Tag: Trust

Don’t Let Skepticism Steal Your Dreams

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

So, yesterday afternoon when I finished work, I decided it was time for a swim. That’s one of the advantages of RV living, if you’re in a park with a pool. Especially if the pool is heated. That’s what it says on the park’s website – heated pool. What that means is they allow the sun to shine on it when it’s not hidden by clouds. I came back out so fast I didn’t even get wet.

I should have expected no less from the park that put me in a site where my living room slide is in the bushes and I can only open my water service bay door halfway because there’s a power pole right next to it. But right next to me are five empty spaces with tons of extra room. So, I did what any normal person would do. I left a crappy review online. So there!

Something I learned long ago is that RV parks and hotels aren’t always honest in their advertising. Go figure. They use wide-angle lenses for pictures of the pool, brag about amenities that are more like tripping hazards, and think the word “resort” means anything a step above the local truck stop. Last night my wife heard gunshots. I wish I was making that up.

It’s tough when all you have to go by is somebody else’s assessment of how great their place is. Nobody ever says, “It’s a bed with a bathroom. If you’re tired enough, it’ll do.” At least then I could make an educated decision. But I can’t stand dishonesty in advertising. All the exaggeration and half-truths. Which reminds me, I need to update my resume.

It’s funny how the rules change when we’re promoting ourselves. If you don’t believe that, read a few dating website profiles. There must be a book of adjectives some of these people are using, not to mention Photoshopping their head on a Chippendale model’s body. I’ve got a six-pack! Well, a four-pack … I drank two last night after I came back from the pool.

So, it’s no wonder people get skeptical when you try to sell them a product they’ve never used, or show them a business they’ve never seen. They know how it works. Most of them have a resume, too. You brag about the good parts and gloss over the rest. It’s like that asterisk on weight loss products that says, “When combined with proper diet and exercise.” Well, duh!

But as a consequence of our mistrust, however well-founded, we end up missing a lot of things that may have been much better than we’d imagined. Like that crawfish etouffee I ate last week. Sure, the waitress recommended it. She said it was her favorite. I think her boss was watching. But she told the people at another table that fried shrimp is her favorite.

So, yeah, I wondered if it was all she made it out to be. Much like those nagging questions about a business that promises unlimited income potential. If it’s that good, I wondered, why isn’t everybody else eating it? Maybe they know something I don’t. And why is the waitress over there nibbling a cheeseburger when nobody’s looking?

It’s hard knowing who to trust. I once interviewed at a place that offered a paltry $5.50 an hour to start. When I asked about advancement, the Human Resources rep assured me it would get better. “I’ve only been here a year and a half, and I’m already up to $6.25 an hour!” Wow!  All that in less than two years? Better sign me up twice, because that’s how much I’ll need to live.

Yes, that was a long time ago. But the premise is pretty much the same. The people who want you to say yes can give you a dozen reasons to say that, but it doesn’t mean things are working out that great for them. Take that business opportunity your friend offered to share. You already know he’s broke every payday, so why would you take his word for it?

Well, consider this. Maybe he’s just getting started. Maybe he hasn’t found his groove yet. Maybe he never will. That doesn’t mean the opportunity itself is bad. It just means he’s not making the most of it. Like that waitress nibbling on a cheeseburger. The crawfish etouffee is fine. In fact, it was awesome. It just wasn’t something she put to good use that day.

A little skepticism is normal, especially when the advertising is so great. But when we judge something new by somebody else’s experiences, we miss the opportunity to create our own. So, the waitress likes cheeseburgers and your buddy is broke. And the pool may be a lot colder than it looks. But shouldn’t you at least stick your foot in to find out?

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

© 2021 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Don’t Stop Now – You May Be Closer Than You Think

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

“Trust me.” Those two words can evoke a multitude of different emotions, largely dependent on who’s doing the talking. “You have nothing to worry about. Everything will be alright.” Are you feeling that little twitch in the pit of your stomach? It usually means one of two things. Either there truly is nothing to fear, or we’ve completely overlooked the most immediate danger. That last one can bite hard.

As I shut down for the day last Thursday, I did so knowing that my employment contract was expiring in a few short hours. I also knew a contract extension was in the works, but not yet formalized. You know how these things go. Nobody is in a hurry until the clock runs out. Unless you’re the one waiting for some reasonable assurance you still have a job. Then it can’t happen quickly enough.

For what it’s worth, I’m planning to continue working this week, with only intestinal reassurance that I’ll continue to be paid. Yes, it’s a leap of faith. But I believe in my managers, even when they utter those dreaded words, “Trust me.” Sometimes, you have to look beyond the obvious and have confidence in what’s waiting down the road. Like dessert. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I have little doubt most of you came into the new year with dreams for a brighter future. Hopefully you’ve transformed some of those dreams into actionable goals. You know, specific tasks you plan to accomplish by some self-imposed deadline. Unless your goal is simply to pay this months’ bills. In that case, the deadline has been pretty much established for you.

Okay, so let’s assume you have a goal. Now all you have to do is sit back and wait for it to magically happen, right? You know, it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve tried that approach, it never seems to work. I guess I’m just not wishing hard enough. I know what I want is attainable, because I’ve met people who have done it and they’re no smarter than me. Yet, they all say the same thing. Get busy!

Then they utter those dreaded words – “Trust me, Dave. Keep doing the work and the results will come.” Okay, when? Next week? Next month? Next year? And please, while we’re at it, define “results.” Seems to me failure is one of two possible results. Sure, success is another possibility, but between the two there are a whole lot of other potential outcomes. Which one is at the end of my rainbow?

If you nodded your head even once in those last two paragraphs, welcome to my world. Trust is a difficult thing, especially when what you want is pretty far out there and you’re not seeing immediate results. And then, as if you needed any discouragement at all, you can always count on somebody you admire to rub a little salt on the wound. “Are you still wasting your time with that? Get a life!”

Well, the best things in life don’t always come easily. In fact, the greater the reward, the harder you’ll have to work to achieve it. And you may never fully achieve the exact level of success you desire. If you want guarantees, send in a stale bag of chips for a refund. But one thing you can be sure of – unless you’re willing to put forth some extra effort, you’ve already reached the pinnacle of your success.

It was Thomas Jefferson who said that to have something you’ve never had you must do something you’ve never done. What old Tom forgot to mention is that, more often than not, you have to keep doing it. If you’ve ever played a musical instrument, you understand this concept. If you’ve ever allowed your kid to pick up a violin or brass instrument in the confines of your home, your reward is in Heaven.

It’s not enough to just take the first step. You have to keep on stepping. At first, it feels like you’re just spinning your wheels. Nothing goes according to plan. But, as a friend often says, ninety percent of what you try will never work, but that other ten percent will make you rich. And here’s the thing – none of us can control when that ten percent kicks in. It happens when it happens.

It’s hard to keep going when you’re not seeing results. Sometimes you have to work through a lot of failures to find success, and success almost never comes on a linear path. There will be curves, potholes, detours, and roadblocks, but the journey continues as long as you keep trying. Trust yourself and trust your plan. It may not happen as quickly as you’d hoped. But none of that matters once you get there.

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

© 2021 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved

Opportunity Doesn’t Always Look the Way You’d Imagined

by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

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

It’s been a while since I received any of those emails informing me that a long lost relative I never knew departed this life and left behind millions of dollars just for me. I’m beginning to think I missed my one big chance to be rich. I don’t even get the ones telling me “This is nobody you know, but I found a loophole in the law and we can still share in his riches.” I’m bummed.

And then there were the emails telling me I could get Viagra without a prescription, for a fraction of the normal price, from a website in Nigeria. Okay, maybe I’m confusing the scams. But what I want to know is, exactly what did I do to get on that email list? I even got a few for breast enhancements. Did they even look at my picture? I’m good. Trust me.

I don’t receive many of those emails anymore. I guess they ran out of Viagra, and rich people stopped dying in Nigeria. Come to think of it, that may be more than just coincidence. Maybe people live longer when they don’t … you know. But don’t quote me on that. I’m no expert. I don’t even play one on TV.

We do live in a time where things aren’t always as they appear. Job offers come out of the blue, and right away they ask for your bank information so they can deposit your paychecks directly. I’m all for easy money, but let’s at least get the preliminaries out of the way first. You know, like what is the job and where is your company? I only look stupid.

On the other hand, how intelligent is it to go to that much effort to steal the banking information from somebody who’s desperate enough to fall for an online job scam? Odds are, you won’t get much more than forty-two cents out of that account, and that’s only there because ATMs don’t dispense change. If they did, the account would already be empty.

Sadly, there are a lot of people in this world who would rather use their energy figuring out ways to bilk unsuspecting, hardworking people out of the money they’ve earned than to go earn some money themselves. I often wondered how many people fall for these scams. But it only takes a few. Throw enough bait in the lake and sooner or later you’ll catch something.

That’s why we tend to be so leery of opportunity that we let some good ones slip right through our fingers. More accurately, we look the other way without even thinking about it. And, for good reason. Some of those opportunities make the Brooklyn Bridge look like a worthy investment.

But every now and then, a good one comes along. And if it looks and smells the way we thought a great opportunity should look and smell, we jump on it. The problem is expectations don’t always match reality. What we think we’re looking for doesn’t exist, and what we’re really looking for is completely different than we thought it would be.

As the realtor pulled up in front of our house, my wife was reading the listing to me. Only one bathroom. Why are we even looking at this one? But we were here, so we took a closer look. Behind the refrigerator I saw a closet door. When I opened the door, there were stairs to a finished basement that wasn’t even mentioned in the listing. We’ve been living here 18 years.

Things aren’t always as they appear. Sometimes we have to take a closer look. One of my favorite quotes comes from Thomas Dewar, who said, “Minds are like parachutes – they only work when they’re open.” I’m not sure that means much to somebody whose parachute didn’t open, but the rest of us should probably give it some thought.

An open mind keeps us from jumping into something we should have avoided, and it’s that same open mind that can let us see the promise in opportunities we may never have considered. Every author knows the secret to selling books is an attractive cover. But some of the most successful books of all time had a plain cover with a simple title.

When something looks too good to be true, take a step back. But don’t discount it entirely. Dig deeper. Talk to people who have found success instead of those who never tried. Look beyond your premonitions to see what’s really there. It may be nothing. It may be a disaster waiting to happen. And it may just be the answer to your prayers. There’s only one way to find out.

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

© 2020 Dave Glardon – All rights reserved