No More Repeated Yesterdays

"Choose the road that demands the most from you."

Danny Cox

Charlie’s story from my last blog brings me back to one of the most important lessons I learned during that time of my life. Here it is. Everyday we stand at what some people call the "crossroads of life" but its not really a square cross in the road but a Y in the road. One of the roads leads to sameness and boredom and the other to growth, development and enthusiasm.

So each day ask yourself this question, “Am I doing the best at my job, or am I doing it the way I’ve always done it?” When you know the answer to that question, then you know where that road leads. More often than not, it leads right back to where you were the day before. Instead of taking that tricky right turn, the one that leads to new growth, you find yourself going around in a very familiar circle.

I call that “repeating yesterday.” (We’ll be examining that idea in more depth in a later blog.) This “repeating yesterday” formula is a phenomenon that’s true of companies as well as people—in fact, it would make a pretty good logo for some organizations. These are the companies that I refer to as “Plunging into the future with their eyes affixed to the rear view mirror—they are tradition-centered and unhampered by progress.” They don’t get worked up about new goals; a fair number of them have no goals whatsoever.

Immediate Action: Make photocopies of this “repeating yesterday” diagram, and place them in strategic locations in your home, your office, and on the dashboard of your car to remind yourself of which way you want to go.

Point to Ponder Before You Go On: A love of tradition for its own sake is what I call “nostalgic paralysis”—and it’s a sure-fire recipe for stagnation, inefficiency and burnout.".

A Satisfied Need Doesn’t Motivate

“We feel the thing we ought to be beating beneath the thing we are.”
—Phillips Brooks, American minister

When I talk about my record-breaking office, I’m often asked, “Where did you find those great salespeople? Did you raid the competition and get their top people? How did you get people who were all cut from the same piece of cloth?” Well, I didn’t and they weren’t. My salespeople came from every walk of life. That was a great office, and I could tell you some very interesting stories about an entire cross section of people. But I’m just going to pick one. Let’s call him Charlie. (That’s not his real name.)

Charlie was the most frustrating human being I ever had working for me. If you’re a manager, you probably know somebody just like him. I saw potential in him that he refused to see himself because of his self-imposed barriers. This guy made $4,000 a month, month in and month out. I don’t even know how he got by on that amount. It was absolutely eerie how close he could get to $4,000 each and every month. It was like an obsession. If he got close to $4,000 and there were just a few days left in the month, he was a basket case. He was actually petrified that someone would walk in and say, “I’m buying from you today,” and that would put him over the $4,000.

One month I said to myself, “Charlie doesn’t know this yet, but he’s going to go through that barrier, or I’m going to die trying to get him over it.” I did everything but move in with him. For a solid month, he could not move in that office without my being right behind him. When he went to the men’s room, I stood guard at the door! I Big Brothered that son of a gun to death!

That month he made close to $8,000—he doubled his productivity—all thanks to my Big Brothering. But mark the sequel: The next month, without me behind him, Charlie made—you guessed it—nothing. Zero. And the next month? $2,000—he had no problem with that.

So I brought him in to my office and sat him down. He was one of those people who have “poor me” written all over their faces and in their voices. I bet with that voice of his he could have cracked a Styrofoam cup. Anyway, after I had pointed out what he was doing, he said, “But Danny, you don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand?” I asked him.

“Well, I’ve never had any more money in the bank than what my father had in the bank when I was growing up.” As ridiculous as that sounds, that was his excuse. He made absolutely sure that he based his earnings solely on what his father used to have when he was young. He controlled his income. If he’d been on salary, he’d have probably controlled it with his expenses. This, then, was his reason for keeping his self-imposed barrier in what could have been a permanent position.

I looked at him and I said, “So that’s the role model you’re setting for your own children, is it? So someday they’ll be able to sit in an office like this and then tell their manager, ‘We’ve never had any more money in the bank than our father had in the bank. It’s always been that way in our family.’”

Well, Charlie came up out of that chair in a hurry and headed for my desk, as if I’d not only stepped on sacred ground, I had stomped on it. Or that’s the way it seemed. I thought “Cox, here’s one you’ve pushed too far. He’s going to be across that desk doing horrible things to your face in just a moment.” There he stood at my desk, inches
away from me, shaking. But instead of hitting me, he said, “My gosh! That’s what I’m doing, isn’t it?”

“Sure you are,” I said, relieved.

Then he said, “I’m setting a daily example for my kids to see, one of no further growth from their father. My own kids think this is as good as I’ll ever be at what I’ve chosen to do with my life. Well, why should they feel any different? I’ve never given them any reason to.”

He paused a moment, then went on, “They deserve a better example than the one they see at the end of a day when I come home from work, disgusted with myself, carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, and telling them they’d better get better at what they’re doing. From this point forward,” Charlie said, “I refuse to continue to repeat what I know doesn’t work.”

That’s an important lesson to learn. When we get into a bad habit, we often don’t see what’s happening to us and what’s not working. But we can defeat that by taking a good, long look at ourselves, and then make changes to break the bad habits—starting today! And that’s exactly what Charlie did.

Immediate Action: Ask yourself, “What am I doing now that isn’t working? How could I change it?” How do you know whether what you’re doing works or not? We probably already know instinctively; the question is, when do we decide that the price we’re paying now is too high?

Charlie walked out of my office that day a changed man. Why? Because he had something to prove. The pain of realizing he was affecting his children’s life for the worse was too much—he decided it was time to establish a new routine. He vowed to inspire his family. Whom are you inspiring by the way you do your job? (And notice I said “inspiring,” not “impressing.”)

Point to Ponder Before You Go On: For “things” to change for the better, you’ve got to change for the better...just as Charlie did.

Break Your Own Records––Not Theirs

“To be what we are, to become what we are capable of becoming is the only end of life.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

A favorite author of mine, O. S. Marden said, “Adversity sometimes strips a person only to discover the person.”

There was a period of time that I had a real chance to learn more about myself as well as the sales team I managed.

It had been a tumultuous seven months since I was appointed to manage the #1 office of 36 offices. In three months we were 36^th because I was trying to get them to sell like I did. It’s a common managerial mistake. My boss said, “I’m looking for your replacement.”

I went into “high gear” looking for good leadership techniques and putting them into practice. In four months we were back to #1. Over the next few months we stayed at #1 but at the same level of productivity.

We were back at our comfort levels in other words we had stopped at our individual self-imposed barriers of the past.

The system I created that worked like a charm was to bring each of my team members in for a “closed door” session with me. In this private conference I said, “I don’t want you to break anyone else’s sales record. I only want you to break your own in five different categories. What is your highest producing day, week, month, quarter and year?

If they didn’t know what their record was in each category I helped them figure it our. I also explained they didn’t have to break them in order. They might have their best week before their best day, for example.

Launching this technique worked extremely well. We broke office records, company records and industry records.

Once they saw that breaking their own personal records was a great motivation their morale went even higher.

It also got them away from that old, inefficient saying, “I’m going to go break ‘so and so’s’ record”. They were more focused on their own records.

Immediate Action: Figure out what was your best productive day. Your best productive week, etc.

Making the Best Better

“Only a mediocre person is always at his best.”

Somerset Maugham

I was conducting a leadership program at a client’s company headquarters in South Carolina. During the lunch break, as I was strolling around with one of their vice presidents, I couldn’t help but notice the great inspirational quotes hanging on the walls. I commented what a great idea this was. The VP said, “These are the inspirational reminders we used in the turnaround we went through a few years ago. We were a very old company that had drifted into the doldrums and plateaued out. Then our CEO read a book by Philip Crosby called Quality Is Free––and after that we turned the company around. Now we’re the acknowledged world leader in our field.”

The first quote on the wall that really caught my eye said, “There is no saturation to education.” What a great thought! Think about it. Do you realize that nobody has ever been completely educated? There is always room for another new idea! I think that quote ought to be on every manager’s wall and across the top of every company newsletter. There is no saturation to education!

But the one that brought me to a complete halt was a few yards further down the hallway. This is the one that will stick with me forever. “Good is the enemy of best; best is the enemy of better.” Wow! That’s profound! When we get good at something, what do we tend to say? “Why do I have to be the best at this? I’m already good at it.” Should we happen to become the best at something, and then the tendency is to say, “Why do I need to get any better? I’m already Number One.”

When I was in the cockpit of my supersonic fighter I was always “checking my six.” That was the area directly behind me where something bad could slip up on me. Occasionally, we’d see one of our buddies in the squadron getting a little too cocky, a little too self-assured for his own good and ours. That’s when somebody would say, “You’d better check your six. Something’s gaining on you and you don’t even know it.”

That same thing happens in the business world. I spot them in my audiences at conventions and seminars. Their arms are folded; they never take a note and have a “know it all” look on their face. I spring this on them, “Check your six. Something is slipping up on you that you’re not going to like.”

When you take that new road––the one that leads out of the familiar routine and into new goals and new growth––your customers will be thrilled. But what happens if you keep going around and around in the same circle? Plateauing, followed by stagnation, followed by burnout…in that order.

Immediate Action: Think of a person you’ve worked with who thought he or she knew it all, but didn’t. How should he or she have kept up with the challenges of the day? What can you learn from his or her complacency?

Point to Ponder Before You Go On: Don’t forget to check your six. You’ve got to make sure you stay out there where you can focus. For your own good and for the good of others. You’ve got to make sure that complacency isn’t keeping you from developing new talents––and developing defenses against the new challenges you’re going to face.

The Big Discovery

Self-imposed barriers mark the perimeters of our self-worth. Those barriers are pushed out as faith in our self worth increases and undeveloped potential is discovered.

––Danny Cox

Somerset Maugham, the great English author, once said, “Adversity puts iron in your flesh.” Another one of my favorite authors, a man by the name of Orison Swett Marden, said, “Adversity sometimes strips a person, only to discover the person.” Well, through adversity I discovered quite a lot about my person. I went back to square one and started learning not only about my own potential, but also about the potential of the people who worked for me. And the biggest lesson I learned was that salespeople can get better––right after the sales manager does.

There are universal applications in that principle. Employees get better right after managers do. Kids get better right after parents do. Students get better right after teachers do. Audiences get better right after speakers do. Customers get better right after salespeople, sales managers, upper management, receptionists, secretaries, order clerks, and anybody else who happens to be in the company get better.

I had been with the company two years (one as a salesperson and one as a manager) of one of their small offices. I had been promoted three months prior to this time to the highest producing office out of 36. In those 90 days we slid to #36! My boss told me he was looking for my replacement.

I had to work fast to save my career. Two days away from the office and I figured it out. My problem was trying to turn my salespeople into “copies” of me, an idea that they rejected. My new strategy was to be aware of their weaknesses but communicate with their strengths. It worked! And 120 days later we were back to Number One.

That was a moment to be savored, not only because of the sense of achievement, but because it would then be possible to ease off a bit and relax after that incredible climb back to Number One. Or so I thought. There’s a certain danger in taking that kind of attitude. If I had hung on to it, you know what would have happened, don’t you? Our sales would have plateaued back out and you’d be reading a Blog by some other author, not me!

Well, my salespeople and I started talking about this phenomenon. It can happen to anybody working in any job at any level: When you get to a certain way to doing your job, it’s tempting to just quit getting better at it. That is what is called a self-imposed barrier. We’ll be looking at that kind of barrier in greater detail a little later on, but I want to take this opportunity to give you the introductory tour now.

Nobody builds a self-imposed barrier for you. You build it for yourself. A self-imposed barrier is not a wall around your life; it’s just the margin of your life, where you stopped growing. These barriers can rise up at just about any level, whether it’s low, medium, or even high productivity!

Immediate Action: Think of a time when you’ve told someone––perhaps a friend or family member––“Come on you can do better than that.” Did you ever hear that person reply, “No, I can’t––I’ve never done this job better than that.” The truth is, that’s not a reason that’s not even a good excuse. It’s only the flag atop the so-called barrier. It shows where the new potential starts.

Point to Ponder: Phillips Brooks, the minister who wrote, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” had a powerful thought: “When you discover you’ve been leading only half a life, the other half is going to haunt you until you develop it.” He was absolutely right.

No-limits thinking is the kind of thinking that’s dedicated to finding a way to live a full life––so that the unexplored half of your identity, the half you can develop but don’t doesn’t come back to haunt you.

The Crossroads

The Crossroads

“Now is always beginning.” Thomas Hornsby Ferril, author

Every day we stand at the “crossroads of our lives,” which, if the truth be known, is a “Y” in the road. One path leads toward sameness––the other path leads toward no-limits––living that is new, exciting, and adventurous.

Every day there are decisions to be made about which direction we will take. And every day new opportunities for personal growth present themselves to us. Maybe we don’t always see them, but they’re there.

Those opportunities are there for you. Your personal “Y” in the road represents unlimited possibilities to be explored, challenges to be met, and chances to experience life to its fullest. When we take full advantage of those opportunities, we overcome (imaginary) barriers––and prove to ourselves and anybody who’s watching that there are no limits.

You may be asking yourself: How do I know when it’s time to take that new direction? Which fork in that crossroads do I choose? And how do I change direction again if things don’t work out quite as well as I’d hoped? What if it ends up looking a whole lot like there are limits for me, after all? Answering those questions is what this is all about.

When we’re born, our developed potential is only a microscopic dot that sits inside a large circle of our very own undeveloped potential. Then we go to school and the circle gets to be a little bigger, and we start to have more experiences and the circle, again, gets a little bigger. We learn more things through new experiences, and the circle gets bigger still. And then, all too often, when we start a career, the expanding potential stops. We are left with a large area of unfulfilled potential. When we stop developing our potential, stop striving to fill up those circles of potential, we start to take the perceived barriers––that dotted line––for granted.

We often look at that division between the developed potential and the undeveloped potential as though it were a wall. But it’s not; it’s merely a boundary. To move past that dotted line, we must summon the steel inside ourselves.

Thomas Edison’s widely quoted observation that “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration” if often misunderstood. Because of this remark, many people think that Edison believed a life of toil and pain was necessary to produce breakthroughs. Nothing could be further from the truth. Edison delighted in his work, worked on things that delighted him, and was constantly inspired by the task of finding new ways to move past old barriers to take advantage of undeveloped potential. He enjoyed the process of impressing himself––of summoning the steel inside himself to move past what he had done before.

Everyone has a “steel thread” woven into the fabric of their being, whether it’s discovered or undiscovered. What’s yours? If you don’t yet know (or don’t remember) what your steel thread feels like, this book will help you pose the questions that will point you toward the answer.

Immediate Action: Keep reading!

Point to Ponder Before You Go On: “Successful [people] pay no attention to barriers, real or imaginary, erected by people or by customs. [They] persistently refuse to limit themselves, knowing the stagnating and destructive influence of restrictions…Those who limit themselves or others are not only engaging in a certain form of self-destruction, but are traitors to humanity and to the world…One need but choose whether he would take his place with the traitors or with the heroes.” ––Sherman J. Kline, author

Your New Birthday

There Are No Limits

Breaking the Barriers in Personal High Performance

Each week I will post a select chapter from my popular book, "There Are No Limits" on my blog.

“Apply yourself. Get all the education you can. But then, by God, do something! Don't just stand there––make something happen." Lee Iacocca

This is it––the moment you’ve been waiting for––your moment of glory. Your opportunity to put into action everything you’ve learned thus far in your life––and what you’re about to learn in this guide to a “no limits” life.

We make a pretty big deal about the birthdays we find on our birth certificates. Those birthdays are good reasons for a party––but they’re not the best reasons to celebrate. When you think about it, what did you really do to deserve a birthday party? You were born––you showed up! That’s about it. You should really be throwing a party for your mother on that day, if you ask me!

Actually, I think each of us needs to pick a second birthday––to mark the day when we committed ourselves, consciously and completely, to becoming the best person we’re capable of being, to developing our vast undeveloped potential. By the end of this book, I believe you’ll be ready to make that special commitment.

When someone writes your biography, that person may have to devote one whole chapter to the day you decided, with full conviction, to take personal responsibility for developing all of your remaining potential. In my seminars, I encourage the people I’m training to write a declaration of personal responsibility, a special personalized document that marks the decision to take control of one’s life.

Here’s my declaration. May I suggest that you write your own?

My Declaration of Personal Responsibility

I currently possess everything I've truly wanted and deserved. This is based on what I have handed out to date. My possessions, my savings and my lifestyle are an exact mirror of me, my efforts and my contribution to society. What I give, I get. If I am unhappy with what I have received it is because, as yet, I have not paid the required price. I have lingered too long in the "quibbling stage."

I fully understand that time becomes a burden to me only when it is empty. The past is mine and at this very moment I am purchasing another twenty-four hours of it. The future quickly becomes the past at a control point called the present moment. I not only truly live at that point, but I have full responsibility for the highest and best use of the irreplaceable now.

I accept full responsibility for both the successes and failures in my life. If I am not what I desire to be at this point, what I am is my compromise. I no longer choose to compromise with my undeveloped potential.

I am the sum total of the choices I have made and I continue to choose daily. What I now put under close scrutiny is the value of each up-coming choice. Therein lies the quality of my future lifestyle.

Will my future belong to the "old me" or the "new me"? The answer depends on my attitude toward personal growth at this very moment. What time is left is all that counts and that remaining time is my responsibility. With a newfound maturity I accept full responsibility for how good I can become at what is most important to me.

With personal growth comes a fear of the unknown and new

problems. Those problems are nothing more than the expanding shadow of my personal growth. I now turn my very real fear, with God's help, into a very real adventure.

My life now expands to meet my newfound destiny. "Old me," meet the "new me."

Immediate Action: Describe your life 10 years from now. That’s 3,650 days. Will they be 3,650 “reruns”­­––or will they be 3,650 days of purpose, adventure, and growth? How much joy will you be experiencing compared to right now? What form will that joy take? (Note: Expect your answers to change by the time you finish this book.)

Point to Ponder Before You Go On: “When what you’ve done in the past looks large to you, you haven’t done much today.”––Elbert Hubbard, American author of (among many other inspirational books) A Message to Garcia, one of the biggest-selling volumes of all time.