Thoughts On A Bad Thing

This week a bad thing happened....in my life, and in the lives of many of my friends and co-workers. A good man, a hard working, family oriented, church going man died. He was a man who made a contribution to the world. He spent more time than I would have imagined talking to me about religion and although he ultimately wasn't successful in convincing me we had important conversations about life, family, god, death and many other things. I have so much respect for how hard he tried to positively influence me in what he felt was the right direction.
The last few days I (and I suspect many others) have done some real soul searching. I've laid in bed a good portion of the recent nights staring at the ceiling. Here's what I think: I need to take my life and myself a lot less seriously. I need to make more effort in my relationships and have more important, intimate conversations. I should know the people in my life beyond the surface stuff. I need to slow my life down. It saddens me how quickly after hearing the news at home and at work we were forced to plow on with our lives and meet our obligations. I need to spend more time alone thinking. There should be time in life other than when I'm supposed to be sleeping when I can think about the really important things in life. Most importantly I need to teach these lessons to my children.
Larry I promise my life will change because of you. I promise I will be a better person in the world, with my family and most importantly to myself because of you. Rest in peace brother.

Harvey Mackay quotes

Harvey Mackay quotes:
The best way to sound like you know what you're talking about is to know what you're talking about.

If you're looking for a big opportunity, look for a big challenge.

You don't have to know everything as long as you know the people who do.

To get what you've never had, you must do what you've never done.

Be prepared, or be prepared to fail.

Giving someone a piece of your mind rarely gives you peace of mind.

Good luck usually depends on good judgment.

Some people dream about success, and others wake up and do something about it.

The world's work is done every day by people who could have stayed in bed, but didn't.

Binary Work

     "If you do a job where someone tells you exactly what to do he will find someone cheaper to do it." Seth Godin. This is a good segue to something I've been thinking about lately. I see in the world around us a push from workers to want their jobs to be binary. People push to have clear direction so that everything that comes at them is a one or a zero. Bosses increasingly try to add measurable items to employee performance evaluations to eliminate the grey areas and to be able to say here is why. The problem with making your work binary is you take the skill out of it and thus remove the value. When you remove the value why would the company or boss pay you a lot of money to do it? Now that job is a low skilled and ultimately low paying job. Next time we complain about the loss of good paying jobs in our economy perhaps we should consider the impact of us trying to remove the skill and personal responsibility from our jobs.

Macro vs. Micro

     Something I've been thinking about lately......it's important to judge things at the macro level not at the micro level. Judging at the micro level is when you are angry at someone because of something they said today rather than realizing all the wonderful things they have done for you. Or saying you hate your job after having a bad day rather than realizing that it paid for your house and vacation and gave you wonderful opportunities.                       
     Next time you're angry at someone or something step back and look at the whole picture. Your wife is a beautiful woman who loves you and keeps your family together not just the woman who yelled at you for tracking mud on the floor.....your kid is the good student who cuddles up and reads with you at night not just the kid who left his shoes where you tripped over them again.