We don’t move toward something without moving away from something else. If a person’s goal is to have a reputation and legacy of excellence, but one is currently only average, what must be done? Answer: that pro must decide to leave mediocrity behind. Take the challenge to select the steps, talent and resources needed to become the best version of yourself. If you’re in leadership, apply that same challenge for your team.
Each of us was created for greatness at something. There are lots of fine, salt-of-the-earth people in our industry. There are also copious numbers of good organizations in MH. But the unvarnished truth is that some in our industry lack or lost the heart for greatness. Once that fact is realized by a supervisor or by a suddenly-motivated – and objectively self-aware professional – the question becomes, what does one do about it?
Mastering X
Almost no one masters the Art of X – whatever X happens to be – the first, second or even the third time X is tried. The reality is that typically we start out doing something poorly. With effort – discipline and a proper development plan – one goes from poor, to average. Too few press on beyond the average to good, better or to become great – the honorable effort at becoming the best.
Yet the desire to aspire for greatness combined with willpower is often enough to set yourself or your firm apart from others in your market(s).
Personal or Organizational Reputation and Legacy
No individual, group, association or firm goes from one level to another without:
- apathy (a retreat to mediocrity), or
- aspirational achievement striving toward excellence. In the real world, there is no status quo.
The way to get sustained success and advancement is to objectively take stock of where you are, or have a third party evaluate you or your operation. Then set the steps in place needed to advance.
4 Keys to Happy, Successful Living
There are four things necessary for sustained personal success. Weakness in one or more areas will lead over time to a slump or dump. Business and spiritual speaker Matthew Kelly reminded me something others teach too; that there are four areas of life, and the proper balance between those 4 areas is necessary for happiness and sustained success.
1) Physical health. Exercise at least once weekly, proper diet and enough rest are disciplines anyone can master. You pick your preferred exercise, make sure your diet – what you eat and drink – are healthy and not junk. Then, set aside the time needed for sleep – for ‘re-creation.’
2) Emotional health. Unrushed time is how a relationship with a child, spouse, sibling, friend, colleague or parent blossoms.
3) Intellectual health. Kelly says you should take ten minutes a day, every day, to read a good book that has life-changing challenges, insights and inspirations. Not two hours daily; 10 minutes every single day.
We’ve long said on the Masthead that the professional who invests reading 15 minutes a day here on MHProNews, and 15 minutes a day on videos and reading on MHLivingNews is bound to advance in their appreciation, understanding and performance capabilities in manufactured and modular housing. Just as you don’t learn X perfectly the first time, the additional reading or viewing of an article or video on MHLivingNews will cause your mind to see ways to apply those facts and insights to satisfy more customers, profitably.
4) Spiritual health. We can deny the law of gravity, just as we can deny the reality of God. But step off a cliff – or one jump in the air – reveals that gravity exists, it is. Denial of gravity would be a foolish delusion.
Scientists notion of the big-bang being as the start of the universe is akin to the way that event is described in The Book of Genesis when God said, “Let there be light!“
The Greeks reasoned millennia ago that from nothing, nothing comes. The great thinker, Fulton Sheen, pointed out that order does not follow an explosion. Set off a bomb at a print shop and you get chaos and burnt debris, not a perfectly bound dictionary. Order reflects intellect. A universe so orderly did not come from nothing, but rather from an all wise and powerful Being that gave us mortals free will. How we use – or abuse – that freedom is what makes a life great, or leads to a life of regrets.
Taking Responsibility
Kelly observed that too many in the 21st Century want to abdicate personal responsibility – personally and professionally. He told me this evening that “God doesn’t play favorites…Our lives change when our habits change. It’s not freak luck.”
Ten minutes daily in a sincere search of eternal truth over time will help us grasp all truths – greater and lesser – with increased clarity. As a teen, I recall stopping my bike on the corner of an intersection. There where four different houses of worship, one on each corner. While each might have some part of the truth, when each pastor teaches something different, how could they all possibly be the fullness of truth?
Yet the truth is knowable. Divine Truth is as knowable as are professional, personal and other lesser truths. Just as Gravity is, truth is.
When we are challenged and inspired to become the best version of ourselves, we are on the journey toward a purposeful life of excellence.
Learning and living simple truths will take us on the amazing journey of achievement that sets the great apart from those willing to accept mediocrity or being poor – rather than what each of us is capable of doing and what we are uniquely called to be.
When is the best time to get healthier? When is the best time to begin to improve?
We can begin today what could truly be a “New Year.” Small incremental change is often the most lasting, precisely because it’s doable.
Those baby steps in the four areas of your life can change you or your operation from whatever you or your firm may have been up until now, into the greatness that the human heart thirsts to be. ##
