A Pig With A Pink Ribbon Is Still A Pig

It's what they are.  

You can wash a pig and spray him with perfume and he's still a pig. You can put a pink ribbon around it and dress it in a pretty pig dress. They look good. They smell good. They look transformed! But let them outside and they will happily run straight to the nearest mud puddle they can find. Why? It’s their NATURE.

 

People with character issues will always disappoint you. 

Never put them in a position of responsibility unless you can keep a close eye on them. People can change but they really have want to and it won’t happen all at once. It’s great to give people a second chance but you better keep your eye on them.

Don’t put them in a position where their weakness can drag them and you down. You may think they are grateful and appreciative. They may even tell you they are, but what they are thinking is that they got away with it. They are thinking you are someone they can control and manipulate with excuses.

 

Don’t try to analyze or reason with them like you would a person you can trust.

The reason is, they don’t think like you do. You can’t really understand how they think and they aren’t even trying to understand how you think. They have their own agenda. They don’t understand give and take. They aren’t interested in fairness. They aren’t capable of considering what’s best for you. They’ll always cut any corners they can to give themselves and advantage. Trying to reason with them is futile. They don’t need you, they need professional help. But guess what? They don’t want help. 

 

If you doubt that, think about this.

One of the characteristics of people with character issues is that they live in denial. They don't take responsibility. They don't feel like they need to change. They are looking for ways to get ahead without working, without earning it. They see things you have and decide they need to have them. Why not? You have plenty.

If you catch them in a lie they will, on the spot, come up with another plausible sounding lie to cover up the first. I’ve always been amazed at the ability of people like this to effortlessly spin another bigger lie or rationalization whenever they are challenged. It’s at moments like this you realize you are dealing with someone who is not like you…AT ALL. Not only can they make up one lie after another, they seem to have the ability to believe it as truth as soon as they say it.  

That’s why if you insist on keeping them around you must keep your eye on them.  
Don't let their weakness hurt you. Sure it's great to give people a chance, but why put them in a position where they likely to fail? It's not fair to them, it's not fair to you.

Pay attention to character. You can’t let yourself be lulled to sleep by appearances. They may make an effort to look, talk and act better. They may make a great effort to act like they have changed. But stay alert. Any change will take a long, long time and they will probably have many relapses along the way. They may look pretty on the outside, but it’s what’s inside, their character that controls their actions. 

If they are rotten inside, they’ll act rotten because they can’t help it, it’s their nature. A pig is a pig is a pig - whether it's wearing a pink ribbon or not.

The Little Things You Never Hear About...

When a wealthy person makes a big grant to a hospital, college or some other worthy cause it usually attracts a lot of attention.

For every huge public gift made there are hundreds of quiet acts of kindness that are never noticed.

Here’s an example: Many think Steve Jobs or Bill Gates invented the computer. They didn’t. The first commercially successful personal computer was the Altair 8800 and it was created by a man named H. Edward Roberts. The computer was built by his company, Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) in Albuquerque, NM. I know because he was my cousin.

When the computer was built, it needed an operating system. This was resolved when Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and moved to Albuquerque along with his friend and business partner Paul Allen. 

It was from this that Microsoft was born. Gates and Allen launched a revolution with Microsoft that is still underway today. They moved to Seattle to eventual fame and fortune and my cousin sold MITS and relocated to Georgia where he eventually reallzed his lifetime dream of becoming a country doctor.

Forty years passed and there was not much contact, as they were all consumed in their own lives and business. Yet things changed in late 2010 when Edward became seriously ill and was hospitalized.

Immediately Allen and Gates got involved. Even though Allen was recovering from his own battle with cancer, they made calls, they wrote letters and they kept up with his progress closely. They went out of their way to let Edward know how much they appreciated what he had done for them and the high opinion they had of him.

They made plans for a special addition to be made to his house with all the high tech medical equipment required to maintain his care and for it to be fully staffed. They determined to spare no expense so that he would be able to be moved back to his house and be as comfortable as possible.

Unfortunately, he was hit with pneumonia which did more damage to his lungs and the possibility of ever moving back home again evaporated.

So, in his final days, Bill Gates personally traveled across the country and visited him in his room for 2 hours to pay his last respects and to provide some last encouragement and support. It wasn’t long before Edward was gone.

Gates and Allen had reached out to an old friend in his time of need. They didn’t do it for publicity. They did it because they cared. 

After Edward’s death they wrote touching articles detailing who exactly Edward was, reconfirming his place in history as the father of the personal computer and his impact on their lives.

These are the kinds of things you never hear about, but things of powerful impact nonetheless, and more revealing than anything else about their true natures.

So You Think The Wealthy are All Selfish?

There are approximately 4500 colleges and universities in North America. On every campus you’ll find dorms, field houses, classroom buildings, labs, research centers, auditoriums, and hospital facilities donated by wealthy alumni and other interested patrons.

If successful people are so self centered and selfish, why are do they make these incredible donations?

There are approximately 8000 hospitals in North America. In all of these you will find that there have been donations for everything from entire new hospital wings to various equipment and programs of every kind.

Now consider the tens of thousands of churches and charities of every kind that depend on the generosity of those who have the means to to help. Not only giving funds but expertise, time, and many other kinds of support.

It's only those who have done a great job of handling their own responsibilities that have the resources to reach a helping hand out to others.

The Big Education Lie

Parents fall for this lie every time. 

Society convinces every new generation of families that education is the #1 solution for all of their kids problems and so they set their priorities accordingly. They believe the overwhelming key for their kids to have a great, stable and successful life is education!

Education, Education, Education! Above all things get educated and you’ll be set for life. 

Education is the key. Go to school, do your homework, get your diploma and the job is done preparing you for life as a responsible, productive, independent adult.

The truth is…NO IT'S NOT!

Millions of highly educated people, young and old, have plunged their lives into disaster by poor choices. 

You want examples? They are everywhere in all countries and all walks is life and more new ones show up on the news everyday. 

Bernie Madoff ripping off thousands of trusting investors- even his own relatives, Tiger Woods at the peak of fulfillment in live throwing it all away for a little extra forbidden pleasure, brokers on Wall Street snorting cocaine, Enron executives building a global company on total fraud and deceit, T.V. evangelists caught with prostitutes, female high school teachers running off with 13 year old boys…do I really need to add anymore?

It’s not what you know, it’s what you do with it. The source of all these disasters is lack of values and character. These must be taught. 

No two year old is going to have their first words be “yes ma’am” or “yes sir.” When they hit the Earth and gain consciousness, sight, mobility, and the ability to speak, they go right to work trying to organize the world for their benefit. 

The first word many babies say—announcing their presence in the world is…”NO!” They are totally self-centered, and why shouldn’t they be? They’re not independent yet and need others to take care of them.

It’s all about them. That changes when you go out into the real world. Now you’re supposed to be independent and take care of yourself. Jobs, marriage, and having children demand that you focus on doing things for others. Without character and values you can’t resist the temptations to take short cuts for extra pleasure, extra money, and extra glory. And you’ll do it even if it involves breaking laws, breaking confidences, or destroying relationships.

Kids need to be taught right from wrong. Kids need be taught respect for authority. They need to be taught respect for others. This isn’t going to happen by itself, and if it isn’t done it won’t matter what education they have. They will have knowledge but they won’t have a foundation. You can build a building but without a firm foundation, it’s just a matter of time before it crumbles.

Make sure your kids get a great education but also make sure they have a firm foundation of values and character to stand on as they go through life.  

Question: How about you? Do you know any very smart people who have done some very dumb things?

Winner's Book Club Selection of the Week: The Steve Jobs Way

WINNERS CREDENTIALS

Steve Jobs is the man who brought us the Macintosh computer, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad and led Apple to become the Number 1 Company in the world. His journey began as a teenager with a lot of passion and ideas and very little money working out of his parent’s garage. It has resulted in a company that has grown bigger than even MobileExxon with market capitalization of over $350 Billion.

Book Description

In The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation, Jay Elliot gives the reader the opportunity of seeing Steve Jobs as only his closest associates have ever seen him, and to learn what has made him—and the mystique of his management style—capable of creating tools so extraordinary that they have remade three industries and have transformed the way we create, consume, and communicate with each other.

Jay Elliot worked side by side with Steve as Senior Vice President of Apple and brings us his deep insider perspective of Steve's singular iLeadership style—which encompasses four major principles: product, talent, organization, marketing.

Jay shares the lessons that come out of Steve's intuitive approach to show how the creative and technological brilliance of iLeadership can be utilized to drive breakthroughs in any organization, irrespective of size.

About the Author

Jay Elliot served as the Senior Vice President of Apple Computer, responsible for all corporate operations, including HR, Facilities, Real Estate, IT, Education, and Pacific Rim Sales, plus corporate business planning, reporting directly to Steve Jobs, Chairman of the Board. Also, as a member of the Macintosh organization he helped Jobs develop the Macintosh computer from development to introduction. Elliot's articles and interviews have been published in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Time Magazine, and Fortune. He lives in California.

Reader Review

OK, I'll admit it. I am a sucker for anyone who can decipher or decode Steve Jobs. After all, the guy is a repeat Icarus. He has flown too close to the sun not once, not twice, but at least three times and every time has come out better than before. The effect he's had on Apple upon his return has been nothing short of a resurrection followed by a seating at the right hand of the Father. 

Jobs is an interesting, mercurial creature, and I often wonder if he is simply one of a kind, a kind of idiot savant who understands how to tap into our wants and needs, and who has an almost messianic vision that we need to follow. Sometimes I suspect that books about him are probably best read to illuminate how different we are from Steve rather than how we can become more like Steve. >>read more>>