The ‘Don’t Quit’ Poem

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest! if you must; but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow;
You might succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup.
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit;
It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.

Don’t Quit by Anonymous

The Seven Demands of Leadership - What Separates Great Leaders from all the Rest?

by Barry Conchie

Who wants to follow someone who’s going nowhere? Or someone who’s unreliable or untrustworthy? Organizations wrestle with these questions and many others as they confront the elusive challenge of defining effective leadership.

The Seven Demands

Most people are certain that leadership is about direction, about giving people a sense of purpose that inspires and motivates them to commit and achieve. Leadership is also about a relationship between people — leaders and followers — that is built on firm ground; enduring values build trust. Few would disagree with these views.

Not everyone, however, offers the same answer to this question: What’s the best way to develop talented leaders to achieve sustained high performance? Indeed, Gallup Organization researchers have long been intrigued with this question. Having studied leadership talent for more than 40 years, Gallup set out to discover the demands that leaders must meet to be successful. We also wanted to uncover the developmental framework that would enhance leadership performance.

Our research confirmed the importance of two rather obvious demands — visioning and maximizing values. What was surprising was the presence of five other important demands that are essential to the development of all great leaders.

The research
First, a few words about how we arrived at these demands. Our study drew from a wide cross section of leaders who had a proven track record of success; we had evidence that they all delivered the goods. They were measurably the best when compared to others in similar roles. Their performance could be tracked to significant improvements to the bottom line. They enjoyed the endorsement of their bosses, peers, and direct reports. And they sustained high performance, often through adverse times.

For our initial leadership-development research, we identified and studied 100 leaders. They were drawn from general management, human resources, marketing, sales, manufacturing, research and development, and finance. They represented distinct levels of hierarchy, from managers to directors to vice presidents and senior executives. They had all faced significant demands that built and developed their leadership talent. Indeed, it was in researching this group that we uncovered the seven key demands that every leader must meet to achieve high performance.

We then expanded our study to include Read more

The Key to Long-Term Success

by Brian Tracy

Successful people have been studied in depth for more than 100 years. They have been interviewed extensively to determine what it is they do and how they think that enables them to accomplish so much more than the average person.

The Harvard Discovery on Success
In 1970, sociologist Dr. Edward Banfield of Harvard University wrote a book entitled The Unheavenly City. He described one of the most profound studies on success and priority setting ever conducted.

Banfield’s goal was to find out how and why some people became financially independent during the course of their working lifetimes. He started off convinced that the answer to this question would be found in factors such as family background, education, intelligence, influential contacts, or some other concrete factor. What he finally discovered was that the major reason for success in life was a particular attitude of mind.

Develop Long Time Perspective
Banfield called this attitude “long time perspective.” He said that men and women who were the most successful in life and the most likely to move up economically were those who took the future into consideration with every decision they made in the present. He found that the longer the period of time a person took into consideration while planning and acting, the more likely it was that he would achieve greatly during his career.
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Being “Too Busy” Can Cheat You Out of a Fabulous Life

By Joe Farcht

There are probably many things you’d like to do but simply don’t have the time for. You’re just too busy to do them! Here are some changes you can make so that you accomplish the things that are truly important to you.

If you experience this feeling, then it’s time to sit down and make a list of everything you currently do and everything you’d like to do but aren’t. Why? I’ll answer that question in a few minutes.

How to Discover Anyone’s Priorities

If you want to know what a person’s priorities are, observe what they do, not what they say. Because, whether consciously or unconsciously, what they choose to do is what they consider important at that moment.

Many of us jump from one task to another, simply doing what we feel like. Often, there is no correlation between what is important to us and what we actually do. Examine your own life. Is this true for you?

What Is Truly Important In Your Life?

What changes can you make so that you accomplish the things you wish you could get done? First, it’s essential to determine what is important. In other words, what are the priorities in your work and life?

At work, it’s imperative to know the priority of assigned tasks and activities, as well as those projects you seek out. If those priorities are clear, then you know what you should be working on and in what order. Not knowing your priorities will result in bouncing around from task to task, an inefficient and ineffective way to work.
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