In Pursuit of Excellence

I LOVE this story:

Harvey Mackay was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey .

He handed my friend a business card and said: 'I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk I'd like you to read my mission statement.' Harvey read the card. It said: Wally's Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.

This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!

As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, 'Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.'

My friend said jokingly, 'No, I'd prefer a soft drink.' Wally smiled and said, 'No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice.' Almost stuttering, Harvey said, 'I'll take a Diet Coke.'

Handing him his drink, Wally said, 'If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustrated and USA Today.' As they were pulling away, Wally handed my friend another laminated card. 'These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio.' And as if that weren't enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of day. He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.

'Tell me, Wally,' my amazed friend asked the driver, 'have you always served customers like this?'

Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. 'No, not always, in fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day. He had just written a book called You'll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, 'Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.''

That hit me right between the eyes,' said Wally. 'Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at time. When my customers responded well, I did more.'

'I take it that has paid off for you,' Harvey said.

'It sure has,' Wally replied. 'My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab.

About 10 years ago I had the privilege of going to China. As we prepared to return we had to spend an extra day in Shanghai in order to make the flights work. We had been eating wonderful Chinese food (the real deal) for 11 days and really wanted something “American”, so our hotel concierge sent us to the Hard Rock Café.

The Hard Rock was great, but the real eye opener was the cab driver. He was just like Wally in the story. His cab was immaculate, his driving superb. He even wore white gloves! Granted, we couldn’t communicate well due to the language barrier, but he did what he did with excellence.

Do I do what I do with excellence? I try to, but fail from time to time. My guess is that you would say the same thing.

So here’s my encouragement this week: Pursue excellence. At work, at home, at play....pursue excellence. The Bible says it this way in Colossians 3:23:

Work hard and cheerfully at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.

I guarantee that you will open a few eyes and make an impact in the process!!!

Guard Your Heart

I'm a bit of a computer geek. I have several security programs that run on every computer at the office and at my home. I'm a backup junkie! Every important file is backed up nightly in at least 3 locations. I want the information to be secure in the event of any kind of data loss.

So when I got home last night and my wife informed me that the firewall on our home computer had indicated that a virus was attempting to "attack" our system, I had to check it out. Indeed, a virus was attempting to make it's way in.....so I fought back and was ultimately able to win! Whew!

A man whose company provides data security for military space operations explained how vulnerable computers are to outside attack. During a training exercise, hackers were able to shut down a highly protected system without ever stealing a password or cracking a code. They simply accessed the unsecured maintenance program for the building that housed the computers and turned off the air conditioning. When the computer room became too hot, the system automatically shut down.

In computers, whether or personal or military, it's important to keep up your guard in order to protect against unwanted scenarios with your data information. The same applies to life.

Sometimes we get comfortable where we are in life, with how things are going. But overconfidence and a false sense of security can cause us to let down our guard, and when that happens things start to "creep in" to our lives that we really don't want to be there.

Things like criticism, being judgmental, rudeness and being short tempered - to name a few - can begin to define our character in short order. That's why it's so important to guard our hearts.

Proverbs 4:23 tells us: Above all else, guard your heart, for it affects everything you do.

Notice, our heart affects EVERYTHING we do. That's why it is so critical that we guard our hearts. When the "viruses" of criticism, cutting speech, anger, bitterness.....the list could go on.....begin to make their way into our hearts, they begin to come out in our lives. The end result
is always damage.....to ourselves and to others. Always.

"Can't happen to me." No? 1 Corinthians 10:12 cautions us: people who think they are standing firmly should be careful that they don't fall.

Another translation of the Bible says it this way: Don't be so naive and self-confident. You're not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it's useless. Cultivate God-confidence.

Let me encourage you to do a little heart examination. Are you finding yourself being overly critical? Angry without apparent cause? Sharp tongued? Those are indicators of something deeper going on. It's time for a heart examination.

Remember, the heart affects everything we do. If you find something there that shouldn't be.....it's time for a little "surgery" to remove it. Ask God to use the scalpel of His love and grace to remove the things that shouldn't be there. Surgery isn't much fun, but the end result is a much better heart....and life.

The Right Kind of Friends

On Thursday, December 14, 2005 a story appeared on the front page story of the San Francisco Chronicle about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines.

She was 45 to 50 feet in length and weighed in at an estimated 50 tons, yet she was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. Apparently she had become ensnared while traveling the humpback’s usual migratory route between the northern California route and Baja, California.

She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, and a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate Bridge) and radioed for help.

Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived to assess the situation. The whale had about 20 crab-pot ropes, which are 240 feet long with weights every 60 feet, wrapped around her. Rope was wrapped at least four times around the tail, the back and the left front flipper, and there was a line in the whale's mouth.

The crab-pot lines were cinched so tight, Moskito said, that the rope was digging into the animal's blubber and leaving visible cuts.

At least 12 crab traps, weighing 90 pounds each, hung off the whale, the divers said. The combined weight was pulling the whale downward, forcing it to struggle mightily to keep its blow_ hole out of the water.

4 divers spent about an hour cutting the ropes with a special curved knife.....a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushing them gently around ___ as if she were thanking them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.

Like the whale, sometimes in our normal routine of life we find ourselves tangled up in things that weigh us down. Whether it’s the pressures of work or family, illness or even poor choices we make, we sometimes find ourselves being pulled down by the weight of "life".

See, crab traps aren’t bad....unless they’re wrapped around a whale. Family and work and the "normal" events of life aren’t bad, but they can wrap themselves around us and begin to pull us down.

It’s at those times that your friends come along to help "cut some of the weight" away from you. Do you have friends like that? I hope so! Better yet, are you a friend like that?

Ecclesiastes 4:9 & 10 tells us: Two people can accomplish more than twice as much as one; they get a better return for their labor. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But people who are alone when they fall are in real trouble.

Galatians 6:2 also tells us: By helping each other with your troubles, you truly obey the law of Christ.

Let me encourage to build the kind of friendships that you can count on in the difficult times. I truly hope that you never find yourself "all tangled up", but if you do, you’ll be blessed to have friends to come and help you out. And if your friend is ever "tangled up", you can be right there for them as well.