There are many books on time management, goal setting and getting things done. 

But there are three words – just three words – that, if you make them part of your life, will produce better results that you might have ever imagined.

Organize.

Deputize.

Supervise.

Make a list of things you need to do and prioritize them.  The secret is to update this list all day in real time to focus on success. 

Make someone else responsible for some of the things you need to do.  Getting things accomplished requires teamwork and by asking people to help you, you empower them to succeed and do it gladly.  The key is to ask them.

Once you have someone helping you, take responsibility to turn to your list and see that each task or project is being performed satisfactorily.

This short course in effective management is attainable by the end of the day if you commit these three things to memory.

“Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out” – Ronald Reagan

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When I taught Dale Carnegie, one of my adult students got so panicked in front of her audience that she ran down the aisle and darted out of the room never to return.

Studies have shown that more people fear speaking than death!

And it’s too bad because a little nervousness guarantees your success.

Let me repeat that:  a little nervousness guarantees that you will be successful whether you are speaking to a group, doing a presentation, meeting a new acquaintance for the first time or just about any situation that can cause anxiety.

I’d like to share with you the secret and if it works for you the way it works for me, I hope you will share it with others who are unnecessarily burdening themselves with negative stress.

Get your butterflies to fly in formation.

I have seen some of the finest professionals in radio, television and public speaking feel a bit of anxiety about doing a good job.  However, they have the attitude to keep the butterflies under control or as I like to say, flying in formation.

So don’t fear a case of nerves.

Welcome it because people who succeed know that a bit of nervousness means a lot of caring about success.

“Courage is not the absence of fear but the awareness that something else is more important” – Stephen Covey

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Parents usually have their children in their hearts when they want what’s best for them.

Fairly or unfairly, parents advocate for what they think is best.  To me, that’s fair game because it is eventually up to us to decide what we think are the right choices in life.

What’s tragic is when we allow others to live our lives.  And it happens all the time.

Those around us may want certain things for us.  How we should handle our careers, relationships, family and even personal interests.

That’s why today is a good day to stop living someone else’s life and start living our own.

What’s amazing is what happens almost immediately when we consciously take control of our life’s path.

It doesn’t need to take illness, or misfortune to wake us up.  It’s the prospect of feeling as if a burden has been lifted from our backs so that we are free to be fulfilled and happy.

Perhaps you or someone you know have dedicated their lives to not disappointing someone else. 

The best way to accomplish that goal is not to disappoint yourself.

“Tis’ better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else’s perfectly” — Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

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When you’ve tried just about everything and have decided to finally give up, consider this.

Edison tried 10,000 times (unsuccessfully) before he invented the light bulb.

Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper because he didn’t have any ideas.

Colonel Sanders tried to sell his chicken recipe to over 1,000 places before someone bit – seven years later he sold his fried chicken company for millions.

The first “Chicken Soup For Your Soul” was rejected by 33 publishers.

General Douglas MacArthur was turned down for admission to West Point not once but twice, but he kept on trying and was accepted the third time before his eventual march to military glory.

Henry Ford failed and went broke 5 times before he succeeded in making the Model T.

FedEx Founder Fred Smith got a C on a college paper outlining his idea for the successful delivery service.

And what was our excuse again for giving up?

Here are 50 more people who will inspire you to never, ever give up.

“I’ve failed over and over again in my life.  That’s is why I succeed” – Michael Jordan, cut from his high school basketball team.

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Perhaps nothing is more devastating than when we are disappointed by those closest to us – our friends, family, or colleagues.

All our lives we always wanted to believe these people would be there for us – stand up and speak up for us and yet when push comes to shove, most do not.

This can be the final blow in a relationship and it can launch a lot of understandable but needless negative self-talk in our minds.

The rule of thumb usually is when you’re riding high and happy, everyone around you is there for you.  In fact, some of them may be there because of you.

But when adversity strikes, people often choose to save their jobs, reputations and relationships even as we may they should also stand for us.

I have found this to be a most effective way in dealing with the feeling of betrayal from others.

A study was done recently about who tends to be saved when a ship sinks.  The study focused on numerous ship sinkings where 100 or more lives were at stake.

The findings are dramatic.

The captain gets off the ship last, right?  And the children get off first?

That would be wrong.

According to the findings, the crew gets off first (they know how), then the men, then the women and yes, the children are last.

The human condition is for one under duress to save their own skin first.

When I think of this graphic example, although I don’t like it, it makes me realize that when someone stands for us, be grateful.

When others disappoint, remember the Titanic.

                  “A good friend will always stab you in the front” – Oscar Wilde

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It’s hard to let go.

Maybe that’s why the world is filled with control freaks.  Maybe we are even a bit of a control freak from time to time.

But if you’ve ever noticed, control freaks are some of the unhappiest people in the world.  They can’t help themselves.  They just have to get their way to be happy.

Unfortunately, it makes them unhappy and it drives others away.  Think about it: the price of a relationship shouldn’t always be giving in to someone else.

The irony is that we gain control by giving up control.

So for one day, try this challenge:  see yourself as an enabler of others.  Actually try to let them have their way as much as possible without compromising your morals or ethics.

People I know who are able to let go and free themselves of the stresses and irritations of life, are active enablers of others.

We must stand by our principles but we can also enable others to stand by theirs.

“Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way” — Daniele Vare

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Why do we let others make us feel badly about ourselves?

And why do we forget good things almost as fast as we hear them?

This is backwards.

No one can make us think negatively about ourselves unless we allow.

And conversely, the most important weapon we have – that is rarely used – to combat the negatives comments, statements or attitudes we receive from others is remembering the good ones, erasing the bad ones immediately.

This is not to say we can’t work on being better – that’s actually life’s mission. More importantly, take control of the self-talk we allow in our heads.

Negative self-talk from others usually gets re-run by us – over and over again.

Pledge today to put a stop/loss on negative talk from everyone and let’s give ourselves a chance to be happy and successful.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” – Eleanor Roosevelt

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When we get hit with a problem, it seems like it’s always more than one at a time to add to our already growing list.

That causes stress that can actually force us to make bad decisions and prolong the grief.

But there is a better way:

1. Don’t try to solve a new problem on the spot, manage it.  Put it on a priority list with everything else. 
2. Resist the urge to solve the next problem that comes along.
3. Know the there are three kinds of problems and we would do well to know them inside and out:  the kind that can be solved, the kind that can’t be solved and the ones that for some reason or the other resolve themselves.
4. Put emotion in its place.  Getting emotional usually makes a problem more important than it may actually be.  Resist that temptation.
5. My favorite:  every time you chip away at an existing problem, try to see it as making a small payment one installment at a time as opposed to one giant move to make it go away.

“Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things” — Henry Ward Beecher

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One of the two teams that play in the Super Bowl has to lose.

At least one person loses each election, beauty contest or for that matter competing for future employment.

Disappointment needs to be owned – not ignored – because disappointment remains one of the most useful tools if we know how to use it.

May I share how I deal with it:

1. First night, sleep it off.  Don’t ruminate or over evaluate.  Rest first above all.
2. Be human, allow a chance to feel the disappointment but not for one moment allow that disappointment to be expressed as failure.
3. Then, focus on the great exhilaration that we are going to feel when we turn the disappointment into success.
4. Start gathering examples of disappointments that have been worth wading through – a second marriage, the better job you got when your dream job got away, the new friend that came into your life when a trusted friend hurt you.

Life is tough.

No one – not through power or money – can avoid disappointment.

It can be a great gift and very transformational.

The secret to rebounding from great disappointment is to eventually evolve into the positive person it can make us when we feel it, own it and come up with a plan to change it.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope”  — Martin Luther King, Jr.

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My friend and well-known Philadelphia dj Michael Tearson shared both a heart breaking and heart warming story with me about the death of his wife, the love of his life – a person for whom he has found no replacement in the 18 years since she died.

They met, fell in love and married only to find out months later that his new bride, the former Lynne Pedersen discovered that she had advanced breast cancer.  Michael and Lynne lived like there was no tomorrow because there was no tomorrow.

She fought the good fight with her husband by her side but she didn’t lose her battle.  Yes, she lost her life but the two of them had what many people take for granted – a virtual moment in time when two people connect with each other in love and mutual appreciation.

In our world, we are often blessed with the long-term companionship of others.  I think if we thought about the uncertainty of time, we would conclude, as Michael Tearson has, that any time with the right person is better than lots of time with the wrong one.

It doesn’t take a fatal disease to make us appreciate the warmth, friendship and support of others, just the awareness to do so.

Michael Tearson and Lynne Pedersen is a love story – short in years, long on valuing the gift of time.

My thanks to Michael Tearson for allowing me to tell this personal story.

“You get what anyone gets. You get a lifetime” – Neil Gaiman’s character of death in the Sandman Comic Book

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