Ray's Daily

Some people dream of success… while others wake up and work hard at it.

Author Unknown

I had breakfast last Saturday with one of our cities most respected leaders. He recently retired as the head of a major health organization but continues wearing many hats as he works to make our city a better place. We talked about how so many of our fellow citizens are an untapped resource who if motivated could make our city an even better place than it is. During our conversation he shared with me that he recently had met with a group of young college educated folks who complained that the older generation was not getting out of their way so that they could take on the leadership roles. I said that in my experience the best way to be selected to lead was to earn the role. My friend commented that it seemed like too many get out of college thinking they have the skills to lead others without putting in the time and effort that their predecessors have.

I have found over the years that it is the people who have participated in the activities of their organization at every level that learn what they need to know to lead others who succeed. They know what the organization is all about, how it works and most of all how valuable everyone in the organization is to its success. Over the years the best baseball players in the major leagues are those who sharpened their skills in the minors, life is like that, we need to go through our own development years honing our skills. And you know what − those are the folks who are asked to lead, they are asked because they earned the respect of those they will lead.

I like what David Crandall wrote in the forward to The Core: Foundational Truths for Learning Leadership Right Where You Are, he said:

In a culture that puts “me” first, we often fall prey to the belief that we should be leading while everyone else follows. We romanticize ideas of leadership based on books and movies, people we’ve known and heroes we’ve heard about. We mistakenly equate celebrity and rock-star status with leadership and seek to lead before we understand the basic skills necessary for the position.

We believe that we would be great leaders if given the opportunity. We seek to have the role of leader bestowed upon us believing that we possess the necessary skills adequate for the position.

Focus is all too often placed on the leader’s own success and not that of those they would seek to lead.

For this reason, the pursuit for leadership before gaining the necessary skills is a dangerous one. Finding oneself in a place of leadership before being able to competently lead others can be a devastating experience for the leader and the people following them. Without having first the mind of a follower, we will struggle with developing the mind of a leader. Worse yet, we will not likely have developed the skills necessary to make our followers successful.

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You can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.

Napoleon Hill

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A Mother’s Dictionary

Bottle feeding: An opportunity for Daddy to get up at 2 am too.

Defense: What you’d better have around de yard if you’re going to let de children play outside.

Drooling: How teething babies wash their chins.

Dumbwaiter: One who asks if the kids would care to order dessert.

Feedback: The inevitable result when the baby doesn’t appreciate the strained carrots.

Full name: What you call your child when you’re mad at him.

Grandparents: The people who think your children are wonderful even though they’re sure you’re not raising them right.

Impregnable: A woman whose memory of labor is still vivid.

Independent: How we want our children to be as long as they do everything we say.

Look out: What it’s too late for your child to do by the time you scream it.

Prenatal: When your life was still somewhat your own.

Prepared childbirth: A contradiction in terms.

Puddle: A small body of water that draws other small bodies wearing dry shoes into it.

Show off: A child who is more talented than yours.

Sterilize: What you do to your first baby’s pacifier by boiling it and to your last baby’s pacifier by blowing on it.

Storeroom: The distance required between the supermarket aisles so that children in shopping carts can’t quite reach anything.

Temper tantrums: What you should keep to a minimum so as to not upset the children.

Two-minute warning: When the baby’s face turns red and she begins to make those familiar grunting noises.

Whodunit: None of the kids that live in your house.

Whoops: An exclamation that translates roughly into “get a sponge.”

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“God give me patience….And make it quick!”

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Two friends met.  “You look sad, Fred, what’s the trouble?” asked the first friend.

“Domestic trouble.”

“But you always bragged that your wife is a pearl.”

“She still is.  It’s the mother-of-pearl that makes all the trouble.’

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When I die, I want to go like my grandmother, who died peacefully in her sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in her car.

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Melvin was playing football very badly. He tried to kick a goal and missed. Finally, He threw himself down on the bench and said in disgust, “Boy, I could just kick myself.”

The coach looked the other way. “Don’t bother,” he said, “you’d probably miss.”

~~~

Is it possible to scream at the bottom of your lungs?

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A shepherd was herding his flocks in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand new Jeep Cherokee advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and a YSL tie leaned out of the window and asked our shepherd: “If I can tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?”

The shepherd looks at the yuppie, then at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers, “Sure!” The yuppie parks the car, whips out his notebook, connects it to a cell-phone, surfs to a NASA page on the Internet  where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system, scans the area, opens up a database and some 60 Excel spreadsheets with complex formulas.

Finally: he prints out a 150 page report on his hi-tech miniaturized printer, turns round to our shepherd and says: “You have here exactly 1586 sheep!”  “This is correct.  As agreed, you can take one of the sheep” says the  shepherd.  He watches the young man makes a selection and bundles it in his Cherokee.

Then the shepherd says: “If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me my sheep back?”  “Okay, why not” answers the young man. “You are a consultant” says the shepherd.  “This is correct” says the yuppie, “How did you guess that?”

“Easy”, answers the shepherd.  “You turn up here although nobody called you.  You want to be paid for the answer to a question I already knew the solution to, and you don’t know anything about my business because you took my dog.”

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TEACHER: Max, use “defeat”, “defense”, and “detail” in a sentence.

MAX: The rabbit cut across the field, and defeat went over defense before detail.

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Three elderly people were talking about what their grandchildren would be saying about them fifty years from now.

“I would like my grandchildren to say, ‘He was successful in business,'” declared the first man.

“Fifty years from now,” said the second, “I want them to say, ‘He was a loyal family man.'” Turning to the third one, a lady, he asked, “So what do you want them to say about you in fifty years?”

“Me?” the third one replied. “I want them to say, ‘She certainly looks good for her age.'”

~~~

That man is successful who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much, who has gained the respect of the intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.

Robert Louis Stevenson

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Stay well, do good work, and have fun.

Ray Mitchell

Indianapolis, Indiana

Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.

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