It is only our 8th Friday Filosophy for 2015, and already the year is off to a busy start!  Some words of wisdom for your weekend:

 

Example is leadership.

Albert Schweitzer

 

If you think you can or you think you can’t, either way you are right.

Henry Ford

 

Action is the foundation key to all success.

Pablo Picasso

 

The time is now.

I want to focus on the famous author Rudyard Kipling for this week’s Friday Filosophy. This is but a short selection of his works.

 

I always prefer to believe the best in everybody. It saves so much trouble.

 

We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.

 

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

 

If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you. The world will be yours and everything in it, what’s more, you’ll be a man, my son. (This is my own personal favorite.)

 

Never look backwards or you’ll fall down the stairs.

 

Fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run.

 

If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.

 

An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.

 

The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it takes a very clever woman to manage a fool.

 

All the people like us are we, and everyone else is They.

 

A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.

 

Heaven grant us patience with a man in love.

 

A woman’s guess is much more accurate than a man’s certainty.

 

He travels the fastest who travels alone.

 

 

The time is now.

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.

Theodore Roosevelt

 

Every man dies. Not every man really lives.

William Wallace

 

You cannot depend on your eyes when you imagination is out of focus.

Mark Twain

 

The time is now.

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.

John Barrymore

 

There is a fountain of youth; it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

Sophia Loren

 

The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time.

Dante Alighieri

 

Keep dreaming.

 

The time is now.

A list of sayings to enjoy from a very talented friend and colleague.

 

A Farmer’s Advice

 

  1. Always drink upstream from the herd.
  2. Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.
  3. Always keep skunks, bankers and lawyers at a distance.
  4. Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.
  5. A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.
  6. Words that soak into your ears are whispered…not yelled.
  7. Meanness don’t just happen overnight.
  8. Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.
  9. Never corner something that you suspect could be meaner than you.
  10. It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge.
  11. You cannot unsay a cruel word.
  12. Every path has a few puddles.
  13. When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.
  14. The best sermons are lived, not preached.
  15. Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway.
  16. Never judge folks by their relatives.
  17. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
  18. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.
  19. Don’t interfere with something that isn’t bothering you.
  20. Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.
  21. If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
  22. Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.
  23. The biggest troublemaker you will ever have to deal with watches you from the mirror every morning.
  24. Good decisions come from experience, and a lot of experience comes from bad judgment.
  25. Letting the cat out of the bag is a whole lot easier than putting’ it back in.
  26. If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person of some influence, try orderin’ somebody else’s dog around.
  27. Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

 

Booker T. Washington

 

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

 

George Santayana

 

What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens.

 

Thaddeus Golas

 

The time is now.

It is only our 3rd Friday Filosophy of the year, and we are off to a strong start.

 

There is no failure except in no longer trying.

Elbert Hubbard

 

One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.

Arthur Ashe

 

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts; therefore guard accordingly.

Marcus Aurelius

 

The time is now.

It is time for our second Friday Filosophy of the New Year.

 

Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood.

Marie Curie

 

Heaven never helps the man who will not act.

Sophocles

 

Who aims at excellence will be above mediocrity; who aims at mediocrity will be far short of it.

Burmese Saying

 

The time is now.

Continuing with the philosophical, I want to share with you one of the approaches that I used when I was in a leadership position as an employee.  One thing I teach – and this does not just apply to Capital Goods Industry Management, but to management in every industry – is that we manage process.  We lead people.  Obviously, I was very engaged with my team.  Here is one of my standard approaches.

 

  1. What do I do that you like and you want me to continue doing?

 

  1. What do I do that you don’t like  and you want me to stop doing?

 

  1. What do I do that doesn’t really matter to you?

 

The responses to these questions allowed me to have a clear view of what my team thought was important.

 

The time is now…

Over the years, I have used various expressions to make a point or get the attention of a group.  I have taken to calling these words of wisdom “Sleeisms.”  Here is a short list of them.  Enjoy.

 

  1. Always assume the other person is twice as smart as you are and work twice as hard to prove otherwise
  2. Be happy in your work or work and be happy because you have no choice……… you have to work.
  3. Never forget
    1. People want to do a good job…..
    2. People can always do more than they think they can…..
    3. People are fundamentally lazy….
  4. What you do when no one is looking? That is morality…..that is ethics…. That is character.
  5. What’s it’s all about.
    1. We must all feel some sense of value, we are here for a reason.
    2. We all must leave a mark.
    3. That requires us to be able to measure our own progress or accomplishment each day
    4. We must feel relevant, important no matter in what manner.
  6. We must always remember Rudyard Kipling
    1. If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you…you’ll be a man my son
  7. It is always too early to start losing and NEVER too early to start winning
  8. It is hard to soar with the eagles if you stay up with the turkeys at night
  9. Man is like the turtle…..you have to stick your neck out in order to get ahead
  10. Nine men impregnating the same woman cannot deliver a baby in one month or to quote Warren Buffet “you can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
  11. Give More Stress… than you receive
  12. Depression is nothing more than anger turned inward
  13. The basics of teaching and learning
    1. Ignorance is not knowing what to do.
    2. Stupidity is knowing what to do and not doing it.
    3. Insanity is continuing to do what you have always done expecting different results.
  14. Before you can be of any value to anyone else…you have to be of value to yourself.
  15. Life is simple – it is people that screw it up.

 

The time is now…