Are you sandbagging?

A few months ago my company decided to paint a bunch of the offices and I asked if they could include mine in the process.   The person who had the office before me had it done as a tribute to his favorite baseball team-The Detroit Tigers.  Needless to say, although I really liked Sparky Anderson when I was a kid, it was time for a change.   As a son of a construction foreman, I am more savvy than the average person when it comes to how things are built, etc.   My office has 4 basic walls, 1 big window and a door.  For two professional painters, this job should have been knocked out in just a few […]

Confidence. It’s a tricky thing.

Confidence is a crazy thing.  In order to be truly successful, you need it. Yet, there are times when confidence is the thing that sets you up for failure.  When you are successful, it’s easy to get into a  confidence rut.   This rut can breed laziness and eventually failure. When you have a history of being successful, it is easy to lean too heavily on those successes as you move forward.  You’ve always been able to rely on your ability to hit the goal, even going in ill prepared. This behavior, which we have all practiced at some point, can set you up for massive failure if you get into the rut of relying too heavily on your confidence.  […]

Are you a floater or a swimmer?

Floaters are people who spend much of their life and career looking for ways to keep what they got.  To hang on.  They wait out the tides of life and hope to just stay above water.  To paddle is to resist and could possibly change the target outcome.  When you are a floater, the unpredictable is the least appealing option.  To stay afloat isn’t really living, but it is surviving and that’s better than sinking.   Swimmers look for ways to change their fortune and assume that the next move will better their current position. They paddle against the current, pursue uncharted waters and utilize a lot of energy to battle the elements in an effort to better their situation. […]

Do the right thing (a Chase Murphy joint).

My father has read all the Jack Reacher books. I have read a couple of them for a change of pace.  I traditionally don’t read stuff that the average person enjoys.  My personal library is full of marketing, management and how to influence people kind of stuff.  Unless you are into this genre of books, you traditionally don’t finish too many of them.  I could see where books about Christian Grey or wizards could be more for the imagination.  I feel, that if I don’t learn something from what I am reading, that its not really worth the time.  It’s not to say I couldn’t pick up a move in the bedroom or learn how to cast a proper spell […]