Tag: Ability

Your Limitations Are Somebody Else’s Strengths – Team Up!

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is starting off well.

It’s hard to believe December is finally here. This has been the longest year ever, I do believe, and not just because it had one extra day in February. That was just icing on the cake. I’ve always said that when you skip a Monday at work, you get four more to make up for it. I’m not sure if that explains 2020, but I’m willing to consider all possibilities.

Normally by now we’d be getting in the holiday spirit. Houses would be decorated, trees would be up, department stores would be bustling with shoppers, holiday music would dominate the airwaves, and in the parking lots people would be giving one another the finger as they battled for the last “good” parking spot. Okay, that’s pretty much all year.

My outdoor lights have been up for a month, but we just turned them on last week. That’s not as much about preparation as a fat guy who isn’t safe on the ladder anymore, a day of decent weather, and a grandson who needed money. You play the hand you’re dealt. Besides, he’s young and bounces easier than I do. If I hit the ground, things break. Like underground pipes.

I decided one day that I needed to inspect the seals on our RV’s roof. The book says that needs to be done twice a year, and I’m all about preventive maintenance. Yes, I’m really that old. Only problem is, inspecting the seals means getting up there where you can actually see them. On a rounded fiberglass roof. Twelve feet off the ground. With an asphalt safety net. No thank you.

I’ve always been able to fix just about anything. I learned these things out of necessity. When you can’t afford a mechanic, you figure it out. With each success, I became more confident. There were setbacks. Like that time I replaced my brakes and five miles down the road the pedal went to the floor … with a Cadillac stopped in front of me. That’ll get your attention.

But I learned something from each mistake. A fraction of the air it takes to stop a semi will mess up your whole day in a hydraulic brake system. Go figure. And we won’t even talk about the time I repacked the rear wheel bearings on my VW Beetle and later that night my left-rear tire went bouncing across A1A in Key West. Oops!

My greatest challenge was acknowledging my limitations. And there was really only one. I had no fear of tearing an engine apart, but I’ve never seen the inside of a transmission because transmissions are the automotive version of Mouse Trap. I have this vision of removing a single screw and twelve springs go flying across the room. “Transmission broken?” It is now.

But, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to recognize those limitations a little better. It’s not that I can’t do the job. I could climb under a car just as easily today as I did forty years ago. It’s getting back up that’s a problem. That, and this knuckle on my left hand that likes to lock up any time I bend my finger. So, I have to keep that finger perfectly straight. Don’t take it personally.

There are things we do really well, and for each of us, those things are different. Can I open a clogged drain line? Sure. Am I the best person to do it? Not in a million years. Tell me to wire a new switch, and I’m completely in my element. But when it came to brain surgery, I paid somebody else to do it. My wife pretty much insisted on that.

There’s no shame in admitting our shortcomings. Whether related to age, ability, agility, or just a general willingness to do the job, there will always be some things we do better than others. And for those things we can’t do quite as well as we’d like, there are others who can do the job with their eyes closed. At least that’s what my surgeon said.

It’s the same when it comes to our dreams. If we’re the expert on how to achieve those dreams, why are we still dreaming about it? Sometimes, we have to throw a question out there and listen to the responses. They don’t all have to make sense. They don’t even have to be something we wanted to hear. But all too often, the most insane answer is the best.

Have you ever found something you’d lost, and then proclaimed, “It was in the last place I looked!” Well, duh! But that’s pretty much true of all the things we seek. Learn where they can be found and how to get them, and it’s simply a matter of doing the work. You don’t have to be an expert. You don’t even have to hire one. All you have to do is open your mind and listen.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Define Your Own Limitations – Don’t Let Them Define You

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a nice start.

Have you ever thought about the advice we give kids, about how they can conquer the world and be anything they want if they only work hard enough? “There’s nothing you can’t do!” Then they try to climb the refrigerator shelves to reach the cookies purposely placed out of their reach, and the rules suddenly change. So much for ingenuity.

All through our lives, we’re told to dream big and aim high. I saw a sign on somebody’s desk once that read, “Aim for the moon – even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” Well, if you think there are stars orbiting the moon, maybe we’re getting at the root of the problem.  That’s not to say you’re doomed to failure, but a Mensa scholarship probably isn’t in your future.

We all have limitations. Some we were born with, and some we’ve developed along the way. Sorry, but that’s just a fact of life. If you’re three feet tall in high heels, odds are you’ll never be a star basketball player, no matter how badly you want it. And star football players know all too well how quickly certain injuries can end their career or seriously limit their ability to compete.

So, aside from natural ability and devastating loss, what stands between us and the goals we so strongly desire? Why can’t I, at the age of 62, become an avid runner and win the Boston Marathon? Well, first of all, I can’t find anybody who’s willing to chase me that far with a snake. The motivation has to come from somewhere.

But let’s be honest. The real reason I’m not a marathon runner is because I never wanted to be. As a kid, I despised basketball and soccer because there’s too much running. And that carried into my adult years. A friend once asked me to join him for a 5k run. I said, “Why would I run that far when I can do it faster in a car and smell decent when I get there?”

And let’s be honest here – if my parents had told me that I could accomplish any goal in life if I’d just run every day, I think I’d have chosen Door #2. It was never my thing. On the other hand, my parents did encourage my artistic side, both in music and in writing. That was my passion and, apparently, it’s also my strong suit. The writing, not the music.

In our jobs, there are things we need to do well just to stay employed. We need to be even better if we hope to advance. That doesn’t mean you have to be the absolute best. It just means you have to be better than average. And no matter what you do (for a living or otherwise), if you have the basic skills to do the task, you have the ability to do it better.

Having gotten a taste of what it’s like to live in an RV, I think I can do it better. In fact, I’d like to become one of the best campers on the planet. That’s my goal. But so far, nobody is offering to pay me to camp, so I have to get good at something else along the way – earning an income on the side. And building a decent campfire without gas. Just keeping it real.

I have all the tools in place to live my dream, including the side income. Well, the ability to earn that income. But there are things I need to do to develop that ability and become better at it. I don’t have to be the best – I just have to be better than I am today.

And we all have that ability, whether it’s our job, a business, a hobby, a relationship, our physique, or even the way we sing. It’s okay to focus on the dream as long as you also focus on just doing a little better along the way. Instead of shooting for the moon, aim for that next step. Being the best is awesome, but it’s more important to be your best.

There are limitations to what we can accomplish, but find those limitations yourself instead of letting others dictate them to you. If there’s something you want, go for it. Give it everything you’ve got. You may still come up short, but isn’t that better than not coming up at all? Do one thing better each day and your dreams will make up the difference.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

If You Know Why, You Can Always Learn How

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a nice start.

Well, the repairs on the RV only took a few hours. Less time than it took me to drive it there and back, and let’s not mention the cost in gas. Warranty repairs aren’t always free. But it’s back, and ready to go. They fixed almost everything. What’s left requires $3 in parts and another six minutes of labor. In other words, they’ll bill the factory $712.

The one thing they didn’t fix is the satellite radio. I was right. The antenna wasn’t hooked up. Apparently, there’s no antenna TO hook up. That’s a factory option nobody told us about. Seriously? With the price tag on that thing, they couldn’t install a $50 antenna and tuner? I’m glad I asked about the steering wheel. I’d hate to pay extra for that.

I could cry and write a bunch of letters, but it won’t do any good. So, I’ll just fix it myself. I can install an antenna in less time that it would take to drive it back to the dealer, and for a fraction of the cost. They wanted $260 to give it a wash. I wish I was making that up.

Things usually cost more than we expect, and they’re never quite as simple as we think. That’s why, when we see something that’s really simple and doesn’t cost much at all, our first thought is, “There must be a catch. It can’t be that simple!”

When I replaced the front hub on my old truck, the instructions made it look easy. “Remove the three bolts shown and slide the old hub out.” Yeah. They forgot to mention a sledgehammer, jackhammer, gear puller, and other “special” tools required, plus all the colorful language that goes with it. It took four hours, and now I have to go to hell. But I saved $200.

It’s that way with most things. When I decided to remodel our bathroom, I convinced my wife it would be done in two days. Hey, it’s her fault for believing me. We’d been married 25 years, so she knew better. Well, it took eight days, and that didn’t include the trim. See, when the room is usable again, that’s when I stop. Trim is just for looks. That part took a year.

Which is why she stood so firmly when I said I wanted to build a house – you know, with my own two hands. I know how it’s done. My grandson and I built a shed from scratch, and it’s beautiful. Still missing some trim, but hey. And a house is nothing more than a big shed with electricity & plumbing, right? I can do that. I’ve got books that make it look really easy.

And I think that’s why we tend to doubt ourselves so much when we get ready to take on something new. Sure, it LOOKS easy. Any dummy can do it. But I’m not just any dummy. I’m a special kind of stupid! Believe it or not, I’ve actually heard people say that. Then you show them how it’s done, and they prove their original point. So, we hire an expert.

But not a one of those “experts” was a pro the first time out of the box. They made mistakes, broke things, installed them backward, and didn’t use the right words. I wondered about that as my brain surgeon told me goodnight. He said, “I just did the same surgery a half-hour ago!” Yeah, but are they still alive? Details, doc … I need details!

Well, even a brilliant brain surgeon had to learn somewhere. We tend to sell ourselves short sometimes and say things like, “That’s just not my strong suit. I’m a dummy when it comes to that!” No, you’re not. You just haven’t been taught how.

I talk to people all the time who want to start a business. When you ask what kind of business, some have a general idea, some can draw out details on a napkin, and some have no earthly clue. And years later, most of them are still talking about it. Why? Because they weren’t born with the required knowledge, and they’re not willing to learn as they go.

Colonel Sanders started his business with nothing more than a recipe and a dream. Sam Walton started with one small store in rural Arkansas, and Albert Einstein couldn’t speak fluently till the age of nine. Not a one of them was “destined” for success. But that didn’t stop them.

And it shouldn’t stop you. Find a mentor. Read some books. Learn as you go. If knowledge is all that’s standing in the way, get some. Develop your talents. You’ve got what it takes. All you have to do is put it to use.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Believe in Others – And Be Sure They Know!

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a great start.

We’ve been talking a lot over the past several days about goals and the things we can do to achieve them. And yesterday we talked about the reality that each of us has within us the ability to make that happen. And as I wrote those words, I wondered how many of us have actually heard them through most of our life. Affirmation doesn’t seem to be overly abundant in this world.

I’m reading a book by the late Rich Devos, Ten Powerful Phrases for Positive People. It’s a short book, and an easy read if you’re in the mood for something uplifting. The chapter I read yesterday afternoon was about a simple but very powerful phrase – “You can do it!”

How often have we heard that throughout our lives? And, by contrast, how often have we heard the exact opposite? “You’d better stick to your day job.” “The odds of you accomplishing that are one in a million!” “Are you serious? That’ll never work!” And, here’s the real question … how many times have you uttered those words yourself? If you’re completely honest, it can be disheartening.

I grew up in a family where we were encouraged to be the best we could be. When I was a boy, all I wanted was to be a doctor. Mom and Dad were proud of that aspiration and did everything they could to let me know I could accomplish that goal. When the teenage years hit and I decided to be a rock star, I realized pretty quickly that I’d be chasing that dream on my own.

We all want the best for our kids, and my parents were no different. But all too often, we try to shape their dreams to match the vision we had for them. Instead of encouraging them to be great at whatever they decide to do, we tend to steer them toward being great at the things we want them to do.

Think of the little boy standing at home plate with a bat resting on his shoulder, a look of complete boredom in his face, and his parents standing behind him yelling, “You can do it, Timmy! Hit it out of the park!” They’re giving him plenty of positive affirmation. But is it what he really wants to do? Or would he rather be sitting in a quiet room, scribbling gothic images with the hope of becoming a great tattoo artist?

Affirmation is important. In fact, it’s critical. No matter what we attempt, we should be able to do it with the full moral support of our family and friends. And no matter what they attempt, they should know we have complete confidence in their ability to succeed. That’s what affirmation is all about. It’s the knowledge that, not only do you know you can succeed, but everyone else knows it as well.

We can’t control the feedback we receive from others. It’s their honest opinion, and they’ll usually share it with your best interests at heart. But sincerity doesn’t always equal accuracy. Just because somebody offers advice, that doesn’t mean we should take it to heart.

But we do have control over the feedback we give others. And, in encouraging somebody else to pursue their own dreams, assuring them they have what it takes to succeed, we’re reminding ourselves that we also have what it takes to achieve our own goals. You can’t compliment somebody else without feeling better yourself. And you can’t affirm somebody else without affirming yourself.

When we lift up those around us, we lift ourselves as well. Words of affirmation need to begin at a young age and continue throughout our lives. We have the power to make that happen. When somebody shares a dream, instead of poking holes in it, focus on how they can make it happen. That is, after all, why they shared their goal to begin with. They wanted affirmation.

Dreams are easily born, and just as easily crushed. And all too often, it’s not the cold, cruel world that crushes our dreams. It’s those closest to us – the people we love and trust the most. Every one of us has the ability to accomplish anything we desire. But we can only do that if we believe in ourselves enough to make it happen. Feed that belief. In yourself, and in everyone around you. Then wait for the magic to happen.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!