Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Archives for February 2012

Inspirational Quotations #417

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I have learned to use the word impossible with the greatest caution.
—Wernher von Braun (German-born American Engineer)

Open your mouth and purse cautiously, and your stock of wealth and reputation shall, at least in repute, be great.
—Johann Jacob Zimmermann (German Nonconformist Theologian)

It’s the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.
—Marlene Dietrich (German-born American Actor)

Even in social life, it is persistency which attracts confidence more than talents and accomplishments.
—Edwin Percy Whipple (American Essayist)

Not the intensity but the duration of high feelings makes high men.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

Confidence … is directness and courage in meeting the facts of life.
—John Dewey (American Philosopher)

However exquisitely human nature may have been described by writers, the true practical system can be learned only in the world.
—Henry Fielding (English Novelist)

Someday change will be accepted as life itself.
—Shirley MacLaine (American Actor)

What a man does with his wealth depends upon his idea of happiness. Those who draw prizes in life are apt to spend tastelessly, if not viciously; not knowing that it requires as much talent to spend as to make.
—Edwin Percy Whipple (American Essayist)

Friendships, like marriages, are dependent on avoiding the unforgivable.
—John D. MacDonald (American Novelist)

When in Doubt, Do

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One of the most insidious obstacles to achievement is our tendency to give in to the pessimistic voices in our heads that advocate caution and forethought before making decisions. Instead of accepting failure as an inherent possibility in any undertaking, we tend to espouse inaction in order to weigh every fact against possible outcomes. We are thus predisposed to devising excuses for our indolence.

Admittedly, further deliberation is justified in some cases, but with a vast majority of our decisions, we tend to overestimate the stress we might experience after making a difficult choice. The longer we spend on making a decision, the less productive we are. Beyond a reasonable amount, obsessing over choices causes analysis paralysis, as in the fable of the fox and the cat.

Idea for Impact: No good comes from hesitation and inaction. The only things you will regret in the future are the things you don’t do today. So, instead of dragging it out, act decidedly on an opportunity before it ceases to be one. Take a few low-risk steps and watch your confidence grow. The consequences are likely to be far less extreme than the cost of comfortable inaction.

Follow the “10-Minute Dash” technique to get a task going and overcome procrastination.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Chances Fade, Regrets Linger
  2. That Burning “What If” Question
  3. The Truth Can Be Bitterer than a Sweet Illusion
  4. Feeling Is the Enemy of Thinking—Sometimes
  5. What Your Messy Desk Says About You

Inspirational Quotations #416

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A man lives not only his personal life as an individual but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.
—Thomas Mann (German Novelist)

What I still ask for daily-for life as long as I have work to do, and work as long as I have life.
—Reynolds Price (American Novelist)

He who walks in the middle of the road gets hit from both sides.
—George P. Shultz (American Economist)

Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.
—Bob Dylan (American Singer)

We would have to settle for the elegant goal of becoming ourselves.
—William Styron (American Novelist)

The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.
—Shirley MacLaine (American Actor)

Friendship doesn’t exist to criticize but to inspire confidence.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)

Common sense and good nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.
—W. Somerset Maugham (French Playwright)

I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity.
—Igor Stravinsky (Russian-born American Composer)

Man is not on the earth solely for his own happiness. He is there to realize great things for humanity.
—Vincent van Gogh (Dutch Painter)

Are great things ever done smoothly? Time, patience, and indomitable will must show.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can’t mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has.
—William S. Burroughs (American Novelist)

How to Argue like the Wright Brothers

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The Wright brothers, most notable for inventing powered flight, also enjoyed developing their critical thinking by fiercely debating with each other.

Wilbur and Orville found debating and challenging each other’s viewpoints was a constructive way to identify solutions to a myriad of problems or resolve their interpersonal conflicts.

The Wright brothers often took two different sides of an argument, debated the subject, then switched sides and debated the opposing argument. Orville Wright once narrated, “Often, after an hour or so of heated argument, we would discover that we were as far from agreement as when we started, but that each had changed to the other’s original position.”

Idea for Impact: Only when you contrast your point of view with an opponent’s does your own make sense. Use the Wright Brothers’ technique of double-sided debate to question your own preconceptions about an issue and appreciate alternative perspectives.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. To Make an Effective Argument, Explain Your Opponent’s Perspective
  2. How to Gain Empathic Insight during a Conflict
  3. Rapoport’s Rules to Criticize Someone Constructively
  4. Presenting Facts Can Sometimes Backfire
  5. Don’t Ignore the Counterevidence

Inspirational Quotations #415

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Nobody, but nobody, is going to tell me I’m not the most. I am. I was the most when everybody else was struggling bitterly to become a little.
—William Saroyan (American Novelist)

I was made to work. If you are equally industrious, you will be equally successful.
—Johann Sebastian Bach (German Composer)

Perhaps the best test of a man’s intelligence is his capacity for making a summary.
—Lytton Strachey (British Biographer)

Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts which we might have wasted, of all that we might have done which we did not do.
—Gian Carlo Menotti (Italian-born American Composer)

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Swiss Philosopher)

Joy is the simplest form of gratitude.
—Karl Barth (Swiss Reformed Theologian)

Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.
—Jean Sibelius (Finnish Composer)

The art of teaching is tolerance. Humbleness is the art of learning.
—B. K. S. Iyengar (Indian Hindu Yoga Teacher)

Without constancy there is neither love, friendship, nor virtue in the world.
—Joseph Addison (English Essayist)

Nobody Likes a Tattletale: Do Not Play the Office Cop

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A co-worker takes twice as many days off as your company allows. The receptionist is frequently on the phone with her boyfriend. A team member goofs off all the time and never gets his job done. To top it all, your easygoing boss does not seem concerned about all these. Convinced you should tell on others? Thinking of complaining to your HR in the interest of fairness?

Do not play the office cop. Because, nobody likes a tattletale. Moreover, it’s is your boss’s job to keep an eye on everybody at your workplace and correct them if necessary, not yours. You have some influence over your peers, but no authority. Hence, you cannot control them.

Examine Your Motivations

Tattling is a common trait during the formative years of life. Children tend to feel compelled to notify elders when siblings or other children do something wrong. By taking on a parental responsibility under the guise of being helpful, young tattletales use a socially acceptable way to tell on others and get them in trouble. As children age, they learn to discern between when to keep a secret and when to inform on others. Some never seem to outgrow the need to tattle or gossip and bring these traits to the workplace.

A tattletale is usually motivated by selfish reasons. Therefore, examine what is behind your own desire to inform on someone. Are you bothered more by your boss’s laidback attitude rather than the behaviors of your colleagues? Are you trying to draw positive attention to your own righteous adherence to the rules? Is your intention to gain acceptance by management and be seen as a dependable employee? Are you seeking to curry favor with the boss? Or, do you sadistically enjoy having your colleagues punished or embarrassed?

Don’t Rob the Workplace of Trust

A tattletale quickly destroys team morale and brings about increased conflict in the workplace. In successful organizations, team members set high expectations for one another and push each other to work smarter. When you do complain to your boss, you do not want to raise anything that may seem trivial or vindictive.

If you observe an incident that might constitute a breach of ethics or is significant enough to affect your team, you have every right to blow the whistle through the established channels or a whistleblowing system even at the risk of being branded a tattletale. The standards of decency require you to talk directly to anybody who offends you before going to your boss. If a peer persistently interferes with your work or sabotages your projects, you should privately warn the offender that if it happens again, you would report it to your boss.

Wisdom Comes from Knowing What to Overlook

Control the impulse to be worked up and tattletale on issues that have little to do with your own work. Let your resentment subside. Be quiet and keep your head down. If someone’s behavior is genuinely in the way getting a job done, wait for a manager or HR to identify and fix the problem.

For now, think of ways to ask your lenient boss for some extra time off for yourself.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Leaders Need to Be Strong and Avoid Instilling Fear
  2. Direction + Autonomy = Engagement
  3. To Inspire, Translate Extrinsic Motivation to Intrinsic Motivation
  4. Extrinsic Motivation Couldn’t Change Even Einstein
  5. Don’t Push Employees to Change

Inspirational Quotations #414

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If you would walk the way of love, never feel hurt nor yield to anger, but accept pain as a part of life.
—J. P. Vaswani (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

Faith begins as an experiment and ends as an experience.
—William Ralph Inge (English Anglican Clergyman)

That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.
—Amos Bronson Alcott (American Teacher)

The desire for the well-being of one’s own nation can be—and must be—made compatible with the welfare of all humanity.
—Louis Leo Snyder (American-born German Scholar)

Words once printed assume a life of their own.
—Wilma Askinas

Our ordinary mind always tries to persuade us that we are nothing but acorns and that our greatest happiness will be to become bigger, fatter, shinier acorns; but that is of interest only to pigs. Our faith gives us knowledge of something better: that we can become oak trees.
—E. F. Schumacher (German Mathematician)

Better by far you should forget and smile, than that you should remember and be sad.
—Christina Rossetti (English Poet)

Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible.
—Hannah Arendt (German Political Theorist)

I got well by talking. Death could not get a word in edgewise, grew discouraged, and traveled on.
—Louise Erdrich (American Children’s Books Writer)