Month: August 2016

We are continuing to look at the word “SURGING”.

S – Surging – Surging or moving forward.  You do not want to be sitting still.

U – Understanding – Understanding the game

R – Respect, Reliability and Responsibility – Can you have one without the other?

G – Guarantee – Guarantee to do a great job

 I – Integrity – Your reputation

N – Never Quit or Give Up – If you give up; the game is over.  Keep pressing forward.

G – Genuine – Do you lie to everyone around you, of who you really are?

Respect, Reliability and Responsibility- three very different words and yet they all go together.  You can’t have one of these without the others, yet they all stand alone. Let’s take a look at these three words as we discuss the Three Rs to Success.

Respect – You may know some people that demand respect and you may ask if this is the proper way to get respect.  In truth, we have no right to demand respect from others.  If someone is in a powerful position then maybe the position itself demands respect, but not necessarily the person.  Respect is something earned over time by interactions with others.  When you give respect, others in turn will respect you.  If you want respect; you have to give respect.  Don’t take the word of a group about a certain person.  Give that person the benefit of doubt and keep an open mind.  Others will see that you don’t just take the word of others, but that you wait and form your own opinion.  It is important to treat others as you want to be treated. 

There are people in this world that treat others disrespectfully.  These people often have low self-esteem.  They will try to put you down and will not tell or teach you anything because they live in fear of losing their jobs.  These people do not respect themselves let alone give respect to others.   They lie, cheat, and steal to try to get one over on the company.  When you see someone like this, use this as training for yourself of what not to do.  Sometimes you can learn more from a negative than a positive example.

Reliability – Gaining respect means that you are reliable; that others can rely on you.  Your word is true.  When you say “yes” it is a yes and your “no” means no.  There is a parable in the Bible where a farmer asks his son to go and work in the field.  The son replies “yes” that he will go.  The farmer also asks his other son to go and work in the field, but this son says “no” that he is unable.  Later the second son changes his mind and goes and works while the first son never showed up.  Which one of these sons is the most reliable? 

We have so many ways to communicate now with all of our technology and social media, but still some people don’t call to say that they can’t be there or that they are running late.  Or we have the some people that are always late for classes and meetings.  It is as if they are saying that their time is more important than yours because now the class or meeting runs late because they had to get caught up on all that they had missed.  Time is a precious commodity.  If you promise someone that you will be somewhere, be there when you say; that is being reliable.  If you get held up because life happens, then just call and let them know that you are running late. 

Being reliable means living as you say and standing for what you believe.  That does not mean that we agree on everything.  We can have different world views, but we can respect one another and sometimes you just agree to disagree.

Responsibility – If you are reliable, your word becomes truth and you take responsibility for your actions.  Each of us messes up and makes mistakes.  We do not intentionally plan it, but when they happen own up to them.  When you take responsibility for your actions, you are deemed reliable and others respect you.  If there comes a time when something happens and it looks like you might have done it.  You know that you did not and you stand up and say this; because you have earned respect and people know that in the past you have admitted when you made a mistake; they will stand with you against this false accusation.  But if you have not earned the respect of others and have not been reliable then even if this is a false accusation you may get written up or even fired because others do not trust your word.

By taking Responsibility and being Reliable you earn the Respect of others and this will keep us Surging Forward. 

 

Remember last week we spoke about the word “SURGING” and I broke down each of the letters:

S – Surging – A force that takes us forward

U – Understanding – Understanding the world around us and other people

R – Reliability and Respect – Can you have one without the other?

G – Guarantee – Guarantee to do a great job

 I – Integrity – Your reputation

N – Never Quit or Give Up – If you give up; the game is over.  Keep pressing forward.

G – Genuine – Do you lie to everyone around you, of who you really are?

This week we continue with the letter “U” for Understanding.

If you are not aware of what is going on around you or you do not understand what’s going on around you; it is very hard to get ahead or to Surge Forward.  Understanding what is going on in your basic workplace is the key to Surging Forward.

Ask yourself do you know what is going on at your job?  Do you even know the purpose of your job?

We live in a “what’s in it for me” society and that does not resonate in a workplace.  Working by some has been deemed a right in our society and they feel that the employer owes them.  We all hear the lunchroom talks of how the boss is making all the money, but he just sits in the office.  When you start having this type of conversation with your peers; you are going down the “negative” rabbit hole and have stopped Surging Forward.

The media has created an entitlement mentality.  With this mentality it is hard to feel successful.  If you want to be successful you are going to have to work.  Let’s try to understand the real process so that next time you are not pulled into this negative conversation.

Why are we working?  Is it because we love to get up early, go fight traffic, and then deal with all the headaches of the job? “No”; we work so we have some money.  The reason we have a job is to make money.  When you went on the interview for your job, you were selling yourself by trying to make a good impression.  At this interview you and your employer made an agreement: you would work for him and he would pay you a wage.  The employer is running a business.  Their business is there to make money.  The employer hires workers to help their business make more money. They did not create a business just to hire people. Employers hire workers because they have too much work to be handled alone.  Employers trade money (wages) for their worker’s service to produce their product.  As a worker you are trading your services for money.  If you look at it this way, it is almost like you are self- employed.  If you look at it this way then it creates “value”.  You should want to do your very best because you are trading your service for your money.  If an employer sees your “value” as a good employee then they will want to keep you and will often give you a raise.  Even if they do not give you a raise, you are learning skills that you can take to get a better job.  Then you are Surging Forward because you have learned to understand and play the game.

When I started Surging Forward about four years ago it was set-up to help tradesman grow in their trade.  As I spoke to fellow tradesman I realized that the continuing on-line education courses were either very expensive or the cheaper ones were sort of dull. I went about to create an on-line course to allow tradesman men and women to meet the educational requirements to renew their license.  Later as I taught the Electrical Apprenticeship classes it was brought to my attention that there was a void in where to get training to move up to the next level and that no one seemed to care.  Training at jobs is often just on safety or company policies and it is the same training over and over.  But training to move up to the next level was missing.

In the past when I was coming up through the trades there was not a whole lot of material out there for training.  You had to learn by the school of hard knocks.  Many tradesmen that learned this way are not used to training others and they are not aware of the material that is now available.  So those in the trenches get frustrated and their dreams get crushed as they lose hope of how to get out.

I had mentors that taught me, that it is not about what others do to you, but it is about what are you learning from others.  We need to learn to Surge above the circumstances that are around you. The reality of life is that “life happens”.  Only you can make a difference in your life.  Nobody can force you to be angry, nobody can force you to be depressed or sad in the same way nobody can force you to be happy or have a positive attitude. It comes from you and that is where you have to come to the decision that I am going to go the positive way.  It is very easy to be negative and to find other negative people.  You have to make a personal decision of what you are going to do and are you going to make a difference in somebody else’s life.  We need to learn to shut out the negative as much as possible and not let it affect you.

In our fast paced world today we don’t seem to have time for one-on-one mentorship so hopefully this podcast can reach out to more people.  The more people I help; the more people are out there to help me when I am in need.  This is what it is all about – helping one another to keep Surging Forward.  It takes faith and it takes mentors that pull us along to Surge in this negative world.

What does SURGING mean?

S – Surging – a force that takes us forward

U – Understanding – understanding the world around us and other people

R – Responsibility and Respect – Can you have one without the other?

G – Guarantee – Guarantee to do a great job

I – Integrity – your reputation

N – Never Quit or Give Up – if you give up the game is over.  Keep pressing forward

G – Genuine – do you lie to everyone around you of who you really are

We will address each of these in the coming weeks as we continue to

Keep Surging Forward

If you enjoy this podcast please feel free to leave a comment below, share with a friend and also visit or Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SurgingForward/

We also have a You tube page where you can watch the actual podcast visit us at https://www.youtube.com/user/surgingforward

Looking to network and get personal training visit us and like on face book click here

Follow us on twitter click here

Follow us on Instagram.

Contractor and Tradesman courses to Help you Get and retain your Tradesman license; visit our website at www.surgingforward.com

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Welcome to the Surging Forward Podcast.  This is our first podcast where we are going to strive to Create a Positive You in a Negative World.  What does this mean?  All of us are confronted with so much each day and you might even feel like you are running in a dead end job.  There is not a whole lot of training to move ahead and when there is training sometimes it is very expensive or out of touch.  This podcast is the first of hopefully a long journey where we will do short weekly podcasts to help you, the working class get ahead.  I want to help you excel in your career.  Much of what we will talk about applies to tradesman, but really it can be applied to anyone that wants to excel in their career or as I like to say to “Surge Forward”. 

Some background about myself; I started in the trades right after the Navy.  I started in the trenches and now I am an Inspector, a Consultant, and an Instructor for the Electrical Apprenticeship Program and an On-Line Instructor. 

Hopefully by listening to these podcast, it will give you an opportunity to change your life.  Some of the topics that we will be discussing will be:

            Tradesman Licensing – Why Do I need a License

            How Do I Get a License

            How to Make More Money

            How to Get Ahead In the Field

            How Do You Start Your Own Business

            How Do You Stay In Business

These are just a few of the topics and as we go along I hope to address topics that you send in that are of interest to you.  None of us are perfect.  We are all here to grow together.  And as we grow we will find out that it is not all about ourselves, it is about seeing how many others we can help along the way to keep Surging Forward.

If you enjoy this podcast please feel free to leave a comment below, share with a friend and also visit or Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SurgingForward/

We also have a You tube page where you can watch the actual podcast visit us at https://www.youtube.com/user/surgingforward

Looking to network and get personal training visit us and like on face book click here

Follow us on twitter click here

Follow us on Instagram.

Contractor and Tradesman courses to Help you Get and retain your Tradesman license; visit our website at www.surgingforward.com

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