In a past blog I spoke about the importance of mentors. In future blogs, I will be spending a fair amount of time over the summer focusing on how you can be the best that you can be. To begin this process, I want to share with you the five most important sentences that were spoken to me by five of my mentors because I think they represent the knowledge you need to start becoming the best that you can be.
“If you don’t excrete you die.” This famous sentence from Peter Drucker really had me flabbergasted when he first spoke it to me.
It actually was his response when I asked him, what is the most important lesson he could teach me. I was flabbergasted by his answer. What does that mean? Professor Drucker continued, “For our bodies to perform, they must take in nourishment and excrete waste. If they don’t excrete there is no room to take in more nourishment and you will die. People like you and other Wall Street types are pack rats. All you do is take things in. You must begin to get rid of things if you are going to grow. You must get rid of bad ideas, bad investment programs and bad beliefs and replace them with new invigorating and nourishing ideas.”
“There is more than one right answer.” After hearing this sentence from DeWitt Jones I really started thinking for the first time that the proposition that there is more than one right answer could be applied to many aspects of life. I wondered why few people ever spoke of the concept of finding more than one right answer. It seems that we live in a world where most people may look for answers but never look for a second or even third right answer. Yet one does not have to look far to see the vast breakthroughs that exist entirely because of rejecting the way something was always done and replacing it with a better right answer.
“The purpose of a business is to find and keep good customers.”
It was after listening to these words from Ted Levitt that I began trying to fully understand the concept of customer acquisition but perhaps more importantly, customer retention. In working with financial advisors, I often find that they have elaborate customer acquisition plans but most often don’t have client retention plans. This caused me to choose client retention as a subject of one of my White Papers and adding it to my lecture topics. The revenues lost by not concentration on client retention are staggering.
“Add a little magic to your delegation plan.” Thank you, Larry Biederman, for this sentence. Larry uses the pneumonic MAGIC to list the five elements of proper delegation: Message, Ability, Goals, Information and Consequences. My website includes a white paper, a video and a recorded lecture on how to use these five elements. Good delegation is a key to enhancing productivity.
“There is black and there is white and there is gray and when it is gray get a partner.” These words were spoken to me by my father, and they form the foundation of my personal ethics. We all know what to do when confronted by good and evil, but it is the gray area that causes all of the trouble. People tend to convert gray into white when left to their own devices to justify their actions. It is not that simple. So, whenever you are faced with a gray area ask for some one else’s opinion. This one may save your life some day. Thanks dad!
There you have it. Five sentences that will put you on the right track in your goal to be the best that you can be.
RJC
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