One of my favorite poems was written by Edgar Guest entitled “I’d Rather See a Sermon than Hear One Any Day.”

It relates to much of the ways I see my father.

Like many fathers, Dad gave me a great deal of advice over the years. And like many sons, I rarely listened to it.

But, you see, I did observe my father. I saw what he did, and what he didn’t do.

He never had to tell me about being honest and having integrity, he just lived honestly and with integrity.

He never needed to lecture me about hard work and industry. I saw him work hard every day of his working life.

My father never needed to talk to me about being respectful to women. He just was. In fact, I never heard him denigrate women in any way. And he was always respectful and honoring of my mother.

He didn’t have to preach safety—although he did. He just went out of his way to practice safety in everything we did. It’s likely why most of his crew survived being shot down over Germany in the fall of 1944. And none of my family was ever seriously injured on our farm.

Dad didn’t talk much about humility and generosity. He simply demonstrated it all the time.

He didn’t spend much time explaining the value of good planning. But he planned his work and his business carefully.

He didn’t have to advise me on the value of education. Because he was a lifelong learner. And he read, and still does read, every day.

Dad didn’t tell us to love our country. But we knew he was a patriot and how much his country—and his service to it—meant to him.

So although the advice was there, what mattered most was demonstrating his best at being a good man. And it made all of us boys want to be a good man as well.

He set the standards pretty high. And I know I haven’t lived up to them all the time. Perhaps he didn’t either. But I know he did his best.

His sermon was, and still is, his life. And it mattered.

I’m so proud of you Dad. Happy 90th birthday!

Note: His first book, Ready or Not: Into the Wild Blue,
is available on Amazon (print and Kindle version)

1. You’re paid to get things done, not for the hours you work. Even if you’re PAID by the hour, you are ultimately paid for the value you produce. Get more done in less time and you improve your value to your employer—even if that employer is yourself.

2. More job security. When a company has to downsize, the most inefficient and ineffective are usually let go first. Being more productive increases your job security.

3. Have more time to do the things YOU want to do. We all have things that need to be done that aren’t all that pleasant or fun. By getting things done quickly and effectively, you will find yourself having more time to do the things you find more pleasurable and/or fall into the not urgent, but important, category.

4. Satisfaction. A job well done, on time, with efficiency, is a gratifying experience. Turn your good to better and your better to best for greater satisfaction.

5. Time is money. And that’s been true for a very long time. Increased productivity is profitable. Finding a better, faster, more efficient way to do things results in added value and greater profits.

6. It makes us better stewards of our resources. People, money, time, energy and knowledge must be well managed. Not to do so is wasteful. Cultivate your resources and increase your productivity.

7. It’s fun. Finding better, faster, more efficient ways to leverage your time and efforts can be like a game—a game that pays you handsomely.

8. Your productivity improves the productivity of others. You have a chance to be the low, average or high bar that’s set in your work environment. And average is the best of the worst and the worst of the best. It sucks.

9. It will put more life in your years. It’s been said that it’s not the years in our life but the life in our years that matters. And I submit that being as productive as possible in all our efforts allows us to put more life in our years.

10. We can’t manage time. We can only manage events, tasks and projects within whatever time we have. And THAT is reason enough to consistently invest in improving our performance.

Please join us for our first TeleSummit on Peak Performance and Productivity.
Register today at no cost here . . .

There’s a lot of talk these days about different classes: the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, the privileged and the underprivileged. It’s been said that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer—perhaps they’re right.

But I think there have always been differences. And as troubled and challenged as the middle class is today, history has shown us that the disparity between rich and poor is less now than in centuries past.

And no matter how much more advantage any class has over another, there is one thing every single person has in equal amounts—time.

We all have 24 hours a day. And with few exceptions, we have freedom of choice as to how we invest the 1,440 minutes every one of us is given each and every day.

The richest person who ever lived is unable to buy more time. They might leverage it and hire things done but they cannot bargain for more time.

Ben Franklin wrote, “Do not squander time, for that is what life is made of.”

I think we can agree with Ben. Our life is made up of time. And, of course, it’s not the time we put in, but rather what we put in to the time. We decide how to spend it. We decide how we live our lives.

Are you satisfied with how you invest your time? Do you respect and value it to the degree you should?

Are you effective as well as efficient? Are you living in accordance with your core values? Do you take actions and get things done that further your highest objectives?

I challenge you to take a hard look at your stewardship of your most precious asset.

I encourage you to look for ways to become more efficient and effective? How can you leverage yourself with tools, services and technology? How can you get more of the right things done in less time?

And I can think of no better way to sharpen your time and event management skills than attending all or part of our upcoming TeleSummit on finishing the year STRONG.

Achieve more of your peak potential. All five days of this event are FREE. There is no cost to participate. All you need to do is register. And when you do, you will also get a free—and very in-depth—Personal Achievement Assessment.

Find out all about it and check out our prestigious panel of top-notch experts on this page . . .

Quote du jour

“Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action.”

—Walter Anderson