Tag Archives: resilience

Potential doesn’t get you anywhere

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I hear a lot about potential- A person has great potential; The potential for the business is incredible; That relationship has a lot of potential; His life is so full of potential

The problem with potential is that it is unrealized attainment. No one has gotten anywhere on potential. What has gotten people places is the unrelenting implementation of potential. Those who succeed are those who do something about it.

Potential keeps our boat in the dock. How do you steer a ship? Not by its rudderl. You steer a ship by getting it moving and keeping it moving. Get out of the dock and into the wide open sea of life.

 

Why working faster will make you less caring

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An interesting study by John Darley and C. Batson entitled “The Good Samaritan” involved having seminary students write a speech. One group was assigned the topic of jobs available after graduation. The other group was given the task of giving a speech on the Good Samaritan. The parable of the Good Samaritan is about several holy men coming across a wounded person on the road and passing him by. A Samaritan comes across the man and does stop to help.

The students were to deliver the speech in an auditorium on the other side of the campus. They were then given three levels of urgency in giving their speech:

  • Low Hurry: “It’ll be a few minutes before they’re ready for you, but you might as well head on over. If you have to wait over there, it should’nt be long”
  • Intermediate Hurry: “The assistnat is ready for you, so please go right over.”
  • High Hurry: “Oh, you’re late. They were expecting you a few minutes ago. You’d better get moving. The assistant should be waiting for you so you’d better hurry. It should take only a minute.”

The students passed a person who was part of the experiment. He was groaning, coughing, and huddled in a distressed position. The experimenters wanted to know if they would stop to help this person on their way to their speech and whether that action was based on the topic or the urgency.

The results were as followed:

  • Low Hurry: 63 percent
  • Intermediate Hurry: 45 percent
  • High Hurry: 10 percent.

The topic had nothing to do with the caring response as much as the hurry they were in. Working at a high speed, under stress to get things done quickly, will ultimately reduce the amount of care you exhibit to your co-workers and clients. Personal life is the same way. Not taking time to slow down will diminish your ability to care for those around you. We need to manage our time well.

So, what are some practical ways we can slow ourselves down. What works against our ability to slow down and, as they say, smell the roses? Comment here>>

Play like Jeremy Lin: The one way to be famous

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The recent wave of hysteria surrounding Jeremy Lin has been fascinating. It doesn’t hurt he has a last name that can be used for all sorts of wordplay: linsanity, lindercella, linoleum, etc. It only adds to the furor. Everyone’s been asking who the heck this guy is and how did he rise so suddenly to star on the national stage?

He’s  a player who operated on the outskirts of success for a long time. He was offered no athletic scholarships after high school. He was cut from two professional teams before being picked up on waivers by the New York Knicks.  Due to player injuries, Lin was sent into a game out of desperation. The rest is, as they say, history. He electrified his team and scored more points in his first five professional games than any player in NBA history.

So, how has Lin captured the imagination of America? For me, it boils down to one thing- he used his talents on whatever stage, big or small, he was given. All of us have a stage. It may not be on a national level, but its big for us- our family, our work, the place we volunteer. We contribute our talents whether recognized or not- and in ways large and small we become famous. I’ve always liked the following poem by Naomi Shibab Nye

Famous

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

“Famous” from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Portland, Oregon: Far Corner Books, 1995). Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye.