Success – Page 13 – Dave Glardon

Just Stay in the Game!

June 20, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

I have two different routes I take on the way home from work each day, depending on what time I leave. Okay, I haven’t even left for work yet and I’m already thinking about how I get home. My manager probably won’t be too impressed by that but bear with me. There’s a point and it’s not how quickly I can end my day and get out of there.

As I said, I have two routes. There’s the express route, a six-lane highway that everybody else seems to find convenient as well. If I get out early enough and beat the traffic, that’s the easiest way to go. But lately, “early enough” doesn’t seem to be quite … well, early enough. I guess a few other people have caught onto that trick.

My other route takes me through residential areas and small country roads which, by coincidence, are right along the path of a huge tornado just a few weeks ago. There’s a lot of devastation along that route, and the last thing I want to do is get in the way of the cleanup. They’ll be at it for months.

But even in the few short weeks since the storm rolled through, a lot of the damage has been removed and reconstruction is well underway. Power lines are back up, stores are open again (for the most part), and people are back in what’s left of their homes. Blue tarps cover a lot of the buildings, and downed trees still dominate the landscape. But slowly, life is getting back to normal.

There’s a professional restoration service specializing in disaster cleanup whose slogan is, “Like it never even happened.” That’s a comforting thought, and I’m sure there comes a point where the visual reminders are largely gone. But there’s more to rebuilding than putting things back the way they were. The emotional restoration can take a lot more time and effort.

I’m sure nobody went to bed that night thinking they’d be awakened to the sound of tornado sirens, or that, before midnight, they would be standing outside what’s left of their home checking one another for injuries. Life has a way of throwing us a knuckleball now and then, and they tend to come without warning. One minute we’re on top of the world, and the next we’re fighting to survive.

Thankfully, most of life’s ups and downs aren’t quite that severe. You have a bad day at work, or the kids are being especially disobedient. The car has a flat tire, the power goes out, or the weed-eater won’t start. That last one happens a lot. Any one of these things can stress you out and take the smile off your face. But in the overall scheme of things, they’re pretty minor.

And all it takes is a small change, and the problem is gone, like it never even happened. Your day at work ends and traffic is light for a change. The kids give you a hug and tell you they love you. The spare tire is on, the power comes back up, and the weed-eater starts. All the frustration is behind you and you get back to whatever it was you were doing, without giving it another thought.

It’s too bad we can’t dust ourselves off so easily when it comes to other things … things that are probably just as important, if not more, but that we tend to take much more personally. Relationships would be at the top of that list. “I can forgive, but I can’t forget.” Okay, but if what you’ve “forgiven” keeps coming to the surface, odds are you’re still not quite there.

And we do the same thing with ourselves. We try something new, only to fall flat on our face. Whether it’s a new skill, a new business, a new job, or simply a new way home from work, we don’t go into anything expecting to fail. If we did, we’d never even try. That makes it all the harder when we do fail. Instead of learning from the experience, we beat ourselves up for even trying.

Success isn’t about avoiding failure. It’s about looking failure in the eye and saying, “I’m not afraid of you.” It’s about picking up the pieces when things go wrong and coming back even stronger. It’s about taking a look at what went wrong, and then turning your attention back to the goal. It’s about refusing to be beaten by something you didn’t even want in the first place.

Life isn’t always kind, and anything worth having will undoubtedly present some challenges along the way. But success isn’t about avoiding challenges – it’s about overcoming them. Keep your eye on the goal and never give up. You can do this!

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

Effort and Belief – It Takes Two

June 19, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Hump Day! I hope your day is starting off well.

I’ve been reading a new book, The Miracle Equation by Hal Elrod. If you’re into motivational books, I highly recommend this one. If you’re not, I highly recommend you give it a try. There’s none of the mystery or romance in a typical novel. Just a couple-hundred pages of info on how each and every one of us can make our lives better. You know – boring stuff.

That’s what you would think by the way some people react. “How can you read that stuff?” My response to that is, “How can you not?” We’ll read a recipe book. We’ll read an instruction manual on how to fix a car. For some people, romance novels are a “how-to” for their love life (or what they wish it could be). But we won’t read a few pages about how to achieve success in life. Seriously?

What I like about this book is that it takes a detour from the beaten path and suggests a concept many of the others tend to leave out. While some authors put all their emphasis on self-confidence and focusing on a dream, this book suggests that believing in yourself (unwavering faith) is only half the equation – you may have to actually work for it.

The two, faith and effort, go hand-in-hand. Have you ever set out on a trip with no confidence you’d reach your destination? Okay, I’ve owned a few cars that made me say an extra prayer, but you get the point. If we had no faith in our ability to safely reach a destination, we’d never leave the house.

But, sitting around the house staring at pictures of the beach won’t make it materialize in your front yard. If you want to smell the salt air and feel the warmth of the sun, you have to put down the travel brochure and do something about it. You may even have to drive. A lot. And with each mile that passes, the closer you get to your destination, the more real it begins to feel. And the more real it begins to feel, the more determined you are to get there.

I talk a lot in my posts about dreams as the basis for action. I talk about how we’re all wired for success and are naturally driven to it. I talk about believing in yourself enough to know that you can accomplish anything. But something I don’t talk about much is the effort that makes it all happen. I guess I don’t like talking about work any more than most other people.

But work is an important part of the equation. In the popular children’s book, a little train engine sat there repeating “I think I can, I think I can!” But until it put forth the effort to start moving, nothing happened. It was the combination of faith and effort that made the little train move. We’re no different. We can sit there and think about it all day. But at some point, we have to take action.

In the past, I’ve quoted Napoleon Hill who once said, “What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” I love those words, because they simply say if we can dream something up and have faith in our ability to achieve it, nothing can stop us from doing it. But it leaves out one very important part – we have to do the necessary work to make it happen.

And that begins with having a plan, knowing what to do and how to get the most from all that effort. A couple of days ago, a pickup truck next to me sat at a traffic light spinning its tires so fast they were smoking. There was a lot of “think I can” going on there, a lot of exuberance on the part of the driver, and a lot of effort (gas) being expended. But the truck wasn’t going anywhere.

We sometimes do the same in the excitement of starting on a new goal. The light turns green and we mash the pedal to the floor. As we’re sitting there burning through all our energy, the rest of the world calmly moves ahead. It doesn’t take long for us to realize we’re not going anywhere, so we back off the gas and try a different approach. Hopefully we still have some energy left.

On the other hand, too much planning can be paralyzing. It’s one thing to think about what you need to do. It’s another thing to just sit there and keep thinking about it. At some point, you have to take a leap of faith and get started. You’ll know in an instant if you’re moving forward or spinning your wheels.

Belief makes things possible, but effort makes things happen. Believe in yourself enough to do the work, and work hard enough to justify your belief. Then do both for as long as it takes. The reward is worth it. And so are you.

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

If Time is What You Need, Make Some!

June 18, 2019June 18, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

I remember telling you folks a while back that my weight loss journey was finally headed in the right direction. I remember telling you how good I felt and that I knew I’d eventually get to my goal. I remember telling you all of that. And, I remember telling you a couple of times over the past two years about how I’d fallen off the wagon and was headed back the wrong way. It happens.

Erma Bombeck once said, “In two decades, I’ve lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.” I think I may have her beat on that one. Lose five, gain five. Lose ten, gain ten. At least I’ve never gone above my starting point. You know, if “starting point” means the most I’ve ever weighed in my life. I guess we could all claim that little victory.

So, here I go, back on that journey. It’s an exercise in futility, probably because that’s the only real exercise I get these days. There are just too many things going on during the day to carve out time for that. Funny, I can always carve out time for meals. Think they’d give me any dirty looks if I ate dinner on the treadmill?

No matter what we need to do, it seems we never can find the time. We’re just too busy. Between work, running a household, soccer games, grocery shopping, oil changes, bowling, and TV, who has time for anything else? I’m getting tired just thinking about it. And I only do a few of those things.

That’s not entirely true. I tend to stay pretty busy. But I’m learning that, while being busy may look great on paper, it doesn’t mean I’m actually getting the right things done. It’s easy to get sidetracked, doing something else that “needs to be done” but doesn’t get me any closer to where I really wanted to be. It’s just filler.

I hear the same thing from a lot of other people. Whether it’s going back to school, learning a new skill on the job, or opening a business of their own, nobody seems to have the time. So, let’s get real. All that means is “I don’t have time for that. I find time for all the other things that occupy my day, but that one just isn’t high enough on my list of priorities. Other things are more important.”

And that’s okay. We all have 168 hours each week and a certain amount of time on this earth. To the degree that you can, you should spend that time any way you want. But ask yourself this important question – at the end of your life, when you’re looking back at all those things you never got around to, will you take comfort in the number of times you watched reruns of your favorite show?

In your annual review at work, has the boss ever mentioned how many emails you’ve read? Have they ever acknowledged the number of times you thumbed through the notes from last week’s meeting, or marveled at the hours you spent planning your next project? Probably not. They tend to focus on the important stuff – you know, results. Bosses are pesky that way.

So, ask yourself another important question. If you were paying somebody else to achieve your personal goals, to do the work for you while you handle all the other “important” things that occupy your time, what excuses would you accept from them? If they continually offered up the same reasons you do for the things that aren’t getting done, would they still have a job?

Having time is as simple as deciding how we use our time. It’s all about priorities. At the end of the day, we can lament all the things we didn’t get done, but the truth is we did the things that were most important to us at the moment. If none of those things brought us any closer to our goals, it’s not because we’re too busy – we’re just too busy doing the wrong things.

If there’s something you really want to do, you’ll find time. You’ll get up a little earlier, go to bed a little later, work through lunch, combine errands, delegate, or simply eliminate some of those things you don’t really need to do. But if it’s important enough, you’ll find a way. It’s not a matter of finding more time each week – it’s simply a matter of deciding what’s more important.

We all have to carve out time to enjoy some of life’s pleasures. And if that’s your number one priority in life, then by all means, do it. But if there are other things equally important, things you’ll look back on one day and wish you’d done, then make the time. Do what’s important today. That other stuff can wait.

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

Windows of Opportunity are the Keys to Your Success

June 12, 2019June 12, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

We talked a couple of days ago about the problem of doing the work that needs to be done and not seeing any visible results. It happens to all of us, and it’s frustrating when it does. Especially when there’s a limited window of opportunity, and if you miss that window, you have to sit around and wait for the next one.

My grandson sometimes cuts our grass. He’s got a full-time job and lives in a neighboring town, so it’s not like he can just walk across the street and do it. And, with a schedule that changes from week to week, I never know when to expect him. Factor in the weather, and there are very few opportunities for me to get my grass cut without doing it myself.

Yet, when the grass needs to be cut and we have a day without rain, you don’t blow the opportunity. With the season we’ve had, it could rain for the next four days in a row and by then the grass will be so high it’ll need to be cut twice – once to lower the height, and another to chop up the clippings. So, when that window of opportunity comes along, I get out there and mow the lawn myself.

Sometimes windows of opportunity come along a few times each day. If there was something you needed to do on your morning coffee break and just didn’t get around to it, you’ll have another break coming later in the day. Or maybe you can do it over lunch. If all else fails, you can set aside some time right after work. And if that doesn’t pan out, there’s always tomorrow.

But other times, the window of opportunity may last several weeks or even a few months, and then it’s gone. You had the best of intentions, but life just gets in the way. Your health isn’t up to par, there’s a new project at work, the ball team needs a coach, an unexpected bill comes along, and there’s that room you’ve been meaning to paint. Meanwhile, the window just keeps shrinking.

It happens to all of us. Maybe you’ve got an outdoor project you wanted to tackle, but the weather just isn’t cooperating. Maybe you wanted to qualify for a business challenge that only comes around once a year. Maybe you were hoping to take the kids on a special vacation before school starts again. And no matter how hard you try, things just don’t seem to work out. You’re not alone.

I read yesterday that only a third of the farmers in my state have been able to plant their fields this year, because of historically heavy rainfall. The fields have been so wet they can’t even drive a tractor across them, much less plow the fields for planting. By now, their crops should be almost half-grown. Time is running out, and a good number of them have already given up for the year.

Those farmers would have given just about anything for a brief window of opportunity, and they’d have dropped everything to take advantage of it. They’ve learned, through bitter experience, that when the fields are ready to plant, you plant. It doesn’t matter what else you’d planned to do that day or that week. You do what needs to be done before that window closes again.

Thankfully, for most of us, the situation isn’t quite so dire. There may be something we need to do, or maybe even just want to do, and if we miss our chance today, there’s always tomorrow. Or next month, or next year. Keep that up and you’ll forget what you wanted to do in the first place. The consequence may be that nothing changes. But is that what you really want?

If there’s something you want to change, find those windows of opportunity and don’t let another one slip by. There will be a day when you can look back at this point in your life and celebrate opportunities taken or lament the ones you missed. Do the things you need to do today. Your tomorrow depends on it.

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

Every Failure Brings You That Much Closer to Success

June 10, 2019June 10, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Monday! I hope your day is starting off well.

You know that feeling when you’ve been working away at something day after day with no visible results? You know what needs to be done, and you’ve been doing it, yet none of it seems to have moved you any closer to your goal. For all practical purposes, it seems you end each day right back where you started.

I imagine it feels that way for software developers. You write line after line of code, for days on end, with a simple goal in mind – you want to turn on a computer, press a few keys, and see things magically happen. But until that last line of code is written, you have no way of knowing for sure if what you’ve done will yield any measurable results. Everything in between is just work.

It’s that way with a lot of the things we do. We work and work and work, and waiting for the visible results can seem to be an eternity. This is especially true with raising kids. You put forth the effort every day for years before you find out if you did the job well. Oh, we’ll get little indications of success along the way, but it can literally take a lifetime to see the full impact of our effort.

Still, every little thing we’ve done contributes in some small (or not so small) way toward the overall results. We may not see the results immediately, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. When you’re on a cross-country trip, you probably don’t celebrate every one of those mileposts along the way, even though each one is getting you closer to where you want to be.

But when the road is closed, and a detour takes you several miles out of your way, you breathe a big sigh of relief when all those twists and turns finally put you back on the highway you were on. The goal is that much closer, and you set the cruise control with a feeling of accomplishment at having navigated unfamiliar territory without getting lost in the process. You da man!

For the past several weeks, I’ve been putting forth a fair amount of effort in one of my personal goals without any visible results. It happens. My mentors, people who have been where I am and have gone far beyond where I hope to be, all keep telling me the same thing – just keep doing what needs to be done. Put forth the effort on a consistent basis, and the results will come.

Well, they were right. Over the weekend, some of that work paid off and I was able to celebrate a win. It’s a small win in the overall scheme of things, but one of many that will lead me closer to my goal. And, for that very reason, it’s a huge win. Because every step in the right direction validates not only the effort, but the self-confidence that got you moving in the first place.

As challenging as it can be to succeed, it’s even more challenging to work through those times when things just don’t work the way we’d planned. To be certain, some of those times actually put us further from our goal than we were to start with, and it takes that much more work just to get back to where we started. After a while, you begin to wonder if it’s even worth taking that next step.

But sometimes we have to find out what doesn’t work in order to find what does. Mom used to say there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and she was right. But for everything that gets the job done and brings you closer to your goal, there may be hundreds of approaches that won’t work. And in the very act of eliminating those that don’t work, we move closer to the ones that will.

Those software developers know exactly what I’m talking about. If any of them ever tell you they’ve never written a faulty line of code, and that every one of their creations worked exactly as planned on the very first try, don’t trust them in a real estate deal.

Creation, of any kind, is a process of trial and error. You have to be willing to fail in order to succeed. And when those failures come, you have to be willing to dust yourself off and keep moving. Because what you’ve experienced isn’t truly a failure – it’s just another step along the path to success.

Decide what you want and then put forth whatever amount of effort is required to get you there. Remember these words – I will, until. You’ll make mistakes, and you’ll experience setbacks. But as long as you keep doing the things you need to do the results will come. Stay focused and keep moving. Success isn’t just possible – it’s inevitable.

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

What Do You Want To Be Good At?

June 7, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Friday! I hope you’re gearing up for an awesome weekend.

Weekends are supposed to be about rest. That’s what the boss likes to tell us. “Go home and relax – I need you back in here Monday ready to roll.” Well, that would be great, except the boss isn’t married to my wife. She thinks Saturday and Sunday belong to her. And all those jobs I put off during the week because I was too tired from working … well, they’re not going away on their own.

Okay, I say that tongue-in-cheek. Partly because most of the jobs I have to do at home are of my own creation. I decided they need to be done, and I’m the one who picked this weekend to do it. Also, I like eating dinner that’s cooked by somebody else and, if I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s that you don’t pick on the cook before the meal.

Do you ever feel like life is just one job after another, and the work never really gets done? It’s like a boat with a slow leak. You grab a bucket and get all the water bailed out but sit there a while and it’ll fill right back up. I think most women know exactly how that feels. I can build a shed and I’m done with it. But cooking and cleaning are never really done. It just looks that way.

I attended a business conference in March, and something the speaker said really stood out. He said if there’s something you need to do on a repeated basis, get good at it. Because when you get good at it, you don’t have to work nearly as hard. It becomes second nature, and instead of just swinging at those fastballs, you begin to connect. After a while, you hit more than you miss. Nothing to it.

I think it’s that way with anything in life. The more you do something, the better you get. We’re all born with a set of natural talents, and no two people are alike. But just as you were able to learn your job and get good at it, you can learn anything you want and be better at it than you were in the beginning. After a while, you don’t even have to think about it. It just happens.

The question is, what do you want to be good at? Do you want to be good at your job? Do you want to be a good cook? Do you want to be a good parent? Do you want the best-looking lawn in the neighborhood? Do you want to be a good driver? Do you want to be the kind of person others look to for guidance?

You can be good at anything. Maybe not good enough to make a living at it – I’d love to be good at golf, but I’ll never be good enough to join the PGA tour. And that’s not my goal. I just want to be better than I was last time. I want to hit that one perfect drive, or a putt that curves perfectly into the hole. And just once, I’d like to get out of the sand with a single stroke. Is that too much to ask?

None of us can be great at everything. The key is figuring out those things we want to be great at, and those things we’d like to do well. I want to be great at my job. I want to be great at my business. But cleaning the basement is something where I’d be happy to just get the job done. I don’t even care if my approach is all that pretty – I just want the final result to be good.

Find the one thing in life that’s most important to you right now and get good at it. Odds are, there will be more than one, so pick a few. Just don’t try to do it all at once. And whatever you choose, practice it until it becomes second nature – something you could do with your eyes closed. Except driving. Keep your eyes open for that one.

The better we become at anything, the less effort it takes to achieve the desired results. And the more we do the things that intimidate us the most, the more comfortable they become. We may never come to love those tasks, and there may always be an element of reluctance. I don’t enjoy doing laundry, but I’m good at it. And that sure comes in handy on laundry day.

If there’s something you have to do over and over, get good at it. Whether it’s on the job, around the house, in family life or in building a better life, the better you are the easier it becomes. And the easier it becomes, the more likely you are to just dive in and get it done. Then you’ll have that much more time to do something nice for yourself.

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

Fill Your Brain With Something Worth Remembering

June 6, 2019June 6, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

Have you ever awakened in the morning with a song stuck in your head, one you haven’t heard in ages and you’re wondering why, of all the songs in the world, you woke up to that one? And then, later in the day, as you’re driving to or from work, that same song comes on the radio. And you wonder, was it premonition or just a strange coincidence?

It happens to me all the time. I’ll be thinking about an old movie, one I haven’t seen in several years. I’ll recall a certain scene, or maybe just a memorable line from the movie, and then in just a day or two, it’s on TV. I get a chuckle out of it, and usually watch the movie just because it’s on my mind now and I have to.

Now, I don’t make any claim to supernatural abilities. More than likely, I’ve heard the song somewhere, maybe just on a commercial or in the background music of a movie, and that’s how it got stuck in my head. And television networks advertise movies a few days before they air, so it’s possible I saw a commercial for the movie and just didn’t remember it.

The same thing happens sometimes with my writing. Those of you who have been with me a while know I like to read motivational books. Go figure. To me, there’s nothing quite as intriguing as a book that tells me I can succeed at anything I want and enjoy the life of my dreams. Call me what you want, but that’s the kind of stuff I want to read.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve written a post in the morning, and then read a passage in one of my books that very evening that makes the same point. And I’m sure some of my friends who are reading the same book (we’re reading it together) wonder if I’m picking up ideas from another writer. To me, it’s just amusing. You know what they say – great minds think alike!

But it lends credence to a theory, which is that none of us has a truly original thought, and everything in our conscious mind is simply repetition of something that’s in the subconscious. We’ve seen or heard something in the past that’s buried deep in the brain, and a conscious thought comes along and goes digging for something in the subconscious to back it up and make the point.

Now, if all I read were murder mysteries or romance novels, I’d probably have a hard time coming up with words of inspiration each day. Nothing against those books – I think reading is good for the mind, and if it’s entertaining to you, go for it. But we should also balance that out with something a little more positive.

The mind is like a sponge. It picks up everything that comes along and keeps it forever. There’s a reason people with dementia can’t remember the names of their own children, but they can remember the name of their first-grade teacher. Anything that’s in our long-term memory is there for instant recall, and we can remember it like it was yesterday.

People always say things like, “I’m not good with names. I can’t remember what I ate for dinner last night! My memory just isn’t very good.” Yes, it is. You can remember names, and you can remember what you ate for dinner last night. You’ve just got too many other conscious thoughts racing around to let you dig into the subconscious.

But, like a sponge, those thoughts in your subconscious will make themselves known at some point down the road. Pick up a sponge that hasn’t been used in a few days, and the smell will turn your stomach. At that point, you have two choices. Throw it in the trash (and fill up a new sponge with the same kind of junk) or refill it with something a lot more pleasant.

We need to be careful what we allow our minds to consume. The words we hear, the songs we sing, the books we read, the places we go, the people we spend our time with – all of these things create memories that your brain stores forever. And when you least expect it, those thoughts will again rise to the surface. Stir up a bucket of mop water, and the whole thing turns muddy.

With each conscious thought, every new idea that comes into your brain, it automatically goes searching for something in long-term memory to validate or repudiate that thought. So, make sure your brain has a sufficient number of positive thoughts to choose from. Fill it with the good stuff and top it off regularly. Your brain will always have something to say to you. Make sure it’s something you want to hear.

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

Swing Like You Mean It!

June 4, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

My office at work is right across the street from a minor-league baseball stadium. You can always tell when the team is in town for a home game, because of all the fanfare in and around the stadium. And the home team has as many die-hard fans as any major-league team. They just don’t have to pay quite as much to watch a good game.

As a young boy, I loved playing baseball. That is to say, I loved putting on the uniform, biting off a big chunk of bubble gum, and standing out there in right-field pretending somebody would actually hit a ball in my general direction. Let’s just say I spent a lot of time kicking daisies off their stems.

And when it was my turn at bat, there was little doubt I’d be heading back to the dugout empty-handed. The only way I got on base was if the pitcher couldn’t throw three balls in the strike zone. I’d swing – sometimes. But even when I did, it was a half-hearted swing because I had accepted defeat before I ever stepped up to the plate.

I always thought failure is probably one of the worst feelings in the world. Years ago, my wife and I owned a NASCAR souvenir shop. We built it from nothing – a few ball caps, some tee shirts, and a display of coffee mugs in the local flea market. We grew that into a fully-stocked weekend store, then opened a kiosk in the local shopping mall, and finally went into a real retail storefront.

I’ll never forget those last two days after the “Closed” sign was placed in the window for the last time. There were boxes to pack, full of items nobody wanted. There were shelves and racks and display cases waiting for somebody to haul them away for half what we paid. Finally, our name was removed from the front window, and it was official – we had failed. Life was pretty bleak.

But as bad as it feels to fail, it’s even worse stepping up to the plate expecting failure, knowing that no matter how hard you try, it’s the inevitable result. In baseball I didn’t swing as hard. I’d look at a perfect pitch and hope the umpire went temporarily blind. In my store, I’d sit behind the sales counter watching cars go by instead of making phone calls. The shelves were dusty. I just quit trying.

I’m sure every one of you has been there. Nothing seems to go right, and each thing that goes wrong becomes just one more example in a litany of excuses for why it was never going to work. After a while, you become your own worst enemy. You hang your head and look for new excuses. And when none present themselves without any effort, you make things go wrong. You’ve long since given up on the idea of success – all you want right now is validation for failure.

Missing a goal feels pretty bad. Do it a bunch of times in a row, and it can really start to wear you down. After a while, you look around at other people who aren’t even trying and begin to think maybe they know something you don’t. You’re over here beating your head against a brick wall and they’re lounging around in the back yard with frozen cocktails. It’s not hard to envy that life.

And then your subconscious mind kicks in and regurgitates every negative thought in its arsenal. “What made you think you could do this? You had to know you’d fail. If it was that easy, everybody would be doing it. How much time have you wasted when you could have been enjoying life? You wouldn’t be feeling this way if you’d never set a goal in the first place. Just give up!”

If any of that sounds familiar, welcome to the human race. It happens to all of us. And the more it happens, the more we begin to believe it. Negative thoughts can be pretty convincing, especially in the absence of success. And with every failure, those negative thoughts just get stronger. It’s like pouring gas on a fire except, after a while, the fire begins to pour gas on itself.

It’s only when we put those negative thoughts behind us and replace them with a newfound confidence that we can turn those failures into successes. Approach a goal with the expectation of success and your odds increase exponentially. With every swing, expect a hit and be ready to run to first base when it happens.

Step up to the plate. Swing confidence and conviction and keep doing it no matter how many times you miss. That perfect pitch is coming, so be ready when it happens. This is your time to shine.

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

Keep Swinging – You May Be Closer Than You Think

June 3, 2019June 3, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

Well, the weekend is over and it’s Monday again. For most of us, that means a new week at work and a morning of facing all the things we didn’t get done last week. I guess there’s a reason so many of us aren’t overly fond of Mondays. But on the other hand, it’s a new week full of opportunities to do some of the things we’ve been putting off and start crossing them off the list.

I’m not talking so much about things you do at work. Trust me, somebody will be there to remind you about them, especially if you start falling too far behind. But what about those things you’ve been planning to do for yourself? You know, the ones that seem to slip from one week to the next, and by Friday, you’re just saying, “I’ll get started on this next week.” Well, it’s next week.

One of the problems with personal goals is that we go into them with the best of intentions, and we tend to aim high. Maybe a little too high. And when things don’t happen exactly the way we thought they would, we beat ourselves up and set the same goal again, only this time with a little more admonition than conviction. And trust me, friends, that admonition can wear you down fast.

It’s the same issue with New Year’s resolutions. We vow to make some huge change in life over the coming year. Part of our brain says we’ve got a whole year to get it done, so what’s the rush? But when February comes, and then March and April and May, and we’re still no closer to getting it done, it begins to wear on us. By June, we’ve pretty much given up. Besides, there’s always next year.

But what if we were to re-define success? What if, instead of actually attaining the final goal, “success” was simply movement in the right direction? Putting the goal firmly in front of you, establishing the mindset that you really can do this, planning a course of action, and then taking the necessary steps to make it happen – regardless of the actual results, isn’t that something worth celebrating?

It’s like chopping down a tree. You make the decision. You look at the tree and think, “I can do this.” You sharpen the axe, decide on a plan (like, which way you want it to fall), and take the first swing. A small chip hits the ground, but the tree is still standing. So, you swing again, and again, and again. Before long, the results of your effort begin to show. It gives you hope, and you continue.

Now, imagine that you’re swinging that axe blindfolded. You can feel the axe hitting the tree, but you can’t see the chips falling. Your arms are getting sore and blisters are forming on your hands. You begin to wonder if you’re even hitting the right tree. But, as any lumberjack will tell you, there’s no way of knowing which swing will finally bring the tree down. You just have to keep swinging.

We’ve all felt the same frustration with things we’re trying to accomplish. We put in the effort, but nothing seems to be happening. So, we re-assess our plan and move to another side of the tree. Maybe the wood is a little more “friendly” on that side. We swing several more times and the tree is still standing. Finally, in frustration, we move on to another tree or leave the axe to rust in the rain.

Progress isn’t always readily apparent, but any action you take toward your goal gets you closer. And, much like taking chips out of a standing tree, you never know when you’ll start to hear the welcome sound of wood fibers tearing away as the tree begins to fall on its own. From there, success is inevitable. The laws of gravity and physics take over, and all you have to do is get out of the way.

Meanwhile, you’ve been building up your arms for that next tree. You’ve learned a thing or two about how to swing an axe for maximum effect. Your experience tells you which side of the tree to hack away at first if you want it to fall in a certain direction. And, when you face that next tree, there’s little doubt in your mind it’ll eventually fall. Success isn’t just possible – it’s inevitable.

With each step you take toward a goal, you’re not only wearing away at the final objective, you’re building the person doing the work – you’re transforming from the kind of person who can imagine a goal into the kind who can accomplish that goal. More importantly, you’re becoming the kind of person who can accomplish ANY goal. And that, my friends, is the true definition of success.

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

Who’s Your Expert?

May 29, 2019May 29, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

Hump day came a little early this week, or so it would seem. After a three-day weekend, it was hard getting back to work yesterday. I sat there valiantly trying to remember what I’d worked on the previous week, and my mind went blank. That’s either a sign that I didn’t do anything, or that I’m consciously trying to forget it. I’ll go with Door Number 2.

Experts say that’s a sign of stress and, since I’m no expert, I guess I’ll have to take their word for it. On the other hand, who died and put them in charge? I mean, at what point in their life did somebody lay a hand upon their head and say, “Forever more, you shall be known to all mankind as ‘Expert’”? I think they’re making it up.

If you want somebody to believe what another person is saying, all you have to do is use the “E” word. “She’s an expert!” Wow. I didn’t know that. Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place? An expert? Okay, where do I sign up?

We’d like to think we’re not quite so gullible, but the facts would suggest otherwise. As a comedian, I can’t count the number of times I received a solicitation for a “business of comedy” class that promised to teach me all the secrets of success, taught by somebody I’ve never heard of and who never achieved any appreciable success himself. As they say, those who can, do – the rest teach.

I’d like to think most people who tout themselves as experts at least read a lot of books on the topic and learned from the true masters of their craft. But more likely, they’re just trying to sell a book of their own. You see, anybody can become an expert simply by making a bold declaration – “I’m an expert!” Get a couple of people to agree with you on that, and you’re off to the races.

I’ll be the first to say that, when it comes to motivation and success, I’m certainly no expert. More accurately, I’m an enthusiast. I know what I know because somebody else wrote it first, and I formulate all my ideas based on a combination of the things I’ve read and some of my own observations through nearly 62 years on this planet. After a while, you learn a thing or two.

And, even though my banker may not be overly impressed, I’ve enjoyed a fair amount of success over the years, largely because of what I learned from others. I guess I picked some pretty good teachers. And believe me, there were plenty of people along the way trying to convince me I’d never make the cut. You know, people who knew absolutely nothing about what I was trying to do.

Have you ever noticed the people who are most vocal about a given topic are usually the people who know the least about it? They think turning up the volume will make up for a lack of knowledge and people will flock to their side to hear their opinions. But the people who know the most, the ones from whom we should truly want to learn, just sit there quietly and nod.

Still, when we have that rare opportunity for a successful person to offer some suggestions, what’s the first thing we do? We go straight to our best friend and eagerly await their advice, even though they’ve never even attempted the suggestions we were given and have no experience on which to base an opinion. In less than a minute, that uninformed opinion becomes our source of truth and we quit before we even get started.

And it’s not that your friend really wanted to crush your enthusiasm or keep you from attaining your goals. But we all speak from the only reality we’ve come to know. I’m sure if your friend knew the secrets to success, they’d share those secrets with you. The question is, have they ever been successful in what you’re trying to accomplish, or are they just talking?

None of us are experts on everything, and we can all learn something from those around us. That includes your best friend who was so generous in dispensing advice. Not advice in how to succeed, but in how to pick an idea apart. Because, that’s really all they know. They speak, not as an expert on succeeding in your chosen endeavor, but in finding fault with those who do.

If you ask people for advice, they’re usually happy to give it. The key is asking the “right” people. Successful people are usually just as quick to offer advice as those who aren’t even willing to try. The question is, which one will you choose to follow? Who will have your ear today? You decide what goes into your brain. Choose wisely.

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