Take Away Ideas

There is a first time and a last time for everything.  When you are dealing with a colleague or a client, learn from the moment.  Remember, today is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The customer is always right – wrong.  But the customer is always the customer.  Right and wrong have nothing to do with it.
Realizing what true leadership is  – you are a leader even when you don’t want to be – teaching everyone around you who you are and what you believe life is all about.
You can either learn by listening to someone or judge them by talking at them. But you cannot do both.  One precludes the possibility of the other.
When you talk to a colleague or client, you should be inspiring, motivating, educating or selling but not lecturing.
When you are listening, you should not merely be loading up your lungs for the next blast.  Instead, you should be learning about the other person rather than just being concerned about the sliver of their existence, such as the role they play as your colleague or client, that is of interest to you.
Life is learning and learning is life.  Always be getting better at something.
Teamwork is sharing as much power as you can.  This is the difference between someone merely working for you and someone working with you.
Rules are the answers to yesterday’s questions.  Rules are certainly necessary but, more importantly, you need guidelines that work for each individual colleague and client.
There is a difference between success and failure and winning and losing.  Success is when you strive towards your goal.  Failure is when you stop.  Winning and losing often involve elements that you cannot control.  Leaders know the difference.
You can demand that someone treat you with respect but you cannot make someone respect you.  That choice is up to that “someone.”
True leaders are seekers in this lifelong game of hide-n-seek.  Every day shouts at each of us – “ready or not, here I come.”
Hope is the joy of planning for, but not knowing, the future.
A leader knows that he or she is only as strong as the people who support them.
Passion for who you are and what you do is the difference between a work-a-holic, who puts all their time into their job, and a love-a-holic who puts all their intelligence, creativity, common sense and commitment into their career.
A leader knows that living is one continuous adventure of teaching and learning.  Wherever you are, someone wants to get there.  A true leader will help them.  When that person grows, so do you.  Wherever you want to go, a leader is already there.  You will be amazed at how much they’re willing to share.  This is what teamwork is all about.
As a leader, you know that all real power is spiritual.  It comes from within.  As my father often said, “no one can make me happy.  No one can make me sad.  No one can make me anything unless i first give them the power to do it.”
Listen to everyone’s opinion.  Take no one’s advice.
A leader knows that we all live in a world of uncertainty.  That is part of the human condition.  We can call this uncertainty either “stress” or “hope.”  The reality will stay the same.  But if we choose hope, our outlook on life changes dramatically.
As a leader, you know that each of us is a rock that sends ripples throughout the workplace and our business community.