Epilogue from January 12 post...

Hi Max, 

A miracle occured in New York to give us a great example of Excellence. 

 Kathy Burchfield from beautiful North Carolina re-posted our January 12 blog post on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=43190237573&ref=mf).

Here is my response:

Michael J. Maher at 11:43am January 17

“First, Kathy, I am humbled that you posted my blog post. Thank you for that and Max says "fank yew" as well. =0) (Max, I tried to make that sound like you and sorry to put words in your mouth, but I tried to be as close as possible to what you might say, if you could talk. =0). 

Here's an additional thought from my last blog post (on January 12)? Who do you want as your pilot for your next flight? How about someone like Sully Sullenberger of US Airways and the Hudson River Miracle? The more you find out about Sully Sullenberger, the more you will find out that he was perfect for the job of landing that plane on water! Chesley B. Sullenberger, III is part of a Plane Safety Research Team. The Hero of Flight 1549 was a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force. He studies planes and their safety! He was "born to be a pilot" according to his wife. He has dedicated himself to Excellence. He owns a company called Safety Reliability Methods, Inc. He eats and sleeps plane safety! Who do you want piloting your plane?!

Now look at your clients. Who do they deserve as their Realtor, Attorney, Mortgage Professional or in your profession? Is it you? Is it YOU?! If not, what do you have to do to become the one they deserve? If it seems too daunting, perhaps a change of profession is in your future? Ouch! (Sometimes I hit people with a truth so brutal it stings, but if that is what it takes for someone to live the rest of their life pursuing their passion and their why, then I have served a purpose.)

Lastly, find your passion, find your why, and passionately pursue your why!”

To Your Success, 

Max's Papa (Michael)

P.S. Here is my e-mail to Sully Sullenberger: 

"Hello sir,

Just wanted to drop you a quick note to applaud your efforts, not only on the day of January 15, but for all the events before January 15 - all your research on safety and reliability, all your paying attention during training, and all your dedication to Excellence so that January 15 could happen without fatalities. The miracle isn’t that you made that plane walk on water, it was that you were piloting that plane, a uniquely qualified expert on plane safety and a person dedicated to Excellence in his profession. You are not only a role model for all pilots, but for all people who pursue Excellence in whatever they do. 

Take care and God bless, 

Michael

We Pursue Perfection Catching Excellence on the Way - Michael J. Maher

Hi Max!

A couple of great quotes came across my desktop today: 

"Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves."

- Dale Carnegie

"If you are called to be a street sweeper, sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.' "

- Martin Luther King

Two terrific quotes. This is Martin Luther King week with Martin Luther King Day next Monday. The next day, Barack Hussein Obama will be inaugurated as President of the United States. How very appropriate! It truly shows that anybody can attain anything in this country. You are not limited by color, name, or experience. Here's an example I use at my presentations for my comment: "It is Easier to Be Excellent than it is to Be Mediocre."

Let's say you had brain surgery. Luckily you have insurance that will be paying for you to have this surgery. There is a 50-50 chance of normalcy post-surgery. Who would you choose for your surgery? Would you choose the best in your area? How about the best in the country? Would you choose the best in the World? Yes, you would. You want the best when it comes to your most valuable organ. 

Would you care if the brain surgeon is black, white, green, female, male, didn't speak your language, wasn't your religion, or was a midget? You wouldn't. And why not? Because of Excellence.

Also, do you think that this surgeon has to go out and look for clients or do you think clients find him? Do you think he or she has open time in his or her schedule or do you think his schedule is as full as he or she wants?  When they say, I can't see you until next week, how many "clients" do you think they lose? 

Excellence Attracts. Mediocrity Chases. 

Align everything within you to be geared for Excellence. 

Raise your standards of performance to Excellence. 

Don't settle for less. Do less things, but do them better. 

If you are going to do it, do it well. 

Commit vs. Involve. The difference between Commitment and Involvement can be found in the typical breakfast: Ham and Eggs. The Chicken was involved. The Pig was comittted. All in.

Whether you are going to be a street sweeper or a surgeon, dedicate yourself to Excellence. It's not just in one of us or a few of us, but all of us. 

To Your Success, 

Max's Dad (Michael)

Happy New Year 2009!

<-- Max on New Year's Eve making like Al Bundy. =0)

Hi Max!

Happy New Year 2009!

I know you'll Let Your Light Shine in 2009. You are a child with everything in front of you.

I hope you'll keep your curiosity, your open-mindedness, and your innocent trust forever.

Your dependence will gradually become independence, then inter-dependence.

Your unconscious incompetence (you don't know what you don't know) will become conscious incompetence (you realize that you don't know) which will graduate to conscious competence (you know what you know) and to finally unconscious competence (you're in the zone, excellence just comes out of you without you thinking about what you are doing).

I'm looking forward to helping you along the way. Empowering without enabling, giving you rope, but not enough for you to hang yourself, and helping you discover new adventures while guiding you away from danger.

What an exciting year this is going to be!

Happy New Year!

To Your Success,

Michael

The Tiger Woods of Real Estate...

Hi Bay-Bee;

Two posts today, but had to deliver this news and discuss.

Last weekend, Tiger Woods won the US Open, a major golf tournament in dramatic style. He sank a 30-ft putt for eagle, a 67-foot putt for eagle and two-hopped a chip in for a birdie, but what was even more impressive is that he did it with immense pain. (See article below.).

Your mom and I drove to Branson during the weekend to check on some properties for clients. As we were driving, I was listening to the golf tourney and we chatted about Tiger. Something you will find out about your Papa is that I am a sports lover. And not just a casual spectator-type of sports lover, but deep, intense analyzer of who does what for what reasons and what would impact what facet of each game or each player. I'm a sports scientist. I've watched as many games and as many different sports as anyone possibly could. I watched them with your grandpa, still watch them with your grandma (especially KU basketball), and will watch many in the future with you.

Nobody in my life has impacted my sports viewing as much as Tiger Woods. No athlete I've ever watched has impressed me or amazed me as much as Tiger Woods. I don't want to miss a minute of his career. Every time I watch he does something incredible. Every time. The eagles, the drives, the hitting a 3-iron out of a fairway bunker to within 6 feet of the hole, and the absolute clutch putts to win or tie events. I never saw Pele play soccer until later in his career. I didn't see Babe Ruth play baseball. I saw Michael Jordan play basketball. I saw Wayne Gretzky play hockey. I just can't imagine anybody epitomizing the word Excellence as well as Tiger Woods. He's not perfect. Nobody is perfect. But he PURSUES PERFECTION CATCHING EXCELLENCE ON THE WAY.

I asked your mom what it would take to be The Tiger Woods of Real Estate. She mentioned practice, being raised from 5 years old to be a real estate agent, positive attitude, etc. We had a discussion and in prying a little deeper we found that Tiger possesses the key ingredients to anybody's success story:

First, he has FOCUS. He's a golfer. Not a golfer and a flight instructor. Not a golfer and basketball player. He's a golfer. His focus is to become the best golfer on the planet. This week was his 500th consecutive week being the #1 -ranked golfer on the PGA Tour. He plays golf. How does one become the Tiger Woods of Real Estate? He or she is a professional real estate agent. He (or she, but let's stick with he) works full-time at real estate. His profession time is spent on RE and his family time is spent on family. You will learn many things, but after you find your passion, I hope you can stay focused. You will have the talent and the smarts to do anything you want. The key is to do what you want with focus.

Second, and this is just as important as focus, he has DRIVE. He wants to leave a legacy of Excellence. He doesn't compete against others. He competes against himself. He has this burning fire of desire, this fuel that drives him to be the best. Not just the best, but the very best, the best anybody has ever seen. He wants to not just beat the competition, but annihilate the competition by taking his game to heights never seen. This inner drive, this quest to be the best is something I hope you feel. Socrates once said (and I am paraphrasing poorly, of course who was there to hear his exact words? :), if you are to be the street sweeper, be the very best street sweeper. if you are to be the senator, be the very best senator. This is the truth and not something that I understood when I was younger. But I definitely get it now. There is a thirst, a hunger inside of me that is like an itch that you can't satisfy. It is a little twinge of discomfort that keeps me up late at night, gets me up in the morning, and invades my thought daily. It's no longer needing a push because this feeling is the big pull. You see Bay-Bee, the thing is that once you have smelled the aroma of Excellence, once you have tasted the air of that atmosphere, you never want to settle for less. It's not about others, it's about maximizing yourself. Your talents, time, thoughts, treasures, and talk funneled for one purpose: to be the best you can be. To Be Excellent.

He has the FOCUS and the DRIVE, but he also puts in the TIME TO IMPROVE.
Practice makes Perfect is a fallacy. If you continue to repeat the mistakes of before over and over again. It becomes even more difficult to learn new habits to re-focus your energies towards Excellence. I'll give you an example.
Fred Haywood is a friend of mine. In his younger days, he was a champion swimmer. The back stroke. He grew up in Southern California and because of his accomplishments, he was asked to participate in a pre-Olympic training event. Fred swam and swam and swam. He worked day and night on the back stroke to prepare for this event.
When Fred showed up at the event, he was introduced to another pretty good swimmer, Mark Spitz (Spitz went on to win seven gold medals at the Olympics). The first time Fred went head-to-head with Spitz, he got smoked. It wasn't even close. Fred spent the day and night practicing. The second day, Fred got smoked again. Fred was depressed. He had spent a lot of time practicing, but he wasn't improving. A coach approached Fred that second day and asked if Fred was enjoying the event.
"No," said Fred.
And then he got the lesson. After asking if Fred was interested in a few pointers and getting a nod of approval, the coach said, "You're all over the place in your lane. You're working twice as hard as everybody else but not getting anywhere. Are you interested in learning a technique that will help you stay straighter and decrease your effort by 50%?"
"YES." said Fred.
The coach said, "Grab those two towels over there."
Fred did.
"Stand up and act like you are doing your back stroke. As you spin your hands behind you I want you to drop the towels. Just go like you are doing one complete stroke."
Fred did it. One towel went 10 feet behind Fred and the other went 5 feet to the left and 5 feet behind Fred.
"That's why you are all over the place. Your hands aren't finishing in the same place. Now, here's what I want you to do: I want you to work on this so that the towels land at your heels. You should snap your arms around so that BOTH towels land at your heels. Take this stack of towels and work on this here on the concrete deck. Try it once."
Fred tried it. He rotated his right arm in front of him and as his arm whipped over head, he snapped his arm down and the towel ended up 3 feet behind him. He rotated his left arm and as he snapped his arm around, the towel ended up 2 feet behind his heels. Fred grabbed two more towels. Snap. Snap. Two towels right behind Fred. Snap. Snap. Two more towels behind Fred.
The next day, Fred beat Mark Spitz in the back stroke. If it weren't for injuries Fred Haywwod would have been an Olympian. He's still an Olympian in my books because his heart is the size of the Earth.
The lesson Fred learned that day was that no matter how hard you practice if you are practicing the wrong thing, it doesn't make a difference. With a small change in technique, practice can mean the difference.
The Tiger Woods of Real Estate would be focused, have drive, and put in the time to improve.
Learn --> Implement --> Screw up --> Learn --> Implement --> Screw Up --> Learn... the beat continues.
To Your Success,
Bay-Bee's Papa (Michael)