Life Lessons: The Golden Rule

My parents were not religious.  The only time I remember going to church as a kid was when I went with friends and their families, or when my favorite Aunt Sue and Uncle Herbert took me to church when we were in "the country" on weekends (tiny unincorporated city of Breeding, KY).

In spite of this (actually, BECAUSE of this I think), I could not have asked for better role models.

These two people literally worked themselves into an early grave. Now as I am getting older, and I have been without them for so long, I see even more the effect they had on me.  One of those things were to treat others the way I would want to be treated.  Another one is that my rights end where someone else's begin (I can still see my Mama sitting at the table telling me this).

I think above all things, this is my favorite lesson I learned.  Although I am human, and I get mad, and have actually said things back to people when I was standing my ground or when I felt that I was wronged, and I always ended up regretting it.  There is no reason to talk badly to people.

I also teach this at work.  I am in sales, and I take my job very personally (remember, my mom and dad working themselves to death?  Yep - it's hereditary).  I always tell the new kids "be the kind of sales person to someone that you would want to deal with yourself."

Sometimes they listen, but mostly I'm sure they internally roll their eyes when I try to give life wisdom within a sales training sesh.

Also, whenever I see a list of traits of certain archetypes that I do NOT want to be considered in with, I always do a mental mini checklist of myself to make sure I don't have those same characteristics.  If I find that some of them hit a little too close to home, then that's where I'm going to work as soon as possible.  The only thing I hate worse than a mean person, is a hypocrite.