An Aircraft Carrier Crew Mate Knows How To Be Smart About Staying Alive

 
Smart Success
Seeing opportunities for serendipitous success
In people who are different from you because you understand
that your success is connected to their success
 
“You have to set aside dislikes and understand each other. Because you never do know, that maybe that person you don’t like, they may have to save your life.
Crew Mate
USS Nimitz
 
Carrier
Episode 2: “Controlled Chaos”
PBS
April 2008

Ignored Latinos Create Smart Political Success

Smart Success
Seeing opportunities for serendipitous success
in people who are different from you because you understand
that your success is connected to their success

For years, Democratic and Republican politicians foolishly ignored Phoenix area Latino voters, believing they were unlikely to vote.

Daniel Valenzuela was a Phoenix firefighter who decided to run for the city council in the spring of 2011, an off-year election. Valenzuela asked five Latino students at a local college to help him win the council seat by getting residents of the mostly Latino west side registered to vote. Those five students recruited almost another hundred people under the age of 30. Identifying themselves as Team Awesome, this group made 72,000 door to door visits to the Latinos that Democratic and Republican politicians foolishly ignored. They returned to some homes four or five times. Turnout for the election was up 480% from the previous off-year election. The vote count was almost 14,000. Valenzuela beat his Republican opponent by an almost 3 to 2 ratio.

Political rookie Daniel Valenzuela was smart in three ways.

He was smart to focus on registering ignored Latinos to vote.

He was smart to ask Latino college students to help him register other Latinos to vote.

He was smart to pass the power of recruiting for Team Awesome to the Latino college students.

Valenzuela’s smart approach to politics brought success on election day in Phoenix.

Daniel Valenzuela saw an opportunity for serendipitous success
in unregistered Latinos because he understood
that his success as a candidate was connected to their success as voters.

“Why Latino Voters Will Swing The 2012 Election”
Michael Scherer
Time Magazine
March 5, 2012, 22-29

~~~~~

 Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.speakingfromtriumph.com

Keep reading this blog for examples of 8 success choices and 8 failure choices. Use the examples to spark success and fight failure.

Standards For Success Posters

Success & Failure Choices

Resource Websites

smilessparksuccess.com

speakingfromtriumph.com

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com 

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com

A Banker’s Smart Success Attitude Brought Her An Angel In Her Time Of Need

 Smart Success
Seeing opportunities for serendipitous success
in people who are different from you
because you understand that
your success is connected to their success

When homeless Curtis Jackson asked a suburban Chicago banker for money, the banker always treated him with respect. She was smart enough to have the attitude that even homeless people are valuable.

Then the banker lost her job and home and almost her son when Children’s Services threatened to take him away from her.

Curtis Jackson, the homeless man who appreciated the banker’s respectful attitude, began panhandling to keep the banker and her son in a motel. He took what he collected — minus money for food and bus fare — to the banker’s motel every night. From December 2011 to May 2012, he gave her $9,000. He told a reporter that he planned to keep helping the former banker until she no longer needed help. The homeless man other people ignored became an “angel” for the banker and her son.

The banker’s attitude of respect
for the homeless man’s needs
gave him a reason to respect
her need for help during her homelessness.

“Homeless man who befriended banker begs to pay for her hotel after she loses her job and house”
Daniel Bates
Daily Mail
May 12, 2011

“Panhandler Helps Homeless Banker Who Respected Him”
Martin Gould
Newsmax
May 12, 2011

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.speakingfromtriumph.com

Keep reading this blog for examples of 8 success choices and 8 failure choices. Use the examples to spark success and fight failure.

Standards For Success Posters

Success & Failure Choices

Resource Websites

smilessparksuccess.com

speakingfromtriumph.com

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com 

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com

Smart Success Begins With Recognizing Equality

Smart Success
Seeing opportunities for serendipitous success in people
who are different from you because you understand that
your success is connected to their success

Freelance writer Louise Tutelian became a volunteer for Literacy Volunteers of America. She wrote a “Viewpoint” column for Glamour Magazine about the experience of tutoring middle-aged Tom to read. Tom had been sickly as a child, had missed months of school at a time, and since his school apparently didn’t help him catch up, quit at age 12.

Tutelian began the sessions with the expectation of “imparting some of the fruits of my knowledge to someone less fortunate than I.” She had to overcome the “glare from my halo” before she could recognize equality and start practicing smart success.

Tutelian did teach Tom to read, but much slower than she expected. In return, Tom taught Tutelian persistence. She had so much trouble getting her new computer to print out a chart she designed that she considered giving up and making the chart by hand. Then Tutelian remembered Tom persistently insisting that she drill him on sounding out the “m” and “n” sounds until he knew he could pronounce them correctly no matter when they appeared. Tutelian slowed down to Tom’s speed, “carefully reread the instructions”, and printed out her chart.

Tom also taught Tutelian to forget about focusing on big successes right away. Through Tom, Tutelian learned to be happy with the small successes that would eventually make the big successes possible.

Finally, Tom taught Tutelian to be grateful for everything she had taken for granted. Tom worked as a sanitation worker who had to drive trucks even though he could not read road signs. He had been cheated by his ex-wife because he couldn’t read insurance forms. He bought the wrong food at grocery stores because he could not read the packages. Tutelian easily read road signs to get where she wanted to go, read legal documents as she needed to, and brought home the food she wanted to eat. Tom needed to learn to read for survival. Tutelian stopped bringing in sports stories to teach Tom reading comprehension. Instead, she focused on the road signs and food packages Tom needed to read for survival.

It’s obvious to me that Tutelian learned a fourth lesson from Tom:

Effectiveness begins with satisfying basic needs.

Tutelian’s late blooming smart success left her feeling less “noble”, a feeling that hadn’t done her any good anyway. Recognizing her equality with Tom brought her serendipitous opportunities to benefit from what Tom could teach her about success.

“Teaching an Illiterate Taught Me Plenty”
Louise Tutelian
Glamour
March 1988, page 32

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.speakingfromtriumph.com

Keep reading this blog for examples of 8 success choices and 8 failure choices. Use the examples to spark success and fight failure.

Standards For Success Posters

Success & Failure Choices

Resource Websites

smilessparksuccess.com

speakingfromtriumph.com

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com 

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com

Be Smart About Finding Good Doctors

Smart Success
Seeing opportunities for serendipitous success in people
who are different from you because you understand
that your success is connected to their success

A good doctor has an Ivy League degree, a prestigious title, and charm, right?

Not according to Marty Makary, a doctor himself. Makary practices laparoscopic surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, teaches health policy at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and is an international expert in patient safety.

Makary’s advice for finding a good doctor is to ask people lower down on the organizational ladder, hospital employees. “Their word trumps an Ivy League degree, prestigious titles, and charm.’

Be smart by looking behind polish (Ivy League degrees, prestigious titles, charm) to look for performance. The people who see performance everyday are the people who know whose performance is best.

High polish does not guarantee high performance.

Low polish (a lower level job in a hierarchy) does not automatically mean low performance.

Low polish hospital employees demonstrate high performance in identifying high performing doctors.

“50 Secrets your Surgeon Won’t Tell You”
Michelle Crouch
Reader’s Digest
October 2012, pages 114-123

~~~~~

Paula M. Kramer
© 2015 to the present
All rights reserved.

Posts on this blog alternate with posts at the link below. Posts for both blogs are published on Wednesdays as they are ready to be published. Time between posts could be weeks or months.

blog.speakingfromtriumph.com

Keep reading this blog for examples of 8 success choices and 8 failure choices. Use the examples to spark success and fight failure.

Standards For Success Posters

Success & Failure Choices

Resource Websites

smilessparksuccess.com

speakingfromtriumph.com

Business Directory

betterplanetbusiness.com 

Positive Identity Directory For People With Mugshots

myrecordnow.com