One thing I try to catch and remind myself of (but often fail) is how conveniently my principles seem to fit with my natural disposition. And that it would not only be unfair, but dishonest to pretend otherwise.

In 1948, Bumpy Johnson was the Godfather of Harlem. As a favor, he took a boy under his wing named Flash. He let him live in his house, had him running errands, let him tag along when he picked up protection money – all the stuff that Frank Lucas claimed do to for Bumpy in American Gangster.

Flash got ahead of himself and started running bad checks through Bumpy’s clean bank accounts and allegedly hit on his daughters. He got caught up and over his head and made a succession of unforgivable mistakes. The hammer fell quickly. He beat Flash within an inch of his life on a public street corner. He never even raised his hands to resist. And after a final kick to the head, Bumpy never looked at him again.

Bumpy’s crew pleaded that he kill him. With an ass-kicking like that, they said, he’d made himself an enemy for life. He had. Within just a few weeks, Bumpy caught a young woman sent to plant heroin in his house. Later, Flash flipped to the police and snitched on crimes that he’d never even committed. Bumpy did ten years in Alcatraz.

I don’t think the lesson is that he should have killed him, although Robert Greene is often right. Maybe he shouldn’t have beaten him in the first place. Responding emotionally, as I’m quickly learning, is rarely a good idea. Are the consequences of publicly humiliating someone really worth that soothing rush of adrenaline? It probably says more about you than it does about them. That whole, “I’ve got to assert my dominance or I won’t feel good about myself,” is as much weakness as it is anything else. A lot is said about ruthlessness and power, but maybe not enough about restraint.

“A young guy asked, “When you were my age, what did you to elevate yourself among all of your other associates? How did you stand our from the crowd of other, young, ambitious and driven colleagues of your day?” Jack responded “Great question, young man. And this is an important point for every person to hear. The first thing you must understand is the importance of getting out of ‘the pile.’ The only way you’re going to stand out to your boss is to understand this simple principle: When your boss asks you a question, assigns a basic project or sends you out to gather some data, you must understand that your boss already knows the answer he is looking for. As a matter of fact, in most cases, he simply wants you to go out and confirm what he already believes is true in his gut.

Most people simply go out and do just that,” Jack continued, “confirm what their boss believed to be true. But here is the difference maker. You must understand that the question is only the beginning. When your boss asks you a question, that question should become the jumping off point for several more ideas and thoughts. If you want to elevate yourself, you must sink your thoughts and time into not only answering the question but going above and beyond it to add value to the train of thought your boss was on.

Practically speaking, that means coming back to the table and presenting to your boss not only an answer, but three or more other ideas, options, and perspectives that were probably not considered by your boss. The goal is to add value to the idea and the thought by exceeding expectation when the question is given to you. This is true not only with questions but assignments, initiatives and everything else ever given to your to run with by upper management.

So if you understand that the question is only the beginning, you will get out of the pile fast, because 99.9 percent of all the employees are in the pile because they don’t think.

Thinking for a Change, John C. Maxwell (stolen from Tucker)