Perfection Flawed

If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake. - Frank Wilczek



What's the fun of doing something simple?

Slave Masters

Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters. – C. S. Lewis



It's not that you should complain about the way you are governed. It is that you should realize that not even a majority has the right to tell you what to do.

Thin Information

Information's pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience. - Clarence Day



So, seek out those with information but better yet seek out those with information and experience.

Ignorant Criticism

I have never found in a long experience of politics that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance. - Harold Macmillan



Ignorance is not the single domain of politics; it pervades all criticism.

Planetary Heaven

Maybe this world is another planet's hell. - Aldous Huxley



Sorry Mr. Huxley but I think this world may be another planet's heaven. Why be negative?

Money Roots

Lack of money is the root of all evil. - George Bernard Shaw



So what is the root of lack of money?

Fault Finders

The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders. - Foster's Law



If you have met all of your goals you're dead - even if your don't get buried for a while.

Eunuch's Criticism

Critics are like eunuchs in a harem. They're there every night, they see it done every night, they see how it should be done every night, but they can't do it themselves.- Brendan Behan



Remembering this may take the sting of criticism and turn it into a reason to chuckle.

Yesterday's Winners

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. - Don Marquis

... and yesterday's winners are already half way through today's challenges.

Reverence for Factories

The man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise. - Calvin Coolidge



We should honor both the fiddler and the composer for work well done. Too often one is favored over the other. It takes both to make a thing of beauty (factories are beautiful too).

The Price of Progress

Problems are the price of progress. Don't bring me anything but trouble. Good news weakens me. - Charles Kettering



The solution to problems is what makes progress. If you have no problems to solve you are gliding.

Toothpaste Revisited

Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe. - Robert Service



In the end it doesn't really matter which end of the toothpaste tube is squeezed.

Food For Success

Success is like food. It's all a function of preparation.- Jeff Ruby

I would add that presentation (plating in the case of food) is also a key ingredient. Think as much about how you are going to say it as you do thinking about what you will say.

The Ladder of Success

The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity. - Ayn Rand



Look for opportunities then climb on.

Random Testing

The more work feels like high school, the more likely you will be asked to become a hall monitor. - Lisa Haneberg



If you give your people the opportunity to dress and act like decent adults they will. If one of them doesn't then they don't deserve to stay. Tell your people every day is picture day and their photo will be posted to your website. Call it "Random Picture Testing."

People Seldom Think Of You

You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do. - Olin Miller



I read this quote as a kid and it helped me more than any other has since.

Fried Chicken Sandwich Evironmentalism

This is Blog Action Day on Environmentalism so I am breaking with the normal post format and expressing my view on environmentalism.


When I was a kid my dad had a portable sawmill and logging operation. Yes, he cut down trees; sawed them into boards; hauled them out of the woods on roads he built himself. When the trees were all cut down he would move the mill and start in a new area.


Saturdays were the days to do maintenance and repair on the machinery and on occasion my brother and I were invited to go along for the day. It was a big deal because we got to get a pop from the little gas station and go to the woods with the men.


On one of these occasions we sat down for lunch with the crew on a stack of rough-sawn lumber and everyone got out their lunch box. I was not real excited about my lunch so when one of the crew (Vern) ask if anyone wanted to trade their sandwich for his fried chicken sandwich I agreed and we made the trade. His sandwich turned out to be a fried egg sandwich. I hated cold fried eggs - still do today. I then saw why he made the trade. He could tell from my tears I was disappointed and offered to trade back but my Dad told me to eat the sandwich like a man and to remember that things are not always what you think they are. I haven't forgotten.


It wasn't that long ago when the consensus was that the turn of the century (Y2K) was going to be a global disaster. People bought generators; put up a stock of food; took money out of their bank; bought gold; prepared for the lights to go out. The doom and gloomers did a good job of convincing the average guy it was going to be bad - and some made a lot of money in the process. I thought about fried chicken sandwiches and tried to convince some of my friends it was just a ruse. I failed because doom and gloom for most is more believable than milk and honey. It was put very well by Susan Jeffers:

We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic.

The current gloom is global warming. Think fried chicken sandwiches.

Brain Borrowing

I not only use all the brains I have but all that I can borrow. - Thomas Woodrow Wilson



This is why it is prudent to surround yourself with talented ambitious people. Slackers rarely loan their brains.

Profitable Ideas

Progress depends on people knowing they'll be able to profit from their ideas. - Deborah Neville



If you want your business to progress don't ever fail to reward good ideas. To forget even once can cause your people to doubt whether there will be personal profit from their good work. The same holds true at home.

Impossible Problem Solved

Again and again, the impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made. - Robert H. Schuller



Some decisions are tough. Some are really tough but the act of deciding which way to go is more important than the path chosen.

Realistic Negativity?

We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic. - Susan Jeffers



I believe this is true. The goal then is to unlearn it and help others do the same. Everybody ends up happier.

Deciding Who You Are

Every decision you make - every decision - is not a decision about what to do. It's a decision about Who You Are. When you see this, when you understand it, everything changes. You begin to see life in a new way. All events, occurrences, and situations turn into opportunities to do what you came here to do. - Neale Donald Walsch



Be sure that Who You Are is the same as Who You Would Like To Be.

Evil vs. Freedom

Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil. Our great hope lies in developing what is good. - Calvin Coolidge



Some folks use repressing evil as an excuse for more limits on freedom. Limits on freedom are limits on doing good. Remember that the next time you go to vote.

Death from Negativity

Resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other person dies. - St. Augustine



Negative feelings of all kinds hurt yourself not others.

Wasted Reasoning

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into. - Jonathan Swift



If someone has a belief taken on faith then don't waste your time reasoning with them.

Thanks for the Tractor

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. - Albert Einstein



Every time I finish a task made infinitely easier with my tractor I shut it off and say to myself "Thank you Mr. Massey. Thank you Mr. Ferguson."

Others Opinion

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow



You can either change the way you judge yourself or accept the opinion of others.

Charming Question

You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question. - Albert Camus



I guess that is why I've never been charming - I just ask the question.

No Final Defeats

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. - F. Scott Fitzgerald



A defeat is just a speed-bump; the sooner you get over it the sooner you can get back up to speed.

Rated Thinking

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking. - AA Milne

Ignore what others are doing most of the time.

Profitable Failure

View the knowledge from something that failed as the profit from that effort. - John L Herman



We all know about learning from out mistakes but to view that knowledge as "profit" might make you more adventurous.