The Journey to Greatness?

“Only in America can someone start with nothing and achieve the American Dream. That's the greatness of this country.” ~ Rafael Cruz

If you live in this country you have it better than the vast majority of the people on the planet earth.   So that’s pretty great.   Every once in a while I send out an email that compares our lives to some other places.     Here’s one – About 2.5 billion people, or 35% roughly, don’t have access to a toilet.    I know right!

We have some pretty cool advantages when we are born here.  But are you on a journey to greatness?

To me the journey to greatness is overcoming your challenges.   Accepting that you are not perfect and fighting to improve on your life.  Even if you start small you achieve a goal, and another, and another and pretty soon you almost begin to feel like you can accomplish anything.  

Basically – Be on a constant mission to increase your own expectations. 

How good of a parent are you?    Want to get better?   Hopefully you said you are a good parent AND you want to get better.   Think for a minute about how you can be better.    Could you spend another 10 minutes reading to your child if they are younger?   Could you be just a little more patient?

Do you want to be a better child?   Sibling?  Cousin?  Friend?  Spouse? Employee?  Employer?   

If you really tried to be a little tiny bit better every single day how much could you gain in a month?   Or a year?  

These are all challenges.    It takes work to be a better parent.   To be a better child.   To be a better employee.   Challenges are uncomfortable.   UGH!  I hate work!  

If you focus on these small challenges and making yourself a bit better each and every day you’ll be amazed at where you end up in a year.  Or five.  Or ten.  Or twenty.

Everyone Makes Mistakes

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. Michael Jordan Arguably the best basketball player to ever play the game. He missed 9000 shots. Loser! A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying. B. F. Skinner You’d be amazed how many times in my interviews when I ask a person about the biggest mistake they ever made, they sit back, take a deep breath and say “gosh, I just can’t think of a mistake I ever made.” Really? You never had a typo? Never placed an order wrong? Worked fast food and never made the wrong sandwich or accidentally poured coke instead of diet? Really? I consider myself pretty good at what I do and I make mistakes all the time! Just today Bill came into my office and said one of the new reps didn’t know what her goal was, he went to the board and the goals posted are September goals. My fault! Why is it so hard to just admit that for some people? We spend more effort trying to cover up our mistakes than we do just learning from them. Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. Albert Einstein A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. Alexander Hamilton

The Time Has Come For Everyone to Clean Up Their Own Backyard.......

Hey Troop! Before They Go Knocking On Their Neighbors Door. One of my favorite quotes of all time. True words to live by. You may have heard it another way, "Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." Basically it means that unless you have all your stuff together you shouldn't go around telling everyone how to live their lives. We see it all the time from our leaders in this country. The guy telling us the loudest how it is wrong to be gay.... Turns out, he's gay. A guy on the tax committee, always telling everyone to pay their taxes... Turns out he didn't pay his taxes in decades. Doesn't matter what political party, seems like every month or so we catch someone doing something they get on their soap box about. On a smaller scale I've seen it for years in the work place. Some of you may have heard of Pat, she used to work here and most of the time she had top sales. When Bill was still on the phones Pat was on the night shift and all the day shifters would say "the day shift gets all the cancels, night shift gets all the sales." One day, Pat wanted to come to the day shift, so we moved her and almost instantly all the night shift people would say "night shift gets all the cancels, day shift gets all the sales." Couldn't just be that Pat was doing something a little better could it? Nah! Must be the customers. If you follow UFC at all you may know who Chuck Liddell is, he was the Light heavyweight Champ for quite sometime. There was a point where he went 9-2 with 9 knock outs. People would say "man, that guy keeps getting lucky with that punch." In and interview someone asked Chuck about that and he basically said 'I must be the luckiest guy in the world because I've landed that lucky punch 9 times in a row.' Of course fighters often don't want to admit that on that day someone was better than they were. So it had to be some cosmic force. Had to be luck. Its so easy to just chalk up a loss to something else. So easy to say "so and so gets better customers than I do." Piece of cake to throw your hands up and say "well, it just isn't my day." "I'm unlucky." Why not put in a little effort and see if you have room to improve? What? Effort? He wants me to put out effort? Shocking I know, but there are people who make this a successful career at Magazines.com. There are people who work here for a few years and put the money toward college and move on to something they've been wanting to do their whole lives. Putting in a little effort can reap huge rewards. So, clean up your own backyard before you go knocking on your neighbors door. The funny things is, your backyard should really never be fully clean. You should strive to always get a little better.

Comfort is in the eye of the beholder

Are you comfortable where you are? You should be. And yet, you shouldn’t be. The argument for “You should be” – ”There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort.” ~ Jane Austen There are certainly times you should be comfortable. You should strive to have some comfort in the home that you have provided and with the family you have. You should be somewhat comfortable with your place in life and you direction. Please don’t take the rest of this email as NEVER being comfortable with where you are or who you are. But do understand that life begins on the outer edge of your comfort zone. If you are living your life too comfortably, you’re probably missing out on something. The argument for “You shouldn’t be” - “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. You should develop a little bit of an edge to get beyond what you know. Meet new people, try new things. Challenge yourself on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. Do you know what you are capable of? I hope I don’t yet know what I’m capable of. If you have children they probably amaze you from time to time. I mean really make you sit back and go “how the heck did they know that?” We get too caught up in the old saying ‘can’t teach old dogs new tricks.’ I think you can teach anyone anything at anytime. Given the right amount of effort, time and tools. Don’t ask me how, but this is how my dog sleeps. He looks so ridiculously uncomfortable like this, but every night…..there he is, on his back and all twisted up. Who am I to tell him to roll over and curl up like every other dog. Like you, he gets to choose what comfortable is. Apparently for him comfort is whatever the heck he’s doing in this picture. Rock climbing sure doesn’t look comfortable to me, but a lot of people love it. When I tell people I do Ju Jitsu they look at me like I’m crazy and the truth is that grappling is one of the places I feel most comfortable, also where I feel the most challenged. Ultimately who cares what anyone else thinks of your comfort and your challenges. Just get out there and do it! “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. You should develop a little bit of an edge to get beyond what you know. Meet new people, try new things. Challenge yourself on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. Do you know what you are capable of? I hope I don’t yet know what I’m capable of. If you have children they probably amaze you from time to time. I mean really make you sit back and go “how the heck did they know that?” We get too caught up in the old saying ‘can’t teach old dogs new tricks.’ I think you can teach anyone anything at anytime. Given the right amount of effort, time and tools.

Do or Do Not - There is No Try

I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying. Michael Jordan If you don’t know who Michael Jordan is he may be one of the worst basketball players of all time. He missed 9,000 shots in his career. Horrible. The guy lost 300 games. He MISSED shots with the game on the line 26 times. His teammates trusted him with that last shot and he blew it. Of course, while missing all those shots and losing all those games he also won 6 championships. Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be. John Wooden If you don’t know, John Wooden was a college basketball coach who lost 162 games. His 1st year of coaching at the high school level he went 6-11. Kind of surprised he stuck with it. Of course, after sticking with it all those years he did bring UCLA to win Championships in 1964, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73 and 75. Soooo, I guess that’s pretty good. Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. Thomas A. Edison If you don’t know, Thomas Edison was known for saying “I’ve never failed, I have succeeded in proving 10,000 ways a light bulb will not work.” Of course, he did invent the first practical light bulb. Like Mike says, everyone fails at something. Each one of us will fail from time to time. It is fine as long as you continue to move forward. Continue to get back up and keep trying. I can’t imagine being in Thomas Edison’s shoes. Everyone thinks you’re crazy and you’ve failed that many times. The quote changes but there’s no doubt it took him forever to create it. Historians will tell you he failed around 3,000 times. How many of you would try to do something 3,000 times without success? I think an argument can be made he was a little insane! DO NOT GIVE UP! Chase your dreams. Figure out what you want and go get it!

Monday Mayhem

Hello all, We've had about 5 people call out. Different area's have been hit different. Overall it does seem like the roads aren't bad if you just sloooooow doooooown. If you are out there, drive slow. Like really slow. People going fast are wiping out. Funny how speed + ice doesn't seem to work in a 1500 pound vehicle. Something about momentum from high school science class? I don't know. #1 priority - BE SAFE!

March, in like a lion.

A very cold and icy lion! Here's the deal. I have no power and Ice everywhere. I'm watching the news on kristas phone. According to the the ice line ice right about where I 40 is. So north of that is messes up. Is seems like south of town is not icy. So I'm going to open at the normal time but above all else be careful. Drive slow and give yourself plenty of time. Ill be leaving shortly. :)