Things My Mother Taught Me and How They Can Help Your Career

Dennis is a Marine veteran and former corporate executive who shares valuable career advice. He guarantees that following his advice will lead to a better career

• In honor of Mother's Day, he reflects on lessons learned from his mother and how they relate to career success.

• Lesson 1: Cooking - You don't have to be a master chef or have a big budget to eat well, just be organized and stick to a routine.

• Lesson 2: Organization - His mother was able to host large family gatherings with only one oven and pen and paper organization skills; use electronic tools available now for even more efficient organization.

• Lesson 3: Don't whine - His tough mother taught him not to complain about tough situations; either solve the problem or learn to live with it.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hi folks. Well, I'm back again the old jarhead where I tend to ramble on about something that I guarantee it's going to help your career, no matter what. Okay, I mean, you may have a great career, but I guarantee if you listen to what I tell you, you're going to have a better one. Okay, I guarantee you're going to have a good one, just because there's a lot of work on your part. But if you do what I tell you, it'll be a better one. So you're ready to get going about today yeah, this week's podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:36

So Sunday in America is mother's day, where we celebrate our mothers, and, in keeping with that theme, I thought I'd tell you about what I learned from my dear old mother and how those lessons could relate to your career. So my mother was a loving mother, but also a no-nonsense person, and she could be tough so tough that my father, a World War II Marine Corps veteran, used to call her Sarge, a nickname that stuck that even my brother and I started using as we grew older. So here's three lessons that she taught me that I think will help you, and what they mean. Well, first was cooking for the family. All right, yep, cooking for the family. Well, we always ate well, not expensive food, but whatever she cooked was great and we ate it and a lot of it. We usually had the same things every week and that included pork chops, my favorite spaghetti, and either sausage or meatballs, fried fish, always on a Friday right On special days we might have our homemade lasagna or eggplant parmesan Dinner. Always included a small salad and some vegetable which, during the summer, came from our small garden that my grandfather kept. The lesson here is that you don't have to be a super chef or have a big grocery budget to cook well. It does take some thought and organization and accepting of a routine like fish every Friday. That same thing applies to your career. You don't have to be a superstar, the CEO, to make a difference. You have to try and it helps immensely to be organized, which is related to the second lesson from my mother. Okay, the second lesson is how important organization is to success.

Speaker 1: 2:35

So, growing up, we had a very large, extended family and that meant 13 aunts and uncles and well over 20 cousins in the area, and my mother would entertain them all. Sometimes over 30 people would be at our house, and that house kitchen, dining and living areas combined was only about 600 square feet and Sarge would put out a spread like no other Lots of great food, multiple dishes, a lot of Italian and Polish foods, and not a bad dish in the bunch. How did she do it, you ask the old jarhead, I can hear you asking right now by being organized. Now, remember this is before computers and apps with one oven, for all of our organization was done with a pen and paper, cooking on one oven, four gas burners and a cooking area itself. That was about 20 square feet. Okay, she would decide on a menu first step, then a grocery list next, and then on the order that things would be cooked, so that something that would be served cold, for example, would be cooked. On the order that things would be cooked so that something that would be served cold, for example, would be cooked on the day before, and she would decide on what tasks that need to be done and who in the family would do them. And then she would task my dad and my brother and I, and she didn't worry If someone didn't like something. Well, that was too bad for them. If you're not very organized now, try to improve that aspect of your professional life. It's much easier today than when Sarge did it now with all the electronic calendars and tasking apps. So experiment and use what works best for you, and keep in mind what the great Chinese strategist said to lead, 10,000 is the same as 10. It is a matter of organization.

Speaker 1: 4:52

Finally, and I think this is the most important lesson my mother taught me and that applies to you as well, and that is don't whine, don't complain. I mentioned that my mother was tough and no-nonsense person. She had a tough childhood. Her mother died in front of her when she was 12, and from that time forward, she was considered the woman of the house, a very traditional Italian household. So she had duties. Normally, that would have been her mother's, and that included, in many ways, caring for her father and three older brothers. So she had a no-nonsense way about her. She was loving but tough. When we were sick, she would do what she could in terms of things like medicine, but then she would say suffer in silence.

Speaker 1: 5:39

The lesson here is that if whining about the situation won't help, then simply don't do it, and that applies to your career as well. There's always bad situations that are going to happen at work. If that is the case, either tackle the problem and fix it or learn to live with it, because whining is not going to help. It'll just make you look well weak, and I can tell you that this piece of advice served me well in my beloved Marine Corps. So there was always something that a weak person could whine about, like having to sleep in the ground on the rain. So again, don't whine about problems. Either fix them or learn to live with them. Well, that's enough today. That's all you're going to get from the old jarhead. Thanks for letting me ramble about my mother and what she taught me and how it relates to your career. Thank you for listening. Tune in again and tell your friends Bye. Thank you, thank you.