Linda Melcher gave me a great little book over the holidays called QBQ! The Question Behind the Question. The author, John G. Miller, promotes the concept of personal accountability. He challenges individuals to lose their "victim" mentality (Why did this happen to me?). As I read the book, I couldn’t help but stop and relate the ideas presented in the book to our WIN principles. For the bullets this month, the thoughts from John Miller appear in regular type, and my observations of how the ideas relate to the our principles are in italics.

• Have you ever watched an eagle soar and said to yourself, "I wish he could swim like a dolphin." Have you ever watched a dolphin glide through the water and think, "I wish he could run like a lion." Sound ridiculous? 
  • Have you ever seen someone walk by and said to yourself, "I wish I could look like that!"
• Procrastination is a problem for most people and most companies. No one gets out of bed with the goal of being a better procrastinator for the day (even extreme procrastinators who might say that they would put it off until tomorrow). 
  • What’s keeping you from a healthier you?
• No matter what we’re trying to accomplish, there’s always barriers in our way. We have no control over some of the barriers. To succeed, we need to adopt a "beat the ref" mentality. Instead of saying "I could have won if the refs hadn’t made those bad calls," we need to adopt an attitude of "I can succeed even when the calls don’t go my way."
  • Old thought: I would have been more physically active today if only I hadn’t lost all that time with a dead car battery, my uncooperative hair, the runaway dog this morning, and all those e-mail messages. New thought: I’ll be physically active even when unexpected things happen.
• Personal accountability does not begin with you. It begins with me. Have you tried to "fix" anybody lately? Did it work? Here’s a new twist on the serenity prayer - let me accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it’s me. 
  • I dream of a world where walking paths replace congested traffic and ice cold water fountains stand on each corner instead of soft drink vending machines. Until my dream comes true, I’ll start ordering water with my away-from-home meals instead of soft drinks and choose to walk instead of drive every chance I get.

Source: QBQ! The Question Behind the Question by John G. Miller, 2001, Denver Press, ISBN 0-9665832-9-9.

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