Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Happy Birthday to Becca
It's been a while since I've gone all family-like on you, so excuse me if I give some kudos to by daughter Becca. She turns 23 today. She's an example that a lot of new business owners could learn from.
You might say she leads a charmed life. But, in reality, it's only because she's made it that way. Her high energy and genuine appreciation of others attracts people like crazy. When she worked in Burger King during high school, she was five to ten minutes late to work EVERY day.
Yet instead of firing her for her characteristic lateness, her bosses loved her for the enthusiasm and initiative she showed the full time she was there. Eventually, they actually started to accept her tardiness. One of them said to her, "I'm not worried when you show up late. I know you'll be there soon. And I know you'll do more work than most of the people who showed up on time."
For college, she choose a nearly all-male military college whose good-ole-boy system subtly sought to belittle women students into quitting. Although any of the men who saw her petite stature immediately wrote her off as not being up to the rigorous training required there, she forced them to respect her by always placing AHEAD of most of the guys in the physical training tests.
She couldn't match them physically in sheer strength. So she worked on speed and quickness and endurance to even things out—and even surpass them.
She's now an officer in the Air Force and has had plenty of other noteworthy accomplishments, but my point is this. Success is not about luck; it's about making your own luck.
When you look at a lot of the challenges she's faced and a lot of the mistakes she's made, you'd have to say she had no chance for success. Yet she pulled it off because each time she hit an obstacle, she found a way around it.
Success requires more than just wishful thinking. It requires more than some touchy-feely mumbo-jumbo about thinking positive thoughts and waiting for the universe to reward you. Success comes from a conscious effort to honestly assess where you're at and to find a way to make things that aren't working for you work.
May we all learn that way of approaching our businesses. Happy birthday, Becca!
Jeff
It's been a while since I've gone all family-like on you, so excuse me if I give some kudos to by daughter Becca. She turns 23 today. She's an example that a lot of new business owners could learn from.
You might say she leads a charmed life. But, in reality, it's only because she's made it that way. Her high energy and genuine appreciation of others attracts people like crazy. When she worked in Burger King during high school, she was five to ten minutes late to work EVERY day.
Yet instead of firing her for her characteristic lateness, her bosses loved her for the enthusiasm and initiative she showed the full time she was there. Eventually, they actually started to accept her tardiness. One of them said to her, "I'm not worried when you show up late. I know you'll be there soon. And I know you'll do more work than most of the people who showed up on time."
For college, she choose a nearly all-male military college whose good-ole-boy system subtly sought to belittle women students into quitting. Although any of the men who saw her petite stature immediately wrote her off as not being up to the rigorous training required there, she forced them to respect her by always placing AHEAD of most of the guys in the physical training tests.
She couldn't match them physically in sheer strength. So she worked on speed and quickness and endurance to even things out—and even surpass them.
She's now an officer in the Air Force and has had plenty of other noteworthy accomplishments, but my point is this. Success is not about luck; it's about making your own luck.
When you look at a lot of the challenges she's faced and a lot of the mistakes she's made, you'd have to say she had no chance for success. Yet she pulled it off because each time she hit an obstacle, she found a way around it.
Success requires more than just wishful thinking. It requires more than some touchy-feely mumbo-jumbo about thinking positive thoughts and waiting for the universe to reward you. Success comes from a conscious effort to honestly assess where you're at and to find a way to make things that aren't working for you work.
May we all learn that way of approaching our businesses. Happy birthday, Becca!
Jeff
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