Despite claims to the contrary, there is no such thing as overnight success. The secret to success is no secret. A reputation is built day by day, project by project. Deliver on time. Provide great value. Do everything with consistency, humility, sincerity, integrity. Then do it again. It's okay if you struggle. Failure is only [...]
Being overwhelmed is a terrible state. It is essentially chronic panic. People in a panicked state don't think clearly and tend to make bad decisions. The thing about being overwhelmed is that it is by definition temporary. You can't spend your entire life, or ever more than a few days, overwhelmed. What is overwhelming usually passes [...]
Since starting my own business in July 2001, just weeks before the world changed in September 2001, there have been no shortage of, um, challenges. 9/11 itself was one of the first. There has always been some problem, some obstacle. This Gloomy Gus really summed it up for me: "There are no pleasant surprises when [...]
In appraisal we call our disclaimers Assumptions and Limiting Conditions. Potato, Potahto. When you come across a business with an extraordinary number of disclaimers they tend to be larger and lawyered up, attempting to cover every possible contingency long before they happen and however unlikely the scenario. From the customer's perspective, it can be a little [...]
I played Pickleball last week. I am going to a Kenny Chesney concert next week. These two things have one thing in common: I was only vaguely aware of them. But after I said yes I was opened not only to the things themselves, but the attitudes and cultures surrounding them. The Tribes, if you [...]
Do you feel like you are not getting anywhere? Like you are spinning your wheels? Like you keep revisiting the same problems over and over? We, the self-employed, the creatives, the freelancers, the sales people, have all been there. It can be discouraging. Here's the good news: You know more. You are generally better than you [...]
I have discussed this before, but I still marvel at the phenomenon. I blog daily. I love it. It makes my heart sing. Work gushes in. I mean gushes in. Like a fire hose. There is no cause and effect I can identify, but I end up tempted to give up blogging. The pressure to [...]
Life is unfair. If you expect fairness you will deeply disappointed. You will never be satisfied or content. You will be miserable, and miserable to be around. You will find yourself broken, brittle, like a ship in a gale, shattered on ragged rock. Or you can choose to accept all this unfairness. And take setbacks with [...]
Want to be happy every day for the rest of your life? Never think about yourself. Spend all your time thinking about what you can do to please and delight others. Your family, your friends, your coworkers, your clients, total strangers. Start by greeting everyone with a smile and a hearty hello, and think to yourself, [...]
My golf game improved after a friend (and single digit handicapper) advised me to relax my grip. "On a scale of one to ten, one being the club slides out of your hand and ten being a white knuckle death grip," he said, "you should be at a three." Not only has my game improved, [...]
I assumed fulfilling my request was not a problem. Mostly because it is your job.
I got a call from a gentlemen who owns a vacation home on the Jersey Shore. It seems that an undersized lot adjacent to his home is coming up for sale and he wanted to know what he should offer.* I was his second call. The first call to a residential appraiser who did a [...]
Answer Yes or No to the following: Is the work you do every day repetitive? Do you know the answer before you start? Can someone be trained to do what you do in a month or less? Is what you do something that any healthy adult can do? Does your work involve forms of any [...]
Give away money. Want to grow? Take a risk. Want to get better? Make a mistake. Want to make art? Risk embarrassment. Want gratitude? Visit a children's hospital.
I take issue with modern psychology. Sure we want to uncover repressed issues and deal with them, but discussing a problem ad nauseam hardly seems like the path to peace of mind. After all, nothing makes a wound fester like scratching at the scab. Let's say you bought a baby cobra (yes, a cobra, stick [...]
I have done some reading lately by and about a Dutchman named Wim Hof. For years Hof, using himself as a guinea pig, has done experiments on the limits of human endurance (okay, some of them were stunts), specifically resistance to cold. Hof discovered that exposure to cold increases the number of brown fat cells, [...]
The age of the internet has spawned a new way of thinking. No longer do you have to wait to be cast, signed, published or discovered. You can publish your own e-book, shoot and edit a comedy video, or perform, mix and release a bluegrass song. Probably the first person to express this sentiment was [...]
When I was a young professional, I was very sensitive about being called the diminutive, Bobby. Around the time I turned 50 I cared a whole lot less, because I was truly and indisputably an adult. Plus, I think I am 18.
