Monday Morning Messages Archives - Page 7 of 7 - Cathy Stucker

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

Our mill grinds only what is put into it. Put in good grain and good products come out. Put in rotten grain and you get rotten products.

Put in nothing and you grind air—and rattle. Imagine yourself a mill for a week. What are you going to grind?

Good or Bad Thoughts? Good or Bad Words? Good or Bad Deeds? Or nothing—and rattle?

In computer programmer lingo, this is known as “garbage in, garbage out.”

What raw materials do you put into your brain?

So much of what passes for entertainment is uninspiring, negative and just plain nasty. No one’s life is made better by watching “Jersey Shore.” Do the programs you watch make you feel better or worse? If they are focused on showing people at their worst, turn them off. The same thing goes for music, magazines and, yes, even the news. You should be informed, but the latest scare from TV news does not help you to be informed and it will not bring on good thoughts.

Are the people you associate with upbeat and positive, or do they always find the dark lining in every silver cloud? Does every sentence contain at least one profanity? Do they try to pump themselves up by putting others down with gossip?

Always look for opportunities to feed your brain with good stuff. Avoid the negative, the angry, the unhappy. “Our mill grinds only what is put into it.”

Monday Morning Messages

Every Monday, Wm. H. Danforth, founder of the Ralston Purina Company, would place a Monday Morning Message on the desks of some of his top employees. These messages were intended to inspire and motivate the employees to be their best, for themselves and for the company.

Many of Mr. Danforth’s messages were compiled in a series of books, now in the public domain. Although these messages were originally written in the 1920s and 1930s, many are still relevant today. I enjoyed reading them, and thought you might, too.

Each Monday morning, I will publish one of Mr. Danforth’s Monday Morning Messages along with my commentary about the message and how you might apply it in your own life.

Here is our first Monday Morning Message.

The Best That Is in You

Every minute of the coming week is before you. You can easily fill up your time with the routine work on your desk, but the real progress does not come from doing everyday tasks. Put in your “For Action” basket at least one great big idea. Don’t be satisfied with anything small—tackle a hard enough job so that when Saturday night comes you can look back and smile, realizing that the week meant real progress in an outstanding way.

The world is full of fine people who do their everyday jobs. It is not everyday work that has made the Purina Mills what they are today, and it is not everyday jobs that will lead to your growth, development, and advancement. Put a job in that “For Action” basket that is worth the best that is in you this week.

Do you spend your week feeling busy, but look back and realize you accomplished very little? It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and forget about the big picture. Email, phone calls, meetings and the daily routine can keep you busy although you are not moving forward.

Choose one thing that you are going to accomplish this week and commit to doing it. Something that will make a difference. When choosing a task, ask yourself what completing it will do for you. Will it help you get more clients? Create a new income stream? Build your professional reputation? Select a goal that will make a real difference.

You may also choose a project that can not be accomplished in one week, but may be something that you work at for several weeks or months. It might be creating a new product, launching a marketing campaign, becoming a public speaker, writing a book or anything that will make you more profitable. In that case, identify specific steps you will take this week that will lead you closer to reaching your goal.

Set a goal that will make you feel satisfied with your accomplishment when you look back at your week.

Watch for other Monday Morning Messages every week here at IdeaLady.com.