Only I can determine my upsets.

How often do you let other people's nonsense change your mood?

 

Do you let a bad driver, rude waiter, curt boss, or an insensitive employee ruin your day? However, the mark of a successful person is how quickly one can get back their focus on what's important.

 

 

 Sixteen years ago, I learned this lesson. I learned it in the back of a New York City taxi cab. Here's what happened. I hopped in a taxi, and we took off for Grand Central Station. We were driving in the right lane when, all of a sudden, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in front of us. My taxi driver slammed on his breaks, skidded, and missed the other car's back end by just inches!

 

The driver of the other car, the guy who almost caused a big accident, whipped his head around and he started yelling bad words at us. My taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. And I mean...he was friendly. So, I said, 'Why did you just do that? This guy almost ruined your car and sent us to the hospital!'

 

And this is when my taxi driver told me what I now call, 'The Law of the Garbage Truck.'

 

'Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And if you let them, they'll dump it on you. When someone wants to dump on you, don't take it personally. You just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. You'll be happy you did.'

 

I started thinking, how often do I let Garbage Trucks run right over me? And how often do I take their garbage and spread it to other people: at work, at home, on the streets? It was that day I said, 'I'm not going to do it anymore.'

 

Life's too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. Love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't. Believe that everything happens for a reason.

 

Never let the garbage truck run over you....

 

Only I can determine my upsets.

 

DEVELOPING DISCIPLINE

by Dr. John C. Maxwell

H.P. Liddon said, "What we do on some great occasions will probably depend upon what we already are, and what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline." I believe that with all of my heart.

Discipline is doing what you really do not want to do, so you can do what you really want to do. What makes it hard is that in our own human nature, we do not want to do certain things, and so therefore, what happens is we have a tendency to be undisciplined in the areas that we do not care to do.

Three areas to develop discipline:

1. Disciplined Thinking.
George Bernard Shaw said, "Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week."

I am in the process of writing a new book. The whole book is based on the idea that people who understand how to get to the top and stay there are people who think their way to the top.

One of the major differences in this discipline of thinking is that people that think their way to the top have the ability to do what I call "sustained thinking." They have the ability to think on an issue for a long period of time, until that issue becomes clear on the decision that should be made.

People who do not think their way to the top have the unwillingness of discipline to master sustained thinking. They will think about something for a while, and then they will get off it and go on to something else.

They have never learned how to discipline their thoughts by writing them down. I always keep a pad with me of things that I am thinking. I write thoughts down so that I can stay concentrated and disciplined in that area.

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2. Disciplined Emotions.
We have choices when it comes to our emotions:
1. We can master them, or
2. They can master us.

I was playing golf the other day at East Lake Country Club, a great golf course here in Atlanta. It is known for being the links where Bobby Jones played. As you may or may not know, he is a legendary golfer who won a major tournament at twenty-one. By age twenty-eight, he had already won the grand slam and retired.

Jones had an uncle who said that by the time he was fourteen, Bobby was probably already the best golfer in the world. He certainly was popular. However, Jones was also known for his temper because he would throw his clubs when he got irritated. Jones's uncle sat down with him and said, "Bobby, your problem is you've mastered the game of golf, but you haven't mastered your emotions; and until you master your emotions, you'll never be a champion in golf."

3. Disciplined Actions.
I call the two actions of initiating and closing the "bookends of success" because I really think they are.

I know some that can initiate but they can never close; I know some people that can close but they can never get it cranked up. You have to kick start them every time. When you can do both, initiate and close, you have the bookends to success.

Allow me to leave you with this closing thought about developing discipline: you cannot give what you do not have, and self-improvement precedes team improvement.

The only way that I can keep leading is to keep growing. The day I stop growing, somebody else takes the leadership baton. That is the way it always is.

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