Consistent – Dave Glardon

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

You know how you go to the grocery store just to pick up that special flavor of ice cream, only to find they’re sold out? That happens a lot at my local store. They’ll have forty-two varieties of cheese puffs, but not the brand I want. Any more, I just take my shopping list to the Customer Service desk and tell them, “Here’s a bunch of stuff you don’t have. Trust me.”

It’s pretty much the same when you head south to escape the cold and the cold follows you south. Sure, it’s not snowing, but nighttime temperatures have been below freezing almost every day, and the furnace needs an all-night babysitter. Every morning the windows are iced over – on the inside. Manufacturing defect, they say. I have another name for it.

There are just times in your life when you expect things to be a certain way, and anything less is unacceptable. Not disappointing, because that suggests that maybe you expected too much to begin with. You know, like it’s your fault. Unacceptable means somebody, or something else is completely to blame. You got the shaft, and karma isn’t the least bit sorry about it.

Karma … there’s a word we use a lot. It usually means somebody is about to have a bad day. It’s a form of retribution for something we’ve done to somebody else, and we can’t even blame them when it happens, because they had nothing to do with it. You know, other than praying for karma to teach us a lesson. Try proving that one in court.

But karma sometimes works the other way around. Do nice things for people enough times in your life, and somehow nice things will come your way. Help enough other people to succeed, and success smiles on you. Put in a little extra effort every day on the job, and eventually the right people will notice. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but it’ll happen.

Karma, if you break it down to basic terms, simply means what goes around comes around. Good things happen to good people. If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. You reap what you sow. I could probably quote a few other tidbits of karmic wisdom, but you get the point. Life’s rewards are usually proportional to the effort we put in. Usually.

That doesn’t mean it you’re a good person, the store will always have your favorite kind of ice cream, or that the sun will break through every cloud just because you deserve it. Nice people suffer heartache and disappointment like anybody else. And just because a person is having a run of bad luck, that doesn’t mean they deserve it.

But success generally comes to those who pursue it the most. That doesn’t mean they work harder or faster, or that they invest more money than the rest of us. It simply means they work with a level of consistent determination that will not be denied. Go to one store, and they may not have the ice cream you want. Go to enough stores, and somebody is bound to have it.

It’s the law of averages. If you do the right thing enough times, sooner or later it’ll pay off. How many times? Well, unless you can give a definitive answer to that question, you need to try at least a few more times. The answer is different for each of us, and for each different goal we pursue. Even with the weather, sooner or later it’ll turn nice. Even if you live in Alaska.

If you have a dream, or maybe even just a simple goal, you know what it takes to achieve it. You know the things you need to do. Sure, you can buy a lottery ticket and hope for the best, but odds are you’ll get there a lot faster if you consistently do the things that need to be done.

Success never comes fast enough when there’s something we want. And “law of averages” is the last thing you want to hear when you keep running into roadblocks. But, as a friend often says, nine out of ten things we try will never work, but that last one will make you rich.

Is ten times enough? Fifteen? Twenty? The only way you’ll answer that question is to keep trying. But if you stop after the first try, or the first store, or the first week at a southern destination, you’ll never know what may be waiting just around the bend. If the dream is worth having, then give it a fighting chance. You may be closer than you think. That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

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

For those of us here in the US, it was a long weekend – one that traditionally marks the beginning of summer. Vacations, beaches, and backyard cookouts. And sunburns. Lots of sunburns. I used to think you had to get through the first sunburn of the year in order to tan. But if you live where I do, suntans only last a year. Then you have to do it all over again. I think I need to find a better tan.

But a tan is like a lot of other things. The faster you build it, the quicker it goes away. The quickest, and safest way is a like spray painting your car with watercolors. It never looks great to begin with, and it generally lasts until the first good rain (or shower). Then it’s gone, with just a blotched reminder that you tried to do something the easy way. Sure, you can spray it on again. But it’ll never look quite right.

Then there’s the strategy of burning once so you can “get it out of the way.” You can also get some of that old skin out of the way as well. In fact, you and a friend can peel off an entire layer in a single afternoon. If you’re lucky, the layer underneath is a little tanned and you can start building on top of that. The process is both painful and non-attractive. Not the ideal way to get what you want.

Or you could just take a 15-minute walk every day or so some work in the yard. It may take a while, but sooner or later that bronze glow will start to take hold. No spray, no burns, no peeling skin – just a gradual transformation that will stand the test of time. It may fade a little during the winter, but next summer you’ll have that foundation, and the next tan will be a whole lot easier to build.

In our microwave society, instant gratification is the name of the game. I remember dial-up internet, where it took twenty seconds for a page to load and you could spend upwards of a whole minute downloading a file. Now, I’m tapping my fingers and complaining if that hourglass spins for five seconds. “Come on, slowpoke!” Five more seconds and I pull the plug for a “hard reboot.” Sound familiar?

I’m that way with a lot of things. If something needs to be done, I want it done now! Unless, of course, I’m the one doing it. Then there are special dispensations for slow starts and excessive breaks. Or, in the case of my weight loss, abrupt halts. And it’s all because I want instant results. If the starter spins for three seconds, I’m pumping the gas. And don’t even get me started on slow-brewing coffee.

I think a lot of us are much the same in that regard. We’ve become so accustomed to two-day delivery that we’re on the phone to customer service if it takes three days. Almost nobody plants a garden anymore, because you do the work today and don’t see any results for at least a few weeks. Unless, you’re me. Then, the weeds start popping up in a matter of hours.

But sometimes, the slow and methodical approach is the best. It’s like the fable of the tortoise and the hare. The bunny ran far ahead and then took a nap as the tortoise kept up a slow but steady pace and ended up winning the race. It’s like that slow tan, or repeatedly losing a single pound. I’ve done that. Only problem is, it’s the same pound. Maybe I need to lose a different one.

Nobody likes to wait for good things to happen. But sometimes, that’s the best way to achieve long-lasting results. You can infuse money into a business with a single visit to the bank or a weekend inventory reduction sale. Or you can do it the old-fashioned way. One is a temporary fix that requires repayment with interest. The other lays a solid foundation for continued success.

It’s okay to want things now, but sometimes slower is better. Don’t be so focused on the results that you short-change the effort. Do the right things consistently, and the results will come. It may take a little longer, and you may have to make some corrections along the way. But when winter inevitably comes, that strong foundation will still be there, waiting to be rebuilt even better than before.

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

Follow @dglardon

Tag: Consistent

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