Michael Podolinsky CSP Honoured with Spirit of Service Award

We serve to serve… and sometimes (not always) get thanked.

Many of us today are too busy to ‘help others out’. We are up to our eyeballs in work, responsibilities and stress. It’s not that we don’t care, we just don’t seem to have the time. I’m not different. Yet for the past 30 years, I’ve tried to give back to my profession I love so much. I carved out time for events and to mentor new speakers, supported our local speaking organization by paying my dues 5 years in advance and like many others, showed up at every meeting I could make. Sometimes these activities get you a ‘thank you.’ Read more »

Where Does ‘Success’  Take Us?

Most of us work hard to be successful and where does this ‘success’ take us? What is the end result of all our hard labour?

I heard Dave Chappelle, a comedian who WALKED AWAY from a $50,000,000 USD contract say, ‘Success takes us where character cannot sustain us.’ Wow. Is he right? Does everyone climb a ladder to some level of achievement until they finally cannot cope morally or emotionally with where they arrived?

We know in the Peter Principle, people rise to their own level of incompetence. That is, they keep getting promoted for doing a good job until they finally achieve a position they cannot handle well and then get ‘stuck’ there.

BUT, do we rise in life to a level we can no longer ethically handle? In essence, working hard to eventually commit moral suicide? My take is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

YES: If the success we seek is all OF this world. That is, the pursuit of money, fame, riches, power and the like, eventually it will consume us. Living in and for what this world has to offer will eventually lead us to make choices of low moral value. Learning what the world teaches us will get us more of what the world offers us.

NO: If the success we seek is for eternal glory and to be of greater service to God and humankind, this pursuit carries with it a morality implicit in the action. The joy of sharing and giving go hand in hand with the accumulation of wealth, not just an afterthought once the ‘wealth’ arrives.

This brings us to the real question for this week. Are you pursuing success defined as riches and a large bank account?

OR

Do you seek success defined as a life focused on love, relationships, achievements for the good of humanity and a lifetime invested in learning, growing and sharing?

As the second one builds strong character and the first is devoid of character, I conclude that what Dave Chappelle said is probably correct for most people, but not for all.

What are YOU building your life around and what is YOUR main focus?

Got comments or questions about success? Just leave your comments to the blog post.

What is Time Management?

Almost everyone has heard of Time Management. Most people desire better time management. But what IS time management? It’s more than just getting the most from each hour in a day. Since Alan Lakein defined “Time” as “Life” 40 years ago, we’ve understood that Time is the essence of our lives. Waste time and we are wasting our lives.

It just occurred to me, after 30 years of sharing that Time Management is LIFE MANAGEMENT. This is significant as it reframes the goal of Time Management. Time Management gives us a framework for giving us what we need to do with our lives and IN our lives. More than just how we interact at work, home and in-between, it is what we do internally, in our minds as well. What we think, how we dream and how we plan.

In coming weeks we’ll share more on how you can live a better life by managing your life from the inside out; Thoughts, Plans, Goals, Action Steps to Success. Don’t miss the next few weeks!

Smile Maker: Obedience

A father asked his children at the end of the week, “Who has been the most obedient and did everything your mother asked all week?”
The son answered, “You daddy!”

Got comments or questions about time management? Just leave your comments to the blog post.