Get off your duff…

January 28, 2013

“It’s easy to sit up and take notice. What is difficult is getting up and taking action.” (Honore de Balzac) – from the Jack’s Winning Words blog. As is often the case with Jack’s blog the focus is on doing and not just recognizing. If you see something that is wrong – do something about it. Jack went on to also share a saying that he says he has posted next to his computer – “Get Tough…Get Off Your Duff.” Interestingly, Jack opined that the saying that he has posted probably came from some sales pep talk.

Balzac’s advice is easier to read and think about than to act upon, since that would involve getting up and taking action. I suspect that the reason is that when we take notice of something, we start imagining how big the problem/issue may be and how difficult it would be to solve the whole problem and maybe not just the immediate problem that is front of us. If we see a hungry person on the street, we ought not worry about solving world hunger, but about helping that person get something to eat.beggar

The other reaction that can lead to inaction is the reflex to say to yourself, “There but by the Grace of God go I.” The next step in that avoidance reaction is to rush away from the problem, thanking God for your good fortune. Perhaps the reaction should be to thank God for placing you in a position to be able to help.

Another resolution for many is to notice, but also to ignore. It is very easy to rationalize not taking action by convincing yourself that you are too busy with other important things to take action on what you have just noticed that also needs attention. People who do that are often plagued by long bouts of the “coulda, woulda, shoulda’s” later.

man textingOur lives can become such a frenzy of activities that we become convinced that we are too busy to take on anything else; yet, if one really reflected upon the content of that daily frenzy, there are probably lots of things that could easily be dropped to take on a more important task. We bury our heads in the sands of busy work and trivial, time-wasting pursuits like texting and Facebooking to share what we had for breakfast with the world. Make no mistake about it; texting “OMG, U won’t believe what I just saw” is not taking action. Perhaps a signing off with a text, “OMG, gotta go, someone needs my help” is a start in the right direction.

So, whether you apply Balzac’s advice to your daily work life or to a life dedicated to service to others, the important thing is to combine Jack’s little saying with Balzac’s second sentence thought – get off your duff and take action.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Never lose hope…

January 25, 2013

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” (MLK, Jr.) – from the Jack’s Winning Words blog that I so often used as inspiration.

MLK image over DOwntown MIlfordI marched in the recent MLK Day parade –“March On Main Street” – in Milford. It was a cold day, but an inspirational one. One thing that really hit me was that most of the parade organizers and marchers were way too young to have any personal ,memories of Dr. King or the events leading up to and surrounding his famous “I have a Dream” speech on the National Mall in Washington D.C. I also didn’t know, until one of the speakers at Milford’s parade mentioned it, that Dr. King had actually delivered that same speech weeks before in Detroit.

The words that Jack chose for today’s Winning Words post are certainly words to live by. We all face disappointments in life and it is only through continued hope that we keep striving.  I think we could add that we sometimes need infinite patience and persistence, too.

I read recently about a young man, who is an entrepreneur, trying to launch his first company.  He became discouraged after he had pitched his idea a few times to potential backers and been turned down each time. After much introspection, he decided that he needed to steel himself against those inevitable setbacks; so he set out on an unusual self-improvement project. He decided to take 100 days and to go out and ask something outrageous of total strangers so that he would experience their rejections and become less sensitive to failures. No matter how outrageous his requests, he discovered that he didn’t always get turned down. He also came to realize that he didn’t need to take personally the rejections that he was getting most of the time. He also moved from being terrified the first few times out to seek rejection, he actually began to enjoy it.

Now there are life lessons in that story for all of us. Many of us avoid doing things that we should be doing in business or life out of a fear of rejection. A couple of years ago, I did a bunch of up-and-down- the-street cold calling on behalf of a business. I hate cold calling; but, after a few calls I found that I was enjoying the challenge. I met lots of new people. I didn’t always fail and got a lot of business cards out to local companies. Sure I got thrown out of a few places (the ones with No Soliciting signs that were really serious about it), but I also got into many places that had those signs and discovered a welcome reception once I was in. I guess I was running on infinite hope for most of the time.

Right now, having been patient and persistent for the last few years, I’m hopeful that the real estate market is indeed coming back in this area. All the signs point to that. We just need more homeowners who hunkered down to ride this thing out to come up for air and see if now is the time to sell. We have lots of buyers and not enough homes to show them right now. So give me a call and I’ll work with you to see if market values have recovered enough for you to consider selling. If it’s not yet he right time for your home, don’t give up hope!

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Posted by Norm Werner

Come alive and march down Main Street in Milford

January 21, 2013

From the Jack’s Winning Words Blog as we celebrate Martin Luther King Day – “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that.”  (Howard Thurman)  It is not widely known that MLK, Jr. was influenced in his thinking by his father’s friend, Howard Thurman.  Thurman, in turn, was influenced by a personal meeting with Gandhi who spoke of the power of non-violence.

Who or what makes you come alive? There are certainly lots of very worthy causes vying for our attention these days. Which ones get yours? When you look at the people who are toiling away for causes – raising funds or doing volunteer work or just trying to improve awareness – you often find people who have in some way been personally touched by the cause for which they now devote time and energy. If it’s for a disease or illness; they might have been a victim or had a family member or close friend who was stricken by the illness/disease. If it was some other misfortune; like a fire burning out a family or a family whose bread-winner unexpectedly passed away, often neighbors in the community will rally around them to provide support. There is a collective feeling of, “There but by the grace of God go I.”

As we pause today at noon to celebrate MLK Day in Milford with a parade down Main St. it MLK image over DOwntown MIlfordis interesting that the celebration and parade are being organized largely by students and younger people in the area who are too young to actually remember Dr. King. I was alive during the events associated with Dr. King and vividly recall watching most of them unfold on broadcast TV. For many of the youth involved in today’s parade, this is about the ideas and the commitment to change and diversity that Dr. King and his movement championed.

Most of these young people who will be involved in the celebration and parade today in Milford have no personal basis for understanding how far Dr. King had to move the country in order to remove some of the inequities that existed at the time. They have grown up in an environment that was significantly changed by Dr. Kings efforts and movement.  We are fortunate that this is what made him come alive and that he did go do it. Join us at the Kroger store at 11:30 this morning and join the March Down Main St.

UPDATE – (Brrrr – It was Cold!!)

OK, so I had the time wrong – the line-0up didn’t start until 12:15 this morning. No matter; the march when on at 1 PM as planned. It was very, very cold; but, a good crownd turned out. See the pictures below –

MLK Day 2013 - At Prospect Hill parking lot - 1

MLK Day 2013 - Crowd and tent

MLK Day 2013 - one of the signs

MLK Day 2013 listening to speakers befoer parade

MLK Day 2013 - starting the march

MLK Day 2013 - end of parade entering Central Park

Did I mention that it was cold?

This was the 8th annual MLK Day March on Main Street and was once again MC’ed by Dave Armstrong. former Milford resident, who now lives in downtown Detroit. Coffee was provided by Starbucks and the folks from Coratti’s on Main provided hot chocolate as the marchers went by.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Dance with her while you can…

January 18, 2013

I posted the announcement that I was sent by the Community Ed & Recreation folks abouth the Daddy-Daughter dance and the Mommy-Son dance that is taking place at the same time (see below) on my Move To Milford Web site calendar of Upcoming Community Events.

One can’t post something like that without pausing to allow memories of our children to sweep over us. I don’t recall having the opportunity to take my daughter to a Daddy-Daughter dance when she was little. I do recall the Father of the bride dance with her at her wedding. Sadly that is sometimes the only time that many fathers get (or take) to dance with their daughters; and by then your thoughts are turning to “Where did the time go?” and “When did she grow up?” and maybe “Where was I while all of that was happening.”

So my advice, for what it’s worth, is that you dance with your daughter(s) while you can. Worry about making an extra buck tomorrow and take the opportunities like this one to take your little princess to a dance. Before too long she’ll find her Prince Charming and you’ll be waiting for your last dance with her, at the wedding.

Feb 16 – Daddy-Daughter Dance and Mother-Son Dance – 7 – 9 pm – sponsored by Huron    Valley Recreation & Community Education. The Daddy-Daughter dance will be at Milford    High School and the Mother-Son Dance at Heritage Elementary School. $25 per couple    for residents, $35 per couple for non residents. $10 for each additional daughter.    Click here to see the registration form for both dance

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Posted by Norm Werner

Put a little skip back into your life…

January 15, 2013

From the blog Jack’s Winning Words comes this bit of advice. “How to keep a healthy level of sanity:  As often as possible, skip, rather than walk.”  (Gary Barnes)  For many of us, as we grow older and discover that we can no longer skip; we begin asking – “What has happened to my childhood when skipping came so easy and was so much fun?”  What other skills have we lost in the aging process?  …making up games?  …daring to do things?  …being excited about tomorrow?  …the wonder of discovering something new?

I posted a blog about a month ago about being silly enough to make a funny face in the mirror every now and then. I think that is just one of the things that many may retain from childhood, even if they lose the ability to skip. After all, childhood is as much a state of mind is it about age or physical things. As we grow older too many of us take ourselves and life all too seriously. Cynicism replaces wonder and joy. Worrying about rules replaces making up games. Caution replaces adventure and daring to do things and concerns about tomorrow replace the excitement of getting there.

I celebrate waking up each morning with my dog Sadie. She always seems so happy to wake up to a new day and there’s walk the dognothing like a waging tail and a few dog kisses to start a day off on the right foot. Of course it could be that she’s just excited that we are about to go for our “morning mile” walk – the first a many that day; but I prefer to think that she too is happy to have made it to another day. We may not skip our way around Milford as we start our day; but, we’re happy and maybe a little more healthy and sane for having gotten out and around the Village before first light, even on these cold winter mornings.

You may not have a Sadie to take a walk with; but, I’ll bet, that if you get up and get out for a walk (or run) before you’ve started being an adult for that day, perhaps a little skip will come back into your step.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Stay in the moment and focus upon today…

January 11, 2013

From the Jack’s Winning Words blog comes this piece of advice – “I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the year’s.” (Henry Moore). Jack went on to write – This week I came across a SMART way (by Kelly Olin) to make and keep resolutions. S=Be Specific. M=Be Motivated. A=Make it Action-oriented. R=Be Realistic. T= Make it Timely.

Olin’s advice is surely applicable to real estate sales or any other job. While it is always good to have long term goals and plans, it can sometimes be depressing to focus upon how few of those plans might have been achieved thus far in the year, especially in January. Since almost all good plans are based upon being able to see the year-long goals as an aggregation of monthly, weekly and even daily goals; it is much better to focus on the work needed to achieve today’s goals than to worry about the overall goals.

businessman looking at watchIf your plan is based upon understanding the numbers involved in achieving success, like real estate sales; then you’ll have some daily numbers somewhere in that plan that you can focus upon today – the number of prospecting calls that you must make in order to get the number of appointments that you need in order to get the number of new listings that are required to give you the opportunity of making the number of sales that will support the amount of money that you want to make.

The fact is that the number of whatever it is that is required today to meet your overall goal is the only thing that you can commit to work on today. So you can take Olin’s list and start with those tasks as the Specific things that you are committing to do. Then give yourself that little Motivational pep talk about getting started. Lay out your Action plan for accomplishing the tasks at hand and be Realistic about the time and effort it will take. Finally get to it – make it Timely, like now.

If you can think and act in those terms each day’s work will seem less daunting, but over time each day’s work will add to the achievement of the year’s goals.

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Posted by Norm Werner

It just takes gumption…

January 9, 2013

“Only two things you ignore: things that aren’t important and things you wish weren’t important, and wishing never works.” (David Shore) – from the Jack’s Winning Words blog.

This saying is particularly applicable in life if you substitute the words “put off” for the word ignore. It seems somehow falsely comforting to put off things that we really don’t want to do or face. There are meetings we really don’t want to have with people that we really don’t want to see to discuss topics that we really don’t want to talk business meetingabout. So we put them off. We wish that they would go away, but they never do.

The real irony is that those meetings never turn out to be as bad as we imagined them to be when we were putting them off. That person whom you were sure would get upset and mad at what you had to say might just as easily say, “Oh, OK.” And let it go at that. Then you will have wasted a lot of energy and time worrying about a non-event. That tend to happen to me from time to time. I think it is the result of an over-active imagination that dreams up all sorts of scenarios that are really improbable, but which capture my thought process and consume lots of wasted energy. Does that ever happen to you?

I suspect that another saying from Jack’s Winning Words also applies to this issue –

 “Everyone who has gumption knows what it is, and anyone who hasn’t can never know what it is, so there’s no need of defining it.” (L.M. Montgomery)

Well, I did look up the meaning, according to Webster’s dictionary –

GUMPTION –

Pronunciation: (gump’shun)

—n. Informal.

1. initiative; aggressiveness; resourcefulness: With his gumption he’ll make a success of himself.

2. courage; spunk; guts: It takes gumption to quit a high-paying job.

3. common sense; shrewdness.

We don’t use that word very often. Maybe it’s because so few of us really have gumption. I think if there were more gumption around there would be less putting off of things, especially things we’d rather not face.  It certainly appears that our legislative leaders in Washington lack gumption when dealing with almost anything, especially fiscal issues these days.

I don’t think there are any gumption self-help books or gumption coaches around to help us find or get gumption; so most of us seem destined to go through life with little to no apparent gumption. Maybe, however, that if we focus upon the third definition from the list above (at least the “common sense” part) we’ll find that we have enough gumption to get by in life. So, show your gumption today and tackle those things that you’ve been putting off.

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Posted by Norm Werner

What’s in your heart?

December 24, 2012

“He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree” – Roy L. Smith. Roy L. Smith was an American clergyman who authored several books in the 1940’s. I like this saying because it makes you stop and disassociate the commercial side of Christmas from what is really important in the Holiday – celebrating the birth of Jesus.

While we tend to focus a lot on the commercial aspects of Christmas and on family and children and presents; Christmas is really one of two Holidays each year that is really not about us. The other is Easter.

Those two days of the year, more that any others are not about us and our little celebrations; they are really about what happened over two thousand years ago – one celebrating the birth of Jesus and the other celebrating his resurrection from the death that he suffered to atone for our sins.

If one first keeps those things in their heart and mind, then whatever we find under our trees or in our baskets are just incidental bonuses – the real gifts were given long ago and they are free to all who will allow them into their hearts. Merry Christmas everyone.

 

manger

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Posted by Norm Werner

Keeping the Dream Alive in the Huron Valley…

December 13, 2012

Today I posted information on my web site www.movetomilford.com about some of the upcoming events in the Milford area in observance of Dr. Martin Luther King Day, which is January21, 2013. The Huron Valley Martin Luther King Jr. Day Committee has already kicked off the events by opening registration for entries in the art, writing and performance categories. Each of these categories will judged, with awards for the best entries to be announced during the celebration on the 21st.

MLK image over DOwntown MIlfordThere will also be a parade down Main St in Milford on the 21st, with the line-up scheduled for 1 PM at the Prospect Hill Shopping Mall. The march will proceed up Commerce to Main St and down main street to Central park. Dr. King’s famous ‘I have a dream…” speech will be played as the marchers go down Main St. You can read more about the planned activities and the work that the Committee does throughout the year by going to www.movetomilford.com and clicking on the link to about information concerning the celebration.

It is interesting to me, as I looked to see who was behind the Committee, that Dr. King’s Dream is today being kept alive and championed mainly by people too young to have been there when the events happened. They are championing the principals that Dr. King espoused, and not just honoring his memory. That is important; because that means that the real content of Dr. King’s Dream is living on and not just the context.

I am old enough to have witnessed the events of that era, albeit mainly from the comforts of my home on the TV. I saw the coverage of the marches and the loosing of the dogs upon the marchers. I saw Governor Wallace standing on the steps of the Alabama University, trying to deny entrance to a black man. I saw the coverage of Dr. King’s famous speech on the Capitol Mall and I witnessed the coverage of his death.  Those were trying times and times that challenged all Americans to embrace the inevitable change that Dr. King was fighting for during those marches and while giving those speeches.

It is a sad commentary that many of the most important events of the era were the deaths of the people fighting to do the most good and make the most change in America at the time – John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. represent three of the most important. I certainly hope that groups like the Huron Valley Martin Luther King Day Committee keep reminding us all of the Dream, as yet not fully realized, that Dr. King had for an America in which the color of a man’s skin would have no impact or influence on his ability to realize his full measure of the American Dream. I’ll see you on Main St on January 21st.

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Posted by Norm Werner

Maybe that’s called wisdom…

December 9, 2012

 “As I get older I find that I’m not smarter about the things I say, but rather smarter about the things I don’t say.” (Norm Werner)

Today’s saying didn’t come from my favorite blog – Jack’s Winning Words; but, it’s just something that I thought of recently. Maybe Jack will use it on his blog. I have been blessed (or cursed depending upon your view) with a fairly quick wit; however, when I was younger I was not always judicious with the use of the things that occur to me in response to things around me. While I always found the thoughts that would pop into my head to be funny, and many others seem to also find them to be Mouth shuthumorous; there were also many times when I later regretted blurting out that witty retort or cute double entendre remark.  Eventually, I learned to hold my tongue, at least long enough to consider whether sharing my witty thought was appropriate. I became smarter about the things that I don’t say.

That is an important life lesson, whether it concerns witty remarks or just remarks in general. These days it also has great applicability to the stage that so many use to express themselves – Social Media. Whether it be in a blog or on Facebook or Twitter, stopping to consider the thoughts that you are about to share with the world is good advice. Many people think of Facebook as just a place to carry on conversations among friends, but it has also become a favorite checkpoint for job recruiters to visit on order to find out what kind of a person you may be. The offhand remarks that you drop into your Facebook posts will stay out there forever and could come back to haunt you, especially if you’ve allowed yourself to spew vitriolic remarks at someone or some company. The same caution applies to sharing too much personal information about yourself on those sites. It’s not just scam artists that you need be concerned about, it may be that next employer who is looking up what you’ve said.

Blogs can also be dangerous. There is a tendency to think of a blog as a personal soapbox upon which everything is fair game. Certainly there are few rules governing what one can say on a blog; however, restraint and self-control are critical there, too. Blogs tend to encourage the sharing of opinions, but you really need to think about whether your opinion is important enough to share to risk offending or turning off those who do not share it. Certainly that is true in areas like politics and religion. I try to stay away from those topics. I suppose that I might have offended some politicians in Washington from time to time by referring to them as bozos or worse when they pass some bonehead law to protect us from ourselves or worse, fail to do anything useful at all. Maybe there should be a special exemption for talking about politicians, since they have usually earned the witty or scathing remarks that they draw.

I don’t feel the least bit constrained by my new found ability to stop and think about what I’m about to say in public or on a public social media site. Usually the result is better, more thought out and coherent. Sometimes the result is not to say anything at all, and that’s OK, too. The alternative is to continue to be that disruptive kid in class who blurts out everything that comes to mind. As you age it’s becomes obvious that more people than just the teacher is annoyed by that. I think realizing that and doing something about it is called wisdom – amazing what getting older can do for you.

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Posted by Norm Werner

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