156 – June 5
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”—Winston Churchill
I’d like to ask all employers: Do you care about the time employees put in? Or do you care about the results they produce?
Years ago, when I was a struggling actress, I had a secretarial job for a medical equipment company. The job was fairly easy and the people were nice, except for the other sales secretary with whom I shared an office. Sandy had her Masters Degree in “Look Busy.” She could work more slowly than anyone I ever saw, drawing out each task to fill the eight-hour day so it always looked as if she was working. I didn’t get it. I was high-energy and wanted things to do. I used to finish all my work early, help her with her work and then help out in the service department, too.
One afternoon, I had completed what work I had, helped the others, and took a short break to study my lines for a play I was rehearsing that evening. As luck would have it, the office manager, Ron, walked in just at that moment. Here is dutiful Sandy, working away, and Chellie is reading a play. You can guess the rest. I almost got fired. What really floored me was that Ron said Sandy had been complaining about me!
Oops. These were clearly not “My People.” I got another job the next week. In retrospect, I can see that they could see I was not one of “Their People.” I clearly had aspirations beyond working in that office. I didn’t really fit on their team. I was just “getting by” there, making rent money, while my true focus was on becoming a professional actress.
A couple of years after that, I found a great company, Career Data Personnel. The president, Len Savallo, cared about results. I remember him telling the sales personnel: “If you can sell $20,000 per month and only work one hour a day, more power to you! I will not ask you to punch a time clock. But if you aren’t doing $20,000 per month, I expect to see you here from nine to five.” Can do, positive, upbeat people worked for him—and produced results, too. I liked their energy and Savallo’s results-oriented philosophy. He’s the one who promoted me to my first job in bookkeeping—and that changed my focus, my direction, and my life.
Time isn’t money. Time is just one of the resources used to make money. Focus on results. And focus on the people that produce results.
Today’s Affirmation:
“I produce fabulous results in short order every day!”
One night a couple of years ago, I had quite an exciting night playing poker. I was playing my favorite game, Omaha High-Low, and things weren’t going great. I would just miss making my hand or make a second-best hand and I was getting a little grumpy. But I said my affirmations under my breath, and just felt things would turn around.
A good friend of mine, Debby, was in the game and her fortunes were going up and down, too, when the following hand developed:
The board (community cards everyone uses spread out on the table by the dealer) was 8-10 of diamonds and 5 of clubs. She checked, I checked, and the man behind us bet. We both called. The turn (the next card on the board) was the 8 of hearts which paired the board. We both checked and the man bet again. We called.
The final card was the 9 of diamonds. It was my magic card, because I had the Jack-Queen of Diamonds in my hand and that made me a straight flush 8-9-10-J-Q of Diamonds! Debby checked to me, I checked because I thought the man would bet again and I could then raise him. But he checked, too. “I have three 8s,” he said.
So Debby turns over the 7-6 of Diamonds and says, “Well, I have a straight flush!” I was shocked because I hadn’t even thought about the fact that there was another straight flush out there. My mouth dropped open and I said, “I have a straight flush, too!!” And we both started screaming, the other players at the table jumped up and cheered, because that meant we had won the “bad beat jackpot” of $30,400! The bad beat in our game was four 9s or better beaten, so we qualified 50% goes to the losing hand and 25% to the person that won the hand and the players at the table split the remaining 25%. Debby got $15,200, I got $7,600, and the other players got $1,500.
Never forget that even when it seems like you’re losing, a big win can come along and save the day.
