Art Fettig's Blog

Publish or perish?

In academia there is a long standing understanding that professors must publish their works on a continuing basis if they expect to remain on the staff. In the railroad industry I won awards in 1964 and 1966 for “Best AAR Bulletin Lead Article.” I wrote a number of articles on crossing accident investigations and other topics related to my job as a claim agent. When I began creating audio-visual shows I had an illustrated article published in a national business magazine about AV production. Then my AV production titled They Can’t Stop was used nationally in the Operation Life Saver Program and it won an Abbey Award for my employer.  I wrote a children’s booklet titled The Santa Train and it was distributed to several thousand children when they visited our Santa Train.  I remained with the railroad for 35 years before taking an early retirement and from that time on I have been self-employed. Nevertheless, these publications and awards and such resulted in job offers from other organizations and although I did not accept any of them, nevertheless, they provided me with great bargaining tools for salary negotiations.  Now what has this got to do with you and your career?  That is up to you my friend but so many wonderful things have happened to me and to many of my friends because they took the time to write about their work and their experiences that I am certain that writing can be the key that opens many doors. With the Internet, publication possibilities are unlimited.
 
One of the real motivators in my life has been national publication of my new ideas.  Recognition does not always come to us for our originality on the job and through publication I have won national recognition.  That old saying that a prophet is without honor in his home field is often true.  I think that the real benefit from all of this is that you will open up your mind to new ideas and discover the reason and the courage to try them.

So get out your yellow pad and keep it with you. When you find yourself doing something special and unique then jot it down and explore it.  Publish or Perish?  Well, maybe not but it certainly worked for me.

...one skater stood out way up above the others and received the gold medal.

I was watching the finals of the women’s figure skating competition of the Vancouver Olympics on TV and  one skater after another performed at a higher level than they had ever achieved in their lifetime of competition. Wow!  What a thrill it was for me watching this happen.  Of course, one skater stood out way up above the others and received the gold medal.  When is the last time you did something that could be measured that way and you knew in your heart that it was your very best performance?  Of course, you have to have some luck and the gods have to smile on you that day.  It is so easy to choke up or let your doubt get in the way.  It might just be a presentation you make for your boss; it could be a memo you wrote or a phone call that resulted in a really positive result.  There is a price to be paid to achieve such a feeling. The road to excellence is not an easy one but the rewards cannot be measured in dollars or awards or applause or plaudits, no, it is something you cannot see, it is a feeling that makes your soar inside knowing that you did your very best. – Art Fettig

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... they replaced the bench.

I’ve been digging through some of the photos and mementos I have collected in over a half a century in the safety field and I started to realize that I have played a number of roles during my career.  I started out playing a real loser named Joe No No and I violated every safety rule in the book and always paid the consequences being carted off to an ambulance in on a liter. For children I became The Wizard of Pos teaching positive living concepts. About that same time I became Mr. Lucky to promote my sales talks and my book titled Selling Lucky.  Just recently I have taken on the role of Almost Andy, an Andy Griffith look alike.  Just the other day I asked myself, “Who is Almost Andy and what does he stand for?” Well I found a bit of an answer for that question the other day while visiting a local super store. This is a huge store that I am talking about and it will wear a person out just shopping.  Well they had these nice metal benches up front not far from the main door and a person could use the benches to rest up after a long walk. I generally sit there after I have made the rounds and wait for my wife to finish her shopping.  Well, I was quite upset when I discovered that the benches had been removed by order of those on high at headquarters in Arkansas. I said I didn’t want to sit down in Arkansas but right there by the door where I promised to meet my wife. They could not provide a solution so I sat down on the floor with the wall as a backstop.  As customers passed by I explained that I was conducting a sit down strike in protest to their removing the benches. Many of them encouraged me and wished me success. I wasn’t there ten minutes when some fellow started a hollering out in protest about their not having a riding cart for him.  He was disabled and they explained that the carts were out for servicing. When he saw me sitting there on the floor he really let her rip with his complaints.  He demanded that they bring the manager to him.  Well a couple of ladies arrived to quell the near riot.  After they quieted him down they came over to me. I explained my problem and I said that I was Almost Andy, a defender of the crippled, the ill and those who needed a rest on the benches. I asked that they replace them immediately. In time they brought me a chair.  I saw that I had their attention I gave them my business card and said that if they did not have a place to sit down by the next day I would have twenty people sitting on the floor with me and that I would call the TV stations and have them bring in a crew for photos.  Then next day I checked and they had replaced the bench. I don’t know what really possessed me to sit down like that.  Outside of the U.S. Army, I have never really protested or marched for a cause.  Generally I am pretty sociable, still I just cannot describe how good it felt to have a cause to fight for and a mission.  Perhaps Almost Andy has found a purpose; that of defending the rights of the old and the tired and the disabled be they veterans or otherwise. Remember, be cool or I might see you in jail.

Art Fettig's Declaration of Interdependence

I was just reading what it says under Visit Our Website below. “instant behavior modification…”  Man does that sound like a crock. If I hadn’t witnessed it myself time and time again and had clients write and express their own shock at what had happened then I would say it was impossible.  Lets go back a bit to when I first investigated my first employee industrial injury.  There was a blank we had to fill in on the report under Cause of injury.  Well, it was the vogue of those decades to write in that blank, “Human error.”  Somebody did something wrong. When I talked to fellow workers they would often remark, “I knew he was going to do that.” and if you asked why they didn’t say or do something to prevent it they would answer, “Oh, you just can’t tell him anything.”  Safety records were horrendous. In the late seventies the idea caught on about being your brother’s keeper and I spoke at the National Safety Council for three days for a full house of over 2,000 each day.  I recited my poem titled My Brother’s Keeper and it was then printed in a number of safety magazines. Some folks wrote me that they had made copies of the poem and had their workers sign them.  Let’s cut to the quick.  In time I created my Declaration of Independence later changed to Declaration of Interdependence. On this document every employee of an organization made a commitment to not only look out for their own safety but also the safety of all fellow workers.  When you spotted an unsafe act or unsafe condition you agreed to take immediate action.  Thus we turned everyone in an organization into a member of the safety team.  Now if you buy the concept that most injuries can be prevented and that a whole mess of injuries are caused because of “Human Error” then you suddenly discover that quite often workers get hurt doing something stupid or unwise,which they know darn well they should not do.  Furthermore, if a worker knows that he or she has given everyone else in that organization permission to interact with them in a positive manner if they observe them working unsafely it just stands to reason that most reasonable workers will stop doing that which might get them injured.  Nobody enjoys being corrected for doing something wrong so the easy course is to do it right in the first place.

If you’d like a copy of my Declaration of Interdependence just go to our Website artfettig@aol.com and read the article titled Simplify! Simplify! The Declaration is included in that article with other information.

Often safety leaders would tell me that they were burdened with an aging work force.  They would be sure to include that oft used bromide, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” I would remind them that we are dealing with often reasonable, intelligent, loving kinds of people, not dogs.  And when they dusted off that one that goes, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make ‘em drink.”  I would remind them that you can put salt in the horses oats. They’ll drink.

So why am I telling you all of this?  Where is this leading?  Probably nowhere. Most safety people are pretty well set in their ways and that is fine with me. I just wanted to share with you some of the amazing things I have discovered about people being in this safety field since February 1948.  People are willing and able to make some wonderful things happen in the way of safety if you just give them the opportunity.

Oh, I’ve learned that it takes a pretty powerful safety meeting which is entertaining and emotional and which
pulls on your heartstrings and is loaded with logic and such and the result is that everyone that attends instantly wants to sign such a commitment document, still I exhibited many, many hundreds of times that it can be done and the result is an instant change in behavior and attitudes too.

I realize that most behavior modification folks in safety want a minimum of a year to study your situation and that they let you know you shouldn’t expect any change for maybe a year or two but I have been told time and again that all of that study and all of that messing up your productivity and such generally results in a whole lot of confusion, frustration and, in the end, very few positive results. I believe in an instant approach. It works and saves a whole lot of time and heartache too. I’d be interested in your ideas on this. You can reach me at artfettig@aol.com - Art Fettig

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One thing though about these special moments, these turning points. You have to be open to them.

When I approached this newsletter this morning there was this big blank space where an article was supposed to be and suddenly I had this weird impulse to just skip over to one of the books I am currently working on and dropping a whole book into this slot.  Or perhaps I might make an attachment and share with you one of the sixty or so songs of mine that we have recorded.  I could slip a photo from one of my photo books or make an attachment of a DVD of a live safety seminar or a CD of a humor program. Believe me, I have about a hundred of anything you’d care to see or read or listen to, but do you think that any of it would make one iota of difference in your life? Probably not.  Profound differences in one’s life come only when you are ready for them.  It is so wonderful when the right person or the right idea comes along at that right moment and there is a turning point when everything from that instant on gets better.  Sometimes is it a book or maybe just a quote.  For me it was a second hand beat up record by Earl Nightingale titled The Strangest Secret.  Next it was the moment I walked up two flights of stairs and attended my first A.A. meeting.  That was February 13th, 1961, some 49 years ago and I have not had a drink since then.

I have been blessed with so many life changing moments in my life and I treasure them.  That day I met my wife, Jean, on the Internet. That day Herb True, a professional speaker and professor at Notre Dame asked me to write for him.  The meeting I had with that soon to be railroad president and he allowed me to break away from a no future job and work full time developing my skills and special talents.

One thing though about these special moments, these turning points.  You have to be open to them. You have to listen.  And of course, you have to do a lot of selling and you must take some chances too but that is what a good life is all about.  I hope you have one of those life changing moments in your life in the very near future.  The world needs a talent like yours in full bloom. – Art Fettig

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A delightful story about Seymour the ant as only Art Fettig can tell it. Art has been telling this little story to amazed audiences all over the world demonstrating how they also can explore the world by just venturing out and opening their eyes. This video segment was shot by Terry Pochert in a little park in Battle Creek, Michigan. And yes, there were really ants crawling up and down that tree.

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During a visit to Newfoundland, Art Fettig (who always seems to be mistaken for Andy Griffith) took advantage of the situation for a few minutes while dining at the Holiday Inn in Stephenville. Art quickly broke the news that he really wasn’t Andy Griffith and everyone had a great time laughing and enjoying themselves after the spoof was over. This video segment is dedicated to the wonderful people of Newsfoundland and especially to the incredible staff at the Holiday Inn.

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...reports tell me to just stay home...

In North Carolina this just might become known as The Great Storm Of The 21st Century.    People throughout the state have been stocking up on simple necessities like beer and wine and for some even a jug of shine just in case of frostbite.  Snow is great here in this area. I do not have any sidewalks to shovel, my driveway is gravel and the TV weather reports tell me to just stay home because everything has been canceled. .Those who go out and brave the weather are shown on TV as they swerve into one another. We have a snowfall of about six inches here and back in Michigan the road crews would probably have this all cleaned up by now. Here it will take a little longer. The airports are closed. The important thing though is what I would call a positive attitude. Me? I love the snow. It looks pretty piled up on our decks. Of course, the threat of a possible ice storms is a different matter. Our home in the woods is surrounded by trees and when they get loaded with ice they have a tendency to drop branches and the less hardy might fall across our driveway. Then there is that hill out there. Going down it is easy but going back up might present a bit of a challenge.  Oh, and the wires. Sometimes the power lines go down and you hear a loud pop and the power goes off. Going without electricity can be an adventure but after a couple of days the thrill wears off. Oh well, as the song goes, “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.Let it snow. I’ve got my love to keep me warm. and after all, this only happens this way once in a century. It must be a part of the global warming.

It was our third power outage in the past week....

There is an old song lyric that I haven’t heard for years but this morning it popped into my head. It goes, “The music stopped.  But we went on dancing.  Yes we went on dancing, for we didn’t know.  Because the lights were low and we were in love.”  I woke up this morning and the lights were not just low.  The lights were out, the furnace was not working so no heat; no stove, no oven, no TV, no computers, no Internet, no morning news, no telephone, no hot water.  My wife Jean took her cell phone and called Piedmont Electric.  It was our third power outage in the past week.  Piedmont was installing a new power line and twice they had cut into our telephone line as well by accident. Fortunately, they had us up and running just an hour after Jean’s phone call.  We will set all the clocks again, the TV will do it’s thing and get the satellites back on line and except for me having this idea for this article everything will get back to normal.  But what if….there I go again playing that old game of mine….what if?  What if it was six weeks or six months before we got back up and running with electric power?  I guess we’d learn to dance without music, cook without an electric stove or oven and we’d sure make certain we didn’t run out of propane gas for our fireplace.
Over the years I have done a lot of safety work in the Power Industry.  I’ve stood in front of perhaps a hundred audiences or more in that industry and told the people how important they were but it takes an outage every now and then for me to really appreciate the wonderful utility services we have here in this nation.  Thank you Piedmont Electric for getting back on line.  I got the message loud and clear. No need to remind me again. – Art Fettig

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"... there is so much fellowship and caring... "

I’m a member in good standing of the National Speakers Association and last Friday evening and all day Saturday I attended a semi-monthly meeting., Fact is, I don’t attend near enough meetings regardless of my age because there is so much fellowship and caring there for the sharing that I miss a lot not attending. I attended the first general session of the National Speakers Association in 1946 and it really turned my life around. Talk about expertise, it is awesome. I had the opportunity to rub elbows with the elite of the very elite and I just hope that some of it rubbed off on me.  If you don’t belong to an association in your field then join one and get active too.  In today’s world you must keep on growing personally and business wise or you will soon fall badly behind.  I watched two superstars, Phil Rizzo and Jeff Gitomer in action and on my drive home I began rehearsing my material trying to hone it up to today’s standards. I came home with fresh hope and a feeling that I ain’t done yet. – Art Fettig

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