Fear

I have accepted fear as a part of life, specifically the fear of change, the fear of the unknown. I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: Turn back, turn back; you'll die if you venture too far.

~ Erica Jong

Customer Service and Judgement

Nordstrom, Inc. is an upscale US department chain store (many of you are probably familiar with) that sells shoes, clothing, accessories, handbags, etc.

For years, the Nordstrom Employee Handbook was a single 5×8” gray card containing these 75 words:

Welcome to Nordstrom. 
We’re glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them.

Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use best judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.

Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time.

During this time, Nordstrom had the highest sales performance per square foot in the retail industry, by almost double.

Today, new hires still receive this card, along with a full handbook containing rules and legal regulations that they must be trained on due to the changing world we live in. 

The lesson here is that customer service and good professional judgement are cornerstones to success.

Grabbing Opportunity

A young man wanted to marry a farmer's daughter. So he went to the farmer to ask his permission and the farmer looked at him and said, “son, go stand out in that field. I'm going to release three bulls, one at a time. If you can catch the tail of any one of the three bulls, you can marry my daughter."

The young man was excited because he knew he was fast and felt sure he would be able to catch the tail of a bull. So he stood in the pasture and waited for the first bull.

The barn door opened and out ran the biggest, meanest-looking bull he had ever seen. He was intimidated and decided that one of the next bulls had to be a better choice than this one.  He ran over to the side and let the bull pass through the pasture out the back gate.

The barn door opened again. He was amazed! He had never seen anything so big and fierce in his life. He couldn’t have imagined a meaner bull and yet here it was.  It stood pawing the ground, grunting, slinging slobber as it eyed him. Whatever the next bull was like, it had to be a better choice than this one. He ran to the fence and let the bull pass through the pasture, out the back gate.

The door opened a third time. The young man smiled immediately. This was the weakest, scrawniest little bull he had ever seen. This was his bull. As the bull came running by, he positioned himself just right and jumped at just the exact moment. He grabbed... but the bull had no tail!

The lesson is that life is full of opportunities but sometimes we don’t recognize them because we see them as challenges, so we pass them by in hopes of something better.  When we do this, we run the risk of missing out altogether.

The Difference

Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy, sweat will get you change.

~Jesse Jackson

MakeThings Happen

Things do not happen; things are made to happen.

~John F. Kennedy

Hesitation

While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.

~Henry C. Link

Who You Lose To

People who take risks are the people you'll lose against.
~John Sculley

Listen To Your Own Heart

You must listen to your own heart.  You can't be successful if you aren't happy with what you are doing.

~Curtis Carlson

Potential

Our past is not our potential.

~ Marilyn Ferguson

The Greatest Enemy

The greatest enemy of your creative powers is smug complacency--being satisfied with less than what you are capable of doing.

~Nido Qubein

Thinking Outside the Box

The hotel management at the El Cortez Hotel in San Diego decided to install an additional elevator to better serve their guests. Engineers drew up plans cutting holes through each floor of the hotel. As they stood in the lobby discussing their plans, a janitor overheard the conversation. He listened carefully and became concerned with this; in face he commented this would make a great deal of mess. The janitor was told not to worry because the hotel would be closed to guests during the construction. 

Realizing that it would cost the hotel a lot to close for the duration of the construction and that it would leave a lot of people out of work during that time, the janitor suggested, "You could build the elevator on the outside of the hotel." At the time, this architectural concept had never been done before, but after investigation by the engineers, it proved an idea that was worth developing, and is now commonplace in buildings today worldwide. 

The janitor's idea saved the El Cortez huge amounts in guest revenue, employees from losing salary, and major clean-up costs related to the construction of the new elevator.

 The lesson here is that it doesn’t take an expert to come up with a great, groundbreaking idea, just someone willing to think outside the box.  What can you look at differently?  

Information vs Knowledge

We are drowning in information yet starved for knowledge.

~John Naisbitt

Who We Are

We must be trying to learn who we really are rather than trying to tell ourselves who we should be.

~John Powell, S. J.

Excellence

I would rather perform at 90% of  an excellence standard than 110 percent of an adequacy standard.

~Don Beveridge

Our Gifts

God has given us two incredible things: absolutely awesome ability and freedom of choice.  The tragedy is that, for the most part, many of us have refused them both.

~Frank Donnelly