Week 9, 2023
Profit is important, no doubt. Actually valuing your customers usually protects and improves your profit.
Show up for the people in your life with ACTIONS. Your customers, your friends, your neighbors... Words are wind.
If you do that, the profits will take care of themselves.
Week 8, 2023
Everything is a choice, even if you deny that you are choosing. Everything is changing, even as you struggle in vain to keep it the same. So, acknowledge that you are choosing... and know that with each choice you step closer to that person. Every time you choose to do the hard thing, you are stepping towards being the person who isn't afraid of hard things.
Week 7, 2023
The difference between terror and exhilaration is often just whether you are standing on your heels or your toes. The same experience can be vastly different just based on your attitude.
Week #06, Oh! The Places You'll Go!
The Rule of Thirds
Progress doesn't happen as steady forward motion, and the most important days aren't the 1/3rd that feel good. The important days are the 1/3rd that suck but you show up anyway... even if you have to phone it in a bit... show up.
Also, it is a bit of a relief, on days where you feel kind of mid, to remember this is an essential part of the journey, and not a failure.
Week #05 of 2023 "This is Crazy, This is Crazy, This is Crazy!"
We saw the musical Hadestown this weekend.
It's the tragic, sisyphean striving that got to me. Everyone of us will lose the ones we love. Everyone of us will fall short of making the most of every minute with them. Everyone of us will fail to be immortal. Everyone of us will be beaten down by the effort and get back up, until we don't.
Everything is Chess.
Everything is a Chess Game. This essay has nothing to do with winning or losing. That is important to say up front. There is tremendous value in the desire to win, but it is also often a distraction. I was talking about this with my friend who owns a lawn and landscape company. He started in high school, and when we were in college, I worked for him for a while when he was in that difficult stage between Soloprenuer and business owner, when there is too much work for one guy, and not enough for two. One day I was struggling with trimming. Trimming, or edging, or weed-eating, whatever you call it, is one of those things that looks...
Week #04, It's the Year of the Rabbit!
Don't compromise yourself and don't compromise with yourself. Do the hard, amazing, weird thing!!! Don't give up because it's hard! You can make any excuse for yourself inside your mind, and you should make NONE! Seriously. Do you talk to yourself? You should. And you should use that self talk to hold yourself to a high standard, and to hold yourself accountable to that high standard. Don't soften that drive for the people around you. It isn't your job to bring them along. Their journey is their journey.
You owe it to yourself, your loved ones, your Earth, and The Universe, to drive yourself to your own weird, unique, personal greatness.
Week #03 of 2023, half of January is left.
"If you wish to be a writer, write." -Epictetus
Often when we say something like "I wish I was a writer." when what we actually mean is "I wish I was a rich, famous, and well-respected writer", which is entirely different.
I don't know if you will ever be a rich, famous, and well respected writer. Neither of us can control that. But I know you won't be if you don't first decide to be merely "a writer" today.
Week #02, it's almost 2024!!!
This week I am thinking about goal setting. Not "the goals that I am setting" but "what is the most effective way to set goals?".
I always quote Art and Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland. That book taught me that focusing on the process, or the "doing" was much more important than the "having done" or the achievement.
Week #01, OMG... a blank canvas!
First off, I don't think we should mention Dr. King without acknowledging two things. First, Dr. King wasn't universally loved when he was living. He was a very divisive figure, with 63% of Americans rating him unfavorably in the last Gallup poll taken before his assassination. This fact is relevant as we view current events. Take note of your bias. Change is uncomfortable for most, regardless how clearly right and just it is in hindsight.