The Twelfth Day of Gifts - Ernest J. Beilman - Don't Wait

I’ve only scratched the surface on the incredible gifts with which I’ve been blessed. The response to this series, however, suggests there will be future Decembers to share other Days of Gifts.

The twelfth lesson wasn’t determined when the series began. In fact, flying to Cleveland last week, it emerged from nowhere. It wasn’t even on the initial list of ideas, probably because it is the most unusual of all.

At heart, my Grandpa Beilman was a musician, playing and arranging music for a variety of dance and big bands with his brothers and others in Western Kansas. He also worked in the local music store, a source of great fascination given my love of music. Despite this fondness for music, I hated practicing the piano and did everything possible to stay out of the school band. Why? I wanted to play electric guitar and drums even though no one was very supportive of that desire.

In grad school, however, I bought different instruments (an electric guitar, synthesizers, a drum machine) and started writing and recording music. It was special to share this with my grandfather and get his perspective on the efforts. After grad school, I started playing with a guitar group at the church my grandparents attended, so he got to see me play, including an Easter mass for which I’d written the music.

Shortly after that, Cyndi and I were married over Labor Day weekend. The next year, we returned home for our first anniversary to see family, including my grandparents. They’d come over to visit, and my mom called to me downstairs in my old room to let me know when they were leaving. Not wanting to be distracted from going through things to take back to Kansas City, I didn’t budge. Instead, I yelled back good-bye and said I’d see them next trip.

Arriving home from work on a Friday night three weeks later, Cyndi told me mom had called. My grandfather died of a massive heart attack that afternoon. My last goodbye to him was yelling up the stairs back in Hays.

This gift is unusual because it didn’t come during my grandpa’s life, but after he died - never leave unspoken how you feel about the important people in your life.

Make sure they know you appreciate their friendship, love, and everything they’ve given you. It can leave a lasting hurt to know you didn’t do this after it’s too late to go back and change it. Since then, I’ve tried to make a deliberate effort to find a way to let people know how appreciative I am of them and the gifts they’ve shared while I can.

There’s a high likelihood over the next weeks we’ll all be seeing some important people in our lives. You never know if it will be the last time you’ll see them. So if you have even a suspicion that one of them doesn’t truly know what they mean to you, learn this final lesson from my grandfather (and do me a favor) – tell them!!!

Wrapping Up the Year and Your Holiday Gift

Unless there’s time-sensitive strategic thinking news between now and New Year’s, that’s it for 2008.

If you're interested in your holiday gift, send an email to mike@mikebrownspeaks.com and put "Holiday Book" in the email subject line. I'll send you a free copy of my ebook "Taking the NO Out of InNOvation" to get you ready for 2009!


Thank you for reading the blog this year, have a wonderful, safe holiday, and check back on January 2 for a recap of favorite posts from the past twelve months. Happy Holidays!

The Tenth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Reclaim Your Self-Perspective

When I did the "12 Days of Gifts" series last year, a post about my grandfather showed up from who knows where, since I hadn't even contemplated it when the series started. Today's post was similarly unanticipated, especially since in a string of posts about gifts of life-changing words, this one was life-changing, but not necessarily a gift!

Early in high school, I was talking with another student on the steps outside school. During the conversation, he asked, "How many times has your nose been broken?"

I told him, "Never."

The question started me thinking though about what was wrong with my nose to prompt his query. It was one of those "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" moments, where all of a sudden I realized my nose was crooked and kind of big. Considering I wasn't all that pleased with my looks anyway, it became a defining moment in confirming some negative and lingering self-perceptions.

While I advocate living to serve others, it needn't mean letting them define you. That's certainly easier said than done, and to show I don't only share challenges I've already conquered, here are questions for all of us: Are there comments others have made that we've let define ourselves negatively? If so, why are we still hanging on to them?

Maybe now, after all these years, it's time to flush them and redefine ourselves in positive new ways.

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

The Ninth Day of Gifts – Dave Wessling - Symbolism

Dave Wessling, my teacher for a number of high school English classes, has been mentioned several times. He was unlike any teacher I had before or after. As a former basketball player, he had an imposing physical presence coupled with a booming voice he used to great effect in the classroom.

Outside class, he’d seek to engage us intellectually on educational topics. While later appreciating these interactions, back then it seemed unfair for a teacher to talk about school outside class time. It smacked too much of unpaid overtime for us!

Mr. Wessling offered a number of educational gifts relative to both literature and broader life endeavors. One concept was explicating literary works to uncover their underlying meanings and symbolism. Until then, I’d simply taken fictional works at face value, displaying more interest in biographies than short stories, novels, poetry, or plays.

Under Mr. Wessling’s tutelage, however, I embraced symbolism and multiple interpretations within great literary pieces and other works, including art, which was of even greater interest to me. I began applying the concept of symbolism in creative writing and art projects. It extended as far as the menu design for my parent’s restaurant; the menu started displaying a variety of images and cryptic messages signaling my life view at any particular time.

Based on my early business writing experiences, you’d think symbolic expression would be a thing of the past. Later, however, as I came to appreciate the importance of emotion in live business interactions and events, symbolism’s importance emerged once again. The lessons Dave Wessling gave us in school made it easy to successfully embrace the concept in a new setting.

So go to school on this lesson and share your thoughts about where you could use symbolism more effectively in business to create richer understanding of the concepts you’re trying to communicate.

BTW - To catch up on all the gifts posts so far for this season, click here.

The Eleventh Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Maintaining the Higher Moral Ground

Bob Nugent was a year behind me in grade school. We didn't really have much contact until college where we were both involved in student government and wound up spending lots of time together as part of an interesting (at least to us), somewhat nerdy political clique.

At one point, several student organizations found themselves embroiled in what passed for college campus controversy in those days. Let's just say, it was quite a bit less important than the anti-war protests of our predecessors on campus years earlier.

As various groups and individuals were angling for the upper hand in what might be the ultimate resolution of the issue, Bob talked about the necessity of "maintaining the higher moral ground."

By this phrase, he meant the importance of displaying the upright conduct that allows you to deflect criticism potentially coming your way. The phrase "higher moral ground" resonated so strongly, I've used the idea repeatedly in reminding myself of the importance of not extending your own moral point of view beyond a standard against which you are willing to be judged.

Years later, I discovered the concept addressed in a New Testament passage from the letter to Titus:

"...show(ing) yourself as a model of good deeds in every respect, with integrity in your teaching, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be criticized, so that the opponent will be put to shame without anything bad to say about us." - Titus 2:7-8

When I first heard it, I was clear this was a description of the "higher moral ground." Bob's words from college came full circle for me as a foundational life practice.

Maintaining the higher moral ground is a challenging standard for anyone, but in an age when there's such interest in seeing people fall, it's never been more important to be able to live it out successfully.

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

The Fifth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Creating Ridiculous Growth Opportunities

At a company-first sales conference, we'd scheduled Tommy Lasorda as a surprise second-day speaker. My boss (a very different boss than in yesterday's post) was set to emcee the whole conference, yet at the end of day one, he said, “I have to spend the afternoon with Tommy Lasorda, so you emcee tomorrow afternoon.” Startled (and a little scared) by his comment considering there was no script and no rehearsal time, I took on the assignment the next day.

As it turned out, it was an incredible opportunity to be in front of the entire company’s sales team for a whole afternoon. With a pretty boring agenda of speakers, it created opportunities as the emcee to be interactive, funny, and get the entire audience to stand up and scream at the top of their lungs. That night, so many people came up to say they had no idea I was funny. In one afternoon, I went from being a quiet research guy to having a personality within the company and incredibly shaping the next decade of my career.

There are tremendous benefits for your team members (and for you) when you're willing to create ridiculous challenges and great opportunities to make them grow in ways no one else would ever imagine.

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" - Gifts Lessons in Life and Business

“The Twelve Days of Christmas” is a quirky song, but the ideas of gift-giving and thanksgiving are central to the season. Thanksgiving, though, should be a focus all the time: so many of us are given so many gifts that we don’t merit.

Much of this blog is about lessons given and learned, so even though the twelve days of Christmas are between Christmas Day and feast of the Epiphany, we’ll use the next twelve weekdays to share and thank people that have given me lasting gifts.

Some of the people are tremendously important and will always be with me, yet there’s one whose name I don’t even know. Not all the lessons may seem huge, but my hope is that each gift will be valuable for you as well.

Click here to see a post from another of my blogs that combines today's two posts - gifts and interesting things in your inbox.

Then come back tomorrow as we begin the Twelve Days of Gifts!

The Eleventh Day of Gifts – Greg Reid – The Power of “We”

No one’s success depends exclusively on individual efforts. We’re products of the ideas and interactions in which we’re immersed daily.

Greg Reid (far right), one of my strategic mentors, provided an important gift relative to this and the importance of talking about “we” instead of “me” in business.

Why use “we” when you communicate?

Being able to talk from a “we” perspective brings responsibilities, requiring you work with others in developing a recommendation, opening yourself to challenges and different perspectives. Considering different points of view creates stronger recommendations. While it may take more time or work to build broader agreement, the benefits are tremendous. It forces others with a stake in the recommendation to voice their support. Credibly talking from a first person plural perspective also removes a recommendation from standing on your point of view vs. someone else’s.

While there’s plenty of valid emphasis on personal responsibility and accountability in business, the “we” approach doesn’t fly in its face. Instead, it helps mitigate sometimes unwise behaviors attributable to seeking too much personal responsibility.

In making his point, Greg suggested listening to a co-worker’s language. When focusing intently, it was clear how often he used “I,” “me,” and portrayed sole responsibility for a recommendation he was advocating. Unfortunately, “his” audience didn’t support it, and having characterized it as his own, the decision came down to whose individual perspective was deemed more valid. Guess what? He lost. Not long after, his failure to build alliances was cited as a factor when pushed out of his position.

Pay attention to your communication. What’s your frequency of using “I” or “me” when you could have easily said “we”? Even without formally including others, simply dropping self-attribution for ideas creates some mystery regarding how big your support base is.

Among all the gift givers these twelve days, a particular thank you goes to those recognized this week since all of them have helped shape me in such profound ways beyond those shared here.

The Ninth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Reserve Judgments

F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" begins with its narrator, Nick Carraway, recounting his father's admonition that not everyone in the world is provided the same advantages. The comment led to Nick's inclination to "reserve all judgments," a "habit that...opened up many curious natures" to him.

This opening passage of "Gatsby" has shaped me dramatically. Amid growing up in an environment of clear rights and wrongs, these words were a reminder to delay judgment in order to better understand people, even those who are objectively well outside my behavioral beliefs.

Given the importance of suspending judgment in the early stages of originating new ideas, this practice has been fundamental to helping businesses imagine new possibilities for potential opportunities. There's a time for judgment, but initially, ideas have to emerge and "breathe" first.

It isn't all glorious, however, when you reserve judgments. As Nick notes, it led to him being "the victim of not a few veteran bores." I've certainly found that to be the case. It's also led to having a diverse set of friends (really fun) who at times can't stand one another (not so fun). Their distinct differences, which I tend to overlook, often make them incompatible.

In all, delaying judgments is a beneficial practice. So what do you think? Are there a few situations in your life right now where you'd be better off to suspend judgment and see how they play out first? The interesting things you'll experience and learn will FAR outweigh any bores you might encounter. Just go with me on this - okay?

BTW - Want a little "fun" with "The Great Gatsby"? Watch this video of Andy Kaufman trying to read the book to a reluctant audience. You can skip ahead to 2:40 to hear the passage that inspired this post!

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

The Second Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Focusing on What's Really Important

A friend from church gave me a tape several years ago by Fr. Larry Richards, a Catholic priest and evangelist, who does a broad series of talks on faith topics. In one about our "life’s purpose," he discussed the need for a spirit of sacrifice. In doing so, he talked about a poster in his office which said, “Every time I think I’ve sacrificed everything, God asks me for something I’m not willing to give up.”

Amid all the concerns vying to command our attention, this question is a constant reminder to embrace a sense of detachment from the falsely "important." And at a time when I was challenging myself on what WAS important, this statement had a dramatic impact. It was a big part of reorienting my life's goals and core purpose away from monetary concerns to spiritual and sacrificial ones, which have much more permanency. I've adapted the question for use in presentations, asking, “At the end of your life, what will you look back on from your life that will cause you to smile?”

Contemplating these questions is so appropriate this time of year when it’s easy to become enchanted with things that will be long forgotten when our time here is over.

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

The Third Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Giving the Okay to Challenge Thinking

Early in his tenure, our CEO shared his ten business principles. I don’t remember nine of them, but one stood out for of its simplicity, matter-of-factness, and wide applicability: “Don’t do anything stupid.”

I've used this admonition numerous times when attempting to slow (and ideally thwart) ill-founded ideas others felt really strongly about pursuing. When you can invoke the CEO's own words, it provides a lot more credibility in challenging dumb stuff and trying to do the right things for the business.

The approach's success oriented me toward the tremendous leadership benefits of sharing what really matters in easy-to-understand words. If you can get your message distilled in a simple, clear way, it frees up team members to use their own perspectives and innovative spirits in beneficial ways a leader could never anticipate. I've written several times about my own struggle for simplicity and have tried to take this learning to heart.

As an example, I was leading a motor sports program in what was then called the Busch Series. It's considered to be a second-tier series in NASCAR behind the "Cup" series, where everything costs 3 to 5 times more to sponsor. Our challenge was creating a program with a top tier Cup sponsorship's impact with a relatively small investment. This potential dilemma was at the heart of our internal program strategy: "We're doing a Cup level program with a Busch Series budget." With that direction, the team understood our constraints and was freed to be more creative and challenging in how we attacked our goals.

Think about what simple strategic guidelines you can share with your team to help them be more effective in carrying out the most important activities.

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

The First Day of Gifts - My Mom - Being an Incredible Listener

Strong researchers share a variety of characteristics, including:

• Asking open-ended questions
• Being attentive, active listeners
• Patience
• A healthy dose of skepticism
• The ability to distill information and provide solid advice

To the extent I display any of these traits, it’s a gift from my mother, whose birthday is today.

At the core, my mother is an incredible listener. From as far back as I can remember, we always had a steady stream of people, mostly relatives, stopping by our house, grabbing a chair in the kitchen, and proceeding to unburden themselves of their joys, pains, and dreams while Mom (on the right) patiently listened. She’d ask questions, probe for information, challenge some of their pre-conceived notions, and often, provide advice for their life situations.

I’ve had people tell me my mother is a great conversationalist. She’d probably laugh at that, not seeing herself as one. But people seek her out because she does the two most important things people want: she asks questions about them and patiently listens to what they have to say.

That’s a great lesson for all of us, whether we’re researchers, or just hoping to be more effective in our interpersonal relationships. Thanks Mom for those early, consistent lessons on how to sincerely care about others. Happy Birthday!

The Twelfth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Look for the Improbable to Happen!

We don't have kids, something we came to terms with relatively early in our marriage and have accepted as part of life. While it means missing out on a range of incredible experiences, we've been able to do things for others (particularly our niece and nephews) that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. The net of it is accepting what life hands you and making the best of it.

Last year, our niece Valerie called and asked to speak with me. This was unusual, but as I've written before, Valerie has lived an unusual life. That includes getting married initially in a group wedding ceremony on Valentine's Day 2008 at Loveland Pass. This was an event the family first learned about when my mother-in-law saw it reported on the Weather Channel!

When Valerie began talking about a second wedding ceremony where friends and family could be present, I was hesitant since we'd have to play a big role in putting it on.

As the phone conversation began, I told her our ability to help was limited since her cousin was getting married about the same time and we might have to get Valerie's grandma to it. While stating my case, Valerie interrupted to ask, "Would you walk me down the aisle?"

Walking a bride down the aisle was something I'd long ago come to accept as an "I'll never get to do it" moment. Suddenly my tone changed and being able to do something I never thought I would do completely changed my perspective. I was all for wedding ceremony #2 and making it happen.

The life-changing lesson here is the important reminder to remain perpetually hopeful. Things you think can never happen can happen. If there are possibilities you've shut out of your life, maybe it's time to open them back up.

And in true Valerie fashion, she followed her life-changing comment with another incredibly touching one. As we were getting ready to walk into the ceremony, she told me, "Who else would I have asked to give me away. With everything you guys have done for me, you're like my father."

That's Valerie!

Wrap-up: Hope you enjoyed this series on life-changing words! For the rest of 2009, I'm going to focus on getting ready to consolidate the Brainzooming and MikeBrownSpeaks blogs into a new location that Seth Simonds has done great work in setting up.

The new site will have the blog and include more information on the Brainzooming business and our service offerings. It will also feature additional tools not able to be included on the Blogger platform. The transition date is still TBD, because when it happens, I want to make sure it's as seamless as possible for email and RSS subscribers.

That's what's coming, so in the meantime, have a great holiday and rest of 2009! Thanks for reading Brainzooming! - Mike Brown

The Eighth Day of Gifts – Cyndi Brown - "White Space Sells"

My wife Cyndi was instrumental in the greatest gift anyone has ever given me – helping rekindle my faith.

Beyond that, she’s been the source of countless gifts in our nearly 25 years together. One gift that’s helped throughout my business career was something Cyndi said to me back in college based on her award-winning journalism, marketing, and PR experience: “White space sells.”

Although a deceptively simple phrase, it’s absolutely true. Ample white space helps:

• Set the stage to showcase and focus attention on the most important elements to communicate
  
• Remove unnecessary elements fighting for attention with whatever you’re advertising
  
• Make it easier on the viewer or reader to process and potentially better recall your primary message

Cyndi’s initial comment and its repetition have caused me to be attuned to not cluttering design elements with too much other stuff, although it's a challenge for someone who is a natural accumulator of all kinds of things. That’s why simplicity, writing fewer words, and ways to narrow options are such frequent topics: I’m trying to reinforce the importance of literal and figurative “white space” to myself.

I love white space, really - as long as it’s on a page! If it’s outside white space as in snow, well, that’s another story!

The Tenth Day of Gifts – My Dad – The Numbers Approach to Sales

Many people in this series (and all of them this week) have shared too many gifts to list them all. That’s the case with both my parents.
While it took me a long time to catch up in understanding the many short cuts to life lessons my dad tried to give me, I’m hard-pressed now to point to one that isn’t true (although at 17, I’d have told you most were nonsense - which I guess is all part of growing up).

His lessons on generosity, focusing on what's good for others, and approaching life with a positive attitude have shaped me profoundly.

So here’s a lesson that may seem small in comparison, but continues to provide tremendous value throughout my work life: understand and work the percentages when selling, no matter whether it’s selling a product, service, or concept.

Early on as my dad was making the transition from cutting hair in my grandfather’s barber shop to broadcasting, he sold life insurance part-time. A lesson he learned was 10:3:1, i.e. you had to make 10 calls to secure 3 appointments to close 1 sale.

If someone was willing to apply him or herself, work the equation, and stay motivated amid a 90% failure rate, they’d be successful. If they applied learnings and new techniques to improve the ratio, they could experience dramatic success. Get discouraged or shortcut the process by making too few calls, however, and they’d wind up washing out.

While the ratios may differ, the principle applies to so many facets of business and life. (Although, thank goodness I don’t have to generate 10 ideas to get 1 blog post!) Ask others or figure out the business building relationships on your own, but KNOW and apply them to make the ratios work for you in selling and persuading others to your point of view.

Thanks Dad for cluing me in early to both the life principles and the numbers behind success!

The Fifth Day of Gifts – Tony Vannicola – Lunch and Learn

Tony Vannicola started working in marketing soon after me early in both our careers. We quickly became friends, although unlikely ones, since there were stark contrasts between us:

• Tony was with the company in field sales and knew many people at headquarters; I knew no one.


• In sales, he was used to having lunches with others; as an introverted researcher, I ate cheese crackers at my desk.

When Tony arrived several months after me, he began dragging me to lunch. We usually ate with guys Tony knew from operations, the equivalent of “manufacturing” in our service company. The conversations frequently focused on how the company’s operations worked. By osmosis, I received a great schooling in the company’s inner workings, the fundamentals behind providing service, and the vital practices and metrics to driving profitability.

I’m not sure I realized it then, but Tony provided two important gifts for my career through those lunches. The first was the importance of fundamentally understanding how a company works and makes money. Many marketers view their companies superficially, focusing on classical marketing areas, leaving themselves ill-prepared to fully contribute. Absent these lunches, I might have fallen into this trap.

Secondly, the lunches reinforced the value of opening yourself up to learning by interacting with others. That’s still a challenge for me (I’ve reverted to eating at my desk again most days), but the value is clear as I’ve tried to actively increase my network and interactions with others in a whole variety of ways daily.

The Fourth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - You Can Learn From Anybody

Early in my career, I was struggling with delivering a project in a way that moved our efforts along adequately, even though I had been doing good work. In reviewing a draft with my boss, she asked in frustration, “Do you understand what the function of our department is?”

I was shocked by the question, and while it brought me up short, it did NOTHING to help solve the challenge in front of me. It was an opportunity to teach, but she decided to take a shot instead.

So how was this life-changing?

This and many other actions and comments she made over time helped shaped my managerial style – to do everything opposite of what she did!

I learned a lot technically, but perhaps most importantly, learned an incredible amount about how a bad boss can disintegrate employee loyalty and allegiance. Everybody who has worked for me since has been the beneficiary.

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

The Sixth Day of Life-Changing Gifts - Live Out a Positive Life

My dad came back from Ed Foreman’s Successful Life Course in the mid 1980s with a new favorite word, “TERRIFIC!!!” as the all-the-time answer to the question, “How are you doing?”

Back then, it was bothersome to me because it was clear he wasn’t always TERRIFIC. Years later after listening to some of Foreman’s tapes and seeing him live, I finally understood the reason for saying “TERRIFIC!!!” all the time. The point is words precede attitudes and attitudes precede actions. Saying you’re TERRIFIC gets you in the mental mindset that will ultimately lead you to act as if you are TERRIFIC!!! all the time.

I got it and tried to embrace the belief, yet couldn’t get myself to say TERRIFIC. My version is, “Wonderful!" It's certainly more understated, yet still far more positive than I would have ever answered previously. I’ll admit I don't always come off sounding "Wonderful," but the greeting does stand out and helps keep me honest about being thankful for the MANY truly wonderful aspects of life.

So, how are you doing?

Note: This is one of a series of posts on life-changing gifts. - Mike Brown

The Fourth Day of Gifts - A Guy on a Plane - "Don't Wait Around"

On one of my first real business trips, I was headed from Kansas City to Denver for evening focus groups. To save money, they’d booked me on Northwest, flying through Minneapolis.

We boarded the plane late morning, pulled away from the gate, and stopped for a weather hold in Minneapolis. After two hours on the runway, we amazingly returned to the gate with the announcement that anyone who wanted to make alternative arrangements could leave the plane to do so.

Realizing it might be tight getting to Denver, I still sat there planning to wait it out. That was until the guy next to me, who knew my situation, told me to get off the plane and find another way to Denver or I’d never make it in time. So I took his advice, went to the counter, and was rebooked on another airline’s direct flight, getting to Denver at the original time.

The great lesson was to always go on the offensive when its comes to travel problems - don’t delay or wait and pursue multiple channels (in-person customers service, phone, and now web) until you get your situation addressed. Carry on bags, charged communication devices, and being in good shape (for running) are great assets when traveling. Huge frequent flier status is too, but I’ve never flown enough to get that.

So thanks to a guy who I never saw again for the gift of instigating me to be a lot more aggressive traveler.

P.S. At the Denver airport the next morning, the return flight through Minneapolis had been cancelled. Northwest rebooked me through Memphis. Four Northwest flights in 2 days and never took one of them; thus began my long, festering dislike of Northwest.

P.P.S. As I write this, I’m in 33F (last seat, last row) soaking in sweat from running through the Atlanta airport twice trying to catch a flight home after weather delays and Delta screw-ups (including taking 15 minutes to move the jetway, delaying me enough to miss my original connection). Yes, Delta has now become Northwest. Argghhhhhhh!!!!!

The Second Day of Gifts - Br. Michael Suchnicki - Self-Deprecating Humor

Brother Mike Suchnicki O.F.M. Cap. was my 7th grade catechism teacher. He was the first member of the clergy I really knew on a personal basis since he was with our class 5 days per week throughout the school year.

From Br. Mike (now Fr. Mike), I learned the role that humor, especially self-deprecating humor, can play in making an apparent authority figure approachable. He always told jokes on himself, frequently related to his Eastern European ethnic heritage. (For example, see his t-shirt from a yearbook picture of an intramural volleyball game.)

By readily using humor, the class became more comfortable and receptive to him and the serious religious messages he was sharing. Seeing a religious figure who was actually a real person also awakened in me an early interest in discerning whether I had a religious vocation.

The approachability Br. Mike created through humor led me to embrace a similar style – being willing to poke fun at myself to introduce people to more serious or complex subject matter.

His gift of humor is still a part of my work style, writing, and interpersonal approach. In fact, if you look across my websites, they represent three deep personal themes – strategy, humor, and spirituality. Within the latter two, Br. Mike was a strong early influence, for which I’ll eternally be grateful.

The Seventh Day of Gifts - Bill McDonald – Get to the Point

Our first week in Kansas City while unpacking boxes and listening to Mike Murphy’s radio show, I heard Bill McDonald talk about how his company, Kansas City Infobank, researched and identified market opportunities. While unsure about my career, I loved school, was good at it, and Infobank sounded like school. Thus began my “second MBA” – spending 2 ½ years at Infobank doing strategic projects for entrepreneurs, Fortune 500 companies, and everything in between.

Despite our financial challenges as a small business, Bill became an important strategic mentor. As mentioned before, the business instruction he gave me encompassed lessons too numerous to list. One in particular transformed my writing, helping create a personal business writing style.

Three months into the job, I was struggling with my first major report about the market for a laser printer add-on. Despite the report’s focus, I was writing pages on the personal computer market as an enabler for this technology.

Bill finally sat me down and said, “You need to understand you’re not in school anymore. You don’t need to write a long litany of facts to prove you’re qualified. You’re writing for business. The fact we have this assignment presumes we know what we’re doing. Get right to the point of our recommendations and the rationale behind them.”

The discussion was a wake up call that business writing was different. Unlike school, where you’re required to demonstrate understanding to support getting a good grade, business writing needs to get right to the point. That’s even truer today. Bill’s direction has been a tremendously valuable career-long lesson that I’ve shared with many others to help improve their written communication.