Unstoppable Skills

Charles Hayward, a cabinet maker and editor of The Woodworker magazine, on starting the year with enthusiasm:
“There is a dynamic quality about enthusiasm which nothing can resist. You can see it in the street orator, whose whole heart is in his argument, swaying a crowd. You can feel it in the work of any artist—painter, writer, musician, or whatever he be—if he has put himself into the thing he has wrought in, felt it enough, suffered it enough. And the beginning of the year is a good time, it seems to me, to set about enkindling our enthusiasm afresh. For life is a dead thing without it. Make it woodwork, if our tastes lie in that direction; make it stamp collecting; make it anything in the wide world so long as it is alive and vital.”
Source: “A New Year Spirit,” Woodworker Magazine (1938)
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One of the positive thinking sites that I have read for several years now is The Daily Motivator. Ralph Marston has written a daily motivator for the past 10 to 15 years and each one of them is different and encouraging in their own way.
It’s amazing because just a positive thought at the beginning of the day or even in the afternoon can help turn my attitude from souring to inspiring and happy. I’ve set up The Daily Motivator so that my phone can take me there or can read it to me and I’ve even used it as an example with others on how to be more positive and encouraging.
If you would like to get encouraged with a positive thought each day, check out The Daily Motivator at
dailymotivator.com
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I recently talked with a twenty-something young man about what he considered being presentable. His take on the idea was that as long as you were neat and clean, it really didn’t matter what you wore.
But you should adjust for whatever the situation is. If you’re going for a job interview, you might want to dress a little bit better than normal. If you’re just going to go hang out with people, a little more relaxed is okay.
I asked him about pajamas in public and he said he didn’t think that was a good idea and not a good look at all. We talked about the cost of clothes because there are some very expensive clothing items that are not very presentable.
He said the cost does make it a little more presentable but it would depend. I joked with him about if somebody spent $300 on a makeup job to look like the Joker in a Batman movie would that make them presentable and he said no.
Unless they were going for an actor’s tryout to be the Joker. We talked about how being presentable is often a lot like recognizing pornography. It’s really hard to define, but you know it when you see it.
For me, being presentable is wearing good clothing and shoes and socks and not wearing saggy pants that show your underwear. Not slouching. Looking people in the eye and smiling, which is huge because a lot of people don’t smile nowadays because they’re distracted by their devices.
It was a good discussion.
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Remember that communication doesn’t really happen unless the circle is completed. The circle includes transmitting the message clearly to a receiver and the receiver acknowledging the message was received. It’s best to include what was transmitted in the response so both know and agree on what was communicated.
#us #communicative

I’ve enjoyed several of Bob Goff’s books over the years, and “Undistracted” is another one that I really liked. His stories bring light on things and inspire me to do more. Especially when he talks about the “all-access pass” we’ve been given. Check his book out at
Undistracted: Capture Your Purpose. Rediscover Your Joy. https://a.co/d/crsD4z2
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#us #book

One of the things that I insisted that my children do until they were out on their own if they were living in my house and my responsibility was to get up by 9am. They argued with me and they would ignore me and sleep in and then complain about not having time to do things.
And I told them I didn’t teach you to sleep past 9am, I taught you to get up by 9am because if you sleep past 9am you’re burning daylight and you’re not going to accomplish things. I had friends at work that would sleep half the day away and then take a nap in the afternoon and then complain about how they couldn’t sleep at night.
And I just kind of laughed and said well if you get up and you move around you’re going to be tired at night but if you sleep all day you ain’t going to be tired. Even working shift work I made myself get up.
If I worked a closer and was at work until after midnight I would still get up no later than 9am because number one I didn’t want to waste the day and number two if I was really tired I’d take a nap in the afternoon to help recover from the late shift. I learned this watching my father as he got older and my mother too, but when we would go and visit down there at their house they would talk about how they wanted to fix breakfast for us the next morning and then dad wouldn’t get up until after 10 a.m. I would have been up since about 6 30 at the latest and would be hungry so I’m fixing my own breakfast then he would come stumbling out of the bedroom and say oh hey let me let me get busy fixing bacon and eggs and an hour later we’re eating quote unquote breakfast. But it’s practically lunchtime because he didn’t get up.
Not a big deal. And if you’re not working it’s really not an issue, but I’ve seen so many articles about older people getting their days and nights turned around. So many younger people, and even older people too, get into trouble because at night, at two and three in the morning, they think nobody’s watching and it’s not a big deal so they do whatever they want or they do things they’re not supposed to be doing, and then they get in trouble.
I just think it’s better if you get up no later than 9 a .m. no matter what’s going on. It’s one of those discipline things that I think help make somebody unstoppable because when people realize you’re actually gonna be up and you’re actually gonna be paying attention, they know that they can count on you and they don’t have to make backup plans every time they ask you to help them to do something or to meet them somewhere or anything like that.
So get up, sleepy head, teach yourself to actually listen and do what the alarm that you set said to do. Don’t set it for any later than 9 a.m. That way you can become unstoppable too.

I used to play video games. I loved Atari and would sit and play Space Invaders for hours. Usually only one since my mom made me turn it off.
As an adult I enjoyed playing Castle Wolfenstein and F-15 Strike Eagle. I loved flying into Middle Eastern targets low and then popping up and blowing things up and then getting out of dodge. I think I even had the stealth fighter simulator and would stay stealth until right above whatever and then open ports up and drop bombs and take shots and then go back into stealth mode and disappear.
Loved it. I played Doom a lot. Doom actually gave me weird dreams. I remember one time being at the airport when there was remodeling and construction going on in the terminal and it flashed in my head that this looked a lot like Doom. It was weird.
All that to say that as many times as I failed in video games and crashed and burned and died, which I don’t like saying, I never really gave up. Even though there was almost no way for me to win, I never gave up.
Because video games give you an ability that we tend to think we don’t have. Nowadays they call it respawning. You show back up where you stopped or wherever your last save point was. You face the challenge again and try something different.
And you lose and die and respawn and do it again. And respawn and do it again. And respawn and do it again. And that’s what we have to do in life. Yes, life is for real and yes, if you try to step out of your car while it’s moving at 55 miles an hour you will die and you will not be able to come back. They’ll have a funeral and you’ll be buried or cremated or whatever it is they do.
But when you try to talk to somebody and fail, it’s not over. Shake it off, pick it back up, and try it again. Or go in a different direction and try it again.
If you apply for the job and you don’t get it, shake it off, respawn and apply again, either at the same place or somewhere else. There are so many filters and barriers in place out there that if you can learn to take the no and smile and consider it something to learn from, then respawn and do it again a different way. Count them for points and brag that you’ve gotten more “no” answers than anyone around you!
You’ll be able to get around those barriers and get to where you want tobe. Salespeople get taught this a lot. Salespeople don’t make the sale every time and they take a lot of no’s, but they smile and they try it again.
No is not final, it’s just, oh, okay, I’ll try this over here or I’ll go with this person or maybe you can use me later.
Don’t give up, respawn. Then try again.

One of the things that I’ve been known for in the past and tended towards heavily was negativity. It’s the way I was raised. Murphy’s law was quoted often around my house when I was growing up and as an adult I was told that over and over and over by family members and by me.
Over the past few years I’ve been making efforts to be more positive. It’s challenging because of my tendency to be negative about things but I think I’ve turned a corner. Still not great but I’m a lot more positive than I was.
One of the things I’ve started doing recently is instead of using dashes as divider lines between things I’m trying to use plus symbols. A line of plus symbols makes a good line and it looks more positive to me than a bunch of minuses and if you read the history of the plus symbol it’s actually in that shape because the person who kind of got it going and encouraged it as a standard for addition was a Christ follower and wanted to have the cross everywhere.
So here’s an example of what I’m talking about.
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Makes a nice divider doesn’t it? I’m positive that this will help somebody 🙂
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#us #positive #communicative

One of the skills I encourage is to be positive. Not in a sickening-sweet way that is not based in reality, but in a way that encourages people to be more positive.
There is a site at
positivewordchallenge.com
I created it so that I and others could have a positive word for each day.
And if you’d like a positive question to use in conversation check out
positivequestionchallenge.blogspot.com
Enjoy!
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#us #positive