Do you know the purpose of the magician’s lovely assistant?  It’s usually a “she”, wearing a form-fitting outfit, showing a lot of leg …. you get the picture. Her primary purpose is to focus all of your attention on her, as she flashes her ‘pearly whites’ and uses her hands to show that the magician is what he appears to be.   She takes your focus and puts it where the magician wants it to be.  This way, you can be amazed at the ‘magic’ you have witnessed.

“She” is a reliable distraction.  She can be counted on to take your attention away from what you should be focusing on.

What reliable distractions do you have in your life? What reliable distractions do you use in your life to avoid unpleasantness? Clients have told me of theirs:  playing computer solitaire, reading ‘junk’ emails, making to-do lists, rearranging the paper stacks on their desk, talking to a colleague, taking the ‘long way’ to meet with a client or someone else in the company, dialing the phone and hanging up before it rings to do something that appears more important, getting something else to drink …..

Are you conscious of the distractions in your daily life?  And what are you doing about it?

How many times do you hear what you want to hear, or understand someone else’s words from your own perspective?  In a leadership course I led, ‘trust’ was an interesting topic.  That is one of this company’s core values, and the discussion took an interesting turn. One participant shared his perspective:

If I say I trust you … that can mean I trust you [in a positive sense].  That can also mean that I trust you will do something negative … for instance if your MO is to look at situations from what will benefit you instead of the team or the company, I trust that you will always look at events that way.  So I trust you.

That is an interesting point of view …. not a negative or a positive statement, just a statement.

It isn’t what you said, it’s what we think we heard.

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From Bill O’Reilly’s Culture Wars:  There is a new study by the Josephsen Institute out of LA ….

• 42% high school kids lie to save money.
• 64% cheat on tests
• 93% say they are fine with it, they do not see a problem. They are feel that they are better than everyone else is

So …. is bad behavior justifying more bad behavior? Is our culture worse, or are the kids worse? Do our up-and-coming youth know no boundaries?

Bill O said that kids know lying and cheating is wrong.  Companies engage in unethical and reckless behaviors – Doesn’t that point to bad behavior?  Does that give our youth permission to lie and cheat?

Do we have a built in conscience – do the kids care it’s wrong?  If authority figures don’t tell you any differently, will they hold you accountable and does it glorify criminality?

What are we telling our XYZ generation about ethics, financial responsibility and personal accountability?

It’s not what they said, it’s what we think we heard

• Your own Business Plan Pro software and workbook (a $99 value)
• Expert hands-on instruction on how to create an actionable business plan
• Do’s and don’ts for writing a successful plan
• Over 500 business plan templates
• Easier, faster financials
• Plus much more!

Small Business Development Center, University of Houston

You’re ready to start your business but you’re not really ready until you attend this comprehensive, tell-all, workshop.

Increase your chances for success by:

• looking at your idea’s potential
• ways to identify your target market
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plus much more!

Do you go on ‘automatic pilot’ when you get in your car?  How often do you think about the roads you will take to get you to your destination?

I decided to venture outside on the day after Thanksgiving … I had to run to FedEx and to the post office.  On the way home, I decided to take I45 instead of my usual side roads to avoid the mall traffic I knew I would encounter.

I was easily able to get on the road that runs parallel to I45.  Suddenly traffic stopped.  The far right lane was open because it was an exit only lane, headed away from the mall.  The far left lane was moving slowly – it was a straight-through lane.  It was the middle lane [that I was in] that was stopped.  When I was finally able to get in the left lane, I realized that the backup was because that was the exit only lane headed towards the mall.

Had any of these people in the long mall-exit-only lane realized the traffic tie-up, they could have arrived at the mall a full fifteen minutes earlier!  All they had to do was continue north to the next exit, then turn around and head south towards the mall.  There was no traffic after the mall-only-exit, nor southbound.

How many times do you continue doing the same thing, despite the obstacles, without thinking?  Would thinking of alternative methods help you achieve your goal more quickly or more efficiently?

Think about it … and let me know!