Every employee, unless they are self-employed, finds themselves in a triangle comprised of employee needs, customer demands, and corporate or shareholder expectations. Successfully navigating this triangle is a juggling act even for the most seasoned sailor. And although these three things should be in perfect harmony to optimize smooth sailing towards performance and profits, many times they are not.

 You can see this disaster looming on the horizon and steer clear before you embark on your professional voyage. Red skies in the morning, sailors take warning. Before you accept the helm in a new organization, consider this: Why wasn’t there someone already onboard ready to be promoted? This should serve as a huge warning shot across the bow.

 I was flattered to be the one brought in from the outside who could trim the sails and get everyone rowing together, but the fact was I was about to be fed to the sharks.  Unless the entire organization from the very top down is being revamped, don’t let your ego sail towards this mirage. You will be saddled with swabbing up the current regime’s mess while they are still onboard. And eventually you’ll swab the toes of the sailors who enabled it and, in some cases, condoned it.

 It’s intoxicating to take on the challenge of running a ship, but sooner or later there will be a time when you’ll be viewed as a threat. After all, if the powers that be couldn’t or wouldn’t do it and you do, that doesn’t bode well for them, at least in their stormy minds. If the existing leadership was really doing their job, they wouldn’t need someone from the outside to come in and do their housecleaning. Keeping the personnel pipeline brimming with new and productive talent while grooming the existing crew to take over the helm is what they are paid to do.

 But, my fellow seafarers, I’ve sailed in and out of these waters many times and lived to tell the tale. In fact, they are some of the salty sea scars I’m most proud of. Just be advised that the end result will always be the same. You come in, you enforce the standards, you take care of the people by flushing out the negative and counterproductive, you make the customer a raving fan, and all of a sudden you’re lost in the fog and unable to get clear communication from the admiral.

After my fourth trip to the triangle, I remember calling my father and asking him why this kept happening. He said, “You can work for yourself or you can work for someone. As long as you are working for someone, this will always happen.” Argh, truer words were never spoken. So if you find yourself without a corporate lifeline, a loss of compass directions from the client, or the rats taking over the ship, don’t walk the plank. You’ve taken this rickety vessel as far as she will go so bring yourself back to safe harbor and get ready to sail a strong, sturdy ship with your own name on the bow. Aye aye, captain!!

The past four economic years could best be described as draining the swamp for businesses. The financial waters have drawn back to kill off the strangling undergrowth and are waiting to reemerge clear and vibrant with business. Unfortunately many organizations view employee development as one of the tangles they need to starve off as they drain the swamp.

This is a self-defeating activity. I have many speaker friends and authors who have experienced a downturn of bookings where they train and motivate employees. It’s the economy, right? Wrong. It’s the incorrect thinking that somehow cutting back on investing in your employees is necessary for your survival. How can that be when they are actually killing off one of their greatest means of nourishment?

Employee development doesn’t have to be costly, but it does have to be done. Having lunch-and-learn sessions where you read a book together costs very little but pays huge dividends. Selecting a local businessperson or leader to come and share with your team is often free! And there is so much great downloadable material on the web you can share at weekly meetings, it’s unreal!

I work in an area that is recession proof. I deal with organizations, groups, and spiritual institutions that understand employee development is a never-ending responsibility, the economy be damned. And I’m talking about groups that work on their team’s internal motivation and help them discover what is inside of themselves; heart-knowledge not head-knowledge.

It’s a scary time. The more positive and personal-development material you can feed your team, the more creative and appreciative they’ll be. Everyone knows a job is just a job, unless you get the right person in the position. All the right person needs to have is a willingness and a desire to learn, so please, don’t ever drain the waters so much that you stop feeding this. Otherwise, when the waters reemerge, you may find that all you have left in your cubicles is a slimy team of swamp things!

Charlie “Tremendous” Jones writes about the Three Decisions in Life in the bestselling motivational classic, Life Is Tremendous. They are: Who are you going to live your life with; what are you going to live your life in; and what are you going to live your life for?”

Determining what you are going to live your life for takes some real soul-searching. You can step in and out of relationships and jobs without even trying to work at them or giving them much thought. Finding what you are going to live your life for, that one true passion that consumes every waking moment and fills your subconscious when you sleep, is truly tremendous.

The closest comparison humans have to a dog’s bone is their dreams and aspirations. No matter how long it’s been buried or left lying around, when you come back to it, it’s all good. You instantly recognize it. It may be a childhood dream or your perfect job. Always have a bone worth burying and worrying about. A bone whose taste and smell you can’t get out of your nose. A bone that you always go back to and value as your most prized possession.

My father would go days without sleeping when he was on the scent of a hot project. Who can sleep when you’ve got your passion coursing through your veins, making your heart beat stronger, keeping your mind firing with flashes of brilliance? That’s when you know you’re motivated, when sleep moves down the list of priorities. The result of finding your bone is ceaseless activity.

And if you’re still unclear about what your individual passion is, the activity of helping others realize theirs will put you on your own path to discovery. As Zig Ziglar put it, “You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” So while you may not yet know exactly where your magical bone is buried, it doesn’t take much digging to sniff out many tremendous ways to help others.

A young man asked an old-timer how he got so successful. The old man replied, “Good judgment.” The young man then asked, “Well, how do you get that?” To which the old man replied, “Experience.” The young man pressed on. “Well, how do you get that?” The old man replied, “Poor judgment.”

No one likes to fail but if you aren’t learning how to capitalize on your challenges, tribulations, and mistakes, you’ll never become all that you were meant to be. Life is tough and people hurt. No matter how rich, famous, or successful you become, there are certain painful inevitabilities in life that we all go through. That’s a fact.

I’ve had some great things happen in my life, but what defines me is my scars. The real purpose of pain is to make us better, not bitter. My mistakes and heartbreaks make me stronger, wiser, and more empathetic. Everything in life that happens to us contributes to making us who we are, especially the bad things. Problems are invaluable because in working through them you become something greater and stronger.

Whenever someone would call my father and tell him about a problem, he would exclaim “I’m going to pray your problem gets worse!” He joked that he was the only person in America people would call and say, “Mr. Jones, please stop praying for me!” But his point is clear. We are put through the fire so we can emerge sharper, stronger, more resilient and brilliant. So why would he deny anyone that opportunity?

So instead of wishing everyone a Happy New Year, let’s start wishing them a Crappy New Year! After all, that’s really the only way we’ll finish 2012 more tremendous than when we started.

The Key to Excellence

Learn to laugh at your mistakes. As Mr. Jones said, “Laughing at your failures doesn’t mean you like to fail. It just means you’re learning to capitalize on what goes wrong.” No normal person likes to fail, he explains, but if you don’t learn to capitalize on what does go wrong you’ll never do as much as you could have. As Ethel Barrymore said, “You grow up the first day you have your first real laugh—at yourself.”

Get others to learn to laugh at their mistakes. One of the funniest moments is when Mr. Jones shares the result of his thirty-five years of experience distilled into two words. He claims this knowledge is experiential and not theoretical and then proclaims at the top of his lungs, “NOTHING WORKS!” much to the delight and roars of laughter from the audience. Learning to laugh when you hurt and things go wrong ensures you become better and not bitter.

Be learning that communication is not from your mouth to another’s ears, but from your heart to your mouth. When you speak from your heart you begin to identify with the other person and the barriers begin to come down. Even in today’s virtual world, communicating with people is a necessity and a tremendous therapy and one of the greatest keys to our success.

Being in the business of listening to, writing, publishing, and promoting personal-development material over the past three years has reinforced one critical lesson that I’ve been learning my entire life. Real help, real motivation, and real discipline are drawn out of only one source—you. You are the only architect of the greatest DIY project on planet earth: yourself. As Galileo Galilei said, “We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.” Reading great books and being around positive people to draw it out of you are proven keys, so start by getting your copy of The Key to Excellence and unlock a Tremendous 2012!

As he should have known, the banker would have to decline his request, but he had an alternative offer for my dad to consider. He explained that if dad could postpone celebrating Christmas a day everything would be reduced in the stores. Then he would only need half the amount he was requesting. He said if this was agreeable, he would approve the loan for a smaller amount.

Of course my dad gratefully accepted his offer. That Christmas eve, after we were all in bed, the downstairs front door sprung open. There was a lot of noise and my father rushed down the stairs to see what was happening. I followed a few minutes later and saw him sitting on that bottom step with his head in his hands. I couldn’t understand why he was weeping.

When I reached the bottom step, I saw no one but the hall was lined with boxes. There were boxes of food, clothing, and candy. There was a riding fire engine and a four-foot folding white paneled dollhouse. We didn’t belong to a church and the friends we had were as poor as we were. My dad returned to the bank to repay the loan. The banker surprised my dad by telling him that there was no record of this loan.

I only understood that Christmas experience years later when Jesus became my Lord and Savior. How blessed some of us are to see God’s love working in and through His children. John 3:16 is where this love story begins and those unknown servants were practicing I John 3:16. “Hereby perceive we the love of God, how He laid down His life for us: so that we ought to lay down our lives for others.”

There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head. “Well,” she said, “I think I’ll braid my hair today.” So she did and she had a wonderful day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror, and saw that she had only two hairs on her head. “Hmmm, ” she said, “I think I’ll part my hair down the middle today.” So she did and she had a grand day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror, and noticed that she had only one hair on her head. “Well,” she said, “Today I’m going to wear my hair in a pony tail.” So she did and she had a fun, fun day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror, and noticed that there wasn’t a single hair on her head….

“YEAH!” she exclaimed, “I don’t have to fix my hair today!” (Unknown)

Sheldon Koggs said, “All of the significant battles are waged within the self.”  This Christmas the best gift I can imagine is the ability to look past the externals and always display an attitude of thankfulness.

All Human Resources manuals have a list of actions that are grounds for termination. I personally would put negativity at the top of the list, although it’s often an activity that is allowed to continue unchecked. I have never been able to understand this. When I was in the military, negativity was labeled as insubordination. In personal relationships, negativity marks the beginning of the end. In work, negativity can manifest itself in gossip, backstabbing, active disengagement, and even sabotage.

The Chief Motivational Hound, Mr. Blue, refers to this as “biting the hand that feeds you”. It is one of mankind’s worst traits. It’s a cancer that spreads and takes over the organism and can only be “cured” by cutting it out in its entirety. Negativity is a form of fraud. If you are negative at work, you are not earning your pay, hence you are stealing. If you are negative in a relationship, you are stealing the other person’s emotions and time. If you are negative in your outlook on life, you are squandering the greatest gift of all.

So my answer to the question was simple—cut it out of your life. Life is too short to not be thankful even for the mistakes we make and the bad things that happen to us and to those we love. If you cannot keep your mouth and emotions in check, you will spread your toxic attitude to everyone with whom you come in contact. My advice is to quarantine yourself until you are thinking positively and stay far away from those who might infect you with their virus.

Make your 2012 resolution now to surround yourself with only positive influences. That may mean changing coworkers or even jobs, separating from existing friends or relationships, or emancipating yourself from family drama. As Mr. Blue quotes, “When you feel dog-tired at night, it may be because you’ve growled all day long.”  So stay away from the dark side and move into the light!

Mr. Blue shares some hound wisdom.

It’s easy to love your friends, difficult to love your enemies. It’s easy to be thankful when things are going well, tough to be thankful when things are not. If love is the greatest force in the universe, then I’d have to say thankfulness has to be a very close second. Both of these ideals stand alone, and in their purest unconditional form free from person, possession or circumstance. They just are. Cicero said, “A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.”

Gratitude, like failure, is one of the great spices of life, enriching the experience and adding flavor to the daily gruel we are served. The best things in life put you on an infinite loop. The more I give the more I receive. I can reflect love in a limitless capacity by simply giving it. I can create thankfulness just through the simple act of being thankful. So take a break this Thanksgiving Day and repeat the above prayer. Forget listing all the things and people you have in your life and just rejoice in the growing awareness that your heart has the privilege of thankfulness.

We received word from the hotel concierge on the other end of the line that we were only about five miles away. He then gave us numerous vectoring moves, repeatedly, since we couldn’t write them down. The concierge must have sensed our confusion and immediately made a radical proposal.

He told us to pull over, give him our location, and he would come to us. Oh, and he gave us his personal cell phone number just in case he couldn’t readily identify us. Now I was really confused. Did he understand that we already had a car and that if he just talked a little longer we could probably find our way?

Turns out he did understand the situation but felt it best to offer us the ultimate life raft. A city-savvy limo driver sent out into the sea of churning Dallas toll roads and tumultuous off-ramps, throwing us a literal line-of-sight buoy that we could follow and make it safely into harbor. So we pulled to the side of the toll plaza, cars spraying past us as we sat huddled in the SUV waiting for our tugboat captain to appear. And appear he did!

He was right. The hotel wasn’t far away and once we got behind him, it was really only

We made it! Thanks Roger!!

 one more exit up the highway. But rather than tell us to calm down and listen to the directions one more time, he felt it best to get in the limo, find us, and let us follow him in. Now that’s what I call going the extra mile….literally.