Interview with Roy Lantz, author of “Never Beat the Boss at Horseshoes…”
Irene: Roy, you recently authored an interesting book called “Never Beat the Boss at Horseshoes” - a book that is supposed to help us recognize that life is a game. Tell us a little more insight into your concept.
Roy: Remember how, as a child, you were constantly reminded to “Play by the rules” when you were involved in a game? It’s interesting that The Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus lists over five dozen synonyms for “rule”, all of which can apply in one way or another to the daily activities of life. And what about the granddaddy of rules, “The Golden Rule”, that, unfortunately, not enough of us are willing to embrace?
Whether it be directive, order, act, law, decree, statute, canon, commandment, edict, ordinance or injunction, there are plenty of “rules” that, at least nominally, are designed to provide guidance and a degree of order to our lives.
All of the games we play, from the most chaotic “extreme sports”, to the more civilized games like chess, to the more “proper” sports of, say, polo and cricket, are governed, at least in theory, by rules. But do you remember the first time you declared, “Rules are meant to be broken?” And though all games have their dominant players, nobody wins all the time. Games, by definition, will produce winners and losers, and the participants themselves determine which they will be.
In life there are a multitude of rules, some of which we may choose to follow, some of which we may not. There is chaos and there is order. There are winners and there are losers. There is choice. In other words, life is a game, and it’s a whole lot more fun when you’re doing what it takes to win.
Irene: Okay, so I’m a rebel at heart. I don’t like “rules” so yes, I do remember declaring “rules are meant to be broken” and I still declare the same. (laugh) What words of wisdom to you have for me and all the others that feel the same?
Roy: There is a stop light at the end of our street where it intersects with a four lane road, and directly opposite our light is another on the other side of the road. There is probably a half-mile visibility in each direction on the four lane. I am Amazed (with a capital A) when I approach that light at 4:30 or 5:00 on the morning - which happens frequently as I head toward the airport - how often I will see a car sitting there, waiting for the light to turn green before making a left hand turn, when there is not another vehicle anywhere in sight. Making that left turn on red is against the traffic “rules” - sitting there under those circumstances is to me, against the “rules” of logic!
The waiting-for-the-light-to-turn person I just cited also is violating what I would call the “rule” of common sense. I’m not saying he or she doesn’t have any common sense. In fact, they probably have quite a bit, since they’ve obviously chosen not to use much of it! So, Irene, for you and all your fellow rebels, I say, “Go for it!!”
Irene: What inspired you to write this book?
Roy: In 1996 my first book, The Care and Keeping of Customers, was published. It contains over 80 specific things that an organization of any size or type can do to improve its relationship with its customers, both internal and external. It was based upon the over twenty years of hands-on, real life customer service experiences I had up until then. I had a message to share that might help other organizations and I wanted to share it.
Ten years later I realized that I had over five decades of real-life, hands-on experience in life, and that I had a message to share that might help other people and I wanted to share it. Many years ago I committed to paper a statement of purpose for my being on the planet”to use my optimism and enthusiasm to teach and inspire others, so that the world of all those whose lives I touch, directly and indirectly, will be a better one”. Never Beat the Boss at Horseshoes102 Ways to Pitch Ringer after Ringer in the Game of Life is a way to help me fulfill that purpose.
Irene: Your statement of purpose is very dynamic. Tell us about the importance of having a statement of purpose.
Roy: I remember the question and answer section of the “Baltimore Catechism” that for years and years was used in parochial schools. It asked the question “What is your purpose in life?” And I vividly remember the answer - “To know, love, and serve God.” That answer saw me through the formative years, though as I grew older I realized that it wasn’t enough. It remains for me a vitally important component of why I’m here, but it’s no longer nearly specific enough. Indeed, my feeling is that “To know love, and serve God” would be a noble ambition for all six billion of us sharing this wonderful planet. But I also feel that we all have a specific purpose that is not universally shared. Others may have a similar purpose, but our individual reason for being here is for us to discover.
Irene: In what ways could we bring our attention to really finding our purpose in life when sometimes we are scattered or feel defeated?
Roy: Discovering (or perhaps uncovering - it is there - we need only to find it) our purpose is one of the most meaningful activities in which we can engage. It makes setting goals so much easier - we need only ask if a proposed goal is congruent with our purpose. If so, it’s probably a good goal.
In The Power of Purpose, author Richard J. Leider makes this important observation, “Our purpose starts with the acceptance of the basic truth that who we are and what we do does make a difference.” Once that truth is accepted, you can begin to identifying your purpose. Start by listing your unique personal qualities. Are youtolerant, patient, courageous, kind, assertive, persuasive, committed, responsible, responsive, caring, creative, trusting, empathetic, intelligent, decisive, humorous, self-reliant, knowledgeable, kind, persistent, dynamic, wise, organized, honest, resourceful?
This is not the time to be humble - list all your unique positive personal qualities. We call these the “I AM” words.
Now list how you could express those unique positive personal qualities. We call these the “I CAN” words. Can you
initiate, teach, help, show, support, develop, advise, plan, produce, lead, inspire, solve, persuade, create, establish, implement, organize, influence, motivate, care, identify, communicate, guide, promote, articulate, foster, visualize, manage, direct, encourage?
Now take one or two or three “I AM” words and combine them with “I CAN” words to begin to develop your statement of purpose. I’ve already shared mine, and here is a couple more to use as examples:
“My purpose in life is to demonstrate through example and teaching the way a responsible person should live and to influence all those I work with to emulate that example.”
“My purpose in life is to use my life’s experiences and beliefs to help my kids and their kids to become contributing, happy, positive people.”
Irene: You relate life to a game of horseshoes. Why horseshoes and not baseball or football?
Roy: Great question, Irene. Horseshoes chose itself as my metaphor for the game of life! I started my business, Roy Lantz Seminars, in 1986 and in 1996 we signed an agreement to do international contract speaking for a Norwegian company with an Atlanta office. In June of that year we had a company picnic at the wonderful Stone Mountain Park, just outside Atlanta. Everyone was having a great time, but occasionally I’d see a co-worker slink sullenly, or angrily, or confused (but never smiling) from the area of the horseshoe pits. Finally, I stopped one of them and asked him what was going on down there. It seems that the boss, a tall, strapping Norwegian, was badly beating all who dared take him on in a game of horseshoes. And, even more infuriating, his attitude in victory was apparently not as gracious as it might have been.
Now, I’m not the world’s greatest horseshoe player, but I’d been playing in my back yard for twenty years, so I had a pretty good game. Hating to see my friends depressed, and, as a former Marine, ever-cognizant of National Pride, I decided to take the boss on. And take him on I did! Much to the delight of my co-workers, I handily beat the boss at horseshoes. This was on a Saturday.
The following Friday he fired me! Now I don’t know that my unfortunate fall from grace was caused by the horseshoe incident (though he was pretty upset), but I do know that I had the perfect metaphor and title for my book!
Irene: It sounds like getting fired was the best thing that could have happened to you. It gave you the opportunity to go forward in a direction that may not have happened if you didn’t get fired - you may still have been “stuck” doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Aside from getting “fired,” what other ways can a person redirect their course in life?
Roy: One of the most powerful ways is to do the exercise we just discussed and begin to think in terms of their purpose. Once a person begins to believe that they are here for a reason and then begins to identify that reason, it’s like putting a rudder on a boat that previously had no steering mechanism. Getting fired was only a glitch on my life’s radar screen because I knew what my life’s purpose was.
Irene: Being a motivational speaker, you have traveled the world giving seminars and keynote speeches about universal truths. Please give us some insight what these truths are.
Roy: A couple hundred years ago German philosopher Immanuel Kant suggested that we live our life as if our every act were to become a Universal Law. If I may be so bold, I suggest that doing so is impossible. There can be no new Universal Law or Universal Truths - there are certainly potential new perspectives on them, or perhaps different ways to present them, but the Laws (Truths) themselves are timeless and timely. So my recommendation would be that we live our life as if our every act conforms to, or is congruent with, a Universal Law.
For example, no matter where I go, from Boise to Brazil, the Law of Attraction manifests itself. It says simply that we will bring into our lives people, circumstances and events that correspond to our dominant way of thinking. We see evidence of this all the time - have you noticed how negative people tend to attract to themselves other negative people? And we’re all familiar with the “self-fulfilling prophecy.” Now I’m not suggesting that a good attitude, or “The Power of Positive Thinking”, by themselves will give us the wherewithal to do anything, but they can help us do everything better.
Other Universal Truths we see manifest everywhere include the one Aristotle introduced in 350B.C. Today it is referred to as the Law of Cause and Effect - everything happens for a reason. Neither winning nor losing - in the game of horseshoes, or in the game of life, is determined by luck or coincidence. Another was paraphrased several years ago by popular motivational speaker Zig Ziglar in his interpretation of The Law of Compensation. Zig put it simply this way, “You can have anything in life you want if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.” The caveat, of course, being that selfish gain not be the motivation. Quid-pro-quid does not create winners in the game of life.
Irene: It’s interesting to note Aristotle talked about Cause and Effect, yet 2500 years later we are still struggling with believing that everything happens for a reason. I’m seeing that in your own situation, if you didn’t get fired, this book would not have been written. I know that we both can come up with my situations that prove the Law. Why is it so difficult for some people to believe in this particular Universal Law and attribute situations to luck, bad luck, or coincidence?
Roy: The best definition of “luck” I’ve ever seen is “Luck is where preparation and opportunity intersect.” My wife Bonnie wins a lot of contests and sweepstakes. Friends say to her, “You are so lucky. I never win anything.” Bonnie will frequently reply with,
“Do you ever enter these contests?” and invariably the response will be, “No, ’cause I have such bad luck - I never win.” Bonnie and her friends both have the opportunity to win, but Bonnie prepares to win by entering. And I sincerely believe that expectation plays a role as well. As Henry Ford said, “If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you’re right.”
And blaming negative situations on coincidence or bad luck is so much easier, not only because no work is required to prepare, but because it’s so much easier to “rationalize” failure. Do you see “rational lies” in that word?
Irene: You encourage readers of “Never Beat the Boss at Horseshoes” to take 100% responsibility for their own success. That’s pretty humbling. How do you suggest we do that?
Roy: Irene, it is very simple. Simple, but not easy! In fact, it can be one of the most daunting challenges we face in playing the game of life. Look carefully at the word “responsibility” - it almost looks like “response-ability”, or “respond-ability”, doesn’t it? Certainly we are not responsible for everything that happens in our lives; I am no more responsible for being fired after that horseshoe game than I am for the tides. But I am responsible for how I choose to view the event. In other words, we can’t always control what happens in our lives, but we can control our response.
Irene: It’s much easier to blame someone else if things aren’t going how we had planned it and not be in touch with being responsible for our own feelings. And, sometimes the response gets us into more trouble. How do we change our attitude when one way of thinking has been ingrained for so long?
Roy: I define attitude as how we see life from within and how we choose to respond.
In our seminars, I frequently ask participants to write the word attitude. No big deal, and they all accomplish the task without comment. I then ask them to put their pen in their other hand and write the word attitude - Wow, what a change in response! Some even say, “I can’t do it.” When I ask why it was so much harder the second time to write attitude, the universal response is “We’ve always done it this way”, or, “We’ve never done it that way before.”
Now think back to our earlier discussion of responsibility - that we can’t always control what happens in our lives, but we can control our response. Couple this with the definition of attitude as a choice, and we have an answer to your question. Attitudes can change the moment we realize that we can control our response to every situation in our lives.
Irene: M. Scott Peck wrote “Sometimes the only solution to a problem is that there is no solution.” Our society is very solution oriented and Peck’s statement is hard to grasp. Mind you, he wrote it many years ago. How do you propose that we accept there just may not be a solution to the problem?
Roy: The first chapter of Never Beat the Boss is entitled “Put It in Perspective”.
Is the “problem” truly a “problem?” Many people employ a concept known as re-labeling when evaluating a problem, and substitute another label. “Challenge”, “situation”, “concern” and “issue” are all words that can help to mitigate certain dilemmas. I don’t mean to sound Pollyanna - certainly there are very real problems we all face that no amount of word-smithing is going to solve. Obviously a terminal illness is a challenge and a concern and an issue, but above all, it is a very real problem.
Several years ago insurance guru A.L. Williams wrote a book called, All You Can Do Is All You Can Do. There is genuine wisdom in that. There are times when we’ve exhausted everything we can do to find a solution, and yet the problem remains. This is when, with M. Scott Peck’s observation in mind, we need to recall my earlier assertion that although we can’t always control what happens, we can control our response.
Irene: You stress clear communication at all times. Sometimes we think we are communicating clearly but the other person just doesn’t seem to be on the same page as we are. Do you have any clear cut suggestions of how we can be sure the other person hears what we are saying?
Roy: In 1979, at UCLA, Professor Albert Mehrabian published the results of his landmark study in communication. It is still the benchmark for understanding how people communicate, and it gives a clear insight into the answer to your question. He found that when we are talking to another person, only 7% of what they hear us say is our words. Fully 38% of what they hear is our tone of voice, and 55% of the message conveyed is our body language! In other words the old saying, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it”, is more than just an old saying. You need only to recall a childhood game of “Simon Says” to know this is true.
With that in mind, there are certain clear cut things we can do to facilitate true communication (The best definition of communication I’ve ever seen, by the way, is “to give and get understanding”)
*always make eye contact
*paraphrase what you think you heard the other person saying
*use verbal support - “yes”, “I understand”, Uh, huh”, etc.
*use non-verbal support - the slight nodding of the head, slightly leaning forward, etc.
*ask questions
*use the “Echo” technique - repeating the last word or phrase they used
*maintain an open body position
*observe their body language as well - are they doing these things?
Let me suggest, too, a great sales technique that works in all one-on-one communication efforts - WII-FM - What’s in it for me? Imagine the other person is wearing an invisible head-set tuned to WII-FM. You must broadcast on that frequency - let them know why it’s important to them to listen to you.
Irene: Thank you so much for a very interesting discussion. Is there anything else that you would like our readers to know about you, and your book?
Roy: Thank you, Irene. This has been great! I really would encourage your readers to visit www.RoyLantz.com for a couple of reasons. One is to experience the QUOTE-avation of the day (That’s a quotation that provides inspiration and motivation - they must provide the perspiration!), and the other is that there are a number of articles there that may be of interest. I’d also like to plug my publisher’s website - www.MagnoliaPinesPress.com to learn about Never Beat the Boss at Horseshoes
Irene Watson is Managing Editor of Reader Views
http://www.readerviews.com