Book Review: THE POWER OF A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

Roger Fritz is a well-known very successful business consultant. He has worked with such notable companies as John Deere, Caterpillar, IBM, Sara Lee, Pizza Hut and State Farm. His credentials are impeccable. Given his stature in the business world, I’m certain many people suggested to Mr. Fritz that he should write a book. And so he did. The result is THE POWER OF A POSITIVE ATTITUDE.

First, to get the negatives out of the way. As I read this book, I felt as though Mr. Fritz never actually sat down at his computer and began writing, but rather that the entire work was dictated to his secretary and then someone else typed it into its current form. This diminutive (barely 100 pages) book is filled with bullet points with an absence of much in the way of descriptive text.

Now for the up side – the book is spot-on, laden with pearls of business wisdom. It occurred to me as I read the book, perhaps Mr. Fritz’ intention was not an in-depth tome detailing every aspect of business process, but rather a brief study on what has made him successful in business. That, dear reader, is the end result of what you will find here. A brief recap of what Fritz found to be a formula for success.

There are ten chapters here. About half of which deal directly with attitude, the other half dealing with other aspects of business such as problem solving and dealing with burnout and stress. Each chapter includes five to ten quotes that directly address the topic as well as a few simple worksheets or questionnaires to help develop the concept.

As you would imagine, this is a very quick and easy read – great for that next long business flight. I do wish the author had spent more time detailing and developing his concepts as I feel there is a tremendous amount of very valuable content here to learn from. This is certainly one I would recommend to anyone in a leadership or management position.

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Are You a Business Prepper?

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” ~ Alexander Graham Bell

Those who know me know I’m not a big TV watcher, but recently I have discovered a new favorite show. It’s called Preppers on the National Geographic Channel on Tuesday nights. The show is about people who are preparing for a catastrophic event that will lead to societal chaos. Each episode they chronicle 4 different “preppers” and who measures they are taking to prepare for what they believe might soon happen.  The scenarios differ. Some are preparing for economic disaster, others for electromagnetic pulses (EMP’s) causing massive power outages, still others are preparing for natural disasters such as volcanoes or earthquakes. Regardless of what is driving them, these are people who are preparing for the worse and doing what they can to ensure the survival of their families.

The show really intrigues me as I tend to have a natural desire to prepare for the worse. I was thinking about this whole prepping idea from a business standpoint. I believe this is an area where many businesses fall short and virtually all can improve.

We know that economic conditions are cyclical, just as we know that every year gas prices rise in May and June then fall off sharply as the summer drags on. By the time elections roll around in November, outrageous gas prices are usually long forgotten. We know that in business, just as with anything else, there is always a calm before the storm.

So how does business prepare for the coming apocalypse that may be headed our way? Many sectors of the business world are facing that apocalypse now and have been for several years now. Some will survive, many will not. What can and should we learn from those businesses that have not only survived but even grown and prospered in the current economic climate?

The self storage business has undoubtedly suffered in recent years but certainly not to the extent of many other industries. At Uncle Bob’s, we’ve actually grown in the past year acquiring over 50 additional properties, an increase of well over 10% to our total holdings. How? How were we able to expand our business when so many others fell behind? We got leaner and meaner. We learned how to do more with less. We focused on the things that we could do during those trying times rather than on what we could not do such as expanding our internal training programs. We leveraged our buying power. We looked for undervalued opportunity and positioned ourselves to take advantage of those opportunities when they appeared. We even expanded our repertoire to include new opportunities such as business management services.

I believe what we’ve witnessed is a perfect blueprint for prepping for lean times. I think it would be awesome if Washington D.C would take a close look at what our company has done and emulate those steps.

But what if the worst is yet to come? Yes, the nightly news tells us the recovery is underway, but anyone with a lick of sense knows fuzzy math is used to show fewer unemployed. What if what we’ve seen over the past 3 years is just the beginning? What else can businesses do to prep for what the future holds?

I believe to weather the possible future storm we have to really focus on the local level. Stores and store managers must utilize this time to build their networks. By that I mean building relationships with apartment managers, home builders, and realtors. They have to increase their community involvement through networking with neighborhood associations, sporting associations and local schools and businesses. The referral aspect is always important for business success, but in lean times, even more so.

Just hanging an “OPEN” sign on the door doesn’t cut it any longer. Customers want to know that you support them before they will support you. Even multi-billion dollar corporations must drill down to the customer level to succeed in the possible coming storm, sort of like the now popular activist slogan, “Think globally, Act locally”.

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Monty Rainey is a District Manager working in the self storage industry since 1996 and currently overseeing 13 stores in the San Antonio, TX area. He is also a leadership coach and public speaker. For a free consultation, please contact Monty at 830-743-2139 or visit his website at http://www.montyrainey.com .

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I miss you, Dad

Dear Dad,

It’s been two years since God called you home and I miss you and think of you every day. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t thank God for giving me you as my father. He picked you to be in charge of shaping the foundation of my life. It was yet another display of His perfect wisdom, for I shudder to think of my life with a lesser man to mentor and guide me.

I believe the greatest thing we will ever possess on this earth are the virtues that make us who we are and through your shining display of character, honor, integrity, commitment and values you provided me with a rock solid foundation with which to build my life and be a positive force on those around me. I can never thank you enough for that. I pray that the virtues with which I now live my life are thanks enough.

I cherish those wonderful nights now when you visit me in my dreams. They’re always the same. In them I am always either a young boy or still a young man and you are always the strong man I remember, long before the disease destroyed your body. In them we are hunting together, or planting crops, or packing the bearings on a farm trailer, but always you are guiding me and teaching me.

Dad, I’m almost glad you left when you did and are not here to see what’s happening to our world. In just the two years since you left, things have gotten much worse. I’m afraid there were not enough men like you teaching younger men like me how to stand up for what’s right at all costs, how to put in a fair day’s work, how to be self-sufficient and never ask for a hand out. Mostly, how to be people of strong virtues.

I know you’re not worried about any of us kids, and there’s no need to be. You taught us well how to handle adversity and bounce back, how to survive any situation, and how to stand firm on the morals you taught us. We’ll be fine.

Please pass along my love and prayers to grandmother and granddad and all of the other loved ones who are there with you. When the Lord calls me home, we’ll spend eternity enjoying our new perfect bodies God has made for us. I’ll see you then, dad, but in the meantime, I hope to see you often in my dreams. I love you and miss you.

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Monty Rainey is a District Manager working in the self storage industry since 1996 and currently overseeing 13 stores in the San Antonio, TX area. He is also a leadership coach and public speaker. For a free consultation, please contact Monty at 830-743-2139 or visit his website at http://www.montyrainey.com .

Book Review: GOALS!

Over his stellar career, Brian Tracy has authored over 50 books. This one, GOALS!, was first published in 2003. I’ve read probably half of Tracy’s books over the years and have long had this on my short list to read but for one reason or another, it never did seem to make it to the top of my reading list. What a colossal mistake that has been on my part. I won’t go so far as to say this has been my favorite Brian Tracy book, but it would certainly rate in the top five. As I read this book, a recurring thought that kept running through my mind was, “Man, I wish I had read this nine years ago!”

One of the reasons this book never made it to the top of my reading list is that a few years ago I purchased Tracy’s audio download, How To Set and Achieve Goals, which I have listened to many times over. I thought this book would be much of the same material, but there is so much more contained hear that you simply must read to benefit from.

Goal achievers know the first step in achieving goals is a line from the old Cool Hand Luke movie, “You’ve got to get your mind right!” That’s what Tracy does here. Much of the book focuses on how to prepare mentally and avoid the mental sabotage that makes so many goals in life but a distant fantasy. There is a great deal of powerful information here on making your mind work for you, not against you as is often the case. Once you’ve got your mind in the right place, the rest becomes much more achievable.

Each chapter is broken into bite sized pieces that really allows the reader a chance to contemplate, absorb and reflect on what you have just read. In fact, this book reads much slower than most books because you will (or at least I did) spend a great deal of time reflecting. Each chapter concludes with a brief point summary of putting to work for you the material just covered. Again, this creates another opportunity for the reader to contemplate an action plan without becoming too overwhelmed with information.

Often when setting goals, obstacles get in the way that we might not even consider as having anything to do with why we might have fallen short of a goal. Tracy leaves no stone unturned here and provides valuable insight on each of these roadblocks such as time management, measuring your progress and associating with the right people to help you become successful. Along the way, the book is filled with quotes and quips that you will surely want to highlight and use on your life journey.

Learn from my mistake. If you have this book on your radar but have kept putting it off to read something else, move this book immediately to the top of your reading list. You can thank me later.

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Monty Rainey is a District Manager working in the self storage industry since 1996 and currently overseeing 13 stores in the San Antonio, TX area. He is also a leadership coach and public speaker. For a free consultation, please contact Monty at 830-743-2139 or visit his website at http://www.montyrainey.com .

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Choose Wisely

“Every person has free choice. Free to obey or disobey the natural laws. Your choices determine the consequences. No person ever did, or ever will, escape the consequences of their choices.” ~ Alfred A. Montapert

 

One of the great freedoms we enjoy as Americans is, we get to make our own choices. When you think about it, there are really very few things that we don’t get to make decisions on. The few things in life we don’t get to decide for ourselves usually involve the government making that decision for us; how much we pay in taxes, social insecurity, etc., but even then we can always choose not to work and have taxable income. The thing that gets a lot of people off on the wrong track is that with freedom comes responsibility.

If we are free to make our own choices in life, and if having that freedom means we are responsible for those choices, it becomes imperative that we make wise decisions. No one is perfect and sooner or later we all make a bad decision, but what I want to talk about are the different types of bad decisions. I believe there are two types. The first type of bad decision is when we make a choice that we truly believe to be a wise choice at the time such as investing in Enron, accidentally downloading a computer virus or voting for what turns out to be the wrong candidate. These are usually “one off” bad choices that we learn from in life.

The second type of bad decision is when we make a choice to knowingly do the wrong thing. This can be anything from cheating on your spouse to deciding not to go to work. This type of bad decision usually comes in clusters because they perpetuate more bad decisions. Now you have to lie to someone about where you were. This compound effect can quickly spin things out of control resulting in unintended consequences.

In these two examples the unintended consequences would be that you could either lose your marriage or lose your job. Both would be devastating consequences to suffer, but I believe there is an even bigger loss – integrity.  Integrity has no grey area. You either have it or you don’t. Once you lose your integrity, getting it back is like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube.

Of all the elements of personal character, integrity is most valuable. Integrity defines who we truly are as a person. I love the quote, “Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.” In today’s technological society there is often an electronic record of what you do when no one is watching. Enter “unintended consequences”.

The truth is, we all make bad decisions from time to time. Type 1 bad decisions are how we learn and grow and can be considered mistakes as much as they are bad decisions. It is the type 2 bad decisions that we have control over. By simply doing the right thing, we will avoid making this type of bad decision and thereby avoid the unintended consequences that go with it.

Enter self-discipline. Self-discipline is the single most quality for success in any endeavor. Self-discipline means that you have the ability within yourself, based on your strength of character and willpower, to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. The choice is yours. Choose wisely.

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Monty Rainey is a District Manager working in the self storage industry since 1996 and currently overseeing 13 stores in the San Antonio, TX area. He is also a leadership coach and public speaker. For a free consultation, please contact Monty at 830-743-2139 or visit his website at http://www.montyrainey.com .

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Book Review: THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE WALL OF SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE

I believe Daniel Dreisbach, assistant professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Society at American University, is perhaps the single most underrated American historian today. Though this book, THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE WALL OF SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE is far from Dreisbach’s best work, it still deserves “must read” status for every American. Of course, in this book, we can expect strict separationists to ridicule Dreisbach’s conclusions because, Dreisbach, as always, presents the facts and the facts just don’t seem to mesh up or matter much to strict separationists.
For Dreisbach’s best work, check out “Real Threat and Mere Shadow” though it is somewhat difficult to find as Amazon has misspelled Dreisbach’s name. Search Amazon under the name Daniel DrIEsbach for that one.

Whatever name he is listed under, Dreisbach never fails to put forth superb work. This book is no exception. Dreisbach has written several pieces on Jefferson’s “Wall” metaphor, and this book appears as the apex of that work. As with his other work, the findings are based solely on the facts as you will not find editorialism in any of his works. He simply presents the facts and allows them to speak for themselves.

Here, Jefferson’s wall of separation metaphor is examined thoroughly, first with the rendering of the Jefferson letter to the Danbury Baptists, as well as what exactly Jefferson was intending to address in his letter. The DB letter writers primary concern revolved around the Congregationalists Church, which was the “established” church of Massachusetts. Having an established church not only limited the power of the Baptists, but hobbled it. They were not even allowed to officiate their own children’s weddings!

In the midst of his findings, Dreisbach also makes a strong presentation of the founder’s original intent of state’s rights. Of course, the Fourteenth Amendment totally obliterated any semblance of state’s rights, but that’s another topic for another day. My point here is, Jefferson, and virtually everyone else agreed, it was perfectly legal for state’s to “establish” a church. That being the case, it must surely be legal for a local school board to allow for school prayer, wouldn’t one think? Again, I digress, another topic for another day.

After clearly defining that the First Amendment applies to CONGRESS ONLY, Dreisbach then moves on to present prior derivate uses of the wall metaphor and the context in which they were used. James Burgh is identified as the likely source of Jefferson’s use of the metaphor. As the author points out, “Burgh brought to his writings a dissenter’s zeal for religious tolerance and a distrust of ESTABLISHED churches.” Further bolstering of the fact that the First Amendment forbids ESTABLISHMENT OF, not separation from.

The book concludes with how the metaphor has been contorted to have agenda driven meaning. I must also add this astute question posed on page 106, “Is it appropriate, as a matter of constitutional interpretation and law, for a metaphor from a presidential message to supplement or supplant constitutional text?” Of course, separationists will argue, yes, but to display that absurdity, ask them this – Jefferson also wrote that homosexual deviants should be castrated – should that become a matter of constitutional interpretation and law as well? Watch the separationist’s back peddle!

This is another extraordinary work from Dreisbach, critical to all Americans for the true delineation of a widely misused metaphor; it’s agenda driven evolution, and it’s misuse in our law and erosion of a basic right as defined in the Bill of Rights.

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Monty Rainey is a District Manager working in the self storage industry since 1996 and currently overseeing 13 stores in the San Antonio, TX area. He is also a leadership coach and public speaker. For a free consultation, please contact Monty at 830-743-2139 or visit his website at http://www.montyrainey.com .
 

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Attitude is Everything

“I’m not saying that a Positive Attitude can make you successful. I’m saying a Positive Attitude will make you successful” ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Negativity is all around us. An unfortunate fact of life is, we rarely hear praise from happy customers. On the other hand, unhappy customers can be quick to let you hear about it. Turn on the radio or the evening news and you get blasted with negative news. It’s as though everywhere you turn, people are complaining about something or someone. The danger is – it’s very easy to be influenced by negativity and start your very own personal complaint department.

There is an old saying, “You become what you think about most of the time”. If that’s true, and I believe it is, if you spend your time giving thought to all the negative things in life, you stop looking for solutions and just start looking for someone who will agree with you. That’s a lose – lose proposal all around.

Only losers think about problems all the time. Winners think about solutions. Solution oriented people are constantly looking for ways to resolve the obstacles that stand in their way. Everyone faces obstacles. Your attitude toward what to do about those obstacles will make all the difference.

You would hear a loser say something like, “I was born poor so I’ll never be rich.” There are a lot of millionaires (and even a few billionaires) today that were born into poverty. They didn’t complain – they found solutions.

Or you might hear a loser say, “I don’t have much education so there’s no way for me to get ahead.” Benjamin Franklin didn’t finish grammar school and he seemed to do okay. Losers would be quick to say, “But things were different back in those days. In today’s world you’ve got have a great education!” Of course a great education is a big help, but there are a lot of successful people even in today’s world that have found solutions to that problem as well.

You might also hear a loser say something like, “I don’t have time to accomplish that!” But they have the same numbers of minutes in a day that Thomas Edison or Mother Teresa had in theirs. They found solutions by setting priorities.

Your success, no matter what difficulty in life you may be dealing with, begins and ends with attitude, either negative or positive. When you develop a positive attitude about all the obstacles life throws at you, you begin to find solutions and those obstacles end up being much smaller than you ever would have thought when you were carrying around that old negative attitude.

The truth is that you have the ability to solve any problem or to overcome any obstacle on the path to reaching whatever goal you may have if you desire that goal with enough intensity and have the right positive attitude. You have within you, right now, all the intelligence and ability you will ever need to overcome any obstacle that could possibly hold you back.

Think about the biggest obstacle you face in life right now. Do you have the positive attitude it takes to begin finding a solution to that obstacle? Attitude is a choice. It’s your choice. Choose wisely.

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Monty Rainey is a District Manager working in the self storage industry since 1996 and currently overseeing 13 stores in the San Antonio, TX area. He is also a leadership coach and public speaker. For a free consultation, please contact Monty at 830-743-2139 or visit his website at http://www.montyrainey.com .

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