O-Dark-Thirty

I’m big on seminars. I listen to the tapes of people like Zig Ziglar and I get inspired. I really do like to be inspired. It makes me want to become the better me. It doesn’t last long enough, though, so I listen to more seminars. Years ago, I heard a guy ask a question on one of the tapes I was listening to that struck me to my heart. He asked “If you died today, would you know enough good men to carry your casket?” I had to think about it. My three brothers. Not quite enough. One friend here in Texas, perhaps two. Five people wouldn’t be able to do carry my casket. My sons were too young. I decided I should be cremated. Then I’d only need one person to carry my ash around. Seriously, though, it struck me sadly. The seminar was about legacy, what kind of legacy you leave your children, a legacy you leave behind in the world. A legacy isn’t money; it is a set of beliefs, a set of ground rules to live by that they can remember and that will serve them when times are good or bad...

In May of 2010, Martha Beck of the Oprah Magazine wrote a great article, titled " 10 life lessons you should unlearn." You should be able to find the original at this CNN Link . That was the inspiration for this post, along with the realization that some people I know and love need to know these lessons, because a learned lesson is an earned lesson. We all seek joy in life, though sometimes we don't realize that's what we're doing. We think a pain-free, conflict-free existence will lift us up in our minds and relieve us from the daily toils that plague us. I hate to point this out, but you will not reach that nirvana while you're alive. (A discussion of whether you reach this state after death is an entirely different topic.) It might be possible if people were perfect. One of my favorite movies is based on James Hilton's book Lost Horizon . The movie is called Lost Horizon and was made twice in the US (according to IMDB). The first was directe...

Steps to Self-Publishing 1. Write a great book, or at least a good book. This is critical. Of course, if it is really a great book and you can find an established publisher to publish it, then I'd opt for that route. Really. Save yourself the headaches. The problem is that it is pretty easy to write a book; it is a much harder task to write a good one, and pretty difficult to write a great one. This is why there are so many self-published mediocre books available. You can do better, though. Okay, your book is written and you want to publish it. 2. Edit your book. Please. I spent weeks (of writing time) writing my second book. I spent   months   editing it. My buddy   James Altucher said recently  " When you write, don’t think about money. Don’t think about who the reader is. Don’t worry about what people will say." I agree with the statement, but grammar and spelling still count - a lot. 3. Format your book properly for e-books. Yes, the converters...

I found this tale among my archived computer files. An unemployed man is desperate to support his family. His wife watches TV all day and his three teenage kids have dropped out of high school to hang around with the local toughs. He applies for a janitor's job at a large firm and passes the aptitude test. The human resources manager tells him, "You will be hired at a minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. let me have your email address so that we can get you in the loop. Our system will automatically e-mail you all the forms and advise you when to start and where to report on your first day." Taken back, the man protests that he is poor and has neither a computer nor an e-mail address. To this the manager replies, "You must understand that to a company like ours that means that you virtually do not exist. Without an email address you can hardly expect to be employed by a high-tech firm. Good day." Stunned the man leaves. Not knowing where to turn and having...

Your way "Good Heavens, Man! You didn't write that, did you?" I'm still waiting for someone to put that in my comments and start a furor over something I wrote. That comment may never happen… I always thought that "Blog" was some shorthand for "Binary Log." It is not. It is short for "Web log." The web knows everything… There are some rules for writing blog posts. If you do a web search for writing blogs you get thousands of hits. When I started my blog I had no idea what I was doing. Maybe I still don't. Most of the web sites for doing blogs are aimed at people who want a lot of traffic to their site. That makes sense if you consider that a lot of blogs are designed to be income-producing in some fashion. I didn't find a lot of information for casual bloggers. I'm certainly a casual blogger. So I'll write what I think are some "rules" and we'll see how it goes. 1. There are no rules. H...

Leadership needs, well - leaders. W. Edwards Deming made that abundantly clear when I heard him speak decades ago. Years ago someone told me that leadership was "an influential relationship with followers."   That seems true, but deserves some thinking. Followers must be willing to do what you want them to do. I suppose you could have negative leaders, where the followers do precisely what you don’t want them to do. A clever negative leader would then propose plans for the opposite of what he really wanted to accomplish. So if he planned to fail, and did, would he really succeed? Let's not follow that train of thought… There are a lot of leaders. These are the ones that came to my mind immediately and not in any particular order. Jesus Christ . You can argue his divinity, perhaps try to argue his even existence, but you cannot argue the impact that Jesus of Nazareth had on the world. When I look at my list of leadership characteristics Jesus has them all (wit...

My darling daughter asked me last night what I have accomplished in life. Not meaning to be flippant, I replied that I have not accomplished much and as I said that my heart sank. Yet, accomplishments should be measured by the person, not by outside influences. I heard something like that on the radio on the way to work. The two DJ's on KSBJ talked about people comparing themselves to other people using Facebook or, worse yet, comparing yourself to the Christmas Letter . (In the infamous Christmas Letter , of course, you can never compare. The Christmas family accomplished so much during the year and drives most of us deep into our eggnog to drown our sorrowful and empty lives. As one of the DJs said, if you've never received a Christmas Letter , just be thankful.) So I thought about what I'm most proud of in my life, studiously ignoring the nagging caveats for each accomplishment that impinge on my consciousness and work to negate it. It actually looked a little ...