Branding #MondayBlogs

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In our Industry, we can identify a brand with a logo, a color, a certain type of visible air filter on a piece of equipment.

But how often do we stop to realize that we are our own brand?  Who we are and what we do, the ways in which we do our work, reflect our individual brand.

Your brand matters.  It matters to your customers, to your team, and to your store.

For this week’s Socrates Says, we are sharing some words of wisdom on your own brand in the video below.

The time is now.

 

Friday Filosophy #2016-20

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Every now and then a little humility is a good thing. Not the artificial, superficial kind, but the real heartfelt humility.  For our Friday Filosophy #2016-20 on a loose schedule, we are taking a look at humility.

 Humility is the true key to success. Successful people lose their way at times. They often embrace and overindulge from the fruits of success. Humility halts this arrogance and self-indulging trap. Humble people share the credit and wealth, remaining focused and hungry to continue the journey of success.

Rick Pitino

 

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.

C.S. Lewis

 

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.

Saint Augustine

 

It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility.

Yogi Berra

 

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.

Jane Austen

 

I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility.

John Rushkin

 

True humility is contentment.

Henri Frederic Amiel

 

Humility is a great quality of leadership which derives respect and not just fear and hatred.

Yousef Munayyer

 

The time is now.

Friday Filosophy #2015-27 A Midsummer’s Blog

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I’m not trying to be Shakespeare with that title, but Friday Filosophy #2015-27 is A Midsummer’s Blog on all of the joys of the season we’re in.

The middle of summer is upon us and I am pleased to bring back a mid-summer’s blog for your consideration. One of the things I truly enjoyed growing up were my summers in the Laurentians north of Montreal. My mother was able to find and purchase an old house, built in 1908, for the family to spend school holidays at every year. My father commuted on Wednesday and the weekends from his “city” job.

As a result of that I grew up on a lake. The country club was a very basic offering. We had swimming, tennis and diving lessons for $5.00/month. The golf course was $16.00 a season for youth under 16 years of age. It was a fantastic opportunity.

So I had two lives: the summer place which was for fun, the city place which was for work.

Here are some thoughts for you on summertime.

 

Summer means happy times and good sunshine. It means going to the beach, going to Disneyland, having fun.

Brian Wilson

 

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching clouds float across the sky is by no means a waste of time.

John Lubbock

 

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.

Russell Baker

 

Summer is the annual permission slip to be lazy. To do nothing and have it count for something. To lie in the grass and count the stars. To sit on a branch and study the clouds.

Regina Brett

 

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

 

Tears are the summer showers to the soul.

Albert Austin

 

Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.

Langston Hughes

 

Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability.

Sam Keen

 

Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the most beautiful words in the English language.

Henry James

 

People take pictures of the summer, just in case something thought they had missed it, and to prove that it really existed.

Ray Davies

 

Oh, summer night,

Has a smile of light,

And she sits on a sapphire throne.

Bryan Procter

 

I hope you each have taken time this summer to slow down and enjoy. I remember having blood shot eyes most of the time from playing underwater tag with my friend Cliff and seeing rainbows around the sun all the time.

See you in September.

The time is now.

Friday Filosophy #2015-17

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When I check the tally of these posts, the year seems to be going quickly.  This is #2015-17 of our Friday Filosophy.

 

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

Plato

 

Choice, not circumstances, determines your success.

Author Unknown

 

The great artist and thinker are the simplifiers

Henry Frederic Amiel

 

The time is now.

Words of Wisdom 2015-1

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Over the years, I have used various expressions to make a point or get the attention of a group.  I have taken to calling these words of wisdom “Sleeisms.”  Here is a short list of them.  Enjoy.

 

  1. Always assume the other person is twice as smart as you are and work twice as hard to prove otherwise
  2. Be happy in your work or work and be happy because you have no choice……… you have to work.
  3. Never forget
    1. People want to do a good job…..
    2. People can always do more than they think they can…..
    3. People are fundamentally lazy….
  4. What you do when no one is looking? That is morality…..that is ethics…. That is character.
  5. What’s it’s all about.
    1. We must all feel some sense of value, we are here for a reason.
    2. We all must leave a mark.
    3. That requires us to be able to measure our own progress or accomplishment each day
    4. We must feel relevant, important no matter in what manner.
  6. We must always remember Rudyard Kipling
    1. If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you…you’ll be a man my son
  7. It is always too early to start losing and NEVER too early to start winning
  8. It is hard to soar with the eagles if you stay up with the turkeys at night
  9. Man is like the turtle…..you have to stick your neck out in order to get ahead
  10. Nine men impregnating the same woman cannot deliver a baby in one month or to quote Warren Buffet “you can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”
  11. Give More Stress… than you receive
  12. Depression is nothing more than anger turned inward
  13. The basics of teaching and learning
    1. Ignorance is not knowing what to do.
    2. Stupidity is knowing what to do and not doing it.
    3. Insanity is continuing to do what you have always done expecting different results.
  14. Before you can be of any value to anyone else…you have to be of value to yourself.
  15. Life is simple – it is people that screw it up.

 

The time is now…

Friday Filosophy #2015-1

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You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.

Aristotle

 

When a man feels throbbing in him the power to do what he undertakes as well as it can possibly be done, this is happiness, this is success.
Orison Swett Marden

 

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.

Henry Ellis

 

The time is now…

 

This month I want to highlight Orison Marden

 

  1. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.

 

  1. Believe with all your heart that you will do what you were made to do.

 

  1. Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.

 

  1. All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.

 

  1. We cannot rise higher than our thought of ourselves.

 

  1. If you do not feel yourself growing in your work and your life broadening and deepening, if your task is not a perpetual tonic to you, you have not found your place.

 

  1. There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.

 

  1. Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.

 

  1. The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment, it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others, it is in yourself alone.

 

  1. What keeps so many people back is simply the unwillingness to pay the price, to make the exertion, the effort to sacrifice their ease and comfort.

 

 

May 2015 be everything that each of you desires and deserves.

Happy New Year…

 

Friday Filosophy #2014-49

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Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Albert Einstein

 

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
Samuel Johnson

 

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
William Arthur Ward

 

The time is now…

Friday Filosophy #2014-47

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Our attitude toward life determines life’s attitude toward us.

Earl Nightingale

 

Leadership appears to be the art of getting others to do something you are convinced should be done.

Vance Packard

 

Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.

Dale Carnegie

 

The time is now…

Friday Filosophy #2014-46

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One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for the opportunity when it comes.

Benjamin Disraeli

 

There’s no limit to what a man can achieve, if he doesn’t care who gets the credit.

Lang Burns Jr.

 

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

Benjamin Disraeli

 

It is hard to soar with the eagles if you stay up with the turkeys at night.

Man is like the turtle; in order to get ahead you must stick your neck out.

 

The time is now…

Words of Wisdon #17

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Today I want to introduce you to Orison Swett Marden. He was an inspirational writer born in 1850 died 1924.

  • Success is not measured by what you accomplish but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.
  • Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.
  • A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from the inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements.
  • All men who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.
  • There can be no failure to a man who has not lost his courage, his character his self-respect or his self-confidence. He is still a King.
  • Success is the child of drudgery and perseverance. It cannot be coaxed or bribed; pay the price and it is yours.
  • Joyfulness keeps the heart and the face young. A good laugh makes us better friends with ourselves and everybody around us.
  • There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no time so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.
  • We make the world we live in and shape our own environment.
  • There is an infinite difference between a little wrong and just right, between fairly good and the best, between mediocrity and superiority.

 

I find Orison Mardens’ thoughts very insightful. Unknowingly I have used this approach in my personal and professional life.

The time is now..