Category Archives: Life Lessons

Life Lessons, The Empire

I don’t celebrate your accomplishments long enough

I often don’t dwell long enough on the accomplishments of my business partners before moving on to the next problem they/we need to fix and thats kindov shitty. My nature as a problem solver has its benefits in business, and especially the kind of business that requires lots of those balls in the air being juggled – but a major downside is in the glossing over on the completions in the meantime.

When we fix a flat tire, my instinct is to say “great&goodjob and now what about the transmission and oil and steering fluid and double-axel-piston-valve-port” (idk cars). But that’s kindov obnoxious. Especially if the person changing the tire isn’t a mechanic and even more so if they didn’t know how to change a tire before they learned just to change that one. That deserves some dwelling over before just racing ahead to the next problem to solve or otherwise it can be discouraging as a person is faced with a seemingly endless list of problems.

That’s how I see life, of course (an endless sea of problems that we have to be diligent not to drown in) and while that mentality might be a good way for me to charter my ship, I am recently seeing that it has a drown-y effect on others. It’s a bummer to do something good and then have the immediate next-thing be a new thing that is wrong and needs work and attention, time and energy to solve and otherwise deal with.

I should be better about this and will try to be, but the first step is knowing it about myself and warning others that it is a problem within my nature to skip over the good and scurry right to the next thing that is not-so-good. I excuse this about myself because 1) I don’t deny people recognition for their accomplishments and 2) I celebrate people as a whole after they’ve collected a series of impressive points that make me swell with pride or admiration over them but the problem with both those points is that 1) Sometimes a quick thumbs up isn’t enough or appropriate for the effort put into the accomplishment and 2) if you don’t enjoy the small accomplishments enough, it is less motivating to make the big ones – especially when the small ones lead to the big ones. If you’re building a pyramid, each milestone and perhaps each day of brick laying should be celebrated, not just the grand opening of the finished product. ps: is it telling that the first construction example I thought of was one traditionally built by slave labor? oops.

I don’t mean to be a slave driver. I mean to do excellent things.  I’m hard on those in the trenches because that excellence can only be earned with diligence from tough soldiers. Further, an obsession with success is what allows me to lead those troops to those excellent things in the first place, so I don’t want to lose that – but along the road I do recognize the need for motivation acknowledgement more than what I currently do.

I’ll do better. You’ll all do the same. But I’ll make you feel better about it.

 

 

Life Lessons

I live to to work… (not work to live)

Realized something big about myself that I guess I always knew but didn’t… realize. Geez. You’d think I would have crafted that sentence better or at least avoided using “realize” twice. “I came to the realization of something that I suppose I always knew but never truly… — crap. No. There isn’t a better word for it.

 

Okay – Start over:

 

I only exist to work and it’s something you should know about me.

 

While talking about my endless grind and trying to evangelize it to Dwayne across a Steak n Shake table in my trip to Missouri this month he brought up the question of “do you live to work? or work to live?”. The reason for anyone saying that phrase is to highlight the fact that work shouldn’t control you or be your life and that you should remember that you only work so you can live the way you want and not the reverse. But for me, it really is the reverse. I suspect it is for many entrepreneurs but who gives a fkk about them – the point here is that I LIVE TO WORK. It’s what I’m all about. It’s all I care about. It’s the only reason I get out of bed every day.

 

Not just the act of working – I’m not an oxen for frick sakes – but MY work. My work is my life. It’s more important to me than traveling or building life experiences or comfort or pleasure or ice cream or any other perk of being alive one can think of.

 

I live to do my work. I’m not on this planet for my tombstone to read “He watched a lot of tv” or “He visited a lot of cool places” or even “He shagged a lot of pretty blonde girls and ate a lot of pizza”. Those things are meaningless in comparison to my actual life’s work. It’s my motivating factor, my life blood, my Force, my existence expressed in action. If I die before it is significantly off the ground then whoah be unto you, mankind, for you missed out on a wild ride. And double whoah unto me personally, for I will have truly wasted my adult life. But oh well. That is the gamble I’m making. This is where all my chips are bet (betted? bought? bit? buttered?). I’m in it to win it and it’s all-in or nothing.

 

If you know or understand nothing about me – know this: My work is my life and the thing that consumes my entire existence.

 

Now lets just hope I get to see it to its proper heights and live long enough to enjoy some of its spoils.

 

Cheers, bitches.

Life Journal, Life Lessons

My first rejection

I was 4 years old and one of the kids I would play with in the neighborhood was riding her bike down my street. She was a few years older than me so to 4 year old me she might as well been 21 in the way I viewed her so in that sense I looked to her as an authority and someone who knew their shiz.

 

As she approached my house I exclaimed “wanna play!?” and she replied “yea, but not with you” – and she continued riding her bike down the street.

 

I was stunned. Yes, she DID want to play… but… no… not with…me?

 

It made perfect sense what she said but that reaction was one I had never even considered before. Up until that moment in my life I had only thought about either wanting to play or not wanting to play. Not being in the mood for play was understandable but I thought that if someone did want to play, then that’s the end of the analysis. The concept of wanting to play with some over others changed my whole perspective about the world. Merely existing was not enough. I had to achieve. I had to win people over. I had to be someone people would want to play with.

 

And thus the journey started…

Life Lessons

Be brave like Matthew

A great little lesson by a 4 year old on the virtues of bravery occurred in the pool.

 

As my twin cousins visit for the summer and graduate to jumping off the diving board into the pool here, the innate differences between the male and female biological wiring are already presenting themselves as Kylie is a thrill seeking danger junkie that will jump into the abyss no problem and always wants to be tossed higher and farther into the air, while Matthew is much more calculating, cautious and fearful of the potential dangers that exist in all of the above.

 

The other day he was on the edge of the diving board, staring down into the wet unknown expressing the kind of trepidation typical for him in this situation and from the water I encouraged him to trust me that it is a safe jump and just do it. I wasn’t breaking through to him in the slightest until I said “be brave”. With that, he perked his head up like a dog and repeated back to me “be brave?”… and he looked back down into the water with even more calculation and now determination and resolve and leaped into the air.

 

Even a 4 year old understands the value of bravery. Bravery isn’t the absence of fear. By definition, bravery is the presence of fear, and the action that goes against that fear-grain anyway. A person without fear cannot be brave. They can be fearless, and maybe stupid or irresponsible but not brave. Brave takes into consideration the fright that is holding you back from action, using intellect to decide what the best choice to make is, and then making that choice despite that fear. That is what bravery is and I was happy to be a small part in pushing the concept to Matthew.

 

Be brave like Matthew. Look at your surroundings and make your choices to go forward in the best ways regardless of the fears that would otherwise anchor you.