Ross Reck's Reminders

During the past decade, life has been difficult for most major airlines as they have posted billions of dollars in losses.  Beginning in mid-2008, in an attempt to increase revenue, American Airlines began charging passengers a fee for each bag they checked and most of the other airlines quickly followed suit. Today these fees can amount to $120 for a round trip ticket if you check two bags.  During the first nine months of 2009, these airlines collected more than $2 billion in baggage fees–an achievement for which they’re very proud.  The only problem is that these fees were collected from passengers who had no choice but to pay them if they wanted to fly into certain cities.  In other words, they took advantage of their customers. Southwest Airlines, on the other hand, decided to go against the trend and take care of its customers by not charging a fee for bags.  They also came out with a head-turning advertising campaign called “Bags Fly Free.”  As a result, passenger traffic is up at Southwest, while it’s down at the airlines charging baggage fees.  In fact, Southwest has increased its revenue by more than $1 billion–all from attracting passengers away from its competitors.  Once again, how do you grow a business?  You take care of your customers; you don’t take advantage of them.

John Wooden, legendary basketball coach at UCLA, died recently at the age of 99.  While Coach Wooden was known for winning (10 NCAA titles in 12 years), he never once stressed winning with his players.  His philosophy was, “Always do your best and the winning will take care of itself.”  He also believed his players should be good citizens.  He repeatedly told them, “What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player.”  Several years ago, when asked about the secret to his long life, he responded with some sage advice that all of us should probably take to heart: “Not being afraid of death and having peace within yourself.  All of life is peaks and valleys.  Don’t let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low.”

...what else will they lie about?

A few weeks ago, I mentioned how Connecticut Attorney General and Democratic Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal lied about his military service record–he said he had served in Viet Nam when he hadn’t.  When confronted with the truth he said he had misspoken about his military service.  More recently, Illinois GOP Senate nominee, Mark Kirk, lied about his military record as well.  In his case, for years he has been claiming an award he did not earn.  When confronted with the truth, he claimed his award had been misidentified on his official biography.  Misspoken and misidentified are weasel words used to soften the fact that these two men had intentionally lied to inflate their image to the American public.  The fact is, they still lied.  The question I have about people like this is if they’re willing to lie about their military record, which is something the press can easily verify, what else will they lie about?

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Recently, Charlie Wedemeyer, a football player who was a year behind me at Michigan State University, died at the age of 64.  After his college football career, Charlie took a job as a teacher and football coach at Los Gatos High School in Northern California.  At age 30, he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and given one to three years to live.  Despite his disease, he was able to lead Los Gatos High School to seven league championships while posting a record of 78-18-1.  His story was so inspiring that it was chronicled in the PBS documentary One more Season and the CBS movie Quiet Victory. The Charlie Wedemeyer Story.  According to an article in the Detroit News, he truly believed that his life was a tool to help and inspire other people.  His attitude regarding his disease was equally inspiring.  As Charlie put it in 2005, “Pain and suffering are inevitable–we all experience it.  But misery is an option.  We get to make that choice.”

Recently, my wife observed two Great Blue Herons.  One was standing in the middle of a swift flowing stream while the other stood safely on the bank.  You can guess which one was catching fish–not the one standing on the bank.  The same is true for people.  If you expect to become successful, you have to wade out into the mainstream of opportunity and take a few risks.  If you choose to stay safely on the bank, yes you’ll have a front row seat for watching other people become successful, but that’s as good as it’s going to get.

Ten years ago, my wife and I adopted a pair of stray six month old cats who had been living on the lam since shortly after they were born.  These cats were very untrusting and extremely cautious.  The only way we were able to get them in the house was to offer them food as they were very hungry.  Today, they’ve pretty much settled down but, whenever I open a door for them to come into or go out of the house, they don’t just walk through it, they dash through it.  They must have learned during their six months on the lam that windows of opportunity don’t stay open very long and if you hesitate, you just might be out of luck.  The same holds true for people.  Windows of opportunity open for us all the time, but if we hesitate or procrastinate, they may close before we can take advantage of them.  The key is to be ready to make that dash before they open.

Art Linkletter, popular television show host from the 1950′s and 60′s, died recently but he left us with some sound advice on how to live a long life and make our dreams come true.    As Mr. Linkletter put it, “As early as possible in your life, find what you love to do and then do it.  You will find that you will do it better than almost anyone else.  Also, have a positive attitude about life and always find something to smile and laugh about every day.”  On another occasion he said, “Life is not fair…not easy….But I’m an optimist.  Even though I’ve had tragedies in my life (he lost three of his children–two of them tragically), and I’ve seen a lot of difficult things, I still am an optimist.”  Thank you Mr. Linkletter.

Often times, when we set goals for ourselves to do things like exercise more or lose weight, we start out with all kinds of enthusiasm and then back off or procrastinate when the going gets a little tough.  At times like these, a gentle nudge of encouragement is all that is needed to keep us on track.  A recent study conducted by Stanford University and reported in the Wall Street Journal bears this out.  The study involved 218 people who were divided into three groups.  At an introductory meeting, the participants agreed to walk half an hour a day most days of the week.  The first group was given a phone call by a Stanford health educator once every three weeks to check on their progress and cheer them on.  The second group received similar calls from a computer.  The third group received no calls.  At the end of a year, the first group was walking an average of two hours and 58 minutes per week.  The second was walking two hours and 37 minutes and the third group, which received no phone calls, was walking one hour and 58 minutes per week.  As you can see, those little nudges made a big difference.  So, if you know of someone who may be having a difficult time staying on track toward achieving a goal, make it a point to call them periodically and cheer them on.  Doing so could help permanently change that person’s life.

This is a very sound but seldom honored concept.  Most success seekers are so taken with trying to make high-powered friends that they treat people in low places like they’re invisible.  My wife recently attended a speech given by former Secretary of State, Colin Powell.  During his speech, he mentioned that he always took the time to make sure he treated the parking garage attendants with dignity and respect.  One day he noticed that the cars in the garage were parked three deep, bumper-to-bumper.  Out of curiosity he asked one of the attendants whose cars were parked in the back row.  He responded, “Those belong to the people who either treat us like dirt or like we don’t exist.”  He went on, “It takes a lot longer to retrieve a car from the back row than it does the front row.”  Then Mr. Powell asked whose cars were parked in the front row.  “Those belong to people like you who care about us and what we do.”  The lesson here is that if you treat parking garage attendants, doormen, servers, people who bus dishes and custodians with dignity and respect, they will go out of their way to make your life better and richer in lots of different ways.

Some people want to impress others so badly that they’ll actually lie about their accomplishments and experiences in order to do so.  Such is the case of Connecticut Attorney General and Democratic Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal.  On several occasions during his speeches he said that he had served in Vietnam when in fact he hadn’t.  He was probably trying to reinforce the fact to his constituents that he was patriotic and cared deeply about his country, but there are better ways of doing this than lying about his military record.  Now his opposition is using this against him and quotes from his speeches are showing up everywhere including the New York Times and USA Today which could eventually cost him his election to the Senate.  The lesson here is don’t try to create the impression that you’re someone you’re not–it will eventually catch up with you and you’ll pay a dear price for having done so.  Instead, be yourself and let your true character and integrity show through.  That’s what people will be impressed with.