Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 16 – No. 2014 May 17, 2014
Thought for the week: "Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude." – Zig Ziglar
While working for an organization that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, I used to take my 4-year-old daughter on my afternoon rounds. She was unfailingly intrigued by the various appliances of old age, particularly the canes, walkers and wheelchairs.
One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned and whispered, "The tooth fairy will never believe this!"
If a dog were your teacher, these are some of the lessons you might learn:
When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.
Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
When it's in your best interest, practice obedience. Let others know when they've invaded your territory.
Take naps and stretch before rising.
Run romp and play daily.
Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
Avoid biting, when a simple growl will do.
On warm days stop to lie on your back on the grass.
On hot days drink lots of water and lay under a shady tree.
When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
No matter how often you're scolded, don't buy into the guilt thing and pout,
run right back and make friends.
Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
Eat with gusto and enthusiasm.
Stop when you have had enough.
Be loyal. Never pretend to be something you're not.
If what you want lies buried,
dig until you find it.
When someone is having a bad day,
be silent
... sit close by, and nuzzle them gently.
To those who see with loving eyes, life is beautiful.
To those who speak with tender voices, life is peaceful.
To those who help with gentle hands, life is full.
And to those who care with compassionate hearts,
life is good beyond all measure.
If you're spiritually alive, you're going to love this! If you're spiritually dead, you won't want to read it. If you're spiritually curious, there is still hope!
A Churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time, and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."
This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the Editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:
"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: they all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today.
Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!
Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical and our spiritual nourishment!
6. Nice Guys Finish First: Good Ethics Is Good Business
By Michael Josephson, CHARACTER COUNTS
(848:2)
"Nice guys finish last."
This maxim originated with a fiercely competitive baseball manager named Leo Durocher who shamelessly advocated ruthlessness, cheating, and dirty play. It is also used to explain why sweet, thoughtful men lose out to self-centered jerks in the world of dating. Lots of people believe the philosophy applies in business as well. The rationale: nice is the same as weak, and worrying about the other guy is stupid and counter-productive.
If we're looking to not merely do better, but to be better, those of you in business should reconsider the role of nice as an important aspect of success.
Firms of Endearment, an exceptionally interesting book published by the Wharton School of Business, explodes this myth with persuasive case studies and data. Authors Raj Sisodia, David B. Wolfe, and Jag Sheth used an extensive screening process to identify the most loved companies in the U.S., companies that customers, employees, and suppliers raved about. They labeled these companies "firms of endearment" (or FoEs) and set out to see what these companies did to win so much devotion and find out how these companies fared in the dog-eat-dog world of capitalism.
It wasn't hard to discover why these companies were loved. Though each went at it a bit differently, a common element was that firms like Costco, Southwest Airlines, Whole Foods, and Commerce Bank are seen to bend over backwards to please their customers. They are also more generous to their employees and their suppliers than their competitors, going out of their way to show the people they work with that they are valued and appreciated. They are more likely than other companies to humanize their interactions with fun and acknowledgement. They also are more likely than their competitors to be good citizens—paying their fair share of taxes, contributing to community projects and protecting the environment. Finally, FoEs tend to be led by CEOs who clearly care about people and principles and truly believe they have an obligation to all stakeholders, not just shareholders.
By any standard, these companies are "nice." But this niceness doesn't come cheap. The ultimate question is, with all their extra costs, how do they do on Wall Street?
The most surprising conclusion of the researchers was that nice works. In fact, FoEs beat the pants off competitors whose more traditional business practices focus on the bottom line.
Cumulatively, the 30 companies that earned the FoE designation returned 758% over 10 years, versus 128% for the S&P 500. Over the past five years—a particularly tough period during which the S&P lost 16%—these firms returned 205%. Perhaps even more impressively, they substantially outperformed the "great" companies identified by Jim Collins in his classic book, Good to Great. In the three years most recently studied, the FoE firms did more than twice as well as the Good-to-Great firms (106% to 51%).
The authors contend that the world is changing dramatically, imposing new requirements for business success and what they call "the social transformation of capitalism." This is one of my "must read" books.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
Xvxn though this typxwritxr is an old modxl, it works vxry wxll, xxcxpt for onx kxy. You'd think that with all thx othhxr kxys working, onx kxy would hardly bx noticxd. But just onx kxy out of whack sxxms to ruin thx wholx xffort.
Havx you xvxr said to yoursxlf, "I'm only onx pxrson. No onx will noticx if I don't do my bxst."
But it doxs makx a diffxrxncx, bxcausx to bx xffxctivx, a family, an organization, a church or a businxss nxxds complxtx participation by evxryonx to thx bxst of his or hxr ability.
So if you'rx having onx of thosx days whxn you think you just arxn't vxry important, and you'rx txmptxd to slack off, rxmxmbxr this old typxwritxr. You arx a kxy pxrson, and whxn you don't do your bxst, nothing xlsx around you works out thx way it is supposxd to.2
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you that I am very important to you and that my life matters. Help me to feel your love for me and, in so doing, know in the depths of my heart that I am loved, needed and important. And please help me to do my part in being a part of what you are doing in the world today. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."
1. Ephesians 4:25 (NIV).
2. Author unknown. Cited on many websites.
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