AchieveMax® Blog

The following short test should cause you to pause and hopefully think about one of the more important things in your life. Grab a pad and see if you can answer these questions. You might be surprised.

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.
2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.
3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America contest.
4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer prize.
5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for best actor and actress. 
6. Name the last decade’s worth of World Series winners.

How did you do?

The point is none of us remember the headliners of yesterday … and these are no second-rate achievers. They are the best in their fields! But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Here’s another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. List a few teachers who aided your journey through school.
2. Name two friends who have helped you through a difficult time.
3. Name three people who have taught you something worthwhile.
4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.
5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.
6. Name half a dozen heroes whose stories have inspired you.

Easier? The lesson? The people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards.

They are the ones that care. If at all possible, take a moment from your busy schedule and offer them your thanks and appreciation—while you still can.

Then proceed to attempt to get yourself on someone else’s list … mentor, teach, share. You’ll feel as good about your effort as they will.

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

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What comes to mind with you think July? Vacations? Heat? Lemonade? Picnics? Grill? Fireworks? Boats? All-Star Baseball game? Correct on every count!

July is, on average, the warmest month within most of the Northern hemisphere and the coldest month within much of the Southern hemisphere.

July was renamed for Julius Caesar, who was born in that month.

Weekly Celebrations and Observances:

• Hug Week
• Freedom Week
• National Salad Week
• Nude Recreation Week
• Great Circus Parade Week
• Take Charge of Change Week
• National Laundry Workers Week
• National Unassisted Homebirth Week
• Freedom from Fear of Speaking Week
• National Therapeutic Recreation Week

Monthly Celebrations and Observances:

• National Hot Dog Month
• Read an Almanac Month
• National Blueberry Month
• National Ice Cream Month
• National Hitchhiking Month
• National Baked Bean Month
• National Fireworks Safety Month
• Hemochromatosis Screening Awareness Month

July Daily Celebrations and Observances:

• 1 Canada Day/Dominion Day
• 1 Creative Ice Cream Flavor Day
• 1 Financial Freedom Day
• 4 Independence Day
• 4 National Country Music Day
• 5 Anxiety Day
• 5 Work-a-holics Day
• 6 National Fried Chicken Day
• 6 National Cherry Festival Day
• 7 Chocolate Day
• 9 National Sugar Cookie Day
• 13 Barbershop Music Appreciation Day
• 14 National Nude Day
• 20 National Ice Cream Day
• 21 National Junk Food Day
• 21 National Hot Dog Day
• 23 Vanilla Ice Cream Day
• 24 Cousins Day
• 26 Aunt and Uncle Day
• 27 Parents Day
• 28 Accountants Day
• 29 National Lasagna Day
• 30 National Cheesecake Day
• 30 Father-in-Law Day

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

In the spirit of C.A.N.I. (Continuous And Never-ending Improvement), here are this week’s new facts—one for each day of your coming week. Pass them on to others to keep the spirit alive or invite your friends and family to visit our blog where they can also view previous entries.

• It took Leonardo Da Vinci 10 years to paint Mona Lisa’s lips.
• Levan, Utah, is “navel” spelled backwards. It was so named because it is in the middle of Utah.
• On average, twins are born 24 days earlier than single babies.
• Men are six times more likely to be struck by lightning than women.
• More Hollywood films have been made about boxing than any other sport.
• New York City has the largest black population of any city in the United States. It is followed by Chicago and Philadelphia.
• Ninety percent of U.S. households have at lease one remote control for the television; 8 out of 10 report losing it.

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

I’ve got a strange feeling this is going to be an unending list. I keep thinking we’ve covered them all and then BOOM—another week, more questions.

Again these aren’t world-changing questions which must be answered. It just might give us a little more peace of mind if they were answered. I’m not talking about questions that will end wars, abolish poverty, cure all diseases, or eliminate the world’s problems. I’m talking about the questions that drive us crazy due to their simplicity and the questions that absolutely no one seems to be able to answer. Here are a few more.

• Why is it as soon as you find a product that you really like, they will stop making it?
• What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
• Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
• Why is the word dictionary in the dictionary?
• Why do they wait until a pig is dead to “cure” it?
• What do little birdies see when they get knocked unconscious?
• Why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
• Why don’t you ever see the headline “Psychic Wins Lottery?”
• Why is it that rain drops but snow falls?
• When fish jump in the air, do they take a deep breath and close their eyes?
• When I erase a word with a pencil, where does it go?
• Why do they put all of those unattached, annoying little subscription cards in a magazine when they know that they will fall all over the floor when you start reading?
• Why is it a station comes in brilliantly when I’m standing near the radio but buzzes, drifts and spits every time I move away.
• Why does your tire gauge let half the air out of your tire when all you want is a pressure reading.
• Why is it that when you buy an answering machine to avoid missing any calls, everyone hangs up when they hear the machine answer?

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

We’re adding still another new feature to our blog in hopes of saving you some time and effort in your day-to-day quest for success. Let me explain the title. The “Sore Eyes” may very well be what you experience from continuously searching for needed information to complete a task or assignment. A “Site” is what we hope to provide for you among the many we’ll be spotlighting in this on-going feature.

Think back to the days when you had to resort to a dictionary, encyclopedia, or library to research your concern or topic. Consider the total amount of time and energy you exerted time and time again to meet the demands of your job. Today, take a quick visit to Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, MSN, Ask, or any of the many other search engines on the Internet and, within seconds, you have more information than you can ever use. And yet, ironically, we don’t seem to have any more time than we had before these time-saving assets appeared on the scene. Of course, that’s because the new demands and challenges have appeared to claim that time and energy we freed up through the benefits of technology. And so it will continue.

Therefore, we now need even more resources and short-cuts to be utilized upon our arrival at those critical search engines. As we locate valuable resources, we’ll post them here for your convenience. Browse the listing, identify potential assets, make a quick trip to those sites you chose to see if they may be worthwhile to add to your Favorites.

If you happen to have resources you feel might be valuable to others, please feel free to send them to us, and we’ll certainly consider posting them as well.

The World Gazetteer

The World Gazetteer provides current population figures for cities, towns and places of all countries along with the largest cities of the world and current national flags.

Wanna Learn?

SoYouWanna claims that this service “teaches you how to do all the things nobody taught you in school.” Find cheap airline tickets, buy a cell phone, design your own web page, write a business plan, cure a hangover, use feng shui, change your name, flatten your abs or learn how to do hundreds of other interesting things. The opening page tells you just about anything you’re going to want to know about the site. It’s very easy to navigate and offers a wealth of information.

Save Time - Get Organized

Stressed for time? Who isn’t? I personally guarantee you can immediately find dozens—I’d say hundreds, but you’d think I was exaggerating—of tips and ideas to help you organize your home, your office, and your life. Maria Gracia is a home-organizing consultant specializing in helping people get better organized to live the kind of stress-free life they’ve always dreamed of.

State & County QuickFacts

The U.S. Census Bureau provides quick, easy access to facts about people, business, and geography.

Charity Navigator

Charity Navigator works to guide intelligent giving. The site helps charitable givers make intelligent giving decisions by providing information on 2,500 charities and by evaluating the financial health of each of these charities. The site ensures its evaluations are widely used by making them easy to understand and freely available to the public. By guiding intelligent giving, the Charity Navigator aims to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace, in which givers and the charities they support work in tandem to overcome our nation’s most persistent challenges.

Exploratorium

The Exploratorium is a museum of science, art, and human perception located in San Francisco, California. Online since 1993, the Exploratorium was one of the first science museums to build a site on the World Wide Web. Included in the site are more than 12,000 web pages and many sound and video files, exploring hundreds of different topics.

Top Inventions of 2007

From the phone that has changed phones forever, to futuristic cars, to a building made of water, to a remote-controlled dragonfly—a dazzling display of the many inventions that emerged last year are available on this site . For speed and convenience, inventions are arrange in a vast array of categories.

Mark Twain in His Times

This site focuses on how “Mark Twain” and his works were created and defined, marketed and performed, reviewed and appreciated. The goal is to allow readers, scholars, students and teachers to see what Mark Twain and others from his times said about each other, in ways that can speak to us today.

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

When we usually hear evidence of irony, it’s connected to a negative example. That just seems to be the way things work. However, once in a great while, we come across an example that brings a smile of content and satisfaction to our lips and tremendous delight to our heart. The motives may vary but the results remain the same. This is one of those wonderful stories.
      
A highly successful Human Resources Manager was tragically stricken by a bus and killed instantly. Her soul arrived at the Pearly Gates, where St. Peter welcomed her by explaining: “Before you get settled in, we have a little problem … you see, we’ve never had a Human Resources Manager make it this far before and we’re not really certain sure what to do with you.”

“Oh, I see,” said the woman. “Can’t you just let me in?”

“Well, I’d like to,” said St Peter, “but I have higher orders. We’re instructed to let you have a day in hell and a day in heaven, and then you are to choose where you’d like to go for all eternity.”

“Actually, I think I’d prefer heaven,” said the woman.

“Sorry, we have rules …” at which St. Peter put the HR Manager into the downward bound elevator.

As the doors opened in hell, she stepped out onto a beautiful golf course. In the distance was a country club; around her were many friends — past fellow executives, all smartly dressed, happy, and cheering for her. They ran up and kissed her on both cheeks and they talked about old times. They played a perfect round of golf and afterwards went to the country club where she enjoyed a superb steak and lobster dinner. She met the Devil, who was actually rather nice, and she had a wonderful night telling jokes and dancing. Before she knew it, it was time to leave; everyone shook her hand and waved goodbye as she stepped into the elevator. The elevator went back up to heaven where St. Peter was waiting for her.

“Now it’s time to spend a day in heaven,” he said.

So she spent the next 24 hours lounging around on clouds and playing the harp and singing, which was almost as enjoyable as her day in hell. At the day’s end St Peter returned.

“So,” he said, “you’ve spent a day in hell and you’ve spent a day in heaven. You must choose between the two.”

The woman thought for a second and replied, “Well, heaven is certainly lovely, but I actually had a better time in hell. I choose hell.”

Accordingly, St. Peter took her to the elevator again, and she went back down to hell.

When the doors of the elevator opened, she found herself standing in a desolate wasteland covered in garbage and filth. She saw her friends dressed in rags, picking up rubbish and putting it in old sacks. The Devil approached and put his arm around her.

“I don’t understand,” stuttered the HR Manager, “Yesterday I was here, and there was a golf course, and a country club, and we ate lobster, and we danced and had a wonderful happy time. Now all there’s just a dirty wasteland of garbage and all my friends look miserable.”

The Devil looked at her and smiled. “Yesterday we were recruiting you, today you’re staff.”

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Our “Words of Wisdom” feature on our website continues to grow as we add our 21st category. In an effort to keep current, we’re going to focus today on women.

As Hillary Clinton continues to play a critical role in our chaotic political scene, we are reminded of the many contributions women are making to our society today. Oprah Winfrey dominates television ratings, has her own book club, website, magazine, production company, and radio channel. Her empire continues to grow in a variety of areas usually dominated by males.

Female CEOs are emerging as the leaders of major U.S. corporations. For the second year in a row, the stock performance of women-led companies mirrored that of companies run by men.

Danica Patrick recently became the first woman to win an IndyCar race, and we’re seeing more and more women competing strongly in Funny Car races, NASCAR, stock cars, drag racing and dirt tracks.

In short, women are making their marks more than ever before in just about any arena they choose … in those mentioned above as well as medical, educational, technical, military, and a number of creative fields.

They’re emerging and performing with a gusto which demands respect and recognition. For that reason, we’d like to share a number of quotes by and about that fascinating species we know and love as women.

Also feel free to check out our in-depth offering of quotes on many subjects should you be in need of a refreshing thought, idea, slogan or profound nugget for an upcoming meeting, presentation, or lunch room bulletin board.

We offer interesting quotes on the subjects of leadership, teamwork, customer service, time management, goals, change, motivation, sales, potential, gender, creativity, repetition, enthusiasm, employees, attitude, networking, fear, sense of urgency, passion, empowerment, and now women.

Click on “Words of Wisdom” in order to review our entire offering.

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

In the spirit of C.A.N.I. (Continuous And Never-ending Improvement), here are this week’s new facts—one for each day of your coming week. Pass them on to others to keep the spirit alive or invite your friends and family to visit our blog where they can also view previous entries.

• In 1869 Thomas Edison of Boston, Massachusetts, received a patent for his electric voting machine.
• In 1949, the salary of the President of the United States was increased from $75,000 to $100,000 with an additional $50,000 expense allowance added for each year in office. Today, the President makes $200,000 a year.
• In a year, an average person makes 1,140 phone calls.
• In Kentucky, 50% of the people who get married for the first time are teenagers.
• It’s possible to lead a cow upstairs … but not downstairs.
• It took Henry Ford’s Motor Company seven years to manufacture 1 million automobiles. One-hundred-thirty-two working days after this figure was reached (in 1924), the company had made 9 million more cars.
• Leonardo Da Vinci invented scissors.

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

Television, radio, books, magazines, newspapers, billboards, seminars, the Internet (sites and blogs) … everywhere you look you’re hearing about change! All the Presidential candidates are preaching change from coast to coast, but do you really think you’re going to see it?
 
On one hand, I see examples of change every single day. I can’t and won’t argue that point. In fact, I’ve shared many of those changes in this very blog and will continue to do so.
 
On the other hand, there are many areas in which change has been, for a very long time, predicted, preached and promised but obviously not practiced.
 
For instance, as we pass the $4-a-gallon gas milestone, we’re hearing a great deal about the importance of energy independence … almost as though this might be an entirely new concept. However, let’s take a glance back a few years and see how other great leaders viewed the subject of energy independence. Remember, these are the words of some of the most powerful leaders on the face of the earth.
 
Richard Nixon in 1974 said:
“We will lay the foundation for our future capacity to meet America’s energy needs from America’s own resources.” (We didn’t.)
 
Gerald Ford in 1975 said:
“We cannot afford continued delays. We cannot afford prolonged vulnerability to foreign producers. We must act.” (We didn’t.)
 
Jimmy Carter in 1979 said:
“We are the generation that will win the war on the energy problem and in that process, rebuild the unity and confidence of America.” (We didn’t.)
 
Ronald Reagan in 1962 said:
“Energy independence is the best preparation America can make for the future.” (We didn’t.)
 
George H. W. Bush in 1990 said:
“The Congress should enact measures to increase domestic energy production and energy conservation — in order to reduce dependence on foreign oil.” (They didn’t.)
 
Bill Clinton in 1998 said:
“We have it in our power to act right here, right now. I propose $6 billion in tax cuts and research and development to encourage innovation, renewable energy, fuel-efficient cars, and energy-efficient homes.” (We didn’t.)
 
George W. Bush in 2007 said:
“We have got to do something about our dependence on oil — for two reasons. It provides an economic and national security risk and makes it harder to be wise stewards of the environment.” (We didn’t — for either reason.)
 
Those are fantastic sound bites from seven previous leaders, and you know McCain and Obama are making even stronger statements in light of current economic conditions and the fact that they know they must say something in order to get elected.
 
It’ll be interesting to see what kind of a sound bite our next President adds to this list of ritual rhetoric. Of course, don’t forget every member of Congress who echoed empty promises to usher in a meaningful energy policy. If we had a barrel of oil for every broken promise made by a Washington politician — we’d be energy-independent!
 
This is another prime example of a Knowing-Doing Gap … this one may never be closed. Our leaders know we should be taking action to establish energy independence. They even know how to do it as we have a variety of viable options. They know what the consequences will be for us if we don’t take action soon. Yet they do nothing but talk. This happens to be one Knowing-Doing Gap which must be closed — and soon!
 
As you review the statements above you must admit that there’s been very little change in this area over the last 34 years … regardless of which political party was in charge.
 
Now take a look at this newspaper editorial that depicts why stress levels escalate.

“The world is too big for us. Too much is going on, too many crimes, too much violence and chaos. Try as you will, you get behind in the race, in spite of yourself. It’s an incessant strain to keep pace … and still, you lose ground. Science empties its discoveries on you so fast that you stagger beneath them in hopeless bewilderment. The political world changes so rapidly you’re out of breath trying to keep pace with who’s in and who’s out. Everything is high pressure. Human nature cannot endure much more!”

Again, not everything is impacted by change. This editorial appeared in the Atlantic Journal on June 16th, 1833 … 175 years ago! One might think it was written yesterday … demonstrating that while many things change — some things simply don’t!
 
Education, experience, intelligence, budget, research, innovation — all are meaningless unless properly applied to the challenge at hand. We have the resources. However, for some reason we have yet to utilize them and, as a result, are witnessing increasingly negative consequences. One must wonder what it’s going to take before our nation’s leadership initiates action to close this critical Knowing-Doing Gap.
 
Sadly, these Knowing-Doing Gaps also exist in our organizations, businesses, and communities across the nation. At the moment there seems to be a great deal of knowing and very little doing in far too many areas of our society. It’s going to take individual action at many levels to initiate a collective turnaround of this devastating trend. Why not be one of those individuals?

Harry K. Jones is a professional speaker and consultant for AchieveMax®, Inc., a company of motivational speakers who provide custom-designed keynote presentations, seminars, and consulting services. Harry has appeared all over North America addressing topics such as change, customer service, creativity, employee retention, goal setting, leadership, stress management, teamwork and time management for a number of industries, including education, financial, government, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing. For more information on Harry's presentations, please call 800-886-2MAX or fill out our contact form.

If you are interested in change management, you might also enjoy ...

• Change Management Training Seminar - Productive Chaos: Riding the Wave of Change
• Change Management Keynote - Productive Chaos: Riding the Wave of Change
• Change Management Speakers and Change Management Training
• Top Change Books
• Words of Wisdom on Change
• Change Posters
• Anti-Kmart? I Don't Think So!
• K-Mart: People Power and Bluelight Bankruptcy
• Speed as a Trend
• Tomorrow's Work Place
• Generation Communication Gap: Do You Really Know that Generation Y College Freshman You Call Family?
• Are You Ready for Some CHAOS?
• Globalization Simplified
• Generational Gems for Future Leaders
• Alright Already! Enough with CHANGE!