Strategic Quitting – If you are not going to get to #1, you might as well quit now.

Recently I have completed reading a book. It’s about quitting, about perseverance, about becoming the best and leaving mediocrity behind.

This book is titled “The dip” by Seth Godin. And the dip is only one of the 3 scenarios you can be facing right now. The other 2 are the Cul-de-sac and the cliff.

The dip is the most difficult part of the journey, but once you overcome that, you will enjoy the rewards that follow. The dip produces scarcity and scarcity creates value, that explains the great reward. In business, people use the dip to draw themselves far away from their competitors giving themselves the edge.

The Cul-de-sac is a plateau. You slog, you give, you put in lots of resources but you won’t be going anywhere or just end up being mediocre.

The cliff is when you peak and then you descend drastically. Your future efforts or resources, even when being greater than previous, just won’t satisfy enough. The example given in the book is smoking, an addicted smoker may find smoking more not satisfying as before.

Being the best in the world is usually underrated and most people would settle for mediocrity. If you are aiming for excellence, you will arrive at the dip, but persevere through, do this provided the reward at the end of the dip is what you want. If you are at the Cul-de-sac or cliff, think, is it possible to turn it into a dip by ways such as changing the platform you compete and then slog through the dip you have created. If you can’t, quit.

The wisest thing to do though, before you start to go into a dip, think, is this really what you want? If not, don’t go through it and quit, wasting the resources. List down the things which may make you quit in the dip before you journey.

It is almost impossible to overinvest in becoming the market leader.

Gratitude vs Acknowledgement

“You are full of gratitude for me, however, you have not acknowledged me!”

Do you find the above sentence ambiguous? Being a young man, I have always failed at showing acknowledgement to people who cared for me. At most a – thank you. A thank you, is, only a statement of gratitude, and it’s at its simplest form. A more complex way to show gratitude is to say: ” I thank you for helping me with my school assignment,” or “I thank you for spending time with me.”

A statement of gratitude becomes a statement of acknowledgement when we laud the person of a beautiful, intrinsic value the person possesses derived from our keen observation of him/her performing that act for us.

For example, we may now say: ” You are a selfless friend to give up your own free time to help me with your assignment,” and “I could tell you really treasured our friendship to take time off your busy schedules to spend time with me.”

I thank you, whoever you may be, to drop by and read my blog. It means you care for me and is interested to know what’s going on in my life.

God bless you. :) 

What’s the thing the complainer really cared about?

Are you someone who always complain or are you the one who’s always beleaguered by the someone who always complain?

The issue with complaint is – it usually don’t explicitly tell the story.

The next technique which I am going to share was also learnt from EffectiveArts workshop. It helps us to embellish complaints by seeing the beautiful vision of the someone who complains, helping us to shift our focus unto that.

I’ll put this technique in point form.

1. Hear a complaint from yourself or someone.
2. Ask: “What is the real thing you are really bothered about?”
3. Ask a clarifying question to be sure.
4. Summarize in a beautiful vision.
5. Grace the person who complained.

Let’s have an example.

“I really dislike the way things are going in the workplace, with so many meetings carrying out and very little time for things to be done at the ground level.”

“So what are you really bothered about?”

“I feel there should be more time to service the customers instead of talking.”

“So am I right to say that you feel the customers should be getting more of our time and better service?”

“Yeah, that’s right!”

“You have a really beautiful vision to better time management in the workplace and better quality service to customers.”

(In my heart – I could now see your beautiful vision and grace you for being a person who always complain) 

Are you present?

I had just attended a workshop by EffectiveArts over the weekend as a training organized to prepare me working at the hospital as an organ transplant coordinator.

It was a very interactive and handson workshop with the coach saying at the start of the training : “I am not committed to your comfort, but very committed to your success,” – you’ll have a rough idea what to expect. During the workshop, we were taught techniques to provide bereaved support to the family members and also techniques to improve working relationships with our colleagues at the hospital.

I am sharing one of the techniques which I found to be the most impactful to me during the 2 day course of learning. This technique is called - Being present.

It was illustrated through a game of “Counting 1,2,3″ in a continuous and alternative fashion with a partner. The game goes with Tom starting to count 1 then Dick 2, going back to Tom counting 3; now Dick will count 1, Tom -2, then Dick -3. This keeps on going. It may sound simple and easy, but trust me, the game is going to require a great deal of attention. And the nub is this, when one made a mistake, the other should carry on from the mistake. For instance, when Tom says 3 when he should be saying 2, Dick should carry on with 1 instead of 3. 

The coach Jim Boggs explained to us we could either be in the game or out of the game. When we are thinking of something else and not listening, we would be out of the game, giving the wrong responses. The remedy is simple, just get back into the game. Now replace in phrases “in the game” with the word – present, and “out of the game” with the words - not present. So the objective is to be in the game and be present to give the right response.

Though this is a simple game, it accentuates the importance of being present. Often, we may be engaged in an activity, but are not present. The most salient example would be chatting on MSN - you write a sentence and have to wait a minute to get a response! Personally, I have witnessed how powerful it is to be present, people being supported, loved and cared for. 

For me, I reasoned this principle could be applied to my life as well. I should let go of the past, not thinking about the future and be 100% there at the present, doing my best the thing that is on hand now. I would be adding this to my prayer list.

At the end of the year 08, reflect – Have I disciplined myself to be in the present?

Are you present reading this post?