all, it has played just as mighty a part as any other month in the last 2641 years. Two of February’s greatest gifts to America are Washington and Lincoln.

Who will undertake to drive a February wedge between January and March so that the short month measures up to both of them? It will take a stout mallet swung by a strong arm and backed up by an alert brain. The wedge is half way home. The last half requires bolder strokes, but each one gets increasingly greater results.

That extra task done, that additional book read, that extra mile run — what extra, super-work will you undertake to make your February outstanding?

February has two to three fewer days than the other months of the year, so it can be easy to set lower expectations and accept lesser results.

Of course I made fewer sales in February–there are only 28 days. Of course I published fewer blog posts, exercised less, and so on.

Do not look for reasons to justify doing less, but look for ways to do more.

Resolve that you will do a little extra each day in February so that the month has results for you that are as good as–or better than–any other month of the year.

What are you going to accomplish in the shortest month of the year?