THE ACHIEVEMENT DIGEST   "TAD" Issue No. 59
A Unique Publication for Leaders     Gene Griessman, Ph.D. Editor
404-256-5927 www.achievementdigest.com  
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QUOTABLE QUOTES
***The Power Of A Few
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead (American author and anthropologist, 1901-1978)

***The Power Of Thought
“Time management—like every other important undertaking—is a mind game.  It’s something that you do with your head.”

--Gene Griessman

***The Power Of Error
“The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his own way.”  --Josh Billings  (the pen name of American humorist Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1818 --1885)

***The Power Of Finding Your Gift
“I was just thinking about how happy we were making The Graduate.  What was different?  Of course, we were different then. There’s nothing better than discovering, to your astonishment, what you’re meant to do.”   Mike Nichols (celebrated director, from a Vanity Fair article.)

***Advice For Someone Who’s Looking For A Good Job
“A proven way to stand out from the hordes of other candidates is to know more about the place and the industry than your rivals.   A Google search won’t do it, says Jay Jones, recruiting manager at Alcon Laboratories: ‘Detailed research, including talking to our customers, is so rare it will almost guarantee you get hired.’”  --Ann Fisher in Fortune, February 4, 2008

A POWERFUL TIME MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE FOR LEADERS:  THE TEMPLATE
Many leaders write far too many messages from scratch.  Do an inventory of the messages that you send to see if you can make more effective use of templates. 
 

You can adapt letters of acknowledgment and routine announcements instead of starting fresh every time. Previously written material can serve as a guide.  You will save a lot of time and increase the quality of your work if you will find examples of your own (or somebody else’s) best letters, reports, invoices, contracts, and proposals to use as a guide for your efforts. 

With a computer, it’s really easy to use templates.  All sorts of letters, newsletters, announcements, forms, and reports can be left in a file/s and customized by changing only a few words or sentences.  (In order to quickly find templates, I add the word “template” to the subject line when I “Save As.”  I then can find all my templates with the Search function, and if the final product is to be an email, I delete “template” from the subject line when I actually send the customized email.)

Essence magazine editor Susan Taylor told me that she created some 40 basic letters to use as templates.  One letter was a response to a request for donations, one was a rejection letter, one a request for a revision, etc.

The key word with all templates is customize.  You can always add a hand-written note on the page.  And with a computer, you can change a few key words or add some new ones that give the message a personal feel. 

A word of caution.  Pay careful attention when you use a template.  One way to avoid embarrassing mistakes is to begin with a new document and paste appropriate material from the template.  My acting coach Jay Richardson told me that years ago his mother placed an order with Sears and Roebuck, when it was a huge catalog mail-order company.   When her package arrived, included with her order was a dead rat.  She sent a letter of complaint, and eventually received a letter of apology.  Inside the envelope with the apology letter was also a note—instructions written by a manager to the secretary who sent the letter, which obviously should have been destroyed:  “Send her the rat letter.”

Adapted from Time Tactics of Very Successful People, pp. 32, 33, 34.   To order your personal autographed copy: www.achievementdigest.com/timetacticsofverysuccessfulpeople.html

LINCOLN’S LOG: HOW TO ACT LIKE LINCOLN

TAD is certain that Lincoln would have nothing to do with the current political sport of demonizing fellow Americans who happen to hold different views from those of their attacker.

That is, the mature Lincoln would not.  In Lincoln’s early years, he taunted opponents, calling them fools, liars, hypocrites, and thieves.  He wrote vicious satires, sometimes anonymously.  One letter so annoyed a prominent politician named James Shields that Lincoln was challenged to a duel, and the two men met with broadswords on a small island in the middle of the Mississippi River.   At the last minute their seconds intervened and bloodshed was averted. 

Somehow Lincoln outgrew quarreling. Perhaps it was the aborted duel with Shields, which became a source of embarrassment to Lincoln, or perhaps he just grew wiser as he grew older.  But by the time he reached the White House, Lincoln’s quarreling days were done.  “A man has not the time to spend half his life in quarrels,” he was able to state with sincerity. 

The evening Lincoln was elected to a second presidential term, a group gathered to celebrate.   Several individuals commented nastily about certain politicians who had not supported the President.  Lincoln responded:  “You have more of that feeling of personal resentment than I have.  Perhaps I have too little of it; but I never thought it paid.”

Adapted from The Words Lincoln Lived By, pp. 61, 62, 64    To order your autographed copy: www.achievementdigest.com/thewordslincolnlivedby.html

SECURITY ALERT
Many TAD readers are high-ranking executives and business owners,   If you are in this category, be aware of a new form of Internet activity aimed at people like you—sophisticated forms of “phishing” and “whaling.”   The phishing is scary and the whaling is really scary.
 
Phishing.  Last week I received an authentic-looking email from one of my banks informing me that the bank would add $20 to my account if I would take a three-minute survey.  I like the bank, so I decided to comply.   The first three questions were the standard ones: how happy are you with our services, how likely are you to recommend us to others, etc.   Then came this request.  Please give us the last SIX digits of your Social Security number.  

Whaling.  “Thousands of high-ranking executives across the country have been receiving email messages that appear to be official subpoenas from the U.S. District Court…A link embedded in the message purports to offer a copy of the entire subpoena.  But a recipient unwittingly downloads and installs software that secretly records keystrokes and sends the data to a remote computer over the Internet.  …Another piece of the software allows the computer to be controlled remotely.   According to researchers who have analyzed the downloaded file, less than 40 percent of commercial antivirus programs were able to recognize and intercept the attack.”   The New York Times, April 16, 2008

 “LINCOLN’S WISDOM”   
Would you like to sample some of the tracks of “Lincoln’s Wisdom,” or would you like to do an MP3 download?  You can do both at CD Baby.   The samples are free.  Here’s the link: http://cdbaby.com/found?allsearch=griessman&submit=search

FEEDBACK
“It was a pleasure having you share your wisdom and expertise with me and my audience today.  You inspired and helped many people around the world.   Thanks for classing up my show.”  Jim Blasingame, host and producer of  “The Small Business Advocate”  (http://www.smallbusinessadvocate.com   My radio interview with Jim Blasingame has been archived at this site.)

“Thanks for continuing to send me these thought-producing pieces.  In the current election season, they are needed.  I share the info with many!  It is almost a year since you addressed the PASBO Conference in Pittsburgh and we had that picture session in the PSDLAF booth.   Received so many thanks from people who had their picture taken—we put them on our web-site last year.”—Daniel P. Knueppel, The Pennsylvania School District Liquid Asset Fund

TRAVEL NOTES FROM A ROAD WARRIOR: Hilton Head, S.C.
Hilton Head, S.C.--one of America’s premier tourist destinations--has its own lovely little airport and several unusual and very good restaurants.  Among the best places to eat in Hilton Head are:

Conroy’s at the Hilton Head Marriott Resort.   Named for the author of one of my all-time favorite books Prince of Tides,  I loved the Charleston she-crab soup infused with aged sherry and the chicken piccatta—seasoned breast of chicken with lemon and white-wine piccatta sauce.   I’m told that Pat Conroy, whom I interviewed a couple of times for USA Today, drops in for a meal now and then.  (843-686-8400  http://www.hiltonheadconroys.com)

Charlie’s L’Etoile Verte  A favorite for more than 25 years, the menu is hand-written each day and based on local catches.  Their crab and shrimp gumbo ($4.50) is as good as I’ve ever tasted.  I also recommend their grouper saute’ meunniere.  
(843-785-9277   www.charliesofhiltonhead.com)

One Caroline St. Bistro    Their sticky chicken and dirty rice—a sweet and spicy Southern dish made with peppers, onions and celery and served over dirty rice—and their “two shrimp and scallops with crab ala vodka” made with organic pasta are both excellent.    It’s also a place to hear local musicians in the evenings.    518-587-2026

IF YOU ARE INVOLVED IN PLANNING AN UPCOMING MEETING, SALES CONFERENCE, CUSTOMER-APPRECIATION EVENT OR SEMINAR, PLEASE TYPE "YES" BESIDE THE ITEM/S BELOW AND RETURN THIS EMAIL IN ORDER TO RECEIVE MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE FOLLOWING PROGRAMS:

___"Lincoln Live" "Lincoln The CEO" "Lincoln For Leaders"

___Personal Productivity-Time Management "How To Get More Out Of Every Day"

___Keynote Presentation ("Lessons From Legends" "Success and Failure: Nine Secrets That Make The Difference")

___How To Do Business With Americans (This is a new presentation based on a new book and a keynote that I'll be delivering to a four-nation conference in Lima, Peru later this year. For overseas businesspeople and for organizations with a multi-national workforce. Let us know if you're interested.)