Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous

Those Grand Resolutions

by

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

Along with the rest of the world, on New Year’s Day I made a lot of new resolutions. I felt good after making them—kind of satisfied with myself. But here it is the last of January and some of these grand resolutions are beginning to crack, and I’m looking for the reason. I think I have found it. You can’t create habits simply by resolving. Only indomitable persistence, trying and failing, and trying again and failing not so soon, will make those resolutions a reality.

I have a task to accomplish. I will eat moderately, play moderately, save moderately, but more than these, I will have a passion to overcome every influence that keeps me from being my best. I won’t be a flower that blooms only from January 1st January 15th. Not for a few days but all through the year I’ll make my life count.

Get out your resolutions, your aims, your quota, or whatever has been your goal. Then say, “I’ll make the flame of my resolve just as hot today, and in February, and throughout the year as on January 1st; and, by the Eternal, I’ll do it!”

Resolutions can fail us because, although we start with enthusiasm, that enthusiasm dims with the day-to-day reality of sticking with our resolutions.

One way to rekindle the excitement and commitment you felt when you made your resolutions is to look for ways to experience successes with them. Set intermediate goals that you can celebrate as you reach them. For example, instead of only focusing on your goal of losing 20 pounds, set an intermediate goal of losing five pounds. When you reach that, aim for the next five pounds.

Another is to have a goal partner. Your partner does not have to be working toward the same goals as you. By sharing your goals, holding each other accountable and enjoying your successes together, you will be inspired to continue working toward bigger and better goals.

If You Won’t Be, You Can’t Be

by

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

A sign hangs in the Club House of Bill Roper’s Princeton football squad:

“A team that won’t be beaten, can’t be beaten.”

You men who are putting your life behind Purina Checkerboard Chows just won’t be beaten—you can’t be beaten.

Hang up this motto.

One of the most memorable lines from the movie Apollo 13 is when flight director Gene Kranz announces that, “Failure is not an option.” Like many things in the movies, the line was written for the movie and did not come from real life. However, the attitude behind the line was definitely part of the culture of NASA’s Mission Control.

There is a quotation attributed to Henry Ford that goes something like, “Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are probably right.”

All three of these quotations have a common theme: Our belief systems play a big part in the results we achieve.

  • If we truly believe we can not lose, we will win.
  • If we believe failure is not an option, we will find a way to succeed.
  • If we believe we can do something, we will approach it with confidence and will keep trying until we do it. If we do not believe we can do it, we probably will not even try.

It is easy to take a negative position–that something is too hard or there is some reason that we can not do it. It is so easy that we may not even realize we are doing it.

Strongly asserting our belief in ourselves and what we can do is harder. But it pays off.

Do you ever say things such as:
“I never do anything right.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Well, I’ll try, but…”

The next time you catch yourself voicing one of these (or other) defeatist thoughts, stop right then and change your attitude. Look for the way to succeed instead of accepting failure as an option.

It’s Knowing How That Counts

by

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

“Give some men a thousand years in the very center of the most fertile valley in all America and they would come out of this garden spot with a handful of worthless weeds and a spray of poison ivy.”
—The Silent Partner.

Many men buy expensive fishing tackle and appetizing bait, but they catch few fish. Many men carry much ammunition, but they get no birds. A salesman can go into a territory rich in possibilities and get little tonnage.

You may have ambition to win. You may have resources and boundless energy. But you fail because you are lacking in the “Know How.”

If you have some specific problem that you must solve this week, write it down on a blank sheet of paper. Then opposite it write down every possible “Know How” that will hasten its solution. Then set yourself the task of mastering each “Know How.”

Do you have the skills you need to reach your goals? Perhaps you could solve your problems and become more successful if you had better computer skills or you were a more effective public speaker or your writing was stronger.

Identify the skills you need, then make a plan to acquire them.

Idle Chatter or Worthwhile Talk?

by

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

Before you read this message glance around and see how many conversations are taking place on your office floor.

How much of it is idle chatter and how much is worth while talk?

You wouldn’t dare — twice — to come into my office and tell me about the vaudeville show you saw last night. But some people impose on the good nature and courtesy of others by wasting their own time, and the other fellow’s time, with social visits during office hours.

Show me the man or woman that avoids useless explanations and gets right to the point.
Show me the man or woman who saves golden minutes by frankly telling the chatterer to be gone—

Show me these, I say, and I will show you the Purina Leaders of today and tomorrow.

This type of Monday Morning Message makes me uncomfortable because I must check up myself. Maybe it will make you uncomfortable too, and we will all have a better week.

Good-bye — Idle Chatter
Enter—Worth While Talk

Although William Danforth wrote this message decades before the Internet became a part of our lives, his words apply to the Internet, too.

The “office water cooler” may still exist for those who work in offices, but wherever you work you can be lured into idle chatter via Twitter, Facebook, email, texting and other online communications. Each of these has valid business and personal uses, but it is easy to get distracted by unimportant chatter and waste minutes or hours everyday.

We all need a little downtime during the day to decompress and recharge. Spending a few minutes catching up with friends and colleagues, in person or online, can be fun and the interactions keep us connected day-to-day. However, when it becomes a habit that encroaches on productive time, it is time to scale back.

Draw a line between productive time on email and social media and non-productive time. Pay attention to how much of your work day is spent on “idle chatter,” then decide if you need to make some changes. One way to start is by setting aside time every day to handle email and social media. Set a timer, and when it goes off, get back to other tasks.

The Plan for a New Year

by

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

Nobody loves an adventure any more than I, but you wouldn’t catch me setting sail over an uncharted sea with no maps to guide and a captain who didn’t know the way. Before I get on a ship I want to know what port it makes.

January 1st we all launch out into another year. Although we cannot tell what lies ahead, we can plan to avoid the shoals and danger points of other years. We can at least know what port we want to make. If you don’t know your destination, how can you ever hope to get there?

I’ve sailed across more years than many of you, and my navigation chart shows the shoals and cross currents and ice fields that must be avoided. My experience tells me that we are bound to meet with fogs and storms as well as sunshine and fair weather.

Take some time this week to chart your courses so as to avoid known dangers and difficulties and plan to reach port.

Where do you see yourself at this time next year? Do you want to be exactly where you are today, doing exactly what you are doing now? Or do you want to “explore new ports,” having new adventures along the way?

Perhaps your life and career are on the right path, and your goals and objectives relate to continuing on your present course. Or you may want to make major changes. Either way, knowing where you are headed makes it more likely that you will end up where you want to be.

As we come to the end of another year, this is a good time to take stock of where you are, contemplate where you want to be, and determine how to get from here to there.