Stupid!

I had the word stupid quoted at me twice this week. Now, I was not being called stupid…at least I don’t think so. The first mention came from a mentor/sage type of guy whom I have the good fortune to rub shoulders with occasionally. Often when I speak with him he will share what he calls a “mantra”- kind of a sacred counsel/last thought to make me think. This week he left me with this gem, “You can’t teach stupid.” Of course the first thing my mind went to was the classic line from Forrest Gump. “Momma says, ‘Stupid is as stupid does’.” The deceptive simplicity of this quote hides a deeper wisdom. We can call somebody stupid, but that doesn’t make it true. Stupid is defined by our actions.

But what to do with the idea that you can’t teach a stupid person? I’m stumped with that one. I shared it with a friend and his response was the famous John Wayne saying, “Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid.” Now that I can relate to! When you make a stupid move, fine, just don’t compound it by doing something stupid to follow it up. You know like you drink too much, and you decide to drive home anyway. Stupid followed up by stupider! Or you blow it with an employee, family member, or friend and instead of fixing things you go for the kill to try and save face. Either way there is usually a way to rebound from a stupid act of some kind, but this still leaves me with “you can’t teach stupid.” Well, does this mean you can’t tell someone how to be stupid, and they just come by it naturally? Or does it mean you can’t teach a person who is just plain old stupid? Either way I struggle with this one. I found a photo (http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2008/05/cake-that-started-it-all.html) that brought me some clarity. Here's how I imagine the conversation to order the cake took place:

Bakery Employee: Thanks for calling *******. How may I help you?
Customer: I would like to order a cake for a going away party this week.
Bakery Employee: What you want it to say on the cake?
Customer: “Best Wishes Suzanne” and underneath that “We will Miss You”. (Read the cake again.)


After thinking about this for a few days, I think this cake represents exactly what my wise old friend wanted me to think about. Stupid just happens. He just wanted me to consider that you can’t take stupid out of the equation when you live on our planet, and often enough we’re a part of the stupid. The question is, “What do you do with stupid when it happens?” Let’s look again at those first two quotes. First, Forrest laid it out for us. It is what it is. Secondly, The Duke gives some great insight on what life will be like if we make choices that just exacerbate the situation we’re in. Let me leave you with one final thought. What around you just has to be left for what it is and what around you needs to be redirected in order to not compound the stupidity?

H to the Third

Have you ever wondered why it can be difficult to engage people? At times when we seek to engage others they seem to totally be tracking with us, yet when it comes time to follow through on whatever it is we’re talking about, it’s like they just looked into the Neuralizer (flashy light thing that erased memories) from the movie Men In Black. Having spent over two decades teaching teenagers, I know what it is like to have what seems to be a very profitable discussion with someone regarding any given topic and when I talk to them later it’s like we never spoke. My wife can fully comprehend this as well. Occasionally, she strikes up a conversation with me while I am watching a sports game on TV. You would think that these days with DVR it would be better. I can just hit pause and try to give her my full attention, but I still have a hard time truly engaging if there is a paused picture of Kobe going to the hole or Favre retiring again, or pretty much anything else sports related in my general vicinity.

Engaging communication is not just having somebody hear what you are saying that is important. They need to actually digest it. Having just re-read one of my favorite books on leadership (“The Secret” by Blanchard and Miller), I was reminded again of the sketch I drew the first time I read this book that I called H to the 3rd or H^3(See stick figure). To me this is the picture of truly engaging with co-workers, teammates, students, family, etc. Truly engaging others means connecting with their head, hands, and hearts. Often with an employee we have hired their hands and have certain tasks that are required for them to complete. We often ask them to use their head to solve problems and make decisions, but they sometimes lack heart or passion for the tasks at hand. At times we might have an employee who is so passionate about their work that they neglect to use their head to do it more efficiently. Others might think a lot about a challenge but are unwilling to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. When we consider H^3 type of engagement we are seeking to have people care about their work, consider how to do it in the best way possible, and ultimately be willing to personally do what it takes to get it done. If you look at my post from a couple of weeks ago on motivation (http://thebedbusiness.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-motivates-you.html) it comes down to purpose. To truly engage people in a cause or task it will mean capturing their heads, hearts, and hands by modeling for them your own purpose in the cause or task. People engage when authentic excitement is experienced from their leader.

People today have their Fake-O-Meter working overtime with all the craziness of the internet and other media sources that flood us with false or shady information. A couple of key characteristics that great leaders utilize to engage their co-workers are authenticity and consistency. Simply by being real with somebody else there is a connection made. Obviously there are varying levels of information one can share, but people connect with other people- not pay checks and tasks. Employees like to know what to expect from their leaders, and they appreciate it when the work culture can be depended upon to stay consistent. Leaders demonstrating an authentic purpose and staying on task will soon find their employees following suit.

Good advice from a fortune cookie

These are some of my favorite fortune cookie quotes:

Keep your broken arm inside your sleeve.
You can always find happiness at work on Friday.
The greatest danger could be your stupidity.

My wife brought me some Panda Express today for lunch, and included of course was the little cookie that provides a nugget of wisdom for us to guide our lives by. Today’s little nugget was, “You will obtain your goal if you maintain your course.” Typically I only pay attention to these morsels of truth if they have some sort of lost in translation to English glitch, but this one reminded me of a great lesson that we all need to remember, or it will be a rough “course.” The lesson is really twofold; let me start with the second part, which needs to be in place to even have a course.

2nd Lesson is this: You must have a goal to have a course! Without a goal you will just wander around aimlessly with no course to maintain, no direction to head, no destination to anticipate. Have you ever taken a mystery trip? You know, you have a week off and you have no idea where you are going or what you are going to do. So you just pack a few essentials get in the car and start heading some direction. As much as this would seem so cool I don’t think I could pull this off, it would just drive me crazy not having a plan. I know when I go to a new place the first thing I like to do is scope it out and make sure I know what all my options might be. I don’t want to eat at a typical restaurant if I could experience something that I have never had before or could not have where I live. Many times in life whether it is personal, family, or business related we forget to set a goal or destination. If we don’t have a goal we can’t have a course. The cool thing about having a goal is that there can be various routes to get there, and that is when the excitement of the journey becomes available to us.

1st Lesson is this: Maintaining the course is where life happens. So often we live life only focused on the end results that we forget about the process of getting there. This is what I call experiencing the journey. In the early 90’s Tom Cochrane wrote a song called, “Life is a Highway” and it has been covered a couple of times since then. Most recently Rascal Flatts covered this song for the Disney/Pixar flick “Cars” (song video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvsmRuRp4cM). The chorus goes like this, “Life is a highway, I wanna ride it all night long / If you’re going my way, I wanna drive it / All night long.” Life is the journey. Reaching a goal is only part of the experience, but getting there typically is the most valuable part of reaching the goal. Most of the time when we travel as a family in the car I do the majority of the driving. Despite my wife’s suggestion that I might take in too much scenery while driving, it amazes me how much more along the road I notice when I am not driving. It is like I have never been there before when I look around while being in the passenger seat. There is so much of the journey that I miss when I am focused on just getting there. Life is a highway and we need to take in the experience or when we “arrive” we just won’t appreciate the final destination in the same way. Have you ever observed the difference between those who have worked hard and made a lot of money compared to those who have been rather fortunate and either inherited a lot of money or came by it rather easily? One has experienced the journey and one has not. Often one has a greater value for the wealth and one does not. The process is important; it gives credibility to the destination.

What journey are you on today that you have shortchanged by only worrying about the end result? Step back and enjoy the journey. Life is a Highway… Enjoy the ride!

What Motivates You?

When asked this question, most would say that there are different answers for different kinds of people. I would like to contest this idea. I believe there are things like money, success, and fame that might appear to motivate people, but what happens when these goals are reached? Where does motivation come from once we are rich, successful, and famous?

My favorite motivational speakers Matt Foley has a talk he calls, “Go For It.” He starts with this question: “What do you want to do with your life?” It’s a good question, but honestly Matt has to be the worst motivational speaker around considering he lives in a van down by the river and lives off of a steady diet of government cheese. (You’ll have to watch the SNL sketch www.hulu.com/watch/4183/saturday-night-live-down-by-the-river ) Even though Matt is only a fictitious character he asks a great question. Chris Farley, who created and played the beloved Matt Foley, died of a drug overdose in 1997 despite being rich, successful, and famous, not to mention one of my favorite comedians.

Studies show that people who have a planned purpose for their lives live longer. They live longer because they are motivated by what life has to offer. Purpose and motivation go hand in hand. Suzanne Bates writes in her latest book "Motivate Like a CEO" that, “Purpose is necessary, critical really, to a healthy, happy and successful life.”

When we find purpose in our work we can use it to energize ourselves to accomplish great things, overcoming obstacles that would stop those who have no purpose. Of course the trick is finding purpose in what we do. You might say, I make cookies for a living, I check parking meters, I make and sell mattresses, (wait, that’s me). It is pretty hard to see the life-giving purpose that brings motivation when we look at our jobs as just the task we are doing. For me, yes, I work for a company that makes and sells mattresses. How can I gain a sense of purpose from this that will motivate me in life? My role at Custom Comfort (www.customcomfortmattress.com) allows me to have influence on our personnel. The positive changes I can help bring about in them are where I find much of my purpose. I also get to help customers find the right bed. I view this as helping them find good rest and move toward better health, which is very different from just selling them a mattress. I’ve even changed my initial greeting from, “How may I help you” to “How may I serve you.” This slight change gives more purpose to what I am doing when interacting with the customer.

What is the greater purpose in your job? When you focus on this purpose your job will become much less of a task and much more meaningful. We all want to make a difference. When we believe in what we are doing and that it truly matters, it will bring us motivation which will ultimately stimulate our passion and creativity.

First Time For Everything

So I’m working the sales floor in our Mission Viejo store where three of the walls are all glass and a bird flies in through an open door and could not get back out. This was the second time a bird flew into the store in three weeks so this was not my “first” experience. Last time it happened, it was a Cockatiel; a domestic bird which was very odd. We finally got it into the warehouse and, after a while, it flew back outside. I must admit that I felt a little bad letting this bird go free because a Cockatiel is not suited for the OC, unless it lives in somebody’s house. Anyway, a wild bird, a humming bird to be exact, flew in through an open door this morning. I was working with two older ladies who actually noticed it first. I went to try and escort the sweet little humming bird out of the show room without getting pecked on my dome. This must have been a funny sight since I had fallen the day before injuring my left arm and back. I tried the best I could to wave a pillow in the air next to the bird to encourage the bird to fly toward and the out the open door. Let’s just say I was not very successful and can almost feel the pain as I type.
Then one of the ladies said, “I will just grab it with my hands and let it go outdoors.” I sarcastically thought to myself, “Yeah! right.” But she says to me, “Stand over there so the bird does not go that direction and I will grab it and release it outside.” You have to admit this was a pretty lame idea, but she’s the customer (by the way, in my book the customer is not always right, but they are always the customer…that’s a whole other blog) so I politely took my place and she proceeded to cup the bird inside her hands. Then she walked outside to a bush, stretched out her arms and with her hands surrounded by the branches she opened her hands. The bird stayed on her hand for a brief time then went airborne hovering just above her while she held her hands still. Then after a few more seconds it took off like a humming bird having a pillow waved at it. Trust me. I know what that looks like.
I don’t know about you but this just simply amazed me! I guess I didn’t know one could catch a humming bird with their bare hands. The way she did it was astounding as she slowly moved toward the bird, gently surrounded it in her hands, and then slowly released it. So what’s the point of this story? I actually have a couple.
First, keep the doors closed. I’m kidding. There are truly no dumb ideas. When a 70 something year old women told me she was going to catch a hummingbird with her bare hands my mind raced to, “That’s the dumbest idea I have ever heard. It’s noon somewhere so maybe she’s already had a few. Let me get my video camera. I could use some extra cash when I sell this to Americas Funniest Home Videos.” I think you get the idea. I thought this lady was a few pennies short of a dollar. If an idea seems ridiculous at first, hear it out. You might be surprised. It could even inspire you to think of something you would not have without the helpful nudge. You may even see an old lady grab a hummingbird with her bare hands.
Second, fragile circumstances require fragile responses. I’m not sure how durable a hummingbird is, but I suspect if I would have made contact with the pillow things probably wouldn’t have ended well for the bird. This woman not only captured this bird with such care, but she released it back to freedom with such patience. If I would have had a live bird in my hands, I would have tossed it into the air yelling, “Fly be free!” Most likely, the bird would probably have dropped to the ground judging by what it did when the women let it go. She never squeezed it, never pushed it. She just held it with care. When in a fragile situation we need to not over react. We need to react appropriately. Sometimes if we react too quickly or irrationally we may make the situation worse.
What circumstances in your life might require being handled in a manner you would never have imagined? When you respond make sure it’s appropriate to the circumstance.

Transforming DNA?

DNA is the blueprint of life. Every cell in our body except for the red blood cell has DNA. In fact, it is part of what defines a living organism. The same could be said for all organizations. Each and every group has a set DNA. DNA in an organization is what generates an organization’s values, culture, and ultimately their success and failure.

The logical question, therefore, is “Can DNA be changed?” There is a sequence in all patterns of DNA and this sequence can be reordered. When this change occurs, it is referred to as a mutation. I’m not sure where your mind goes when you hear the word mutation, but I think of the characters in the apocalyptic movie called “The Prodigal Planet.” They were humans that suffered deformities and skin problems due to nuclear fallout, kind of creepy actually. Enough of the side bar, but if you want a journey back to the 70s you should check out the old “Thief in the Night” movie series.

A company or group is very much an organism with its own genetic sequence, and DNA mutations can happen in an organization as well. When these changes take place in an organization, the old does not just go away. Instead, the existing genetic makeup is changed in such a way that it will function differently from that point forward. If this change is to have a positive effect, everyone needs to be on board for it. Otherwise, you end up with some body parts (divisions, employees, etc.) totally out of whack with the rest of the organism, and that benefits nobody. Therefore communication and strategies for implementation need to be clear from the beginning. That way, the entire organization can shift as needed to adapt to changing circumstances. In order for change to become long term, the new DNA sequence must not be just accepted but embraced by all of the parts and people involved.

This post was inspired by something I read earlier this morning on another blog, ““You’re only as young as the last time you changed your mind.” http://www.deadlyviper.org/blog/?p=1216

Hard Lessons About Value

I purchased our first washing machine shortly after I got married almost 20 years ago. It was 10 years old when I brought it home and installed it in the basement of my duplex, and it took quite a bit of effort to wrestle that beast down the stairs. Shortly after I moved into our first home, the now 22 year-old washer kicked the bucket. Having moved up somewhat in the world, we decided to go out and purchase our first brand new washer and dryer set. I resolved myself to look for the same brand and more importantly (so I thought), the best price and value that I could get. As our family had now grown to four people, my wife wanted the super capacity size and all I wanted was for a pair that would last me another 22 years. Hey! Stop laughing! Surely the latest and greatest washer and dryer made in the year 2000 would outperform the ones that same company made in 1978. Right?

After moving to California and setting these machines up in my house we wound up having them for less than 7 years before I was forced to call out the repair man. Instead of fixing them, he recommended that we would be better off buying a new set. I was blown away and asked, “Why would these only last 7 years when the ones I had before last over 20 years?” He simply answered, “Appliances are not made like they use to be.” I have always wondered if I would have been better to have spent the money to repair the pair built in 1978. With this story in mind, how does one measure value?

Many times we (me included) get fixated on getting something for the least amount of money possible. Sales and discounts many times can bait us into believing we are getting a good value, when in fact we are usually only indulging a desire for the instant gratification of getting a “good deal”. Just because something is 30% off does not make it a better quality product. If I have to buy that same item twice, I just spent over 40% more than if I had bought the better quality product in the first place and not needed to replace it. Sometimes it is not how much you get something for but what you are getting that really makes for great value. Check out Gary explaining how our product is made, ( http://customcomfortmattress.com/howmattressmade.html ) and you will see exactly what I am talking about.