Business Wisdom from
Gently Down The Stream
Matt Weinstein and Luke
Barber
The Importance
of Teamwork
None of us will
be able to row our way to genuine success without the help of other
people. There is no point in trying to row it alone.
---from Chapter 7, You Are Not Alone
Taking responsibility
and being personally accountable are infectious behaviors. When we row,
row, row our boat with passion and enthusiasm, we make those around
us want to pick up an oar and join in.
---from Chapter 5, Carmichael Did It
The best way
to assure that we are traveling merrily down the path of life is to
bring others along with us on our journey. When we bring merriment to
another person’s heart, our own heart becomes merry at the same
time. There can be no greater reward than that.
---from Chapter 25, A Merry Heart
By their actions,
they said, “Look, we’re all human beings here at work. We’re
going to spend more time with each other than with our flesh-and-blood
families. We’re going to spend more time working together than
we’ll spend in all our other waking activities combined. If we
can't have fun together and create a vibrant, human relationship at
work, then we're going to wind up wasting most of our waking lives!”
---from Chapter 10, The Barriers Come Down
The Search
for Success
Few things can
help us more in our lives than realizing that we don’t just play
a minor role in the story that is our lives. We have the lead role and
what happens is monumentally influenced by the reality that we create.
There are many
different doorways to success. What should you do to be successful?
For a start, just do what’s right in front of you right now. If
you’re in a boat, for example, you need to row that boat. You
don’t just row it once, you need to row, row, and row it consistently.
If we are not successful, then we must be willing to hold ourselves
accountable. Blaming others for our own lack of success has never achieved
anything.
---from Chapter 1, Don’t Just Sit There, Do Something!
Rowing your
boat with vigor and consistency is an essential element in achieving
success in life and at work. You can’t just sit there, you have
to do something. On the other hand, rowing with energy, vitality, and
steadiness gets you absolutely nowhere if you are rowing on only one
side of the boat.
--- from Chapter 2, Don’t Just Do Something--- Sit
There!
As we row our
way to success it is important to keep an eye on the other shore; yet,
we also want to realize the success that can be found in each well-made
stroke.
---from Chapter 8, Seeing Is Believing
Have Fun At
Work
Conventional
business wisdom says that work is not supposed to be fun. . . that’s
why it’s called “work!” Many examples in this book
demonstrate that, in fact, the opposite is true. Among the numerous
benefits to having fun at work is that employee stress levels decrease
and there is a corresponding increase in morale, creativity, and productivity.
Best of all there’s an increase in customer satisfaction because
the true secret of fun at work is that people like to do business with
people who like to do business.
If I’m
your customer, then of course I’m going to choose a business relationship
with my head. I’m interested in value, in service, and in costs.
But I’m also going to choose with my gut. How do I feel doing
business with your company? An organization whose employees have a positive
attitude--- who feel rewarded, recognized, appreciated, and who happily
greet their customers--- is an organization that has discovered a key
element to forming long-term customer relationships.
---from Chapter 23, Have Fun At Work
Our chance of
making our lives more successful at work and creating more happiness
and joy in the workplace is in large measure dependent upon our willingness
to be unconventional and unusual.
---from Chapter 26, Be Outrageous
Happiness and
Success
As you have
probably noticed in your own life, there is a profound correlation between
happiness and success. Your life cannot truly be called successful if
it does not bring you happiness at the same time. In fact, I believe
that success and happiness are the same thing with different names.
Authentic happiness
is not caused by external events or by things such as making money,
getting a great job, having the brightest kids, or winning the lottery.
You can’t
find happiness. Happiness finds you when you live your life in a purposeful
way that is uniquely your own.
---from Chapter 34, Success as Happiness
