Alan’s Motivational Achievement Wall Poster
Adversity
When it occurs, it temporarily justifies all the whining you’ve been doing all along.
Boldness
What you observe in others until they fail, whereupon you say, “I told you so.”
Career
Usually ignored by people, who keep allowing their jobs to get in the way.
Daring
See “boldness.”
Excellence
A beautifully nebulous term which implies vast improvement without demanding a metric, standard, or completion. See also “great,” as in “Good to….”
Flexibility
That trait utilized by people who want to justify turning left while signaling right.
Great
A vague sense of high performance somewhat akin to “happy” in it’s clarity, except happiness is more measurable and tangible.
Honesty
When used in it’s adverbial form to begin a sentence, a sure sign that what follows is persiflage, lies, and bunkum, as in, “Honestly, I think your ideas are wonderful….”
Innovation
That quality, above all others, most publicly proclaimed as needed by major organizations, and most brutally beaten down, punished, and eradicated.
Job
A relatively unimportant and temporary condition usually associated with task instead of result, which gets in the way of a career. See “career.”
Keynote
A speech given with the intent of conveying a theme and attitude which will not only be abandoned quickly after the conference, but may not even last until the coffee break.
Leadership
An endangered species on the verge of extinction, and already totally absent from the airline, newspaper, auto, and financial services industries. Oxymoron example: The leadership requires a bailout.
Money
Generally confused with wealth, which is the amount of discretionary time one has, and for which money is merely fuel. (The mindless pursuit of money can actually erode wealth. You can always make another dollar, but you can’t make another minute.)
New
See “originality.”
Originality
See “innovation.”
Pride
That which organizations call on for and bestow upon employees in lieu of raises, better benefits, and job security.
Quality
That anal-retentive search for perfection as characterized by bizarre references to martial arts or obscure Asian phrases, which supercedes actual performance in real time. (My personal favorite: A division president with his top staff on a parade through the plant, examining endless charts and graphs at every work station, while a machine leaked oil, untended, onto the floor right behind them, with no one noticing. I wanted to point it out but lacked my Kaizoo secret decoder ring, and could not communicate.)
Resilience
The capacity to absorb negative feedback like a deep sea sponge and/or hit your head against a stone wall repeatedly, like a demented ram. Example: “He must have great resilience to have weathered all those failures and catastrophes.”
Security
That which accrues to those who keep the lowest profile and do not engage in innovation. See “innovation.”
Time
A priority, not a resource, as in, “Honestly, I wish I had the time to see my kid’s soccer game but I don’t.” Of course you have the time, but you’ve assigned it to a higher priority in your universe.
Uplifting
A phrase often applied to a vacuous and insipid motivational speech which usually involves patriotic music, videos of outstanding athletes, and stories of unimaginable adversity undergone by a speaker who cries exactly 27 minutes into the talk, and whose Mercedes is parked down the block.
Victory
A temporary improvement in condition, never final and seldom fatal, and relatively as long lived as the roller coaster’s pause at the top of the first hill.
Wealth
Discretionary time. The wealthiest people are those able to use their time in whatever ways they choose. See “time” and “money.”
Xerox
A former brand name now used as a generic for the equipment which provides for the mass distribution of résumés, pornographic stories, and photocopies of various human body parts.
Yes Person
The politically correct term for someone with “resilience.” See “resilience.”
Zest
The spice of life, available only to those who work for themselves.
© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.
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