Blog
Myths & Monsters
I love Halloween.
I remember fondly as a kid dressing up to go trick or treating in the neighborhood. For whatever reason, the two costumes I remember most from my grade school days were Captain America and Bingo from the Banana Splits.
As I got older, I gravitated towards the monsters. Dracula, Frankenstein and Michael Myers from Halloween fame all made appearances (and sometimes still do). I’ve re-named the holiday to HalloWeedin because, well, it just sounds more fun to me!
Monsters on Halloween are a lot of fun, but many of the monsters we face in business and life are more myths. Let’s examine three myths on this Monday edition that falls on a favorite day of mine…
Before the Poop Drops
Do you have a bag ready for when the next poop drops in your business?
That’s called a business continuity plan.
It catches all the excrement and disposes of it faster, better, and more profitably.
Check out my latest YouTube Short to learn more!
Make a Decision
Life can throw some curveballs at all of us…
Often, it seems that decisions we need to make are complicated and can be overwhelming. We can get sucked into the thought that the decision at hand is more important and life-changing than it is.
Make no mistake…some decisions will change lives and even be a matter of life and death.
That being said, too often we overthink and complicate the decision-making process.
What can happen in these situations is an extreme case of analysis paralysis. The consequences of which can be costly financially and emotionally.
Articulating Your Vision
“Are you a Democrat or Republican?”
That was the very odd question asked of me during a golf lesson with a guy who’s rated a Golf Digest Top 50 instructor. I’d been given a gift certificate to get a lesson from him at Chambers Bay after volunteering for the US Womens Amateur two months earlier.
He asked me again after I uncomfortably said, “What?”
I responded honestly that I saw myself as an independent, wondering why we would get into a political conversation that I really didn’t want.
“You’re a Republican. Let me show you why…”
He pulled out his iPad. I didn’t realize he’d been filming my swing. He showed me at setup and drew a line down the middle. He asked me, “Which side are you favoring as respects this line?”
I now quickly realized what he’d been doing. That little light above my head switched on.
Living in Black and White
You might remember the 1998 Gary Ross movie, Pleastantville. The movie is based on a couple of boys in the 1990s who get caught inside a 1950s sitcom where the characters literally live in black and white. Think of getting transported into Leave it to Beaver and getting stuck there!
Funny thing for me is that when I was young, I always thought of my parents having grown up in black and white because that was what I saw in old photos. I guess Gary Ross must have thought the same, as he created a movie about it.
Of course, everyone shown in these old photos lived in color, even though the photos and the motion pictures and TV shows portrayed only black and white.
The Problem with Complacency
We just this weekend celebrated my granddaughter’s 5th birthday.
I can’t even believe how fast time has passed.
I vividly remember the day she was born and then meeting her for the first time the next day (which is today!)
I’ve been incredibly fortunate to spend a great deal of time with her and her siblings which have arrived after here. They live nearby, we – and they – visit often, and we talk by video almost daily.
And it takes a significant birthday to catch you by surprise.
Out of the Bunker
In golf, business, and life, we can find ourselves in precarious positions. Sometimes it’s even hard to take a solid stance to swing without falling backwards!
Believe it or not, my best play was to hit it in the sand for an easier next shot. I was able to reach the hole in just one stroke over regulation and minimize “damage.”
Are you ready in business and life to hit your next recovery shot?
Flexibility
I was recently going through old pictures in an effort to find a better way to store all the pre-phone images taken dating back to the 1960s when I was a child. Barb and I had fun seeing “old” pictures of our daughters dating from 1988 through their high school years. It’s amazing how much the granddaughters look like both of them!
I came across a picture of me as a 17-year old playing golf for the high school team. I was stunned to see how much my swing looks different today in one key place – flexibility.
As a 17 year old, I had the classic “Reverse C” in my spine; as a 57 year old, not so much. With age comes less flexibility. While I do try to exercise in ways to maintain it, it’s part of life to lose some as we age.
That’s not the only flexibility we lose as we “mature.”
Are You The Drama?
My mother lived with Barb and me for two and a half years before moving to a memory care facility. We were caregivers for her in the middle of her battle with dementia.
And it was a battle.
Maybe the better way to say it is that there was daily a lot of “drama.” This included arguing, frustration, impatience, bitterness, and sometimes a loss of composure. My mother’s consistent decline in mental capacity and the corresponding behavior was a factor in all our household drama.
But it wasn’t THE factor. Nope. The factor was something more odious.
I was the drama.
