Category: Decisionmaking

Categories
Accountability blog Change Decisionmaking Entrepreneurship Followership Inspiration Leadership Leadership Principles Mentor Motivation positive Tips Training Walking Leader Weekend Challenge Work Ethic

Weekend Challenge #07 (03/07-08/2020): Daylight Saving Time

HERE IS YOUR WEEKEND CHALLENGE: DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME

you weekend challenge has arrived

Listen to this weekend’s Weekend Challenge

Welcome To The Weekend. It is time for another challenge.

This weekend’s Weekend Challenge is another one that most people tend to ignore and sadly to their own peril and the peril of others (especially loved ones). This weekend is the weekend where here in the United States we set our clocks, microwaves, watches, and timepieces forward one hour.

This weekend is Daylight Saving Time weekend. Before you begin with the nonsense of why do we do this and we should stop. While I agree that we should not have to go through this twice a year, here we are.

What’s so perilous about setting the clock forward now or back one hour this coming November? Nothing unless you have a clock up on your cathedral style ceilings (be careful up there).

The peril comes from NOT doing a safety check of your home, auto, and in some cases your workplace.

Safety Check? Yes, while we are told that the time change is the excellent time to change the batteries on our smoke detectors. However, this is not all we need to do.

The process is really simple. Get out there and work on the following:

1. Yes, replace the batteries but TEST the devices. Test ALL your Smoke Detectors. If you have Carbon Monoxide detectors, check those out as well. Change those batteries also.
2. Folks, if you live in a home that has the smoke detectors powered by the home’s electrical system well DO NOT think you are safe. They have backup batteries. CHECK THEM!
3. Home owners you should have a fire exit plan. You do at work, so why not at home? Have a plan in place. Share it with everyone that lives in your home.
4. Ensure the exit plan and meeting place is properly accessible. Did a tree suddenly grow outside the window your youngest child will use to exit? If so, adjust accordingly
5. Check your home for bugs, insect, and or small animal infestation. It happens.
6. Grooming: keep your property maintained. I never said keep it immaculate. Just maintained.
7. Bug out bags: The change of time also signifies the time of severe or extreme weather is soon upon us. Hurricane Season begins on June 1st approximately 90days after Spring Forward. It also ends on November 30th, less than a month after we Fall back. So, get your evacuation plan and gear together and up to date.

Remember, take the time this weekend to do a comprehensive check up on your home and you will be ready now to deal with issues instead of when you suddenly have a situation that you could have dealt with earlier. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Oh, and I will say I told you so.

Do not get caught short, Get To WORK!

Thanks for your time,
David

Categories
blog Decisionmaking Inspiration Leadership Leadership Principles Motivation Walking Leader Weekend Challenge

Weekend Challenge #04 (02/15/2020): READ A BOOK!

you weekend challenge has arrivedHERE IS YOUR WEEKEND CHALLENGE: READ A BOOK

This weekend’s challenge is probably one of the most difficult challenges I have issued. It is difficult in that everyone (myself included) perceive ourselves as NOT having enough time to read a book.

Then comes the inevitable excuse of which book to select?

Then comes some other lames ass excuse of they cost too much!

Did you know in just about every town and city in the United States there is one building that people can go to and find a book to read?

The Public Library

The public library was set up on the premise giving people an opportunity to read any book in their stacks and the opportunity to check out (borrow) the book to read at home. Then two weeks later the book is returned having been read cover to cover.

But what if you do not want to go to the library because it seems beneath you or some other excuse?

As you are reading this challenge, I know you have access to the Internet.

Therefore, allow me to introduce you to Amazon dot com. Amazon not only sells books at price set by the author or its publisher. Did you know that many of the authors that are selling their books through Amazon also sell them for the deep discounted price of $0.00?

That’s right, you can sign up for the Amazon Kindle app and soon you can be reading books at no cost to you.

But what about those that do not want to share their private information with a large mega corporation?

Uh, let me let you in on a little secret: Amazon, Google, and Yahoo probably already know more about you than you know about yourself. The information about your online habits and such is already made available to them by the analytics they can capture when you visit any of their sites or use their services.

So please stop with the excuse of not wanting to share your information. If you do not believe me about how much information you are sharing take a look at the itemized receipt from you last trip to the grocery store. Trust me when I say, just by looking at your receipt your grocer knows your shopping habits better than you.

They have the exact same information on that receipt which in turn they use to predict how many turkeys to order in time for Thanksgiving and when the cold and flu season is hitting your home. They can also extrapolate information such as the number of pets you have, when your kids are entering the teenage years of their lives, they can also tell when your kids leave the home. Do you see where I am going with this? Face it, they have plenty of information on you already.

Still not convinced? That’s fine there is one more service I would like to share with you: Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/)

Project Gutenberg is an eBook service with over 60,000 FREE selections. Seriously, who can turn down a free book to read? You can read it on your smart phone, android tablet, iPad, PC, heck you can even read it off your Internet enable television. WOW! Can you believe that? We NOW live in a future that we can read a book using the Television screen. Folks, this is the future and the future is wanting you to learn, to empower yourself, to make you a better person. The Future wants you to be BETTER than you were Yesterday.

There is NO EXCUSE to not read a book this weekend.

The ONLY real excuse is there is NO Excuse!

Thus, I CHALLENGE YOU to get yourself a real or virtual book and READ something new and exciting!

I CHALLENGE YOU to LEARN something new this weekend.

I CHALLENGE YOU to DISCOVER something different this weekend.

I CHALLENGE YOU to GO ON AN ADVENTURE this weekend.

I CHALLENGE YOU to tell me know what you are reading this weekend.

I CHALLENGE YOU to DO WHAT IT TAKES TO BE BETTER this weekend!

Get to Work!
===

Categories
Accountability blog Change Choice Decisionmaking Inspiration Leadership Leadership Principles Motivation

Weekend Challenge 03 (02/08.20): HOW AM I DOING?

you weekend challenge has arrived

Remember, we are supposed to be learning from out past. The choice we made can never be undone but those choices also serve to shape our future. For every action we take there is an outcome we may or may not like.

However, when we make what we perceive to be rational and sound choices then no matter the outcome we feel we made the right choice. Whether the outcome was what we expected or not. It is when we make hasty and rash decisions that are not worth the risk that…well we get what we deserve: a hasty, rash and unsound outcome. To avoid the outcomes that are not in our favor or not exactly what we expected we have to focus on being intentional with our decision making and be prepared to deliver on a decision that may sometimes not give us what we expect or want.

One way to be intentional in our future decision making is to review our past decisions. Please read carefully: TO REVIEW OUR PAST DECISIONS and NOT TO DWELL ON THOSE DECISIONS AND THEIR OUTCOMES.

Sadly, as I write this I know there are individuals that are going to only read the last seven words of the previous sentence and all that I am writing will go to waste (on them).

Good thing, you are not one of those that dwells on past decisions only to repeat making the decisions that CONTINUE to deliver the outcomes and expectations that are NOT what you expected or anticipated. As leaders, the only common thread to decision making is ensuring that whatever the decision it is something you will learn from and become better as a leader but also as a human being.

REVIEW YOUR DECISIONS
The weekend, is the perfect time to pour yourself a cup of coffee or a cuppa tea or a snifter of warm brandy or whatever you choose to drink, and reflect on the past seven (7) days.

Use this weekend to review the following and be HONEST with yourself:

  • What decisions were made?
  • What decisions did you not make?
  • Which decisions could have been better with more info?
  • Which decisions were made in haste?
  • Which decisions were made as a form of revenge (for example, I’ll show them)?
  • Which decisions changed your life for the better?
  • Which decisions changed your life for the worse?
  • How were your relationships made better by your decisions?
  • How were your relationships strained by your decisions?
  • Did the decisions you made have a negative impact on others?
  • Did the decisions you made have a lasting and positive impact on others?
  • NOW REALLY BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF: Did the decisions you made have a negative impact on YOU?

These questions are to be used solely to IMPROVE your future. The answers are yours and yours alone, you do not have to share them with anyone but you do have to think about them but not for too long. Thinking too long is where the dwelling begins and that is NOT a good thing.

In the answers, see what needs improvement, what needs to be removed, what needs to be modified and most importantly what needs to remain. However, this will only work if you are willing to be HONEST and TRUTHFUL with yourself. It can be difficult because there are far too many individuals that truly believe they do not need to improve but everyone around them does.

Thus, I challenge you to get rid of the bad, the nastiness, the bitterness, the sadness, the distrust, the anger, the destructive, scarcity mindset and yes WE all have them to some degree or another. In case you FAILED to read that right, I wrote WE which INCLUDES ME.

I Challenge You to be better, do better, because as an adult and leader, you already KNOW better.

I Challenge You to let the good, happiness, growth and the abundance mindset in, take root and grow inside you.

I Challenge You to find the way to let the best in you coming shining through. To be the best version of you that you can be.

This Decision Review Challenge is one that you must repeat every week. Repeat it so that you are constantly improving. This challenge is actually quite simple on the complexity scale of 1 to 10. I give this a 5. Five in that, it may be a bitter pill to swallow, at first, but once you find yourself asking and honestly answering these questions it will get better. I promise it will get better and you will become better. You become better because you are aware of your actions and behaviors.

You are better because YOU WANT TO BECOME BETTER.

Well there it is, YOUR WEEKEND CHALLENGE, now get to work!