Words of Wisdom, 1998 Style
There’s a reason we keep buying those little books with clever sayings. You can get a ton of wisdom in just a few sentences. But there is no reason to run to your local bookstore for smart sayings. We’ve got plenty of wise folks in our own industry. Here’s our annual collection.
* Tom Anglo, 20th Century Plastics Tom says he finds that the day goes by smoothly when you have a quote that you try to live by. His is:
“If you know you have to swallow a frog, swallow it first thing in the morning. If there are two frogs, swallow the big one first.”-Mark Twain
Not an easy quote to live by, but one that, if followed, would certainly help cut stress and make your life a better one.
* Art Dupree, Sayers Brook Bison Ranch Art chooses his saying from a mentor for whom he worked 17 years. With this kind of wisdom on tap, I can see why he stayed so long. Called “McCreary’s Corollaries,” he feels it is the greatest advice he has ever gotten as a manager.
“Make as many mistakes as you need to, in order to learn. A mistake is the first time that you do something incorrectly. The second time that you do something incorrectly can be considered stupidity. Stupidity can be occupationally fatal.”
* Colleen Garringer, Mystic Color Lab This one had me chuckling, as Colleen is so right that the answer to an unsolvable problem often comes to us at the very last minute. As she says, it “just goes to show that all of the experience, careful planning and brainstorming in the world cannot beat frantic deadline creativity!”
“It isn’t what you know that counts, it’s what you think of in time!”
Her other favorite is: “It is often wiser to unlearn than to learn.”
Since I teach frequently, and learn plenty from my students, I know this one can be hard to adopt, but it’s well worth the effort. As Colleen says, “If you keep doing things the way you’ve always done them, you’ll quickly be left behind.”
* Kate Kestnbaum, Kestnbaum & Co. Kate’s one brave lady, stating what many of us have observed, but seldom discuss.
“The bottleneck is always at the top of the bottle.”-Unknown
She softens the observation and turns it into something positive with this statement: “In this age of mergers, restructuring, downsizing, quality circles and so on, it takes effort to ensure room for a free flow of ideas. Achieving this free flow turns a potential bottleneck into a refinement, an enhancement, rather than a blockage.”
* Lindy Litrides, Arthritis Foundation Lindy had a head start on the rest of us because her father “drummed” these universal truths into her as she grew. She reports that these sayings “come from the Temple of the Oracle of Delphi in Greece and are the basis of numerous philosophical writings.” Lindy added the last two as her experience taught her their value.
1. Know thyself.
2. Everything in moderation.
3. The Greek letter epsilon. (Though no one has translated the oracle’s meaning for the letter, Lindy’s dad taught her that it meant freedom to be.)
4. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
5. You are as you think.
This one from Lindy is one of my favorites because it captures a very basic truth in a humorous manner:
“Wherever you go, there you are.”-Jon Kabat-Zinn
Lindy says this teaches her that “life is driven from within” and that it’s up to her to produce the best outcome every day.
* Ken Petersen, Direct Response Services
The first quote is a Ken Petersen original:
“When you’re old and sitting in your rocking chair, you don’t want to be saying ‘I could have if I’da wanted to.'”
So make use of the time you’ve got, and do it all!
The second is one that Ken says he “preaches all the time”:
“Let us train our minds to desire what the situation demands.”-Seneca
And I like this one best of all because it clearly states we have a choice about our lives:
“The greatest discovery of his time was that human beings could alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.”-William James
* Michael Stern, Huntington Clothiers and Shirtmakers Michael’s first quote speaks to success…and to failure, but succinctly reminds us that, no matter what, the beat goes on.
“Life is longer than a season.”
If you’ve got the right attitude, this one, from Michael’s boyhood passion, shows the way to truly enjoy life:
“There’s no such thing as a bad day on the river.”
I keep getting such a chuckle out of a toss-away quote Michael included when I asked for his input, that I got his permission to share it:
“I’m the original cataloger from Wisconsin…the other guy is a billion-dollar impostor.”
* Mike Tremain, Hard Rock Cafe Mike, who works in a hip environment and comes from an even hipper generation, shows why many in this generation will be welcome leaders of the next wave of direct marketers.
“Most of the things that make life worth living, which have emancipated man from drudgery and lifted him above commonness and ugliness, we owe to our dreamers. The present is but the sum total of the ages that have gone before-the dreams of the past made real.”-Sidney Newten Bremmer
Mike also believes that “breakthrough ideas often lie beyond the frontier of popular reason.”
“Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.”-American proverb
And what are my picks? As I think the respondents’ choices were among the best I’ve ever received, so finding new quotes to inspire and clarify life required some research. But here’s three that will take turns appearing on my office wall.
“A true poet does not say ‘azure’; a true poet says ‘blue.'”-Else Lasker-Schuler
