The Greatest Generation

My Grandmother circa 1942

My Grandparents(on right), Great-Grandmother(left),one of my uncles(being held by my grandfather) and my mother in front. Circa 1944

While reading Tom Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation" I can't help but think of my grandparent's. Maryann Ellis my Grandmother (pictured above) for some reason in particular. She was the last pass to the next world. She wasn't very tall in size nor very loud. Although she could be strong willed and opinionated when she wanted. She was the daughter of Portuguese immigrants born in New England. She married William Ellis (my Grandfather) in 1941 and would go onto have nine children(my mother being one of them) something to this day I still find amazing.

While growing up little did I know they were part of this generation. It was probably something not really spoken of at the time. The full scope of what they had lived through wasn't fully realized yet. I still don't have all the details on what they did during the depression and the second world war. There wasn't a hole lot of evidence around there house to give it away. It was in bits and pieces we would figure things or give us a clue. One was a picture of my Grandfather in a navy uniform. Later we also came across some old uniforms and patch's. No details of what exactly they did though. I don't believe they were thinking in grandiose way we think of that era today. They were just trying to live life without much fanfare.I think that was a trademark of there generation. Were they perfect? No they had there faults for sure but they worked hard for what they had because that's the way they were brought up.

I'm not exactly sure where I was going with this bit. These were just some thoughts that came to mind while reading this book. It has certainly made me wish I had maybe taken the time to know them better.

The local library

After reading this article on one of my favorite blogs I was inspired to visit the local library. I've been meaning to do this for awhile but for one reason or another I didn't. I signed up for a card and I was off looking around. The one I visited was actually a branch off the local city (Providence,RI) library. I used to love the library when I was younger. Somehow I fell away from them. Libraries are a place where I can lose all track of time. For one year in high school I was a volunteer at the school library so I really feel at home. The first day I went it was full of kids and plus I was running off to work so I just got my card and left. I went back the next day to really look around. I had seen one computer book I had my eye on so I picked up that one. I had a problem with a second one though. I couldn't decide what to pick out. I looked up some Stephen Covey books but they didn't have any but I did ask them if they would get one from another branch so I'm waiting on that one. I wanted another for some casual reading so I did find another. Here's what I ended up getting:

1. Absolute Beginners Guide to Computer Basics(4th Edition) by Michael Miller
2. The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw
3. First things first by Stephen Covey (on order from different branch)

These should keep me busy until school starts in a couple of weeks. I had fun I'll be sure and be a regular visitor. I can't wait to go again.

Setting some new goals

This is the time of year most people make resolutions. I'm in the process of reviewing my goals for the new year. Here are some that come to mind first.
1. Finally end the smoking habit.
2. To achieve A's in my college courses I take this year
3. To become closer to my family this year
4. To learn to type which will help in my school work and plus it's a good skill to have.
5. To become a better employee at my work.
6. To read at least one new book a month.(other than school books). Current reading is All the Presidents Men by Woodward and Bernstein.
These are just a few that I could shoot off at the moment. Now I've just got to break them down into achievable and set a date. Wish me luck.

Book Review - The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Back in October I recommended this book and now here's a review I did of it. I hope you enjoy!

One of the things that stuck with me from this book was the example of thinking ahead to your own funeral many years from now and wondering what people would say of you. What would your family say. How would co-workers and friends remember you. To me it likened back the story of Scrooge getting a a visit from the third and final ghost. After seeing what would happen if he stayed on the same path what would happen he had what Stephen Covey calls a paradigm shift. A Paradigm is a term to describe a theory, perception or way of thinking. A paradigm shift then is a shift in that thinking or belief. Stephen Covey discusses this in great length in the beginning of the book. I found out about this book through a college course whose textbook* borrows and quotes Stephen Covey's ideas heavily. Though it wasn't required for my course I decided to check out the book because I liked the ideas it presented. I read through it once already and I'm now going through it a bit more slowly the second time. Granted even though Stephen Covey even says it's not a book just to read once and tossed aside and expect miracles. It's a book to learn from and be reference guide in the future.


For those who don't know Stephen Covey is. Besides The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People he has also written follow up books like First things First, The eighth habit and so on. At last count I believe the seven habits book has sold over fifteen million. He also has a M.B.A from Harvard and a Doctorate from Brigham Young University. He is well respected speaker with engagements around the world.
In the book he covers the now famous seven habits of highly effective people. The seven are:

1. Be Proactive - He talks of being proactive rather than reactive to situations and tasks. In his own Proactive model we have stimulus->response vs. Stimulus->Freedom to choose->Response. Stephen describes it from the book as " It means that as human beings , we are resonsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions."** In other words we should not be effected by outside stimuli but rather be guided by our values and beliefs. Reactive people are affected by outside forces. An example would be a reactive person having a lousy day because it's raining where as the proactive person would not be affected or would find a solution around it rather than let it effect him. The chapter does go much deeper into such things as taking responsibility for our decisions and that where we are today is due to decisions we made in the past. You are not forced to do anything and that you always have a choice. He also talks about what he calls is the circle of concern/circle of influence. He contends that many of us spend way too much time with stuff that is the outside circle of concern. Much of this is stuff which is out our circle of influence which is in the middle. We should work on what we can influence and change not what is only a concern. I've seen this many times at my current employment with many people worried or concerned what others are doing rather than being just concerned with what they can do. To me this is just a trememndous waste of time and energy.


2. Begin with the end in mind - I kind of covered this in the introduction. His basic idea is the have an idea or or picture in mind of where you want to go and how to get there. This is where you make your goals and then figure out how to get there. Much like planning a trip on a map. You begin with point A which is where you are today and then point B where you want to go. You then map out your best route. You also make your own mission statement in each of your life roles.
A particular quote from this chapter that struck me was "Through imagination, we can visualize the uncreated worlds of potential that lie within us".** To me that tells that we can create our own potential and that the only limit to our potential is ourselves.

3. Put first things first - This one is about setting priorities in our lives. This is where come to find out about the four quadrants of time (or self Management)>. In quadrant one we have Important/Urgent. Quadrant two we have Important/Not urgent. Quadrant three we have Not Important/Urgent. In the Fourth Quadrant we have Not Urgent/Not Important. In the first quadrant we have Urgent and Important which are items that need our immediate attention. These are things we can't ignore. In quadrant two we have which are Important but not urgent. These are items that though are important but they can be put off. These are preventative actions, planning ahead and maintenance type of items. In Quadrant three we have items that though are not important to us personally they are made urgent. These can be urgent meetings that have nothing to do with us and our goals. Doing urgent favors to cover for a friend or coworker may fall into this category. In the fourth quadrant we have the unimportant and not urgent. These are what I call time wasters. These can be trivial items such as playing too many video games , watching endless ours of TV or surfing for hours on the internet (I stand guilty as charged).
Of course Stephen urges us to concentrate our activities in quadrant two activities. Though Quadrant one activities will still have to be dealt with. As time goes by these urgent activities(or crisis) will be fewer and when they do arise you'll be better prepared.

4. Think Win/Win - This is the philosophy and frame of mind that seeks mutually beneficial outcomes to all our interactions. This is opposed to the idea of Win/Lose, lose/lose, Win,Lose/Win and so on. It means means both parties walk away satisfied and feel good about the agreement or outcome.

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. - What this boils down to is to listen with empathy. To fully understand the other person totally before making yourself understood. I know I catch myself trying to but get across my idea or thought before the other person has finished what he or she has said. Therefore I wasn't totally listening or trying to understand them first. How can you fully make someone understand you if you don't understand what they want first? That I believe is what Stephen tries to get across.

6. Synergize - To me this comes down to is teamwork. Stephen's definition is that the "the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts".** An example of this can be the New England Patriots football team. As of this writing they had just completed a perfect sixteen wins in the regular season and are heavily favored to win the Superbowl. They weren't always like this for many years in there infancy they went through being a laughing stock, poorly managed, cheesy stadium and so on. In the mid 1990's new ownership took over with a commitment to win and build a dynasty. Through a series of coaching and player changes they started winning Superbowl wins didn't come at first. Then it seemed with coach Belichek and quarterback Brady things seem to come together. Now they have a state of the art stadium complex, three Superbowl Wins and looking for a fourth and now have management that's committed to win.

7. Sharpen the Saw- This one is about self renewal. This is about taking a break once and awhile to maintain your balance. It talks of renewing yourself not only mentally but physically, spiritually, socially and emotionally. Physically you should take time to take care of yourself. To eat well, get checkups and of course exercise. Mentally we should be reading,visualizing, planning and writing. Spiritually would should be studying, meditating renew or strengthen values. Socially and emotionally we should be emphatic to others. Taking time to develop relationships and such.

A basic them through the book is to work from being dependent on others. To independent then finally interdependent. I have thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it it to others. There are many more inspirational and deep thoughts that Stephen comes up with throughout the book. I carry the book wherever I go now. I've got ton's of stuff outlined underlined and so on through out the book. I don't look at it like some kind of bible but more as a reference book. I read through the book and had countless "aha" moments when ideas or thoughts I agreed with or had discovered something new. This book won't be on my bookshelf long enough to collect dust as it generally goes where I do.


Reference:

* - "On Course" 5th Edition by Skip Downing

** - "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey

Voices in my Head

You lock the door

And throw away the key

There's someone in my head but it's not me

-Pink Floyd “Brain Damage”

We all have an inner conversation going on within in ourselves. It’s probably going on right now as you read this deciding whether to read on or not. Just right now mine told me to go take the chicken out of the freezer, like my wife asked before she comes home and kills me for not doing it. Some of you may hear voices that give a constant running commentary, criticism or guidance. What I hope to explain here is the different types of voices and perhaps some guidance on which to listen to. I recently learned about these through a book called “On Course” by Skip Downing. Which I read for recent college course I took called Student Success. Although it was geared for college success it also has good advice for other aspects of your life. Why is it important to learn these? These are the voices we tend to listen to the most and base most of our decisions on them.

The first one we’ll cover is called the Inner Critic. This is the voice that deems us weak or inadequate. This one tells us I’m no good at math, I’m ugly and, my nose is too big. It blames you for whatever is going wrong in your life. It's not to say that the inner critic is always wrong, but it does tend to go overboard with self criticism. Self awareness is a good thing if done with care. The idea is to learn from your mistakes and not to do the same thing again.

What creates the inner critic? You may say it sounds like an adult criticism from your younger years. Perhaps you can even recall the specific incident when it happened. I know a lot of my life I've been called shy and quiet. Many times I found myself using this as an excuse to not perform my best or at least speak up when I should have.

On the other end of the spectrum we have the Inner Defender. This guy is the poster child of passing the buck. Instead of looking to ourselves for responsibility it plants the blame squarely on others. Like say blaming a teacher for a lousy grade. Another is blaming your boss or coworker because his job stinks. Basically not taking responsibility for ones own situation.

I see this one as the most prevalent at my current job unfortunately. One fellow I worked with for awhile would groan and complain about a job and constantly ask why another shift hadn't (in his opinion) done the job. In fact he seemed more concerned about what they were doing (or not) than what he himself was doing. Which to me is worrying about something that is out of your control and one should be focused( in my opinion) on your job at hand. He would spend quite amount of energy asking why or complaining to anyone who would listen about what someone else had or hadn't done right. To me it was silly and a waste of time and energy.

This has it's root probably in childhood when we were scared or defensive. We all know many children will blame siblings for things they have done. My grandmother would say “Did Gigi do it?” when asking who did something wrong. Assigning blame to an invisible person. Sure we went along with it when we could.

The last one we'll look at is the Inner Guide. Like Luke Skywalker had the ghost of Obi Wan Kenobi as his inner guide in Star Wars. It's usually the voice of reason and wisdom. It seeks to make the the best of a situation. Think of it as the “No Spin Zone” inside your head. Often giving you the impartial truth. Do I always listen to him? Not always. I've made just as many mistakes as anyone else.

The Inner Guide often finds the middle ground between the Inner Critic and Inner Defender and usually asks how you can find a sane solution to your problem. Instead of spending a lot of time blaming others or criticizing themselves, the Inner Guide almost takes a step back and analyzes the situation to find a solution.

So who should we listen to? Most often enough the Inner Guide is the one we should listen to most often. Many times in haste we turn to the inner critic or defender for advice. Not all of us are perfect but it does help to be aware of these inner voices inside our head that guide us in our daily lives. Remember that the inner critic tends beat ourselves up over issues. The inner defender will be blaming everyone else, including President Bush for there situation. The Inner Guide is your best bet in my opinion. He tends to be the voice of reason. It usually makes the most sense in many cases if we are listening. How many times have you realized you did something wrong and said I should have listened to myself beforehand? I know I have.

All the presidents men

I've never read this one but it should be interesting. It's a Christmas gift I got today. I love reading in general and I'm on vacation this week so I could catch up on my personal reading. Hope your all having a great holiday. Talk to you later.

Final Grade - Student Success

I just checked online and I found out my final grade in my Student Success class. I got an "A" !!! Boy that made my day! I'm still waiting on my Oral Communications class final grade. Hopefully I'll find out by the end of the week. What a Christmas present.