Success Is A Choice Ch 13

Responsibility and Success

• Responsibility significantly enhances talent, increasing its effectiveness and stamina.
• People often underestimate the importance of responsibility for success.
• Michael Korda emphasizes responsibility as a crucial quality for major-scale success.

The Strength of Responsibility

• Our culture often overvalues talent and undervalues responsibility, particularly in athletics.
• Responsibility strengthens talent, boosting long-term success prospects.

Responsibility as a Foundation for Success

• Tony Campolo emphasizes the crucial role of responsibility in a freedom-oriented culture, highlighting the lack of a "Bill of Responsibilities" in the American Constitution.
• As individuals advance in leadership roles, their rights often decrease proportionally.
• Taking on responsibility often entails sacrifice, but offers significant rewards.
• Officers on the USS Enterprise recognized the importance of responsibility, even for young sailors, demonstrating a culture of responsibility impacting long-term personal success.
• Responsibility transforms individuals, proving effective in aiding troubled youth.

Responsibility Leads to More Responsibility

• People who effectively manage their responsibilities are often entrusted with additional responsibilities.
• Irresponsibility often leads to stagnation or limited opportunities.
• Example of a sports reporter's failure to report on a stadium collapse due to lacking responsibility.

Responsibility Maximizes Ability and Opportunity

• Responsibility creates action and increases ability and opportunity.
• Workers are responsible for contributing to profits, as opposed to causing expenses.
• Pinnacle Brands exemplifies how responsibility enhances ability/opportunity during a crisis.
• Taking responsibility leads to others recognizing and rewarding the individual.

Responsibility Builds a Solid Reputation

• Consistent responsibility builds a positive reputation, making others trust and count on you.
• Irresponsibility can damage trust and reputation over time.
• Dwight D. Eisenhower demonstrates the value of taking responsibility, even for difficult decisions.

Responsibility in Action (Steps to Increase Responsibility)

• Start Wherever You Are: Responsibility is a choice that can be developed, even with a negative track record. Start small and take action.

• Choose Your Friends Wisely: Surrounding oneself with responsible individuals fosters responsibility.

• Stop Blaming Others: Responsibility starts with self-evaluation and acceptance of one's actions.

• Learn Responsibility's Major Lessons: This involves self-discipline, commitment to finishing tasks, recognizing dependence on others and from others, and not relying on others for responsibility.

• Make Tough Decisions and Stand by Them: Taking ownership of difficult decisions builds stronger leadership.

• Live Beyond Yourself: This involves serving others, highlighting the importance of considering the impact on other people, and viewing resources as resources to share.