Tag Archives: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Making Every Day Pay Day

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

 Here’s an idea to leverage your leadership influence. Reading time: 3:11.

Robins in a nest

         Leaders get stronger by lifting others up.

          Maybe that’s why Albert Einstein said only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. And Winston Churchill said: “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what give.”

       Leaders give of themselves to make every day pay day. The more they give, the more they get, as author Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”

        Championing others a leader invariably unearths hidden resources, leverages differences,  fosters greater productivity and mines increased profitability.

       But in championing others,  leaders know only too well that their date book is as important as their checkbook;  their time as valued as their money. Continue reading →

Productivity: Making It Simple Not Simpler

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to add more clarity to your problem solving. Read time: 2:49.

         The minister announced that his sermon on this Sunday morning would be “childishly, simple.” He paused and then added very seriously: “I really worked at it to make it that simple.”

          Leaders  work very hard to make complex ideas THAT simple. They maintain the richness of the context without dumbing down the content. Those simple-minding leaders are anything but simple-minded.

         They enrich themselves and others with the same train of thought that billionaire Warren Buffett rides in leading investment strategy.    “Successful investing is simple but not easy,” Buffett says.

        So too, is successful leading: It’s simple but not easy.

        In fact in takes great courage and confidence to be simple, according to Jack Welch, the former chairman of the General Electric Company.

      “You can’t believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple,” Welch says.  “They worry that if they’re simple, people will think they’re simple-minded. In reality, of course, it’s just the reverse. Clear tough-minded people are the most simple.”

         Yet insecure managers hide behind complexity. They snow you with a blizzard of  paperwork; they flood you with deluge of information. It’s a movie that Welch has seen too many times.  Call it the Complex Cinema where  “frightened nervous managers use thick, convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything they‘ve known since childhood.”  Continue reading →

Sound Off With Your Personal Sounding Board

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to problem solve more clearly. Reading time: 3:28.

          Tim the Tool Man is troubled again. The star of the 1990’s television sitcom — Home Improvement-—  wanders out into his backyard, alone. He needs help thinking through a problem. And somehow, Wilson — his next door neighbor –is  always there.  Wilson is heard more than seen.  His  face is always partially hidden by a fence or a camera angle,  giving him even more credence in his auditory role as Tim’s Sounding Board.

Wilson, always hidden by the fence, serving as the sounding board for Tim the Tool Man

Wilson is heard but not seen

           And no wonder. Every leader needs his or her Wilson.

          Every leader needs a sounding board, someONE to bounce ideas off.
SomeONE to weigh options with.
SomeOne to validate reality with.
And someONE to creatively solve problems, issues, concerns or conflicts with.

         To foster those Wilsons in their lives–those sounding boards — every effective leader I know has honed their own personal thinking place away from the office where friendships evolve into sounding boards, whether from a regular tee time with a golfing partner  or from a regular evening saunter in your own backyard.

        How do you develop your own Wilson, your own sounding board? Try booking One friend at a time rather than Facebooking a lot of friends all the time.

Book ONE Friend Instead of Facebooking Many Friends

        Booking that One friend is vital, the kind of friend developed through heart-felt listening to and learning from each other, the kind of friend that comes to know you better than you know yourself, the kind of  friend that can tell Tim Taylor — a.k.a. Tim the Tool Man –that his name (Tim Taylor) is an anagram for “Morality.”  Who knew? Wilson knew. After all, sounding boards like Wilson access and assess (sound) information more comprehensively and therefore help a leader better project their (sound) thinking . Continue reading →

Personal Communications: Becoming an Eye-Deal Leader

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you become more persuasive.   Reading time: 3:21

        Their eyes are 11 feet wide, eyes that sparkle, eyes that gleam, eyes that enliven the four Presidents of the United States carved into Mount Rushmore.

       Their eyes are like so many 11-foot wide pools of promise and personality that better define the 60-foot tall faces of Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt.

        Their eyes seemingly come to life thanks to the genius of sculptor Gutzon Borglum. He chiseled into the white part of the eye large rectangular blocks of slightly raised marble that would more fully reflect the sunlight, adding a life-like sparkle to the eyes and an animated gleam to the entire 60-foot-tall faces.

       The first time I saw that 11-foot-wide sparkle in the eyes,  I sensed the power of the eyes to communicate even more poignantly than the voice. Maybe that’s why the most effective leaders I have ever known speak with their eyes as much as their voice.  Continue reading →

Self-Worth: Gaining Strength from Hair to Eternity

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

               Here’s an idea that will inspire you in frustrating  situations.

            Have you ever been so frustrated that you found yourself pulling out clumps of your own hair?  I have.   And I have found great comfort in more ways than you think.

         I flick those hairs onto a white tissue and I notice perhaps for the first time ever just how thin each strand of your hair is.

      And then it hits me. For some reason, I think of a cool piece of trivia that I ran across recently about a single human hair  and I found myself laughing at the thought, laughing at my frustration, laughing that I even got frustrated in the first place.

Continue reading →