Motivational – Page 24

The Secret To Youth Lies Within Your Dreams

December 2, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

It’s looking like a cold day here in southern Ohio. Well, cold by comparison. My dad, who lives in northern Florida, told me it’s supposed to get “down to the 50s” today. For them, that’s cold. For me, it would mean putting a jacket in the back seat just in case. We’re close to the freezing mark right now, and it’s not going to get any warmer as the day goes on. Guess it’s just that time of year.

I hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving weekend. We spent the day with family, and my wife and daughters did a little shopping. I held down the fort, which means I didn’t do much of anything. I guess I needed the break. Still, I think it’s good to take some time to reflect on those things for which we’re thankful. For me it begins and ends with family. Everything else falls somewhere in the middle.

I think most cultures and nations have a day of Thanksgiving. They’re not all on the same day, of course, and maybe that’s a good thing. It’s a reminder that we should be thankful all through the year, not just because the calendar says so. If we all celebrated every day of Thanksgiving through the year, maybe we’d be a little more appreciative of the good things we’ve got.

That doesn’t mean we can’t want something more. And, contrary to what we may have been led to believe, it’s not selfish or greedy to want something we don’t already have. That’s what gives us the motivation to get ahead in life, to do that little bit extra when we’d rather kick back in a recliner.

I can’t say it’s what gets us out of bed every morning, though it would be nice if it were true. What gets us out of bed is necessity – whether it’s a job, or kids that need to be sent off to school, or just the fact that we can’t really spend the whole day in bed, something gets us up and moving each day. But wouldn’t it be nice if it were something that excites us?

If you focus on your dream as you’re falling asleep, odds are that thought will be there when you wake up in the morning. It may not be enough to get you going. If you’re like me, it’s all the more reason to curl up a few minutes longer. But the thought is still there. And, much like that song that gets stuck in your head, if a thought is there in the morning, odds are it’ll be there most of the day.

When waking up means little more than another day on the job, life can become pretty empty. We need something that excites us, and we need to feel that all these years on the job are getting us closer to something we really want. Otherwise, we’re just working to get old. And, believe me, once you reach that point, you start aging at the speed of light. The only way to slow it down is to dream.

Find something that excites you. Put it in writing and describe it in detail. Get pictures. Then put it someplace where you’ll see it every day. The more you focus on your dream, the more it becomes a part of you. But you have to do something about it. Remove the barriers and make it happen. Dreams not only make you live longer – they make you enjoy living longer. And isn’t that what it’s all about?

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

Enjoy Today – You Can Grow Old Later

November 27, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

It’s officially Hump Day, but for most of us in the United States it’s an early Friday. Since tomorrow is one of the biggest holidays of the year, most companies give their people a day to recuperate. Not like recuperating on New Year’s Day – that one usually involves a hangover. Recuperating the day after Thanksgiving usually involves Pepto Bismol and a lot of sitting around.

Today I add another candle to the cake. As if we’d actually put that many candles on a single cake. Even if it didn’t collapse from the weight, we’d set off every smoke detector in town. I’ve officially reached what the Social Security Administration has deemed the age of “early retirement.” That doesn’t mean I can retire. It just means I have an excuse for dreaming about it.

There was a time in my life when I thought this was old. Like, REALLY old. And, to my grandkids, I guess it is. My grandson asked me yesterday if I’ll be 91. I told him someday. Not for another 31 years. But at that age, they can’t really tell the difference. There are kids and old people. And I guess I fall into the second category.

I don’t feel old. Well, let me correct that … my body feels really old. It just feels like it has to be somebody else’s body, because the rest of me hasn’t quite caught up. Granted, there are days when my wife would argue that point. I guess I can be a bit of a grump sometimes, but the kids can too, so that’s not really a valid measure of age. Right?

That said, people tend to judge our age by how old we act. I know a lot of people much older than me who have a zest for life that I hope to someday master. I imagine they’ve had a lifetime of practice, and I’m sure there are days when their body doesn’t feel up to the task. But they don’t let that get in the way. They just keep on plugging, making the most of every single day.

And it’s hard to think of somebody like that as “old.” It’s not that we deny their age. We have eyes, and it’s obvious they’ve made a few more trips around the sun than the rest of us. But they have eyes, too, and it’s the sparkle in those eyes that defies their chronological age. It’s heartwarming, adventuresome, and even a little ornery. You wonder sometimes what they may do next.

George Burns once said you can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old. We must think a lot alike, because I’ve always said aging is inevitable, but growing old is a matter of choice. He was always somebody I admired … 100 years old, with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes that never faded for a moment. If I live to be that old, that’s exactly the kind of person I hope to be.

Our whole lives, we’ve worked to build something. Whether that was intentional or consequential, we’ve put in a lot of time getting where we are. Hopefully it’s at least close to where we wanted to be, because I don’t think anything makes us old faster than resigning ourselves to a life that’s less than we’d hoped for. That’s why so many people get old at such a young age.

The day we stop having something to look forward to, we begin giving in to the reality of time. We not only look old, but we feel old … mentally and physically. As kids, we were constantly reminded to act our age. Well, this is the time when that happens. And the only cure is to have a dream, along with some genuine sense that it’ll actually come true. Without dreams, we’re old already.

If you want to stay young, or at least young at heart, the prescription is simple – hang onto your dreams. And don’t just dream, do something about it. Every day you let slip past is a day wasted. Because the time will come when our bodies can no longer accommodate the dreams we kept putting on hold. Make the most of life now, while you still can. There’s plenty of time to be old later.

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

The Mood Won’t Strike Until You Poke It

November 26, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

Imagine, if you will, a surgeon with a patient on the table, doing what surgeons do. The patient is asleep, the incisions have been made, and the heart is fully exposed. Halfway through one of the most delicate procedures known to man, the surgeon puts down his scalpel, pulls off his mask, and says, “Sorry folks – I’m just not in the groove today. I’m gonna let this one slide. Go tell the family.”

I don’t believe that’s ever actually happened, but it would certainly change the day for several people, least of all the person clinging to life on the operating table. But you have to wonder how many times the surgeon was a little more tired than normal or had an argument with his wife before leaving for work. The patient has no idea, but it’s likely the surgeon isn’t at his very best that day.

No matter how good we are at what we do, there will always be days when we’re just not fully up to par. And it would be easy to just go back to bed until we feel more energized. But we know from experience that, when we put things on hold because we’re not fully in the mood, that mood never gets any stronger. We just waste the day beating ourselves up for not doing anything.

If you do that on the job, you’ll probably be invited to sit down with the boss for a one-on-one chat. The first time may be friendly and constructive, but if it happens too many times you’ll find yourself looking for someplace else to spend your days. Employers are pesky about these things. They pretty much expect our best every day.

But when it comes to your own priorities, those dreams that make you smile and inspire visions of a happier life, you’re in business for yourself. You’re the CEO, the CFO, the Vice President of Marketing, the Production Manager, and the company’s sole employee. Nothing gets done unless you do it yourself.

So, here’s the question … if you were paying yourself to work toward your dreams, would you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth? Or would you call yourself into the office, lay down the law, and issue an ultimatum? I think, if we’re being completely honest, most of us would say we’re a pretty good employee on the job, but not so good when it comes to our own priorities.

There are lots of reasons. After a full day on the job, it’s not easy to carve out time to go to work for yourself. It’s dinnertime, you’re tired, you’re hungry, and the kids need a little quality time as well. Monday night you go bowling, Tuesday is movie night, Wednesday you go out for ice cream, and on and on it goes. Who has time for anything else?

So, pick up the calendar and look for a day when you won’t be doing anything. I dare you. Even if you find one, something else will see that empty day and sneak in to fill the time. Another week goes by, another month, and eventually another year … and still you’re no closer to your dreams than you were to begin with. Yet somehow, we just keep giving ourselves a pass.

At some point, we need to become that grumpy boss nobody wants to see. We need to set goals and demand results. Not from other people – this isn’t their dream, it’s yours. If you want anything to happen, you have to make it happen yourself. Nobody but you will complain if you take a night off. Unless you hold yourself to the fire, nobody else will. It’s all on you.

You don’t have to be completely up to par every day, but you do have to be committed. A little effort is better than none at all, and when you take those first steps, it’s easy to get in the groove and keep going. Success happens when your dreams are bigger than your excuses. Make the time, and make the time count. The reward is yours to enjoy.

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

What’s Stopping You Now?

November 25, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

I finally got some things accomplished this weekend that I’ve been wanting to do. Okay, I should say my grandson got something accomplished for me. I paid him, so it’s fair. I like having outdoor lights for Christmas, but I don’t like climbing a ladder fifty-two times to hang them. He’s still young enough to get on the roof. And, he’s still more likely to bounce if he falls. Voila! Problem solved.

I normally try to get the lights up a little earlier, when it’s still reasonably warm. I just don’t turn them on until the week of Thanksgiving. And I’ll turn them off at the start of the New Year. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be coming down. I’m the guy who leaves the lights up until Easter. Sorry, there’s something about ladders and ice on the ground that gives me the willies.

There are some jobs we can do before they actually need to be done. Hanging outdoor lights is one of them. Though I did read a news article about a family that received a citation from their homeowner’s association for putting out decorations a couple of weeks early. I think that one falls under the heading of “get a life.” If somebody else’s celebration bothers you that much, look the other way.

But most things happen in real time and we have to respond and adapt. Sure, we can plan our work week, at least in terms of when we have to be at work and when we hope to come home. Starting time is always pretty well set in stone, but the workday doesn’t always end at a set time. That’s just part of the job. Somehow, it never seems to work that way with lunch breaks. Go figure.

When you really think about it, there are very few things in life we actually plan. For most of us, if we even have a calendar, there’s not much in it other than birthdays, anniversaries, and vacations. My wife keeps everything in her phone calendar, which means I don’t have to. At least not for anything that involves both of us. But thank God the doctor’s office calls to remind me of my appointments.

I guess the point is, we pretty much live day to day. We take things as they come, and handle the immediate needs as they arise. The rest goes into a bucket that we dip into any time we have a few minutes on our hands and there’s nothing good on TV. Seems that happens a lot more these days. The Forrest Gump channel plays the same movie all week. All that changes are the commercials.

The problem with that approach is we never seem to dig deep enough in that bucket to find the things that will bring us closer to our dreams. Unless working until you’re 80 is part of your dream, and in that case, knock yourself out. But if there are other things you want, maybe a little earlier in life, at some point you’ll need to do something about it.

We handle the important things because we don’t have any other choice. Some things just won’t be ignored. It’s the things that can be ignored that keep us from enjoying the life we desire. “I’ll get to it tomorrow.” “Next week.” “After the holidays.” If any of this sounds familiar, welcome to the club. We all do it to some extent. And to the extent that we drag our feet, our dreams slip further away.

Only you can decide which of your dreams are important and how much you’re willing to do to achieve them. But they’ll always be just a passing thought or a picture on the refrigerator until you dig down into that bucket and get busy. And the sooner you do, the sooner you’ll be living those dreams. Focus on the goal and don’t let anything stand in your way. Least of all, yourself.

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

Memories Are Built In An Instant, But They Last Forever

November 22, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Friday! I hope your day is off to a nice start.

For those of us in the United States, we’re entering the heaviest travel week of the year. Of all the holidays, Thanksgiving is the one that brings the most people home. As the song says, over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go. I remember those days, and I miss them.

Waking up at Grandma’s always came with smells I’ll never forget. Breakfast on the stove, a pot of coffee waiting to be poured, and logs crackling in the fireplace. Okay, and there was that one year when one of the bedrooms was being used as an incubator for about fifty baby chickens. That one came with a smell I’m happy to forget. But they were fun to play with.

Depending on the calendar, Thanksgiving always comes pretty close to my birthday (sometimes they’re on the same day), so that made the trip to Grandma’s even more special. Most of the day, we’d be outside running around the farm, walking through the woods, or shooting my BB gun. That was the only time of year I was allowed to touch it.

And you never knew how many aunts, uncles, and cousins would pile into that little three-bedroom house. There were times we had more than 20 people there. Sometimes, a few of us would sleep in the cars. That was back when station wagons were still a thing. And with one bathroom in that house, there was never any grass growing behind the barn. For the boys, that was a mandate.

When I think of the best times in my life, those days always come to mind. It was a simple life, with simple pleasures. As the adults would sit around the table playing dominoes, we’d find a quiet corner to tell spooky stories and try to get one good channel on TV. I guess it wasn’t all fun and games, but the other times have just slipped from my memory and the good parts are all that’s left.

I think about those days often, usually when I come into the house on a weekend and the smell of bacon is lingering in the air. Of all the sensory reminders of our youth, smells probably top the list of things that can instantly take us back to an earlier day. I also like driving through small towns where all the light poles are decorated with wreaths and huge candy canes. It just makes me feel good.

It’s natural to gravitate toward those things that remind us of a simpler time in life. And, to be fair, I know some folks don’t have a lot of those memories. So, they have to create new memories today that they can reflect on years from now. It’s never too late. But it does take effort.

Like most things in life, we can’t create a lot of memories just sitting around in front of the TV while the kids play video games on a tablet. No conversation, no interaction – just sitting around exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide, completely oblivious to the existence of others.

Yet, whenever we turn on the news to hear another story about the worst in human behavior, the first things we blame are upbringing and a lack of values. And the whole time, our kids are sitting across the room with their face buried in an electronic device of some kind that’s giving them the only real source of companionship they’ll have all day. Do we see a problem here?

And those values come through the very things that formed our most cherished childhood memories. We owe it to our kids and all those around us to help them build memories of their own – times they’ll look back on with a gentle smile and a warm heart. Those memories are will help shape their innermost values, good or bad. So, it’s worth whatever it takes to make those memories positive.

Memories can come at any time of year – we don’t have to wait for holidays. A few minutes singing silly songs or reading a book together; a family picnic, or just a walk in the park; games at the table after dinner – you know, a meal where everybody sat down together. All of these things build memories, and those memories will stay with us a long time. And those memories build values.

But, the thing about memories is that the best ones will always include other people. We can’t build fond memories in a vacuum. So, spend a little time building memories with those around you – your family, your neighbors, even perfect strangers. Your memories will become their memories, so it’s two for the price of one. Make those memories positive, and everybody wins.

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

Don’t Let Perfect Stand in Your Way

November 21, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! It’s Friday Eve! I hope your day is off to a nice start.

There’s always been an inside joke in show business, where a man asked a New York taxi driver how to get to Carnegie Hall, and the driver responded, “Practice, practice, practice.” I guess if you’re just looking for a seat in the audience, all you have to do is get dressed and buy a ticket. But if you’d like to enjoy the view from the stage, it takes a little more work.

A lot of things we do every day have become second nature. From brushing our teeth in the morning to tying our shoes, driving to work, and even doing our job all day, we’ve done it all so many times it takes little or no conscious thought. Depending on your job, that may not be a problem. But when somebody is cooking a meal they expect me to eat, I expect them to open their eyes now and then.

It’s what we’ve come to refer to as “phoning it in” … going through the motions without really being in the moment. I’ve done comedy shows where I just didn’t feel like I was really on my game. I didn’t bomb, but I didn’t rock the house, either. And when the show was over, I really couldn’t remember any particular moment onstage. I was just on autopilot, and it showed in the audience’s response.

Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? You’re in a meeting at work, talking to a customer, giving a new employee some training, or even helping your kid with their homework, and you realize halfway through you’re just phoning it in? You know the subject matter so well, you don’t even have to think about it. But in not thinking, you never really do your best. It’s just good enough.

Practice can get you to that stage, but too much practice can result in a lackluster performance. You don’t miss any of the notes – you could do this in your sleep. But it can become so automated, you forget the most important part of the job – yourself. If all a person wanted was to hear perfect music, they could buy a CD. They pay for a live performance because they want the best of you.

In my business, we encourage newer folks to scrimmage. Everybody who knows football knows what it means to scrimmage. It’s a game the team plays against itself, where nobody wins or loses, and nobody keeps score. You simply practice. You run your plays, work out the kinks, find those opportunities for improvement, and just get really good at whatever at the game.

Through scrimmaging, you reach that point where you can read any situation and adapt on the spot, finding the opening you need to rush through to the goal line. And once you reach that point, you’re ready to do it for real. You’ve fine-tuned your game to the point that you’re unstoppable. Success is simply a matter of stepping onto the field.

The problem is, some of us get so good at scrimmaging, we never move beyond it. We just keep practicing. “As soon as I get really good at this one part, I’ll be ready!” There’s nothing wrong with that, if your goal was simply to practice forever. But if you ever intended to take what you’ve learned and put it into practice, you have to take that leap of faith and step into the game. The real game.

Practice teaches you new skills and gives you confidence. But sometimes, we need a little less confidence and a little more faith. Confidence says, “I’ve got this!” Faith says, “I can handle this.” There’s a difference. And the more confident we become, the more we’re apt to just phone it in. We don’t do it on purpose. It just happens.

When you’re trying to learn a new skill, practice until you’re no longer dangerous. There’s a reason teenagers have to practice driving so long before they’re allowed to do it alone. But once you reach that point, stop holding yourself back. For every situation you can practice, there are ten more you never considered. And the only way you’ll ever get good at them is just to get out there and do it.

Know enough to know what has to be done. Know how to do the job safely and with an acceptable level of expertise. Then stop practicing and get in the game. There’s a whole new world waiting for you if you just take that next step. Be a little scared. Step outside your comfort zone. Somewhere out there lies the answer to your dreams. Find it. And once you do, don’t let anything stand in your way.

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

The Best Remedies Are Often Found in Nature

November 20, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Hump Day! I hope your day is off to a great start.

This seems to be the time of year when restaurants serve a lot of chicken soup, and stores sell a lot of the ingredients used to make it at home. I guess that’s partly because of the change in climate. Any kind of soup just seems to go down better when it’s cold outside. But, according to Dr. Mom, chicken soup has some healing properties the medical community has never been able to quite figure out.

Studies have been done – probably more than we’d care to know. And I’m sure the pharmaceutical companies have been in on that. After all, anything that has apparent power to treat the common cold would be worth a fortune to the company that could acquire a patent for the perfect formulation of ingredients found in something most of us just eat for comfort.

And through all that testing, I don’t think anybody has been able to prove or disprove the medical value in chicken soup. Maybe it’s all in our head. But ask any doctor if they’d recommend against chicken soup when you’ve got a cold, and not a one will tell you not to eat it. Not a one.

It’s that way with a lot of things. We can go to the pharmacy and the shelves are full of remedies to cure just about any ailment you can dream up. Until you read the fine print – “Statements not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.” Or my personal favorite – “If symptoms persist more than two days, see your doctor.” So, we’re just taking a shot in the dark?

But all through the grocery store, you can find all kinds of items that will produce many of the same benefits. Bananas are good for muscle spasms. Why? Nobody really knows, other than they’re loaded with potassium. Red wine is good for cholesterol. Eggs are loaded with nutrients that are beneficial to your mind, eyes, and heart. Prunes can relieve constipation. And then there’s chicken soup.

We all know these things. We’ve heard them our entire life. Oh, every now and then somebody will publish a study that says eggs will clog your arteries and send you to an early grave, but then three more studies will contradict those findings. In the end, it’s all about what works best for you. And the more you can rely on natural treatments, the better you are in the long run.

That’s why I was intrigued when I found out that a company I’ve come to know and trust is launching a small line of topical CBD products. They just became available today. CBD, for those who don’t know, is an active ingredient in cannabis derived from the hemp plant. Cannabis and hemp. Those are terms most of us know pretty well, and not always with the most positive connotations.

Native Americans have used the hemp plant for centuries, and today the medical community has come to accept that it does have proven effects in the treatment of a variety of conditions. CBD, in particular, is noted for its effectiveness in treating pain. And, contrary to some myths, it won’t get you “high.” By law, it’s regulated to have less than .3 mg of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

Is it a miracle cure that’ll relieve muscle pain without making you smell like an old man? I’m not sure. But I intend to find out. Like many things on the market, I try to approach with an open mind and see what works best for me. And the fewer things I can buy that come from a lab full of chemicals, the better I feel. Our bodies were designed to work with nature. I figure it’s worth a try.

Sometimes, the answers we’re looking for are right there in front of us, and they’ve been there all along. I doubt our great-grandmothers made chicken soup with any intention of curing the common cold. But somehow, it helps. I’m pretty sure nobody ever looked at a rattlesnake and wondered if its venom could help prevent strokes. You know, until somebody did. And guess what? It does.

It’s that way all through life. We’ll struggle to find the “best” solution to a given problem, whether it’s related to health, relationships, business, finances, or just raising good kids, and all too often we find that the answer has been there all along. We’ve just been pushing it aside to find something better.

For every problem, there’s a solution. It may not make the problem go away completely, but that’s the challenge of life. Still, to the extent that you can make a problem better, you can get on with the business of enjoying life. Don’t worry about what works for everybody else – find what works for you. Your idea may be the best ever. You’ll never know until you give it a try.

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

It’s All a Matter of Perspective

November 19, 2019November 19, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

I woke up later this morning than normal. Sometimes the old body just needs a little more rest before the day can start. Know the feeling? The only problem is, the clock never seems to get tired. It just keeps running and running and running. This far into the 21st century, you’d think we could figure out a way to fix that.

Time is the one constant in life that never really changes. Okay, aside from twice a year when we get the directive to change our clocks, but time itself doesn’t change as a result. All that changes is the way we measure it. “I got an extra hour of sleep this weekend!” No, you didn’t. You woke up at the same time you always do. Only this time, you were an hour early. There’s no snooze button for that.

As with most things in life, time is subjective. Sure, there are officially 24 hours in a day, and there are 60 minutes in each hour. And if your favorite show comes on in an hour, that’s a measurable span of time. But remember when you were little and your mom would say, “In a minute”? Hmmm. Now we’re getting into a gray area. Is that sixty seconds, or sometime in the next hour?

It’s the same with a lot of things. “I did a really good job on that!” Well, in your opinion. Hopefully everybody else will agree, but there’s always that one person who can spot a flaw in anything, no matter how well it was done. Sometimes you’d like to smack them so hard the only thing they can spot are the little stars swirling around inside their own judgmental head.

It’s like the scene in Christmas Vacation where, after several frustrating attempts and life-endangering mishaps, Clark finally gets his display of 250,000 outdoor lights to illuminate. As he dances around in excitement, tears of joy streaming down his face, his father-in-law casually comments, “The little lights aren’t twinkling, Clark.” “Yes, I know Art. And thank you for noticing.”

But in a world where very few things are cut and dried, we all have to find our own meaning in things that are a little more subjective. How long is a moment? How much is a little bit? How soon is right away? And how good is pretty good? It pretty much depends on who’s asking. Tell your kid you’ll take them to the amusement park “one of these days” and to them that means tomorrow.

A couple of days ago, I got an email from an RV dealer offering an unbelievably low price on a motorhome we’ve had our eyes on. It was a little over $50,000 off the list price. Who can turn down an offer like that? That’s a huge savings! But, then there’s the matter of what’s left after that deep discount. And, any way you slice it, it’s still a lot of money.

But what’s “a lot of money?” It’s different from one person to the next. What’s “a lot of work”, or “too much time?” Again, it depends who’s asking because it’s all a matter of perspective. One person may say, “That’ll take four hours!” while another says, “I can have it done in no time!” Neither one is any faster than the other. It’s all in how they view the time compared to the reward.

Tell somebody you’re doing something grand, like buying an RV or starting a business, and you’ll get all kinds of opinions. Everything ranging from how much money you’ll spend to how much time it’ll take and how hard you’ll have to work. To some people, getting off the sofa to get a drink of water is just too much effort. But to another, a year of working late every evening is well worth the effort.

You have to find your own level of “worth” in all things. Is $10 too much to pay for lunch? Is 5 miles too far to drive for ice cream? Is an hour a day too much time to spend working toward a dream you’d desperately love to achieve? To one person, the answer to any of those questions is yes. But only you can decide what something is worth to you. You only get one chance to live your own life. Make it count.

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

Keep Feeding Your Brain – There’s Always Room For More

November 18, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

This will be a week of training for me. Two different topics, and it’ll take up nearly every moment of each workday until Friday. Then we get to catch up on everything else we missed during the week. Isn’t that the way it usually goes? It’s like taking vacation. You get a week off, but you spend a week getting caught up before you go and another week catching up when you get back. Fun.

Still, I’ll never forget the advice my dad gave me when I joined the Navy. Well, the advice I can share here, anyway. Some of the rest is a blur. But one day he told me to never turn down any class that was offered – get as much education as they were willing to give. That’s the one piece of Dad’s advice I followed, and I still follow it to this day. You can never learn too much.

Well, again, I guess that depends on the setting. My oldest daughter used to give a little more information than I cared for. Ignorance may not be bliss, but sometimes it beats the alternative. But when it comes to something I can use on the job, or that can get me closer to my dreams, I’ll take all I can get.

Best of all, most of my co-workers will be in town this week to join us. Most of our team is home-based in states I normally only pass through, so the only contact we have is a morning conference call and texting about work. It’s rare that we actually get to see one another.

There’s a lot more going on this week besides the training, including a quarterly meeting for our entire team. And we’ve mixed in some after-work activities as well. Nothing like getting together with some old friends for an evening of camaraderie (and drinks). Last time we went bowling. Suffice to say we won’t be doing that again. Hopefully ever.

I don’t think most of us actually look forward to sitting in a classroom all day, trying to take notes and keep up with the instructor while battling the effects of carbohydrate overload that comes from sampling too many donuts and bagels. Some days, there isn’t enough coffee in the world. In the Navy, they always told us to stand up if we got sleepy. I never sat down.

Still, there’s something about learning a new skill, even if you don’t think you’ll ever use it. Just to know some of the background workings of the systems we use is interesting, and sometimes helpful. Because when you know how a system is put together, you know its strengths and limitations. And when things break, it gives you a little background on what it may take to fix it.

Granted, there are times when we fill our head with so much information that it’s hard to see past the written facts. The Navy took a lot of time to teach us the inner workings of a transistor, from a purely theoretical perspective. To this day, I can’t tell you a thing about it, other than to rattle off some terminology that means nothing to me. All I needed to know was how to tell when it’s broke.

But, as with most other things, you can’t really tell if something’s working unless you know what it’s supposed to do. Unless you can define success, failure becomes a lot more ambiguous. That’s why we sometimes find ourselves running full speed ahead down the wrong path – we don’t have a clear idea of the intended outcome, so we just keep going and hope the goal will step into our path.

We don’t know anything without learning it first. Even things that seem obvious, like “don’t put your hand on a hot stove” had to be learned. And some of those lessons came the hard way. So, any time you can put yourself in a setting to learn something the easy way, take advantage of it. Your brain can absolutely handle the excess knowledge. And you never know when it may come in handy.

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

Work Hard, Play Hard

November 15, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Friday! I hope your day is off to a great start.

So, what are your plans for the weekend? That seems to be the common question we ask people, usually when we need something to start a conversation. Or maybe we just ask for the sake of saying anything, with no real interest in how they’ll respond. It’s like asking somebody how they’re doing. We say it out of habit. But oftentimes, the response is a lot more than we’d bargained for.

But have you ever noticed how, when you ask that question, people instinctively look away from what they’re doing and turn toward you? Whether you’re interested in what they’ve got planned for the weekend or not, they are. Especially if they’ve got something planned. But even if it’s just sitting around and getting some rest, people are naturally drawn to anybody who shows an interest in them.

So, what are your plans for the weekend? I hope you’ll have a little fun. You’ve earned it. I hope you’ll get all those weekend chores done quickly and without complications. I hope you’ll find time for a movie with the kids or maybe ice cream with that special person in your life. And in the middle of all that, I hope you’ll find time to rest. Just sitting back, with nothing to do and not a care in the world.

It’s a shame we spend five days every week trudging through life with one simple goal – getting to the weekend so we can have some fun. And the whole time, we dream of that day when we’ll be too old to work, and life will become one long vacation. Oh, the places we’ll go and the things we’ll do! Yeah. Ask any retired person how that’s working out.

Don’t get me wrong. I know a lot of retired people who are on the go all the time. All those TV commercials that show septuagenarians dancing in Tahiti and racing around on jet skis aren’t the result of trick photography. Some actually do these things. But if you talk to them, you’ll probably find they’ve been actively relaxing most of their life.

Actively relaxing – is there such a thing? The words just don’t seem to belong together. But relaxing isn’t always lying back on the couch, snoozing through a movie you’ve seen a dozen times before. Sometimes it’s exhilarating, a day that completely wears you fall into a deep sleep.

Wear yourself out until you can’t go any further? Sounds a lot like work, doesn’t it? So, what’s the difference? It’s all in the face – that smile, the excitement in the eyes, that unmistakable look that tells you this person is having the time of their life. And it doesn’t matter how old they are. What matters is that they’re living.

Okay, back to the initial question. Why do we spend seventy percent of our lives trudging around like robots, and the remainder catching our breath? Is there anything you have to do on the weekend that you couldn’t do earlier in the week? Grocery stores are open just about every day. The washer & dryer are just sitting there. You could mop the floors one evening and dust the furniture another.

If we could take care of some of those smaller things that seem to consume an entire weekend, we’d have two full days to do whatever we want. No shopping, no cleaning, no errands – just get up and enjoy the day. Sound like a dream? Well, it can happen. And when it does, odds are you’ll find something else to fill that time. Maybe even something fun. Imagine!

It’s important that we work. It’s important that we do the things we need to do. And it’s just as important that we make time to enjoy the things we’re working for. Let me clue you in – nobody works for a paycheck. We work for the things money can buy. If you want an active retirement, start practicing now. Get out and have some fun! Then when the time comes, you’ll be a seasoned pro.

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