Category: life

Diet, exercise, reading, learning, practicing, growing, praying, advancing… Don’t let school exams, big projects, travel, holidays, weather, long recoveries from injury, or other interruptive circumstances knock you off your track. When you have to take a break, remember to get back to work. Make adjustments and keep the vision in your mind.

My father was fit, slim, and ran every day until my mother became pregnant with me. He stopped running and quickly got “furniture disease”—where the chest falls into the drawers.

Don’t pursue romance until you’ve grown up enough to come out the other side an even better person. Have your business or career ready, have money in the bank or some schedule thought through. Many good projects get abandoned because the software developer had a kid or the business had an expensive start and money didn’t come in soon enough. Many children don’t know their fathers who either won’t abandon their pet projects or have to work extra because they weren’t financially ready for kids. People get married or begin a twenty-year job and their priorities change both for better and worse; go into every day expecting that, don’t be ignorant.

Select your priorities to maintain before the unexpected surprises you. Through uphill climbs, hold your standards as high as you can and know that no life worth publishing happens by itself. God is always in control, but don’t let circumstance take you out of the driver’s seat of your diligence. Stand alert at your watch.

When you get off track, don’t wait for your friends to call you; keep yourself in line. “Accountability groups” are useful, but overrated. “Confession circles” are for people just beginning to admit their problems to themselves. Planning with a wingman is a blessing beyond words. Two can achieve the work of five; it’s called “synergy”. But, don’t let so-called “accountability partners” be your excuse to fail. Don’t let “accountability salesmen” tell you that you’ll fail without affirming their egos and buying their books. At times you will be your only wingman—that is one of the steepest uphill climbs. A little self-accountability and intrinsic motivation during easy times will prepare you for summits worth their ascent.

Invest in friendship. When you find a good friend, take time out for a productive conversation. When time’s up, good soldiers are glad to get back to work. Don’t waste time and call it “friendship”.

True “fellowship” has a known and defined purpose, a task to achieve or discuss. Talk over coffee. Talk along the way—on a run, swim, flight, climb, workout, walk, or commute. But build friendships, don’t just shoot the breeze about surface conversation that you all hope will never go anywhere. Know when to jest and joust. Be hearty in humor, but keep your substance.

When it’s time to sit and “just be” with people, that’s no waste. Set aside time for quietness also, just don’t become addicted to an idle life. The best friendships in which to share mutual silence are the friendships built while working to achieve something excellent.

The greatest friendships are often between parents and children. As you age, be a cheerleader for your parents and don’t dwell on whatever they did that irritates you. Most people who get hung up in life are hung up on what their parents did or didn’t. But remember, your future is not about your parents, it’s about your future. Encouraging your parents will make you strong enough to overcome whatever weakness they handed down to you. They might have their own “parent” issues; dealing with yours just might deal with theirs as well and you’ll find a new best friend.

If you’re a parent, make the task easier for your kids: Do some homework and get a third opinion before you execute your “perfect plan” to make things better for the next generation. If you’re a young parent, don’t presume—like everyone else—that you’ll be the first in human history whose kids don’t talk back. Love shines brightest as a choice, not a passing feeling. Don’t overbear and know when to protect your space, but don’t be the “professional” who helps everyone but his own family. And, don’t be the parent who runs off to have an affair because the marriage no longer feels like a high school prom.

Friendship is a choice that starts in the little things.

People in your life will pretend to offer your sympathy. Reject it. Be kind. Be thankful. They may be friends who will be loyal to you a long time. But, don’t let sympathy go to your heart.

No one can sympathize with your situation like Jesus. He grew up human and died on a Roman cross. Jesus knows pain and hardship better than anyone else. Friends will encourage you, everyone needs this. Sometimes you must be the friend to encourage others. But, sympathy misplaced can lower your standards. If you need a shoulder to cry or lean on, don’t turn it into a crutch.

When Frodo and the fellowship departed the caves after crossing the Bridge of Khazad Dum, where Gandalf had just fallen, they did not have the luxury of sympathy. “Giving them a moment” would have spelled their death.

Many people offer sympathy, understanding, excuses, lowered standards and, in the end, if you accept and act on those opportunities to pause and grieve for yourself, you will be overrun. This is why quiet times and regular prayer are vital.

Spend every waking moment you can in a state of fellowship with Jesus through his Spirit. When you have a strong emotional connection to Jesus, you don’t the usual, addictive, seductive, ensnaring sympathies from people who can’t help you anyway. Unwarranted sympathy is, after all, an impostor—a counterfeit—of real understanding and fellowship that only comes from the one, perfect human—the one human who can identify with you the most.

Jesus understands you. He knows your situation. When only one set of footprints mark the sands of painful times, those were the times when he carried you. Don’t give into self-sorrow and drop your guard along with your standards, all in the name of so-called “sympathy”.

Cry when you need to; Jesus gave us tears. Cry with your friends. Deal with your pain. Talk with your friends and open your heart. But, don’t let sympathy grow into an undue addiction. Anything good can be used in the wrong setting and, sympathy notwithstanding, end up baiting you into a state of weakness that you might not grow out of this side of Eternity.

Take some time to discuss colognes or attend a coffee tasting class. Watch some videos about difference in clothing fashion or ask a potter about different methods of working with clay. You don’t need to become an expert, just learn enough to appreciate people who are.

Of course, you need to have your own areas of expertise; excel beyond novice at those things. But, some awareness of other skills and arts will help you respect your fellow man. This is what it means to “never stop learning”. Continued learning fuels a life of mutual respect.

Two topics often overlooked are politics and Bible. Both of these are prone to “noob” mistakes. Everyone can read the Bible and vote in America, so everyone has an opinion about them, but these topics also require due diligence before understanding them.

Every opinion is equally allowable, but not equally guaranteed to work. You need a good reason for any opinion you have other than that “you just have an opinion”.

The Bible is literature, so grab some books on “Bible Hermeneutics”, Church history, and theology. JM Boice is good for theology. CS Lewis is good for deep thinking. Queen Elizabeth had a lot to do with Western Church history as well as politics. Read the US Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Mayflower Compact, and review other writings and history from early colonial America. Do a little homework in Bible and politics before being too opinionated about whatever first thought comes to your mind.

The Pilgrims introduced the Bible to America. The result was an economy injected with crafts and arts. Studying craftsmanship of that industrial effect grants a fuller understanding of what it means to be good at anything. But, don’t stop there. There’s always another art or skill to learn.

Go to craft shows and ask people how they made their stuff. Ask a competent friend to do some home or car maintenance with you. Ask some downtown local shop owners why their businesses succeeded; their answers might surprise you. These three are for all people: Bible, politics, and craftsmanship. They each require diligence. Make sure you appreciate and respect that, not just in yourself, but also in others.

You’ll make your entire experience with others better if you presume that everyone has some healthy ambition. People want to be good at things. People don’t want to try and fail; they want to try and succeed. So, when someone makes a mistake, they would probably love a quick, concise, light-hearted demonstration.

Show others how to do the thing they don’t know to do. Give the missing component on a circuit board. Give the correct programming syntax for reference. Don’t lecture or persuade, just offer.

God gave horses incredible legs—no one can resist the urge to use legs that incredible. Every dog is endowed by its Creator with an inalienable smelling machine, some call it a “nose”. Who wouldn’t want to use such an inalienable smelling machine to smell everything a thousand times!? Likewise, humans have a will and opposable thumbs. We’re like walking computers that want to master whatever is around us.

Do yourself a favor: Presume as much about others.

When someone messes up, there’s no need for rebuke nor give a sales pitch to do better. In those moments that we feel lazy or lax on our duties, we don’t need to be hassled toward success—we need to be reminded that this is also worth succeeding with. Sometimes we feel like giving up, never because we are “quitters” at our core, but because don’t see any feasible way forward.

When someone is discouraged, just show them a path, point to any tunnel with a light at the end. That’s what we’re all looking for anyway. And, if you ever find someone who can’t see any light at the end of any tunnel, maybe you can be that light—not only with your words, but with proof of the results from your own journeys. It’s excellent encouragement to receive just a few words from someone who has done something telling you that you can do it also.

Make sure you have the results in your life so your encouragements are meaningful. Then you’ll always have a place in this world. After all, everyone has some level of ambition and thus needs a little light for the journey to guide and empower.

As a car owner, it can be frustrating listening to a mechanic explaining your car’s engine problem. Remember, he’s giving you a tuition-free education. He could just charge you money or lie to you. When he shares his knowledge, you should be thankful. The more you know about your car, the better condition you can keep it in and the less likely a bad mechanic is to do you dirty.

As a business owner, you may contract, hire, or both, when it comes to specialized talent. Those talented people will want to talk to you and share their expertise. Don’t respond with a faux pas.

A Rush Limbaugh caller once said, “I mean, if someone gives you a box from Tiffany’s, you say, ‘Thank you.'”

It’s not about being rich or smart or educated or wanting to be a geek or being materialistic. The polite, kind thing to do when someone gives you a compliment is to, quite simply, be thankful. If nothing else, it’s back to mom putting drawings on the refrigerator. But, when you’re paying the person who wants to throw in something extra to boot, you might want to display that artwork under glass.

Whether you think like an investor, deal-maker, employer, or simply a friend, it should count as at least three red flags when someone disrespects the opinion of hired talent. It might be a worthy HR tactic to stall job applicants with a janitor babbling on about why he mops the floor the way he does, just to see which applicants care and which get irritated—and the janitor is the actual guy giving the interview.

I actually do that kind of stuff when I visit a potential sourcing factory for the first time. I throw out my “crazy guy strategy ideas”—in part, never all—to let the factory owner filter himself. If he rejects my idea, then it won’t work out when I order 100k pc anyway, and, on record, he was the one who rejected me. So, he can’t complain when I’m ordering, literally, from the factory across the street.

Rambling talent could save you big money. Never stop learning, especially from your own hired help.