“I accept life unconditionally. … Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don’t set any condition.”
Arthur Rubinstein
Author: Karl Edwards
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Quote to Consider: Happiness Unconditionally
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Make Your Weekend a Weekend!
The weekend is upon us. Or is it?
You may have already left the office. Or have you?
Just a friendly reminder to make your weekend a weekend.
I like playing cards with friends and will be doing so later this evening. I let down, relax, and thoroughly enjoy the company and competition.
What activity or lack of activity helps you relax and let down after a busy week?
We all need our weekend.
The mind needs a break. The body needs a break. Our souls need a break.
When we keep pushing all of the time, our capacity to continue at the same levels of effectiveness diminishes and diminishes.
Not only do we become less effective in the short term, we deplete and exhaust ourselves in the long term.
So do yourself a favor this weekend and give yourself a weekend.
Gather the friends for cards or games. Get out on the golf course or the frisbee golf course. Spend a day at the beach, in the mountains, or at the lake. Curl up with a good book. Try cooking something new. Build something with your hands.
Whatever you end up doing, please, on behalf of all of us who have to face you on Monday, make your weekend a weekend!
On your side,
– Karl Edwards
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Karl Shares Six Words… #50
Stupid: Consulting everyone except your assistant.
Karl Edwards
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Beware, Verizon Just Doesn’t Get It
Verizon had the opportunity today to invest in a happy and contented long-term customer for $40.I asked that they credit back $40 worth of disputed fees that arose from me mis-navigating a poorly designed web site.
But no. They’d rather take the chance on me taking my business elsewhere.
But no. They’d rather I telephone their call center and take the salaried and benefit-laden time of one of their customer representatives for any need I have in the future instead of using their web site ever again.
For $40 worth of incorrectly incurred fees, they could have secured a happy long-term customer.
Instead they would rather risk losing $65/month for the next however many years. Instead they would rather discourage usage of their web site and encourage the use of their live call centers, whatever their recorded on-hold messages say to the contrary.
So beware. Any mistake you make on their intentionally misleading web site will be your fault.
So beware. Any fees you inadvertently incur by trusting the misleading online instructions are your responsibility to notice and notify them about before a billing cycle passes its arbitrary mid-month date.
No one at Verizon can help you. No one at Verizon has the authority to do anything after a billing cycle has passed.
No one at Verizon has it in their job description to improve the system, or to receive a suggestion, or to care about the systemic craziness of spending thousands of dollars on salaries to do what a well-designed web site could accomplish, or to spend $40 once in order to continue receiving $65/month indefinitely.
I have some thinking to do about what I am going to do now that I know that Verizon has a sub-line of services making money on the errors of their customers.
Last I heard, your customers were your clients, not your victims.
Verizon seems to be making money, though. Maybe we should all try to cheat our customers at every turn and blame them for the privilege.
I think I’m done with my venting.
As for you, though. Beware.
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Loving Monday: Raising the White Flag… In Victory
It’s okay to surrender. Really.Not all battles are adversarial conflicts in which there is a winner and a loser.
Could it be possible that on some occasions the smartest course of action might be to surrender?
That to win in in the big picture would mean to admit that you’ve lost in the current scene?How on earth can admitting defeat be a victory?
When you need help.
When you’ve got too much to do or need skill sets that you yourself don’t have, it’s smarter to surrender.
It’s a victory to recognize your limits. The sooner you get a handle on what you can and cannot contribute, the sooner you can surround yourself with the people, skills and resources necessary to get the job done and done well.
The defeat comes in pushing yourself until you burn out, make a costly mistake, (more…)
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Quote to Consider: Creating Your Own Alternatives
“It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.”Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Karl Shares Six Words… #49
Popcorn aroma interrupts his pedantic diatribe.
Karl Edwards
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Listen In -> Playing Favorites #5: Favoring Certain Workplace Cultures
Many leaders have good reason to be proud of the workplace cultures they have built in their companies.But times change, people change, teams turn over, and new generations bring new values and aspirations to their jobs.
In this week’s show, Claudia and I look at the workplace culture itself.Yes, most of the time we are talking up the importance of having an a workplace culture period. We preach the value of having an intentionally designed workplace culture instead of simply slipping into one without thinking about it.
When it comes to playing favorites, though, we want to look at the issue from the other end of the spectrum.
Are you aware of how and where your workplace culture is serving you well and where it is not?
 Are you holding onto a culture whose effectiveness in the past is dissuading you from reevaluating it in the present?
Do you have so much at stake personally that you’re having a difficult time thinking critically about what’s best for the future?
Workplace cultures change slowly. Could playing favorites here be sowing the seeds of future problems?
Listen in.
Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.
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Loving Monday: Kids Pulling in Different Directions
Imagine that each of the tasks you need to complete today is a small child pulling at your arms. Not only pulling, but all pulling in different directions.Being small children they are not reasoning with you calmly or waiting patiently to take turns. They are screaming and begging and tugging for all they’re worth.
No matter which child (task) you choose to go with, all the others are going to scream and pull all the harder.You don’t stand a chance. You lose no matter what you choose.
And so some of us try to go in all directions at once. Give a little something to every child.
You can see what is going to happen. Pulled in every direction, you go nowhere at all.
We need to do one thing at a time. This involves making a choice.
We need to address the angry, screaming “kids” who have to wait. This involves a conversation.
When we are willing to choose and converse, we put ourselves in a position to make concrete progress on our to-do list.
Working on one thing at a time allows us to focus and follow through. No partial efforts. No incomplete processes. No hanging decisions.
Conversing with the other, unchosen priorities (whether people on the team or voices in our heads) allows us to assure them of their importance so that they don’t need to kick and scream in order to be noticed.
Next time you have a to-do list longer than Santa’s, imagine yourself in the center of a group of screaming children pulling you in all directions at once.
The fantasy of being able to actually move in every direction at once quickly explodes. (Hopefully in laughter.)
Make a choice and have a conversation.
You’ll be amazed at how much you get done today.
On your side,
– Karl Edwards
Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.
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Quote to Consider: Not Enough Time!
“There is time enough for everything in the course of the day if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year if you will do two things at a time.”Lord Chesterfield