I do not believe in excuses. I believe in hard work as the prime solvent of life’s problems. -James Cash Penney (1875-1971), entrepreneur and businessman who founded J.C. Penney store in 1902.

One thing that I have learned as a real estate agent coach is that people will say the craziest things to rationalize why something does not get done! You know what I mean because we all do it…it started a long time ago…”the dog ate my homework!” Sound familiar? As a matter of fact we only seem to get better at it as time goes on…no really….think about it…”I can’t come to work today because a plane crashed in my back yard and I was up all night saving lives!”

But seriously, let’s stop and think about how much energy we put into rationalizing why we avoid doing so many things that really matter to us…I mean things that will determine whether we survive or thrive! Ever got caught by the boss not staying on task because you allowed some personal distraction into the day…texting…facebook…office chit chat? When you really sit back and think about it, that’s stealing! When somebody is paying you to do a job by the hour then they should have the right to expect a return on their dollar…no? Yet when you turn in a half way effort and then get passed over for a promotion do you start to rationalize that it’s because the boss doesn’t like you, doesn’t appreciate you, has a gender or racial bias?

Who are you really kidding or bluffing when you throw up a smoke screen? Rationalization is really the offensive weapon of denial. When you truly don’t want to face reality and hold yourself accountable, then it just seems easier to deflect. Yet the reality is that you’re just creating a ‘lumpy rug’ in your own temple…how long can you continue to sweep things under the rug and not confront them before they begin to cause real problems?

The last of human freedoms – the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances. Victor Frankl (1905-1997), Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, founder of logotherapy, a psychotherapeutic method of finding meaning in all forms of existence.

Imagine for a minute you were suddenly snatched away from your world of comfort…your house, your friends, your family and even your country. Then you were stripped of all your personal belongings right down to the gold and silver fillings that protected your teeth. Now naked and debased, you are subjected to inhumane conditions of existence, tossed in a bunkhouse overflowing with decrepit human specimens who have become mere fragments of their former selves.

Think of your new existence where comfort food is a distant memory and the closest coffee house rendered but a dream…your daily sustenance consists of what you might call “soup” and a morsel of bread that previously you would have discarded into the trash as something too trivial to even consider significant! Now turn down the heat and throw on the least insulated clothing you could find and slap on somebody else’s 20 year old hand-me-down shoes! Oh and by the way, there is definitely no sleeping in or getting sick because that will cost you your life!

Before you get to work you will be awakened in the middle of the deepest sleep only to be mentally and physically degraded so that by the time you even show up to work you really have nothing left mentally. Now in the bitter cold pick up the clearly inadequate tools of your trade and begin the hardest labor that you can think of…a work load that would have modern day human rights activists up in arms pulling the alarm!

Comfort in expressing your emotions will allow you to share the best of yourself with others, but not being able to control your emotions will reveal your worst. -Bryant H. McGill (1969-) Editor and author whose works are used by over one hundred thousand writers, educators, aspiring writers, students and song-writers.

Try and think about the last time you were overrun by your emotions in a situation…how did you handle it? Was the result a calm, cool and collected positive result? Did you clearly convey your thoughts? Did you get your point across without leaving a wake of beaten and battered friends, family or colleagues?

You see emotion or simply our ability to feel is exactly what makes us unique and perhaps top of the food chain. Yet like any strength it also serves as our greatest weakness! Basically, it seems apparent that there is a direct connection between our emotional epicenter and our reaction mechanism lead by our mouths and our words; and of course it’s along that very assembly line where we humans just seem to make a big mess!

It would appear that figuring out what goes wrong is really very basic. I happen to think that it all comes down to some basic fears. Take a relationship for example…any one that is…spouses, business partners or friends! What always seems to be at the root of any problem? Is it really about the disagreement itself or is it the fear of embarrassment…the fear of losing something that leaves us on an island of insecurity!

The unfit die, the fit both live and thrive! -Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn (1876-1959), a poet associated with the American Naturalist literary movement; her autobiography was prefaced with an introduction by Robert Frost.

I remember when I was young talking to a friend of mine who had become a great tennis player! I had not seen him in a while and was amazed at how great he had become…we actually whacked the ball around in the street together…pretty funny scene playing tennis on a skinny Boston street….I could hardly catch up to his shots. He had top spin, under spin, power…the whole box of tricks! So while we were playing I said to him, “Jimmy, you’ve gotten so good at this you must just coast when you’re ahead?”…but his reply was both unexpected and unforgettable: “Nope, exactly the opposite…when I’m ahead, I hit it even harder and play like I’m way behind!”

If you’re any kind of a sports fan like I am, I’m sure you can remember your team or favorite player being ahead on points only to watch them fold like a tent and act like there was no possible way to win without becoming completely defensive. I can think of boxers running away in the last few rounds only to lose on the judges’ score cards after having crafted a masterpiece up to that point…or how about golfers imploding on the final holes!

But think about the real winners…they never seem to let up on the throttle! How about Tiger Woods…he never seems content unless he has decimated the field and even then he finds the flaws in his game or the holes in his boat! How about the image of the great Muhammad Ali standing over his opponents as they lay stretched out on the canvas with nothing left as he willed them back to life hoping for more of that victory!

To a journalist good news is often not news at all. Phil Donahue (1935-), Emmy award winning media personality and star of Donahue, the first tabloid talk show.

There is something I just can’t get past this week! Why is it that we seem to keep accepting that the media…conservative or liberal doesn’t matter…just keeps pounding us with negative news! We sit on the couch and hear about the litany of local fires, shootings, attacks and especially how the financial sky is falling on top of Chicken Little’s head and we just soak it up like we have no choice!

What’s even worse is that we get together, especially in business discussions, and slam the media for accelerating the down turn! Well before you go extending the finger, what are you doing about spreading the good news? Honestly…if you have a business, are you telling people about the fact that your product is discounted to the lowest level it has been in many many years or are you just cutting your budgets to the bone and hoping that someone else does your job for you?

If you’re working at a company are you hiding in your cubicle and waiting for the Grim Reeper to come and harvest your life or are you looking for opportunities to step up and be the leader…you know…the one who gets to work before anybody else and leaves last?! The one who works for free if they have to, just to advance the cause of the team?!

You see the problem is that we’re too focused on the bad news…the end is always coming! Like my grandfather used to say when I was watching cartoons, “you believe that crap?” He was right! I did and we still believe it because we stop looking for the good news or even better the truth! Why not ask a few Bernie Madoff clients?