MM2S039: Season 3, Episode 9
By: Ken Boone Hard to believe, but I just published the fifth straight weekly episode of my podcast this Wednesday! I don’t want to jinx this, but I have to say, this is becoming second nature! Let’s see what happened this past week:
I hate when that happens! Just got the email from the tire store requesting that I complete a Customer Experience Review! I’ll think I’ll give them both barrels. I like them, but I have let them know that they’re busted. Please, just give me what I want, if it’s not illegal or harmful to myself and others, of course. THANK YOU! Now let’s segue way over to something less grimy. For nearing a decade, I’ve had this debate = who’s the better father? Me or my son? I’ll settled that argument right now. I am, but he has the potential to be a much, much better Dad! I say that because I broke the mold of bad fathers that ran in my family. None of us possessed the skills, patience, and selflessness required to take on fatherhood. We could blame our kid’s mothers, but that would be taking the easy way out. We could have made ourselves more desirable to a higher caliber woman. Trust me, there are higher caliber women out there! My biological father skipped out on us when I was 5 years old. Although I was devastated back then, and screwed up even to this day, I now realize that that was the probably best thing that ever could have happened to me. I may or may not get into that story on a later episode. While my stepfather was a good and decent man, he was no better for me. He came with staunch religious beliefs that became the house rules. In fact, it was his bright idea that I go into the ministry. That would have been a huge mistake. Let’s just leave it at that! It wasn’t until I got married to my first wife that I met my first, and only, father figure. On the surface, my father-in-law George, didn’t fit the bill. He was an alcoholic with a third-grade education, but he took fatherhood seriously. And somehow, he sensed that I needed a role model. Not only had he shown me how to provide for my family, but he showed me how to give my son the freedom to try new things, take risks, and stand up for himself! NOTE: He’s probably the greatest person I’ve ever met. I think I’ll devote an episode or four to the “Legend of Showtime”. That’s what I called him, but never to his face. It wasn’t until I was about 30 when I started learning those lessons. I thought I was an old dog trying in vain to learn new tricks. I had to unlearn some things that were drilled into me earlier in life. That was hard! But I pushed on! Kenny came into the world equal parts brilliant and willful. His mother had a peculiar idea of how he should be raised. We butted heads a lot, with her coming out on top more often than not. It wasn’t until she tragically died when he was 13, that I got to raise him full time. There was a lot of emotional clean up required, with bumps along the way. It wasn’t until he hit age 30 that the lessons I learned from Showtime and passed on to him finally took hold. And not a day too soon! I got him into baseball because of all the life lessons the game teaches. Everyone thought I was trying to live vicariously through my son, but that was far from the truth. My sport was basketball, and I found out later in retrospect that I was quite good at it. But my replacement father thought because most of the developmental league games were played on our Day of Worship, it was a waste of time! Through Showtime’s example, I let Kenny try out several things. I got him science kits, art kits, soccer balls, basketballs, and so on. He just happened to like and stick with baseball. And I’ve got the photos, plaques, and trophies to prove my point! Much to his surprise, Kenny was blessed with a beautiful baby girl. She happens to be more brilliant and more willful than he ever was. Never saw that one coming! She also has a mother who presents some serious challenges he needs to navigate his way around. And as much as they drive him crazy, they give us something to talk about. He doesn’t come for advice, but he uses me as a sounding board. We usually communicate via texting. And it never fails that somewhere in the thread he’ll send me a picture of my granddaughter doing something fun. She will either be:
Kenny told me that she has zero interest in baseball, except that he buys her a lot of merch, and she gets to enjoy a Daddy/Daughter date. Again, the magic of baseball’s life lessons on full display! As for her hopes and dreams, he encourages her to let her imagination run wild! He said he learned that from me. I thank him, then politely disagree. That comes from the heart, mind, and mouth of George aka Showtime. Yes, the alcoholic with a third-grade education. Smarter than all of us! Fatherhood isn’t for wimps! It took me a minute to learn that for myself. It’s something that challenges me every day, even though my only child lives over 250 miles away in Atlanta, GA. And it took us a long time to get to where we are now. When things are going well for him, he lets me know via text. When he’s dealing with something not so serious, he lets me know via text. He typically calls me for two reasons:
I’m proud of the man that he’s become and I’m proud of the father he is. To be honest with myself, he’s a much better father than I ever hope to be. And I take that job seriously! But he still has a way to go before he takes the title from that random dude who came to this country with two strikes against him. While he wasn’t perfect, he sure inspired me to be my best. Hats off to the greatest father I’ll ever know! Today's Quote “Who needs a superhero when you have DAD!” Artwork hanging on the wall of my studio
0 Comments
MM2S038: Season 3, Episode 8
By: Ken Boone Say what you will about Walmart, the good, the bad, the ugly, and you’d probably be correct. But when it comes to their Pharmacy, I only have high praise!
Celia wishes she can say the same things about her dealings with her pharmacy, who happens to be the biggest and the baddest on the block!
And what makes it even worse is that pharmacies are in that protected “don’t screw with or else class”, along with barbers, waiters to name a few. You don’t want them to retaliate and “accidentally” give you the wrong drugs! The got you by the “you-know-what”! Now for today’s dramatic rendition of my life in 3D: On Saturday, June 4, 2022, at 4:20 pm to be exact, my got rear ended while I was waiting at a stop light. Celia was in the car with me. We weren’t injured, but I can’t say the same thing about the car. Other than the shock of getting hit and not seeing it coming, we were fine. I can’t say the same thing about the turkey sub that I was planning to wolf down when I got home. I was less than two miles away from home. A right, then a left, then another left, and finally a right, then my house. Right off the bat, this is what happened:
Jessica said that the claim should be a quick turnaround and that I would be hearing from the adjuster in short order. She got us a rental, wished us well, then she just disappeared into thin air! And that’s when the adventure became a man-made disaster of inconvenience! This sorry excuse of a human introduces himself as our “NEW” adjuster. He tells us what the settlement amount is, but not when we could expect the check. Then he begins to ask for information they already had. Drip, drip, drip. While he was a pain in the butt, at least we still had the rental. That was until he had the bright idea the flex his muscles by threatening to stop paying on the rental, without giving us any clue as to when he’d be cutting us a check. When we shared our story with family and friends, they were supportive. In fact, some even offered to help with the rental if the adjuster followed through on his threat. Even the agent at Enterprise went above and beyond, several times! The lies and cruelty left us feeling victimized twice over. I also had a gut feeling that the adjuster was getting perverse pleasure from being able to wielding over what should have been a Mickey Mouse claim. The unnecessary drama was stressing Celia out, while pissing me off! I can’t count the number of times I wanted to grab the phone from Celia and rip the guy a new one. Until I remembered that we haven’t received the check yet and was at his mercy. This jerk was so sadistic that he would have conveniently misplaced the file, making us start from scratch. So, I had to bite my tongue again and again. That’s hard for me because I tend to verbally lash out when I’m upset. That usually doesn’t end well for me! Celia decided that prayer was the best course of action. I chose not to take that route. It’s not that I don’t believe in the power of prayer. It’s just that I would have prayed that God’s will would have allowed another disgruntled claimant to:
Nothing that would prove fatal, but just to let him know that when you have someone by the “you-know-what”, PLEASE DON’T SQUEEZE! I did eventually pray for the wisdom to deal with this annoyance in a way that doesn’t screw over Celia and me. My eyes were directed to a sign on my newly decluttered wall, the 7 RULES OF LIFE, to cope with this ordeal:
Fast forward to today. We got the check, although it arrived three weeks after it should have. We found a place where we can get a replacement vehicle at a reasonable price. So, things seem to be looking up. Unfortunately, we’ll be stuck paying for about 3 weeks of the rental, which was through no fault of the wonderful Enterprise agent, who I’ll call “P”! When I thanked her for the amazing kindness, she asked said that it was her pleasure to help. I told her if at any time she needed my assistance, for anything, just let me know. All she wanted was a fair and good customer service review. DONE! It just occurred to me that I may have an opportunity to strike back at those clowns if they are dumb enough to ask for feedback. Then I can drill them in the ribs on the customer review. Even if no reads it, or it’s filed in the trash, at least I’ll feel better. Somehow, I will have to forgive those who treated horribly. But I won’t do it today! I’m busy shopping for a reasonably priced jalopy, which may be another nightmare altogether! I hope the review goes something like this:
I could write a book about our experience, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll just give them one example: My wife spoke with the adjuster’s Manager who failed to address any of our concerns, up to and including him refusing to provide the name of the person he reports to. She later discovered that he had zero authority to approve anything. He was “just a supervisor.” In other words, he misrepresented himself! I don’t know if this behavior is sanctioned by management, or your people just like to go rogue? Who cares! Thanks for nothing”! Now I feel better! Friends, thanks for letting me get that off my chest. I can’t wait to bring you the next episode, hopefully next week! Today's Quote “No need for revenge. Just sit back and wait. Those who hurt you will eventually screw up themselves and if you are lucky, God will let you watch!” - Unknown Source MM2S037: Season 3, Episode 7
By: Ken Boone This is the third week in a row that I’m publishing a new episode of my podcast. If I make it to five weeks in a row, I’ll find an interesting way to celebrate! But until then, let’s keeping moving forward! In the first of these episodes, I set out to declutter my mind. I wanted to get rid of all the “what ifs” and “why nots” that kept me running in place. After cleaning out my brain, the next week I took on my procrastination head on. In doing so, I discovered that I suffer from perfectionism, which isn’t necessarily a good thing! Now that I’m working with a decluttered mind and can accept the fact that nobody is perfect, and that excellence is more than good enough, I can take on what I hope is the final roadblock. And that is speaking with my authentic voice! And what is an authentic voice? A strong, authentic, and compelling voice is:
These three work together as a part of the lifelong process of growth and discovery. Developing your authentic voice is the result of lifelong layers of learning, experimentation, and failure. Note: My main source for this episode is an Inc. magazine article that contained excerpts from the book “Louder than Words” by Todd Henry. While it's possible to piece it all together over time through trial and error, I want to help you accelerate the process by building practices around each of these three core drivers. Identity In fact, your sense of identity is a collection of these stories about how you perceive yourself and your place in the world. Whether the stories are true or false is somewhat irrelevant because it's whether you believe them that defines how you behave. Regardless of what you profess to believe, your actions reveal the truth. When you act in a manner that's inconsistent with your true passions, it can create frustration, and over time can lead to a sense that you're not living up to your creative potential. Vision Think of vision as a bridge between two points on a river. Before you can start building, you'd better first determine:
Many people believe that brilliant people just follow their whims and let their "gut" decide from moment to moment where their work will lead them. This is largely untrue. In fact, most creative types have at least some sense of where they want to go before they set out on the journey. This vision is what guides their efforts as they continue to refine and develop their voice. Mastery As you sharpen your skills, you have more tools in your toolbox and give yourself more options for expression. Brilliant contributors know that an opportunity exists only if they can recognize it and take advantage of it. You must hone your skills so that you are prepared to jump on opportunities as they emerge. You also must hone your instincts and engage in daily practice so that you develop the kinds of perceptions necessary to make intuitive leaps. No matter how skilled you are, if you don't have an outlet for that expertise, you will not succeed. So, your answers to these three questions, "Who are you?" "Where are you going?" and "How will you get there?" give you a map for developing your authentic voice. However, when one or more of these answers are missing, your message is likely to miss the mark your audience. IDENTITY + VISION - MASTERY = NOT CREDIBLE You can have a clear sense of identity, and you can be guided by a compelling vision, but if you haven't developed the skills necessary to share your work effectively, then it will fall short. You can yell louder than everyone else, but you will still achieve little lasting impact. This is often the situation early in your career, as you are gaining your footing but still lack the skills necessary to accomplish your vision. You lack credibility because your skills and platform for influence don't measure up to your ambition. IDENTITY + MASTERY - VISION = NOT CLEAR Without a vision for your work, you are like a ship at sea, unable to weather the storms of contrary opinions to your point of view. Your work may waffle and ramble to the point of confusion, and people will begin to tune you out. Your vision is the compass that keeps you on the right bearing even while "making it up as you go." MASTERY + VISION - IDENTITY = A HOLLOW MAN IN AN EMPTY SUIT Without an identity-infused voice, your body of work will ultimately be hollow. People are likely to discount you if your work feels inauthentic. Your body of work will be inconsistent if it's not rooted in something that matters to you. IDENTITY + VISION + MASTERY = COMPELLING When all the parts working together, you discover your authentic voice! A greater sense of identity leads to a refined vision, which provides motivation to continue to master new skills. You achieve influence, which then helps you better understand your place in the world and leads to a deeper understanding of the value you want to create! Abuse/Misuse of your authentic voice Your authentic voice is a powerful tool in your arsenal of self-empowerment. On the flip side, this “truth telling” can provide cover for people who wish to say cruel and hurtful things to someone. They don’t use discretion, nor do they grasp the “encode/decode/respond” cycle of basic conversation. They just let it rip, and when called out on it, usually come up with a lame excuse. The one I hear the most is, “I used to be a doormat until my therapist said that I should use my authentic voice. So here it is. I’m sorry if I offended you.” Well, I’m sure your therapist didn’t want you to be a cold-blooded jerk! The tongue is a powerful weapon. Make sure you use it wisely! In my podcast, I strive to tell the truth without offending others. If that means that I’m leaving a lot of downloads and sponsorships on the table because I choose not to be controversial or overly opinionated, so be it! In summary, now that I have the three challenges that I need to overcome to achieve my goal of producing and publishing a new podcast episode each week. And they are which are:
I’m hoping that you’ll like this reboot. Since this show is categorized as a Personal Journal Podcast, the topics will pretty much run the gamut of my life, many of my experiences, my successes, and my failures. I will bring more of myself to each episode than I had in the past. So, stay tuned in, my friends! Today's Quote “Speak in your authentic voice because people have a BS meter.” Michael Hyatt – American author and leadership consultant MM2S036: Season 3, Episode 6
By: Ken Boone Welcome back! In the last episode of my podcast, I announced that I would try my best to publish a new episode every week! Then I spent the rest of the episode talking about decluttering my mind of all unnecessary and unproductive thoughts running amok. I even had a cool quote that I cited at the end of the episode: “Clutter isn’t just the stuff in your closet, it’s anything that gets between you and the life that you want to be living.” Peter Walsh – Professional Organizer/Decluttering Expert In past episodes, I’ve let you in on my dirty little secret – that I’m a procrastinator, and that that character flaw drives me absolutely nuts! And I know that I’ll have to get that in check if I’m going to come close to my goal of a new episode each week. What is procrastination? Procrastination is the action of unnecessarily and voluntarily delaying or postponing something despite knowing that there will be negative consequences for doing so. Now we know that let us meet the evil cousin of procrastination, PERFECTIONISM! (Which you might think is a good thing). PERFECTIONISM: refusal to accept any standard short of perfection. In Philosophy – a doctrine holding that religious, moral, social, or political perfection is attainable, especially the theory that human moral or spiritual perfection should be or has been attained. Procrastination is often a symptom of perfectionism. Because perfectionists fear being unable to complete a task perfectly, they put it off as long as possible. This stems from the fear that not meeting the goal means that there is something bad, wrong or unworthy inside of them. Is there a cure for it? Is there hope of me? A very simple way to start overcoming that perfectionism impulse is to apply what’s referred to as the 80/20 rule. Also known as the Pareto principle. The rule says, “80% of the results are coming from 20% of the effort.” It means that when you've put 20% of the time working on your task, you're already 8/10's done. Other names for this principle are the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity, to name just a few. Now for a little history lesson: Management consultant Joseph M. Juran developed the concept in the context of quality control and improvement after reading the works of Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who noted the 80/20 connection while at the University of Lausanne. In his first work, Cours d'économie politique, Pareto showed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. The Pareto principle is only tangentially related to Pareto efficiency. Mathematically, the 80/20 rule is roughly described by a power law distribution (also known as a Pareto distribution) for a particular set of parameters, and many natural phenomena have been shown to exhibit such a distribution. There is also an adage of business management that "80% of sales come from 20% of clients". People have also applied a version of Pareto’s principle (of the 80/20 rule) to the following disciplines:
Long story short (aka laymen’s definition): Why kill yourself striving for perfection when excellence is more than good enough? Or put another way, “no one is perfect, but excellence is attainable”! The adage stating that “perfect is the enemy of good” means insistence on perfection often prevents implementation of good improvements. Like I said previously, the Pareto principle or 80–20 rule explains this numerically. For example, it commonly takes 20% of the full time to complete 80% of a task while to complete the last 20% of a task takes 80% of the effort. Achieving absolute perfection may be impossible and so, as increasing effort results in diminishing returns, further activity becomes increasingly inefficient. More recent applications include Robert Watson-Watt propounding a "cult of the imperfect", which he stated as "Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes." Economist George Stigler's assertion that "If you never miss a plane, you're spending too much time at the airport." And, in the field of computer program optimization, Donald Knuth stated that "Premature optimization is the root of all evil". Preventing perfectionism (and procrastination) from controlling your life isn’t easy! This type of change can never happen in just one day because we are so steeped in a culture that champions perfectionism and snapping out of that requires more than just reading an article. Despite that, here are some ideas that might not get rid of your perfectionist attitude entirely but will hopefully keep perfectionism and procrastination from taking over your every thought.
Now that I’ve addressed the clutter in my mind, then identified the root cause of my procrastination, I can move on to the next roadblock I’ve put in front of me. And what might that be? I guess you’ll just have to tune in next week to find out! See you then! Today's Quote “Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.” George Carlin – Legendary American Comedian |
About the HostKenneth E. Boone, Sr. is a writer, podcaster, music lover, sports enthusiast, and retired accountant. Archives
May 2024
|