When I was a junior high kid back in central Kansas, my parents’ Sunday afternoon recreation was getting in the 55 Chevy and going for a drive. A favorite place was Salina, a town about 30 minutes away. They would literally drive around town and look at the houses, each of which was far better than our ittybitty one.
Not one time do I remember them saying how these people had screwed the little people to get where they are, or had done something illegal or immoral or unethical. It was a lesson in subtle motivation…as in, if you work hard and study hard like these folks, you too can have a nice house, perhaps, and live on a street with big trees.
I have thought back on those Sunday drives often and although I would have much rather been playing ball at the moment, I do think they served me well.
The question of the day is: What things happened in your childhood that helped make YOU what you are today?
9 users commented in " Motivational Moments Gone By "
Great question GL—–and a great insight to your success-sssssssss
I have to say seeing my own father get up day after day, fighting almost insurmountable odds just go to work, left an indelible mark on me.
All of the years of my working life—I have never missed a day of work cause I didn’t simply feel like going. If I did I had a very good reason.
I just never thought about it before—-the “why” I mean.
I think though the best part of this post is the point of view—-being able to look up at those who have achieved more with eyes of possibilities instead of jealousy.
So then is character learned or inherent?
Salina is pretty important to my upbringing, too, GL. Besides being born there, both sets of grandparents lived there and we spent a lot of weekends there. We even took care of the grandfolks house a couple of summers and I played ball over there.
But I got a different lesson from the experience we shared and it may have something to do with why I’m comfortable but decidedly not wealthy. We especially used to go look at the Christmas decorations on Marymount Hill. We loved the beauty, but none of us aspired to living in a big, palatial home. Dad was a professional and had chosen education as a profession when he could have been enormously successful in business. Education pays much less, but provides a comfortable living rich in meaning. And I always learned to focus on values and meaning rather than wealth.
Out of college I worked with schizophrenic and emotionally disturbed children. It wasn’t until I met the woman destined to be my wife that I changed course, moving into the role of the provider. It wasn’t until I worked in Silicon Valley that I learned the joy of creative business moneymaking. But, the skills I brought to the process were academic (I had a strong math and science background) and the lessons I had learned working in psychological environments. I knew how to truly “support” customers and relate to the pain they experienced.
Out of that, I developed my own business in the early 90’s.
Two Abilene kids, different life trajectories, looping around and relocating each other at a 40th reunion - only to find that all that travel has brought us to similar places in life. How cool is that?
Great topic GL!
My father worked for the USDA for 30 years. He started as a staff accountant and worked his way up to the director of the accounting department at the Minneapolis office. My dad loved being an accountant, he knew his stuff very well. He had confidence in his own accounting skills and his skills managing other accountants. About 10 years before he was to retire he was asked by the big wigs in DC to “temporarily” switch positions and be the director of their IT department. He knew nothing about IT but was assured it was just about managing people.
That temporary assignment turned into a 5 year prison sentence. He hated it. It brought him more stress and anxiety than he ever had before. He was managing a group of people who’s jobs he wasn’t even qualified to do, and they knew it. It was an extremely bad decision to come out of DC, but he continued to do that job as best he could. His family depended on him and he put our needs before his. Plus, he was only a few years away from a full government pension and his retirement dream of a lake home in Northern Minnesota.
At the time I knew he didn’t like what he was doing, and was doing it because he had to for us, and for his own dreams. It wasn’t until I became a working adult and had more conversations with him about this period that I truly understood his sacrifice. I asked him how he got through it and his answer was simple: Attitude. He told me he had to constantly keep his attitude from going too negative. He had a quote from Charles Swindoll on his wall, the one reminds people that our attitude is within our control. He told me that when things were going bad, he would take a few minutes to read it, adjust his attitude, and continue on.
That same quote is on my wall today.
As a sales rep and sales manager I’ve seen very talented people, with a promising future in sales, fail because of their attitude. I now preach the power of attitude to my sales reps, and truly believe it is the most important factor in your professional and personal life.
In case you’re wondering, my mom and dad just locked up their beautiful lake house up in the North woods of Minnesota to head South for a few months. They will be taking their time to visit friends on the way down to Fort Myers Florida where they will keep a watchful eye on the Twins, and their beach chairs firmly planted in the sand. Living the dream!
You hit a nerve here GL
Isn’t that the truth, Mike. I am often struck by this on the nightly news…when it sure seems like those who make things happen are more and more looked down upon. Ayn Rand wrote an entire book about this, called Atlas Shrugged, of course. She asked metaphorically what would happen if those who created things, generically called ATLAS, simply shrugged off the world and said…”ok, you handle it.” Givers and takers, those who do and those who complain, don’t, whatever. I am glad it resonated with you, too, cuz.
Conrad, I was not trying to say that success equals money or big houses. But you clarified it better. I was just commenting on the historical fact that people of talent were generally more admired. Sometimes I get the feeling that it is not so much that way today.
Adam,
A lot of very successful companies have been built on the hiring mantra of “hire for attitude, train the skill.” Sounds like your dad would buy into that, just as you are doing.
GL, I’ve always like Atlas Shrugged, also. And I agree that we used to have a much greater sense of earning the American Dream. But, you know, when we were kids, the Middle Class was huge. It’s hard to go from poor to middle class or from middle class to rich, but movement within the middle class was what the American dream was about. And people were into it.
Now, it seems like people have expectations that are unrealistic from their current position, so they feel they are somehow being screwed when it doesn’t come their way. And, since they are being screwed, somebody owes them compensation.
GL, I was born in one of those big houses on Marymount Hill (back in those days lots of babies were born at home because the doctors didn’t think the hospitals were sanitary enough) that you and your family no doubt drove by on your Sunday visits to Salina. My dad didn’t make much money but my Grandfather did and didn’t lose all of it when the stock market crashed. Our family was made up of a rich girl and a poor boy getting together (I never did know how), getting married and living out the depression trying to make ends meet and raise their family. My father was not well educated but he was a hard worker and we survived and managed to keep most of his family going at the same time. I didn’t see much of him while I was growing up but his goal for me was that I would GRADUATE FROM HIGH SCHOOL
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