Even if nobody asked……
1. I drove 1,100 miles all by myself Sunday and Monday. I didn’t get lost or fail to navigate a red, yellow, green light situation. I didn’t ram into the car in front of me. I also didn’t miss a big bright red octagon shaped sign with the word STOP in cap locks. I didn’t strike a pedestrian. I never thought the 18-wheeler next to me wasn’t there. I also didn’t take an exit I was supposed to skip (or miss one I should have taken). No policeman asked to see my license and registration. I didn’t create a pothole and then run over it. I saw every single car behind me when I backed up. All of them! And I didn’t even have to scream at myself (although I was tempted). I actually thought to put gas in the car every few hundred miles too. But the hardest thing to believe? I did all of this without my wife in the passenger seat! No, I’m not kidding. 💪
2. Every once in a while I pretend to be me. Let’s call it my own personal gratitude practice.
3. “Finally breaks their silence” is the newest overused tabloid headline hook. It’s usually written about someone who apparently shouldn’t be silent for more than five minutes about something so important that we the public need the silence to end before we take our next breath. Enough!
4. The hardest thing to compete against in business is not the MARKET. It’s the level of TRUST your leadership team has compared to the level of trust the leadership team of your competitors has. Bank on it! It’s everything.
5. In an effort to stop everyone staring at their phone and yelling when a call drops, let’s create a rule to follow: the person who made the initial call returns the call. Much easier than trying to figure out who’s satellite gave out.
6. Words read, not said: Chagrined. Let’s keep it this way please. Don’t disappoint me people.
7. I visited the campus of Notre Dame this week. What struck me the most? That the Gold Dome isn’t just a helmet? That they see Jesus as a touchdown (as Catholics, I know who has to tack on the extra point 😂)? Nope, none of that. How about that a street adjacent to the campus is named Michigan! Whoa. How in the world has that not been tackled by now?
8. “You take a very handsome guy, or a guy that thinks he’s a real hot-shot, and they’re always asking you to do them a big favor. Just because they’re crazy about themself, they think you’re crazy about them, too, and that you’re just dying to do them a favor.” Anthony DeMelo in his brilliant book, Awareness. (Obviously, I ask no favors!)
9. The foolish person winds up doing at the END what the smart person does at the BEGINNING. It seems to me like some people need to work backwards a little more often.
10. A good friend of mine has been married 41 years and in that time he has removed his wedding band ONCE. Just once. “For about an hour” he tells me. It was at his son’s wedding. The ceremony was seaside, on a cliff. A monsoon whipped up as they were about to begin so everyone had to move quickly under the reception tent. The best man tells my friend that the grooms wedding band is in his car, 500 yards and a downpour away. So my friend slips off his own wedding band for the first time since Reagan was president and slides it to the best man. “Use this for now”. When the bride put the ring on her new husbands hand he looked dismayed. The best man whispered to him. He smiled, ear-to-ear, and looked at his father, knowingly. Maybe a new tradition was started in that family that night. In related news, I take off my wedding band when I shower.
As always, thanks for reading, commenting and sharing.