Things that are given away are never lost. (FR Through the years)

 

Point to Ponder: The Greatest Mistake Is To Do Nothing Because You Can Do Only a Little.

A note from a reader last week: “Enjoy each and every one of your Friday reflection. The pictures of your trip to Cambodia sent on 8th July have inspired few of my friends to visit these places. Hope we can make it. By the way, just to let you know, I have saved every Friday reflection sent to me since it's inception”

Story Line: This week marks the end of 31^st year since Friday Reflections began (1985) as stories I would tell our children on Friday evening drives. It also marks the end of 12^th year since Friday Reflections went on internet (email August 5, 2004, WWW later in 2007) to wider audiences. Here is some of the data from Google Analytics since early 2007. Though not impressive by any business standards, reading over 1000 personal emails and over 3000 blog comments show that the main purpose of FR, Things that are given away are never lost, has been served.

Visitors from every continent:

Total Users 331,118. Sessions: 436,936. Page Views: 559,013. 86% of visitors from 10 countries but the other 14% represent remaining countries in the world. Visits from 13,963 cities in the world.

Reflection: Feedback is a gift. A few of the 1000+ comments received in personal emails. Some are short and others can be FR on its own; all very motivational and valuable. Pardon me for taking liberty to go over one page this time. Thank You.

Thanks much for your efforts to make my Fridays memorable. In light of 10’s of emails waiting in INBOX every morning, I used to delete “Friday Reflections” for first few weeks. Then it happened..once I was flying to Israel and had some time to go through my inbox. During the course, I found a couple of reflections and, I must admit, I became a big fan. As a matter of fact, I wait for these on Friday. There was at least one night where I specifically logged in to VPN to see if reflections were already published as I had had a rough day and wanted to finish it off with something positive. I had a good night sleep that night.

This is the e-mail that I look forward to every week. Believe it or not, I have been reading your mail (only yours) even during my sabbatical. Please keep the wisdom flowing… (I even send them to my sons who are 10 and 12. and when we get time we talk about that week’s topic – not always, but we are doing this with increasing frequency).Thank you,-

It’s been great and spiritually inspired when I receive the Friday Reflection article from you. Would like to know is it feasible to continue to send the Friday Reflection email to my personal email address at : …I sincerely appreciate your attention and support.  The reflection article email is really awesome and it does help to stimulate out of box thinking and get inspiration or creative ideas while reflecting on the storyline. Hope to hear from you soon.

It has been a long time since our last talking but I have read through all your FR with sharing my friend and family.  FR is  really valuable all the time, more especially under this kind of turmoil situation, as it inspires our souls to be up and move forward to happen it.

Thank you so very much for sharing this Friday Reflection with us.  How inspiring!!!  I was moved by your generous acknowledgment of each of these terrific bosses and the life lessons each of them had to offer you.  Thanks for passing them on.  While each of these people are impressive human beings, for sure, I hope that you recognize that you "created, promoted, or allowed" them to have this impact on you.  It was who you were being that attracted each of them to you in special ways so that you could learn from them, and I would suspect., they from you.

It's one of my pleasure to read Friday Reflection on every saturday morning.I wonder where that un-dried thinking pond come from?  Always you make me happy and get a relaxation of my life.

Hi Anand!  The passage from Gibran about children come through us, not from us, is something I kept in front of me when I was raising my children.  Now they are grown and my two boys of children of their own.  I passed this on to them this morning.  Thanks so much. 

Anand, I did enjoy the story, it made me feel good, like there is always hope. As a salesman, I am a paid optimist.

A fine story and warming to the heart.  This weekend, I was back home in PA.  Although my parents are gone, many, many friends remain.  One of them is my high school math teacher and his wife.  Long retired, he is just as sharp as ever, a pleasure to speak and be with. I see him nearly every time I am home and speak with him on the phone nearly twice/month.  I have learned much from this guy, not just about math, but about life.  When we move on in life, we need to remember and acknowledge  all those who have helped prepare us for the journey.  They have invested in our future and like to see the return on this investment. 

Such good advice, but often so hard to accept.  And, as managers, it is often hard for us to give truly meaningful and unvarnished feedback for fear the recipient will take it wrong.  To contribute most successfully, managers need to learn to constructively hear and incorporate feedback as well as provide truly developmental and clear feedback to our teams.  Thanks for sending this good reminder.

AHH I did see this email come through but I couldn’t read it, not because of the large number for accumulated emails but because I knew I instantly would cry. Daughters and fathers are bound by a very special bond, in the best cases these bonds are the ones that evolves humanity… if a father does his duty the daughter will grow up to trust another man and perhaps give continuity to the greatness of the human race. And on that 2^nd part is where my emotions are difficult to control.

Just read your Taiwan airport story about 3 days after taking the exact Asiana Taipei to Seoul flight myself. And they are as friendly and cheerful as you said.

Thanks for sharing, its beautifully written. How do you manage to share just the right story with just the right tone/messaging.

Thanks for picking this storyline today.  I have to tell you that this is my favorite song and live with all the lyrics on a day to day manner.  As I read the story and how this song touched your children’s life, tears start to form in my eyes.  Being an immigrant there’s a lot of adjustment that you have to do in order to cope with your new surroundings.  At first, I thought that I can be happy as long as everyone around me likes me…but that mentality is not real.  Happiness can be achieve if you first love yourself and making everyone likes you will happen naturally.

I love these Anand!  I will have to sign up to get them on my personal email after December 7^th…because…I am retiring from Intel on that day!!!!  26 years is plenty for me!  J Wonderful lessons and they're free!  Thanks Anand.  Your passion is touching a lot of lives… and companies…God bless!

Tradition will accustom people to atrocity article: Hello Anand, This Friday reflection is very timely for me.  I am currently challenging a very old process that we own and taking the risk to drive changes.  The phrase used in this article exactly reflects my basis for doing it – If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.  Rgds,

These are excellent can I use them in my MMC presentation. specifically near the what is possible slide. All too often, we become ensnared by the familiar phenomenon:

Thanks for sending all these inspirational stories without fail every Friday! I couldn’t agree better with the “many fail to grasp what’s right in the palm of their hands” story. I feel that this can apply to all aspects of life. Nothing is difficult as long as we set our minds to it and work hard at it. What is in the palm of our hands? Our own will power and intelligence to chart our destiny… Regards, (

Anand – very nice article and good reminder to many of us who ask for honest feedback and then always go defensive (including myself). Lately I have been seeing instances though at senior management levels where honest feedback can brand you as a non-team player. Kind of reminds me of Mr. Bush and Dixie Chicks.

One of the things I read in your stories is how to make any experience a positive one, how anyone has something to teach, even if that person is the greatest scientific, CEO, or the taxi driver, everyone has something positive to teach. Thank you and Analisa for keeping FR reflections coming in every week.  Again, have a marvelous 2008 and keep sending in your stories.

 

Comments

[chiaoju]

I'm glad that I was introduced to this site. The posts that are written are definitely priceless.

Watching the video elevates the doubts I've had this week, a doubt on myself if what I do really does matter. I think it's time to realize that being able to make an impact to even just one individual is an achievement as to not attempting to even try.

Thanks for everything. The impact from this site alone has been so great.

[Email from a friend (posted by FR team)]

Thank you for the reflection. This one is a specially meaningful one as a small thing as a time is all I can do to make a difference.

I was really thirsty in the late afternoon waiting for a customer's meeting. I walked into a Chevron/Subway shop. As I was getting ice, I saw a man sitting down to have his instinct noodle. He smelled terrible. I took a chance of possibly offending him and asked him whether he'd like a sandwich. He did. I got him a foot long roasted sandwich with everything he wanted in it plus coke and chips. He was very appreciative. I had to go see the customer and left him after saying 'enjoy your sandwich.' I wondered what his story was but just wanted to let him know that we do care. That's all I can do.

Have a great weekend.

Best regards,

[A teammember from China.]

*Thanks for keeping share these awesome stories with us. Three years ago, when I was still fresh in my career, I seldom read your Friday Reflection carefully. And the only thought I had is: These are all “big words” that are useless for my real life. But, today, as the growing of my maturity onoth personality and professionalism, I use your stories as tool to understand more on life, inspire more on what I should do and generate some OBT solutions. Believe it or not, I even can feel my understanding of the life/world is deeper and my goal is clearer every time after the brainstorm triggered by your stories.

I highly respect the leadership you demonstrated, And I believe that’s the “true” leadership. People manager does not equal to leader. Leader should do more than “get the subordinates’ job done”. Leader should always inspire his team and team member to think, to do, and to innovate, then create record or reach where they never thought before in both professional and personal life. That’s exactly what you are doing now!!!

Thanks again! If I can be a little successful in the future, no matter in or out of our company, definitely I need to thank you and your stories that changed my mindset.

*this comment from 2009 was supposed to be part of the main body of today's reflection. Reposted in here by FR team.

[BHSC]

Yes, thank you for doing this.. helps so many of us each week.. thank you!

[Madhuri]

Very true. But "materials things" given to me or given by me- have been lost. However the wisdom and inspiration that I have received through the FRs these past 9 years- will never be lost. Often times I have passed them down to my sons and even my husband who initially made some wise cracks :)

Thank you Anand!

[Anne Chong]

Yes, FR always inspired us. Sometimes it linked to our daily life happenings. After reading it, we gets a new perspective in seeing the things that we were involved. Keep it going and hope it will be on forever!

[California Guy]

Dear Anand,

Your FRs are one of many ways where you have made an impact directly to me or indirectly through family and friends. Your FRs and your many additional offline PTPs will never be lost for quite a while because I and your audience will continue to share them with others explicitly in our dialogues or implicitly in our actions.

Thank you!

[ST]

Dear Anand,
A late revert to this FR but had to share my feelings. FR has been an absolute inspiration to me by way of reading your stories over such a vast span of your working life. Very thought provoking but most importantly your ability to share these with so many readers. Very proud of you and Thank you.