A philosophy that seems to hold true under many situations is environment is a greater factor than almost any other individual thing. If I am an alcoholic I will take a dry environment over being surrounded by alcohol and relying on my will power.
Environment > will power
If I want to succeed at business than I will choose to work for/with a successful company over trying to increase my drive at a floundering organization.
Environment > drive
On any given day we are surrounded by different environments. Our work, our home, our place of relaxation, our car, our minds. Consider that as you go through each day you are a part of, or a piece in, somebodies environment. When they consider work they are considering you. When they think about coming home they are coming home to you. Ever wonder why people are the way they are? It can be very hard to change your environment. It is easy to be the changed environment.
Environment = You
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Thou Shalt Blog
Growing up my father was a pastor, and nary a weekend went by that we were not in church. I've heard a lot of preaching from a lot of different preachers in my life and this past Sunday I realized that bloggers have a world to learn from preachers.
1) Bad preachers are preachy. I know you are on a stage behind a pulpit but don't talk down to me. I know you have cool pastor hair but please don't be suave (or worse slimy).
2) Good preachers are not all the same. In my book there are a number of different kinds of preachers including but not totaling: Fire starters, teachers, story tellers, scholars.
Fire Starters - Tend to get yellie, and I like it. They preach in an upward slope reminiscent of googles growth. When their done I feel bad for the unsaved person who is loitering outside because they are going to get religion faster than an NBA player who just got a DUI. Tim Ferriss is a fire starter, you leave his blog looking to hold your breath for ten minutes or throw away everything but ten pounds of possessions.
Teachers - These preachers just want you to leave knowing more than you came in with. They appeal to logic and usually talk a little quietly. John Jansch is a teacher who loves marketing. He likes you sure, but he's really happy you show up so that there is somebody to teach.
Story Tellers - The story teller wants you to relate everything they are saying back to your own life. They tell stories from themselves, from their friends, from books, wherever they can find inspiration. Leo is a story teller with a congregation of 100,000+ readers. Tell a good story around a warm fire pit and people will come to you.
Scholars - Teach with passion, they implement much in terms of story telling and teaching but more than anything else a scholar wants to make a new connection. Between you and a peice of knowledge, between two pieces of seemingly unrelated knowledge. Seth Godin is the ultimate scholar. In a short burst every single day he implores his readers to go on a search with him for connections. He looks at everything and pulls it together.
So as a blogger what kind of preacher would you be. If you don't know you now have goal number one. Preachers like bands succeed from a sound not a song, find your sound and then write some songs. Don't talk down to me, don't pass the offering plate around six times a post, you have more leeway with your hair but don't celebrate it. Guy Kawasaki has been telling us for years to be evanglists, so go out, grab your blog pulpit and save the internets soul.
1) Bad preachers are preachy. I know you are on a stage behind a pulpit but don't talk down to me. I know you have cool pastor hair but please don't be suave (or worse slimy).
2) Good preachers are not all the same. In my book there are a number of different kinds of preachers including but not totaling: Fire starters, teachers, story tellers, scholars.
Fire Starters - Tend to get yellie, and I like it. They preach in an upward slope reminiscent of googles growth. When their done I feel bad for the unsaved person who is loitering outside because they are going to get religion faster than an NBA player who just got a DUI. Tim Ferriss is a fire starter, you leave his blog looking to hold your breath for ten minutes or throw away everything but ten pounds of possessions.
Teachers - These preachers just want you to leave knowing more than you came in with. They appeal to logic and usually talk a little quietly. John Jansch is a teacher who loves marketing. He likes you sure, but he's really happy you show up so that there is somebody to teach.
Story Tellers - The story teller wants you to relate everything they are saying back to your own life. They tell stories from themselves, from their friends, from books, wherever they can find inspiration. Leo is a story teller with a congregation of 100,000+ readers. Tell a good story around a warm fire pit and people will come to you.
Scholars - Teach with passion, they implement much in terms of story telling and teaching but more than anything else a scholar wants to make a new connection. Between you and a peice of knowledge, between two pieces of seemingly unrelated knowledge. Seth Godin is the ultimate scholar. In a short burst every single day he implores his readers to go on a search with him for connections. He looks at everything and pulls it together.
So as a blogger what kind of preacher would you be. If you don't know you now have goal number one. Preachers like bands succeed from a sound not a song, find your sound and then write some songs. Don't talk down to me, don't pass the offering plate around six times a post, you have more leeway with your hair but don't celebrate it. Guy Kawasaki has been telling us for years to be evanglists, so go out, grab your blog pulpit and save the internets soul.
Monday, November 23, 2009
swallowed alive
I'm tied to the front of a freight train hurling through the countryside at breakneck speed. I should be terrified, I should be afraid about what is around the next bend, I should be horrified of getting hit in the face with a goose like Fabio, but instead I'm just sitting around waiting, passive.
What happens when you get swallowed alive by your life's passion? People always pontificate about finding your passion and losing yourself in it, but what if you really lose yourself. Not some self help doctor Phil moment either. What if you wake up in the morning and outside of work have no idea what to do with yourself. Ok, so I've given up TV but my eighteen month old is a terrible conversationalist. I've read all of the right business books. I have a blog. I'm trying to be a better manager. I'm in shape. I eat well. I have good oral hygiene.
Well, I'm done. I'm over it. I'm over me. Like the last scene in "Fight Club" this whole world is my creation and my fault. I've been fighting an imagination. So I can't live in suburbia, but I also can't live in a self created chaos fighting my alter ego (who is oddly also Brad Pitt).
Welcome to results oriented life. Welcome to grabbing the dream out of the sky and putting it to work generating income instead of floating along giving itself a foot message while reading "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". Welcome expectations. I don't care about giving it my best, I care about achieving and giving whatever I need to give to achieve. There is no gold medal winner for practice. There is no Grammy for the artist who tried really hard. No sales bonus for wanting something real, real bad.
It is almost 2010. I have a child. I've been in a stable relationship for a decade. What's with the preteen angst? What's with the "What should I do when I grow up?" I'm already grown, the real question is, what am I doing?
What are you doing?
What happens when you get swallowed alive by your life's passion? People always pontificate about finding your passion and losing yourself in it, but what if you really lose yourself. Not some self help doctor Phil moment either. What if you wake up in the morning and outside of work have no idea what to do with yourself. Ok, so I've given up TV but my eighteen month old is a terrible conversationalist. I've read all of the right business books. I have a blog. I'm trying to be a better manager. I'm in shape. I eat well. I have good oral hygiene.
Well, I'm done. I'm over it. I'm over me. Like the last scene in "Fight Club" this whole world is my creation and my fault. I've been fighting an imagination. So I can't live in suburbia, but I also can't live in a self created chaos fighting my alter ego (who is oddly also Brad Pitt).
Welcome to results oriented life. Welcome to grabbing the dream out of the sky and putting it to work generating income instead of floating along giving itself a foot message while reading "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". Welcome expectations. I don't care about giving it my best, I care about achieving and giving whatever I need to give to achieve. There is no gold medal winner for practice. There is no Grammy for the artist who tried really hard. No sales bonus for wanting something real, real bad.
It is almost 2010. I have a child. I've been in a stable relationship for a decade. What's with the preteen angst? What's with the "What should I do when I grow up?" I'm already grown, the real question is, what am I doing?
What are you doing?
Friday, November 20, 2009
Must be nice...
While cuddling up with my RSS feeder this morning I stumbled upon this gem.
First, it is an absolute great read on time management and not letting the world suck your brain out of your head via your nose circa "Total Recall".
Secondly, this blog has a very active comment section and I will sometimes peruse these as a kind of thermometer for what others thought. This is when out of nowhere I found a great line from the seventh commentor bemoaning his job and how he cannot do time management but must take continual abuse or get "canned". He kvetchs on and on about how people in general do not have this much freedom and then says "...if you do, well, it must be nice." Pardon me while burst into flames.
1) It is nice, that's why he is sharing it, because his life is nice and your life should be nice too.
2) I once went to Las Vegas with Kelsey for eighteen hours (4pm - 10am). The flight was free and the whole trip cost under $200. It was the first time we had left Teagan or the business overnight in eighteen months. We got back and somebody said "Must be nice". This two day weekend person. This get home at 5pm from work person. This personal bills and nothing else person. Come on, really?
3) Lastly, I do not know anybody who actually has problems and uses this phrase. People who have cancer don't use this phrase about those of us who don't. People who have to take care of sick parents. People who have special needs kids. People who have physical disabilities.
My guess would be this commentor makes a comfortable living and is afforded the advantage of having poeple decide his life for him so he doesn't have to think for himself, must be nice.
First, it is an absolute great read on time management and not letting the world suck your brain out of your head via your nose circa "Total Recall".
Secondly, this blog has a very active comment section and I will sometimes peruse these as a kind of thermometer for what others thought. This is when out of nowhere I found a great line from the seventh commentor bemoaning his job and how he cannot do time management but must take continual abuse or get "canned". He kvetchs on and on about how people in general do not have this much freedom and then says "...if you do, well, it must be nice." Pardon me while burst into flames.
1) It is nice, that's why he is sharing it, because his life is nice and your life should be nice too.
2) I once went to Las Vegas with Kelsey for eighteen hours (4pm - 10am). The flight was free and the whole trip cost under $200. It was the first time we had left Teagan or the business overnight in eighteen months. We got back and somebody said "Must be nice". This two day weekend person. This get home at 5pm from work person. This personal bills and nothing else person. Come on, really?
3) Lastly, I do not know anybody who actually has problems and uses this phrase. People who have cancer don't use this phrase about those of us who don't. People who have to take care of sick parents. People who have special needs kids. People who have physical disabilities.
My guess would be this commentor makes a comfortable living and is afforded the advantage of having poeple decide his life for him so he doesn't have to think for himself, must be nice.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
I was speaking with a friend who has been laid off from their job and is planning on selling a Corvette they have as a third car. He informed me that he only drives it every six months or so and that he and his wife only bought it because of a youthful desire to own a vette. He continued on that when he was working he could afford to just have the thing sitting around for his enjoyment twice a year. Let me tirade here: not against my friend but about me and you.
1) How often do we buy things only because we wanted them at a different point in our lives. We have taken selfish to an entirely new level when we wish to feed all of the desires of our past even if they no longer exist in the present.
2) How often do we say we can afford to be wasteful because we have excess. He could afford the car (which was no less wasteful then rather than now) when he was making excess money. We can afford to goof off in college when we have excess time. We can be generally dummies when we have an excess of safety warnings.
3) How come we do not do simple math in our lives (and I never passed a math class in my four years of real college, sorry community college, we both know your not real). Take the $10k he can sell this car for. He is making $10k in extra payments on his other car, at 10% interest that is $1,000 a year, or $500 for each use of the Corvette (2x per year).
Point of the story, it stinks when we have to get laid off before we make good financial decisions. It stinks when we have to get divorced before we realize how we treated our spouse. It stinks we are so afraid our kids are going to make the same mistakes we made we try to hide the world from them and in their ignorance they turn out just like us. I'm going to try and just breath and make better decisions now, while I'm still married to a wonderful woman, while my child is still young and innocent, while I still have a business that put's food on the table.
1) How often do we buy things only because we wanted them at a different point in our lives. We have taken selfish to an entirely new level when we wish to feed all of the desires of our past even if they no longer exist in the present.
2) How often do we say we can afford to be wasteful because we have excess. He could afford the car (which was no less wasteful then rather than now) when he was making excess money. We can afford to goof off in college when we have excess time. We can be generally dummies when we have an excess of safety warnings.
3) How come we do not do simple math in our lives (and I never passed a math class in my four years of real college, sorry community college, we both know your not real). Take the $10k he can sell this car for. He is making $10k in extra payments on his other car, at 10% interest that is $1,000 a year, or $500 for each use of the Corvette (2x per year).
Point of the story, it stinks when we have to get laid off before we make good financial decisions. It stinks when we have to get divorced before we realize how we treated our spouse. It stinks we are so afraid our kids are going to make the same mistakes we made we try to hide the world from them and in their ignorance they turn out just like us. I'm going to try and just breath and make better decisions now, while I'm still married to a wonderful woman, while my child is still young and innocent, while I still have a business that put's food on the table.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Connect the dot's
This is the third installment of a series about how I've figured everything out. It probably does not make all that much sense yet as you read each installment but it will come together faster than a pee wee soccer game with the coach screaming "spread out!". Right now I would like to simply introduce some thought's and theories that have heavily influenced me over the last few years. One of the strongest is Steve Job's graduation speech at Stanford.
Jobs lay's down a number of thoughts that can change your life if you choose to let them. One small thought is about how he looks in the mirror everyday and asks if he were to die at the end of the day would he be satisfied with what he was doing. After a few to many "no's" he realizes he has to change direction. This is extremely important for people who are heavily tied into something and then one day look up and realize that ten years has escaped them. They are spending everyday doing something they do not enjoy at best, at worst doing what they hate. I am twenty six and do not have a lifetime of experience under my belt, I do not have ten years of wasted time to look back on but I know that I lost all of my 25th year of life and I'm terrified to loose any more. The year of 2008 started with me working at Southwest Airlines throwing baggage trying to figure out how I was going to survive a failed business partnership. My wife was pregnant and spending almost thirty hours a week in the class room teaching dance while working another thirty to sixty hours a week just trying to juggle all of the administrative and secretarial duties. We are and were grinders, make it through the day, and we made it through 365 days in a row somehow, one stretch saw just over 90 days without a single day off. During that time I was not looking in the mirror and asking myself anything because I knew the answers. I'm thankful however, that I saw this video and started asking before one year of grinding turned into a life that had eventually ground me down to dust.
Secondly, and to me more importantly, is the notion that in life all of the dot's connect but you can only connect them looking back. Job's says that we must stay attentive to everyday because we do not know how the dot we are in today will connect to both past and future dot's. Let me tell you a story.
Mark, co-owner and sole talent holder of the construction side of me, is wandering through Lowes late one afternoon finishing up a job. An employee asks if he needs anything and they strike up a conversation. The employee is the regional manager in charge of forty stores. The reason they strike up a conversation is Mark is wearing a shirt that says "Home Depot" on it, the company he worked for previously but was tragically laid off from when they downsized his entire branch of bathroom installations. This manager informs Mark that Lowe's may be looking to bring in a bathroom instillation company to fill a vacant need.
To give you an idea of the magnitude of this, when Mark was working for Home Depot's install team they were doing around $105k a week in sales! Also known as $5.4 million dollars annually. And this is just the front range of Denver and surrounding metro area.
Now whether or not we turn this into a life changing experience let me throw some dots at you about how this ball got rolling. We had already made fun of Mark that morning because he showed up to the job site all shaved and put together like he was better than the rest of us, as it turns out he really is. Secondly, Mark had focused immensely on the dot at hand when he worked for Home Depot by understanding how they did business and paying close attention to their books even though he was only an installer. Finally, both Mark and I had already seen this potential opening in the market and spent a few meetings putting together a game plan for what a company would look like that was solely built to fill the need that we knew Lowe's had. So off the cuff, Mark had the research already in his head to sound extremely intelligent.
If we get this we will be an overnight success. An overnight success that spent years working inside of Home Depot spending time and energy to learn things that did not matter at the time. An overnight success that just happened to be in a Lowe's store late in the afternoon working a job forty minutes away from home because as Mark say's "the harder I work the luckier I get". If we end up making millions off of this single deal I will write a book that will be long enough to justify the $20 tag but will in fact boil down to work hard, the dot's will connect. Don't float through life but also don't grind through life. Live as if what you are doing now is going to be worth a million dollars some day, even if it really looks like a job working for a poorly organized company. And then inside of this hard work and focusing on the now, check the mirror each morning, in the face of your own mortality does now matter?
Jobs lay's down a number of thoughts that can change your life if you choose to let them. One small thought is about how he looks in the mirror everyday and asks if he were to die at the end of the day would he be satisfied with what he was doing. After a few to many "no's" he realizes he has to change direction. This is extremely important for people who are heavily tied into something and then one day look up and realize that ten years has escaped them. They are spending everyday doing something they do not enjoy at best, at worst doing what they hate. I am twenty six and do not have a lifetime of experience under my belt, I do not have ten years of wasted time to look back on but I know that I lost all of my 25th year of life and I'm terrified to loose any more. The year of 2008 started with me working at Southwest Airlines throwing baggage trying to figure out how I was going to survive a failed business partnership. My wife was pregnant and spending almost thirty hours a week in the class room teaching dance while working another thirty to sixty hours a week just trying to juggle all of the administrative and secretarial duties. We are and were grinders, make it through the day, and we made it through 365 days in a row somehow, one stretch saw just over 90 days without a single day off. During that time I was not looking in the mirror and asking myself anything because I knew the answers. I'm thankful however, that I saw this video and started asking before one year of grinding turned into a life that had eventually ground me down to dust.
Secondly, and to me more importantly, is the notion that in life all of the dot's connect but you can only connect them looking back. Job's says that we must stay attentive to everyday because we do not know how the dot we are in today will connect to both past and future dot's. Let me tell you a story.
Mark, co-owner and sole talent holder of the construction side of me, is wandering through Lowes late one afternoon finishing up a job. An employee asks if he needs anything and they strike up a conversation. The employee is the regional manager in charge of forty stores. The reason they strike up a conversation is Mark is wearing a shirt that says "Home Depot" on it, the company he worked for previously but was tragically laid off from when they downsized his entire branch of bathroom installations. This manager informs Mark that Lowe's may be looking to bring in a bathroom instillation company to fill a vacant need.
To give you an idea of the magnitude of this, when Mark was working for Home Depot's install team they were doing around $105k a week in sales! Also known as $5.4 million dollars annually. And this is just the front range of Denver and surrounding metro area.
Now whether or not we turn this into a life changing experience let me throw some dots at you about how this ball got rolling. We had already made fun of Mark that morning because he showed up to the job site all shaved and put together like he was better than the rest of us, as it turns out he really is. Secondly, Mark had focused immensely on the dot at hand when he worked for Home Depot by understanding how they did business and paying close attention to their books even though he was only an installer. Finally, both Mark and I had already seen this potential opening in the market and spent a few meetings putting together a game plan for what a company would look like that was solely built to fill the need that we knew Lowe's had. So off the cuff, Mark had the research already in his head to sound extremely intelligent.
If we get this we will be an overnight success. An overnight success that spent years working inside of Home Depot spending time and energy to learn things that did not matter at the time. An overnight success that just happened to be in a Lowe's store late in the afternoon working a job forty minutes away from home because as Mark say's "the harder I work the luckier I get". If we end up making millions off of this single deal I will write a book that will be long enough to justify the $20 tag but will in fact boil down to work hard, the dot's will connect. Don't float through life but also don't grind through life. Live as if what you are doing now is going to be worth a million dollars some day, even if it really looks like a job working for a poorly organized company. And then inside of this hard work and focusing on the now, check the mirror each morning, in the face of your own mortality does now matter?
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Fear
Second day in a row with no installment from the "Everything Figured Out" series. Follow me on this you belligerent Saturday blog readers because it is short and sweet like Greenday songs used to be. It is 6am, I've been up for an hour and a half and I'm headed off to Dance Core to clean the studio before classes start. There is no fear in the daily grind. I can do this all week long. Wake up at 4:30, work till 3, hang out with an 18 month old till 9. Drink four to eight cups of coffee a day and rinse and repeat.
I've been doing this for literally years now and I'm not old enough to say stuff like that, but you want to know what fear is? Fear is stepping out of the grind and putting yourself out there. Fear is writing and having people judge you who do not even know you. Fear is the publish button at the bottom of the page. HIT THE BUTTON PEOPLE. And then tomorrow, hit the button again. Do not become a grinder, there is no glory in working harder than everybody else so you can hide behind your work, I've been doing that for too long. Get out there and work hard, but do not stop hitting the button, do not hide behind your work, make your work get behind you and push you where you want to go.
Watch a Tony Robbins video if you have to, imagine those giant banana hands wrapped around your neck while he yells at you to DO IT! And then after that, actually go out and do it, face the fear and make the grind worth it, come on, we'll go together :)
I've been doing this for literally years now and I'm not old enough to say stuff like that, but you want to know what fear is? Fear is stepping out of the grind and putting yourself out there. Fear is writing and having people judge you who do not even know you. Fear is the publish button at the bottom of the page. HIT THE BUTTON PEOPLE. And then tomorrow, hit the button again. Do not become a grinder, there is no glory in working harder than everybody else so you can hide behind your work, I've been doing that for too long. Get out there and work hard, but do not stop hitting the button, do not hide behind your work, make your work get behind you and push you where you want to go.
Watch a Tony Robbins video if you have to, imagine those giant banana hands wrapped around your neck while he yells at you to DO IT! And then after that, actually go out and do it, face the fear and make the grind worth it, come on, we'll go together :)
Friday, November 13, 2009
The least you can do?
When did the least we can do turn in to nothing? People used to say, "No, please, it was the least I could do" when they did something nice for somebody or went out of their way. We used to hold doors open as the least we could do. We used to give people change at the grocery if they were digging around looking for a nickle. We used to pick things up for moms when their hands were full and their kids flung their keys.
I hope we can get back to a point where the least we can do still includes doing. Go out today and do, even if it's the least.
(I'll get back on my series soon so stick around)
I hope we can get back to a point where the least we can do still includes doing. Go out today and do, even if it's the least.
(I'll get back on my series soon so stick around)
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Everything Figured Out: Part 2
Sutherland -
Rory Sutherland is an ad man, and in my humble opinion a sort of pudgy, funny marketing genius who refers to NPR as "National Pinko Radio" but then refers liberally to Darwinian beliefs in his subconscious marketing techniques. He states here that our deep desire to be worth something sometimes drives us to do things that actually harm us. Not that it is our first effort to harm ourselves, but sometimes we set into motion the needed actions and those actions must simply be left well enough alone. Jacko and Elvis both had full time physicians and yet both died to young, Sutherland explains that it must be extremely difficult to have your full time job justified when you are looking over a fairly healthy person, so you continue acting. I find this crushingly true in business.
When a small business first takes off there is a whirl wind of activity that keeps everybody frantic. Frantic, one of my favorite words. I like to tell my construction guys that the level I am looking for is just below dangerous and just above sane and this cool little existence is called frantic. You can't do anything wrong inside of frantic, your rushing around, your fixing problems, your not thinking or analyzing just doing-doing-doing. If you are lucky enough that your small business gets off the ground however, then there is this awkward time you must not be frantic but rather calm, you must sit back and let the good things that you started percolate, like delicious life giving coffee. This is hard to say the least. As a business owner it makes me feel lazy and worthless sometimes and this is usually when I figure out I AM LAZY AND WORTHLESS!
I'm lazy because I should not be taking action on things that are already set and in motion but I should be taking action on the un-urgent/important matrix if your a Steven Covey fan. I should be helping my people do what they do but better. I should be making sure that as things progress as they should I'm moving furniture out of the way and opening doors even if I'm not actually carrying the couch. To take it back to private doctors they should simply be observing their patients and figuring out what they should not being doing (crack or speed would be a good start Dr. Jacko) to increase their health rather than giving their patients even more medication. These doctors should be stepping in and saying "we are going to go for a one hour walk during our visit today instead of me prodding around a body I just examined yesterday". Is this cool? No. Is this cutting edge? No. But we should be doing the same thing, we do not need to be cool or cutting edge. Like a parent who figures out their model for discipline we need to then take that model and run with it for eighteen consistent years with tweaks instead of total overhauls.
So yesterday we found out that satisfaction comes from working and the only reason we have leisure time is so the man can squeeze our hard earned money from us. When I say the man I speak of Henry Ford and I mean it as both "THE MAN!" followed by a high five in an intimate moment between bro's and as "the man..." followed by a slow sip of coffee and a raised eyebrow from hipsters. Getting back on track, we find pleasure and meaning in work and yet today I'm telling you do not overdue it, leave well enough alone, step back and let things flow. What could this all mean? Relax, I've figured everything out and this is only part two. Come back for more so you too can figure it all out.
Rory Sutherland is an ad man, and in my humble opinion a sort of pudgy, funny marketing genius who refers to NPR as "National Pinko Radio" but then refers liberally to Darwinian beliefs in his subconscious marketing techniques. He states here that our deep desire to be worth something sometimes drives us to do things that actually harm us. Not that it is our first effort to harm ourselves, but sometimes we set into motion the needed actions and those actions must simply be left well enough alone. Jacko and Elvis both had full time physicians and yet both died to young, Sutherland explains that it must be extremely difficult to have your full time job justified when you are looking over a fairly healthy person, so you continue acting. I find this crushingly true in business.
When a small business first takes off there is a whirl wind of activity that keeps everybody frantic. Frantic, one of my favorite words. I like to tell my construction guys that the level I am looking for is just below dangerous and just above sane and this cool little existence is called frantic. You can't do anything wrong inside of frantic, your rushing around, your fixing problems, your not thinking or analyzing just doing-doing-doing. If you are lucky enough that your small business gets off the ground however, then there is this awkward time you must not be frantic but rather calm, you must sit back and let the good things that you started percolate, like delicious life giving coffee. This is hard to say the least. As a business owner it makes me feel lazy and worthless sometimes and this is usually when I figure out I AM LAZY AND WORTHLESS!
I'm lazy because I should not be taking action on things that are already set and in motion but I should be taking action on the un-urgent/important matrix if your a Steven Covey fan. I should be helping my people do what they do but better. I should be making sure that as things progress as they should I'm moving furniture out of the way and opening doors even if I'm not actually carrying the couch. To take it back to private doctors they should simply be observing their patients and figuring out what they should not being doing (crack or speed would be a good start Dr. Jacko) to increase their health rather than giving their patients even more medication. These doctors should be stepping in and saying "we are going to go for a one hour walk during our visit today instead of me prodding around a body I just examined yesterday". Is this cool? No. Is this cutting edge? No. But we should be doing the same thing, we do not need to be cool or cutting edge. Like a parent who figures out their model for discipline we need to then take that model and run with it for eighteen consistent years with tweaks instead of total overhauls.
So yesterday we found out that satisfaction comes from working and the only reason we have leisure time is so the man can squeeze our hard earned money from us. When I say the man I speak of Henry Ford and I mean it as both "THE MAN!" followed by a high five in an intimate moment between bro's and as "the man..." followed by a slow sip of coffee and a raised eyebrow from hipsters. Getting back on track, we find pleasure and meaning in work and yet today I'm telling you do not overdue it, leave well enough alone, step back and let things flow. What could this all mean? Relax, I've figured everything out and this is only part two. Come back for more so you too can figure it all out.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Everything Figured Out: Part 1
Introduction
As an elementary school librarian my Mom tells me that intelligence is often how quickly kids can connect something they've learned with something else they've learned. I've also heard it said that our minds our a giant wheat field with pockets of knowledge and as we learn we beat down a path between those pockets, how romantic. My mind is a backyard of crabgrass with bald spots where my dog of learning stopped and marked his territory. Today I would like to share with you the culmination of a number of those bald spot, so watch your step for landmines as we go on a little adventure through the backyard of Ben's brain.
This post is my dear hunter, it is the culmination of a life's work that started over a week ago. I've put at least four hours into this instead of playing with my daughter and for some odd reason she's seems more emotionally stable than she did last week, connect the dots.
As of now this post has six parts, these parts all hit me hard when I first heard or read them individually. Now, connected I feel like they have pulled together to create a state where satisfaction comes much easier, where enjoyment in the mayhem is achievable, where consumerism is put to rest, where my mind feels peace instead of a continual search for the moving target that is happiness.
Think of these subsequent post's as not a destination showing you that I have found the answers but rather a sign on the trail that reassures you your heading in the right direction and if a change is needed it is there for that too.
Part 1
Henry Ford created the assembly line, eight hour work day, five day work week and the color black but took a little creative licensing with the last one.
As middle class Americans we have the full spectrum of riches (I say riches instead of wealth very pointedly) and yet we feel so unsatisfied. Henry Ford moved his workers from six ten hour work days down to five eight hour work days because he believed that unless you gave workers recreational time they would not be consumers. Ford was a genius for this but the next step that he did not take is that once you have turned somebody into a consumer the best way to move them up the ladder to consuming more is to make them unsatisfied.
We live in a culture of choice, just wait around and something better will come or buy but be prepared to buy when the new one comes out. We stand in front of a shelf at Walmart staring at thirty choices for pillows and no matter what we grab there will be a certain amount of dissatisfaction due to how much we had to turn down. Have you ever searched for something really specific, went from place to place until you found a store that carried just one of what you were looking for, this is true consumer satisfaction. Consumer satisfaction is bad because you will replace or upgrade that thing very soon or very easily.
So what is the lesson here, it is said that "Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another" Anatole France.
If we have the ability to not be working all of the time we must do a number of things during that off time. First, realize that relaxation time was created for you to spend your money. Secondly, relaxation from work is best found in work. Work you love. Work that helps others. Work that creates. Work that inspires. Work that is fun.
This is just part 1, come back for even bigger and better life changing lessons in part 2 through who knows. If I used Henry Ford as my opening band, image how big this could get!
As an elementary school librarian my Mom tells me that intelligence is often how quickly kids can connect something they've learned with something else they've learned. I've also heard it said that our minds our a giant wheat field with pockets of knowledge and as we learn we beat down a path between those pockets, how romantic. My mind is a backyard of crabgrass with bald spots where my dog of learning stopped and marked his territory. Today I would like to share with you the culmination of a number of those bald spot, so watch your step for landmines as we go on a little adventure through the backyard of Ben's brain.
This post is my dear hunter, it is the culmination of a life's work that started over a week ago. I've put at least four hours into this instead of playing with my daughter and for some odd reason she's seems more emotionally stable than she did last week, connect the dots.
As of now this post has six parts, these parts all hit me hard when I first heard or read them individually. Now, connected I feel like they have pulled together to create a state where satisfaction comes much easier, where enjoyment in the mayhem is achievable, where consumerism is put to rest, where my mind feels peace instead of a continual search for the moving target that is happiness.
Think of these subsequent post's as not a destination showing you that I have found the answers but rather a sign on the trail that reassures you your heading in the right direction and if a change is needed it is there for that too.
Part 1
Henry Ford created the assembly line, eight hour work day, five day work week and the color black but took a little creative licensing with the last one.
As middle class Americans we have the full spectrum of riches (I say riches instead of wealth very pointedly) and yet we feel so unsatisfied. Henry Ford moved his workers from six ten hour work days down to five eight hour work days because he believed that unless you gave workers recreational time they would not be consumers. Ford was a genius for this but the next step that he did not take is that once you have turned somebody into a consumer the best way to move them up the ladder to consuming more is to make them unsatisfied.
We live in a culture of choice, just wait around and something better will come or buy but be prepared to buy when the new one comes out. We stand in front of a shelf at Walmart staring at thirty choices for pillows and no matter what we grab there will be a certain amount of dissatisfaction due to how much we had to turn down. Have you ever searched for something really specific, went from place to place until you found a store that carried just one of what you were looking for, this is true consumer satisfaction. Consumer satisfaction is bad because you will replace or upgrade that thing very soon or very easily.
So what is the lesson here, it is said that "Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another" Anatole France.
If we have the ability to not be working all of the time we must do a number of things during that off time. First, realize that relaxation time was created for you to spend your money. Secondly, relaxation from work is best found in work. Work you love. Work that helps others. Work that creates. Work that inspires. Work that is fun.
This is just part 1, come back for even bigger and better life changing lessons in part 2 through who knows. If I used Henry Ford as my opening band, image how big this could get!
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