Tag Archives: Neil Armstrong

Productivity: Let Your Competition Work For You

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you leverage your competitive spirit.

You’re in a slump. You lost a major account this week. Your competition is bearing down on you. What do you do? Take a deep breath and celebrate your worthy opponents in the marketplace.

Competition sparked USA to Become First to Land a Man on the Moon.

That’s what the most effective leaders do. They know their competition will eventually make them more successful. Consider this poem I ran across from that prolific author Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous that celebrates the power of competition.

A Scrubby Thing

The tree that never had to fight,
For sun and sky and air and light;
That stood out in the open plain and,
Always got its share of rain.
Never became a forest king,
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

Applaud your competition. Take it from Dennis Conner, America’s Cup Yacht racing winner and the author of the book The Art of Winning: “Keep an eye on the competition. Be glad they’re tough to beat. Your toughest competitors are your biggest allies in the art of winning. They’re the ones who make you work harder, move faster, and think smarter.” And become a forest king. Continue reading →

Are You Turning Forty or Forte?

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you better cope with a perceived personal crisis. Reading time: 3:57.

Dreading your 40th birthday? I sure did. But I survived and even thrived because I practiced one of the most critical leadership skills: framing the problem or issue so you can better solve it.

Even if you’ve already turned the BIG 4-0, this framing concept can work for you.

Let’s examine the problem of turning 40 as initially presented: Sure, I was getting older. But, could I also be getting stronger? You decide. Here’s how I framed the issue.

At 40, I thought of myself stepping onto a launching pad — not onto a guillotine. A launching pad? Where did I get an absurd idea like that? From a visionary author who saw deep into the heavens, deep into the sea and deep into the center of the earth.

Jules Verne helped me see deeper into the center of me.

There on page 117 in his book From the Earth to the Moon, Jules Verne is describing the first manned moon launching 104 years before Neil Armstrong.

38…39…40 Blast Off

And significantly - even poignantly - Jules Verne launches his man to the moon with a count UP …38…39…

You guessed it. At the count of 40, the rocket ignites, propelling the fictional astronaut to go higher, faster and farther than any other human has gone before -to the moon. Blast off! At 40!! Continue reading →

Saluting the Flag of Your ImagiNATION

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to enhance your creativity. Reading time: 3:58

Have you ever felt like running away from it all? Oh, the freedom, the sense of wonder and opportunity over that next horizon!

running-at-the-beachLet’s run away just like that 11-year-old boy did so many years ago. He stowed away on a ship bound for India. But then his dad caught up with him just before the ship headed out to the open sea.

The boy was punished. His mom scolded him: “If you ever run away again, travel only in your imagination.”

Jules Verne listened, the same Jules Verne who would travel most famously ONLY IN HIS IMAGINATION as a renown science fiction author: Navigating 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Embarking on a Journey to the Center of the Earth. And rocketing From The Earth to The Moon for a manned landing on the moon 104 years before Neil Armstrong first took “One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.”

Ah, the power -the POWER-of your imagination. So powerful that Napoleon said imagination rules the world. So powerful that Albert Einstein said: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Continue reading →