Wizbits From Dad

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Many of the projects Dad and I worked on involved carpentry. I can’t think of anything that Dad wouldn’t undertake. We built doghouses, walls, rooms, buildings, concrete forms, swings, tree houses, bunk beds, offices, workbenches, decks, just about anything you can imagine. On every job, I learned something. Somewhere along the way, Dad began to trust me to do the sawing. If you’ve ever done much sawing, you know this is not a job for an anxious kid. It requires a certain level of skill and a LOT of attention.

On one (or ten, or twelve) of the boards, I made the cut too short. This, of course, made the board pretty much useless for this place, since a board that is too short will not reach to the other side of the space for which it was cut. That’s when Dad encouraged me and taught me to always “measure twice, and cut once.”

He explained that good carpenters (as well as other craftsmen in occupations that have to cut to fit) always make the measurement, check the raw material, measure again (to be sure), make the mark and check the mark, then make the cut. By doing this, they almost always make the cut right. Now, I’m not going to go into some long discussion of how to use a saw. You probably got your fill of that with the hammers. But this method applies to more than just sawing wood.

A lot of other sayings express some of the same sentiment as this one, like “Look before you leap”, “Consider the costs” and others. They all suggest the same thing: you should really be sure about what you are about to do to avoid making mistakes. The converse is true, of course, that if you go to the trouble to make the measurements correctly, you can be absolutely sure before moving on and thus have the confidence it takes to do a job well the first time.

If we would measure twice before we say things to others, we would greatly reduce the number of times that our words fall short. It would allow us to cut down on waste, damaged relationships, and bruised feelings. The resulting relationships would not only fit better, but would be built to last and endure all kinds of stress.

Measuring twice before moving on to a new job, or a new home, or a new spouse, or any number of things, would really help us to know that we were making the right decisions. So next time you size up a situation, be sure to measure it, check your options, then measure it again. It could make all the difference in how well you fit.
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If You Don’t Get it Done Today, it Will Be Here Tomorrow.

When I was a senior in high school, I had a job in the meat market of a local grocery store. This was one of the jobs Dad helped me find through one of his friends. It was a legitimate position working cleanup for the five or six butchers that worked there. I started on a Monday afternoon and my schedule was to work afternoons after school, until 8:00 PM on Thursday and Friday, and all day Saturday.

I had never done this type of work before and found that by Wednesday, the amount of work they had told me to do seemed insurmountable. With each additional item I was asked to do, my attitude and depression got worse. By the end of the day on Wednesday, I was ready to quit.

I got off at 5:00 PM and Dad’s business was open until 5:30, so I went straight from work to see Dad and to tell him that I just couldn’t do it. In tears I went to his office to give him the bad news. Dad asked me to close the door, let me tell him what was wrong, then told me the following story. “Carl, when I was a little older than you, I had a job working as a worker on a construction site. The work was very hard, moving brick and mud, cleaning up, and working as a general “go-fer.” I tried very hard to do a good job, often overworking myself in an attempt to get it all done. Some days, I worked too hard and I was wearing myself out.

“One of the workers noticed how hard I was working and took me aside. He told me that I was working so hard that I would soon be worthless if I kept up that pace. He then suggested that I slow down just a little, pacing myself, and just do whatever I could do that day. If there was still work left to do at the end of the day, it would still be there tomorrow and we could get it done then.”

Dad then emphasized it by telling me, “If you don’t get it done today, it will be there tomorrow. And if it’s really important that it be done today, if you have worked hard and well, the others will pitch in and help you get it done.” I had never looked at it that way before. After Dad’s explanation, I felt better. I still wasn’t sure if I wanted this job, but he had convinced me to try again. The next morning, I had a new outlook on life. By that afternoon, I was feeling great. I listened to my favorite rock and roll tape on to way to work and was still rockin’ when I started in on the insurmountable tasks that awaited me. The people in the meat market were amazed at my transformation. Just yesterday, they had a helper with a depressed, bad attitude, who was slamming pans and growling at everyone. Now, before them stood a new man. Excited about life and all it held, I went about my work with a vigor and vitality that they had not seen.

Dad was correct. I was able to do most of the work by putting forth a good effort. The remaining work was either done the following day, or someone would pitch in and help me get it done. I later found out that my predecessor was not as ambitious as I and often left important jobs undone for days at a time. Even from the first I was doing a better job, but I felt inadequate. Don’t assume you’re doing a bad job, just do the best you can. If you can’t get it done today… it will be here tomorrow.

Don’t Burn Your Bridges

One of Dad’s more common sayings was “Don’t burn your bridges before you cross them.” It was a fairly common saying and relatively easy to understand. However, as I watched Dad work on one project and another, I gained a deeper understanding of what just what it was that he meant.

Bridges are opportunities. You can only take advantage of an opportunity by crossing a bridge. The reference to burning the bridges goes back to the concept of keeping foes from following you by burning the bridge you just crossed. In battle, this was an effective way of slowing or stopping an opponent. However, it also keeps you from going back that way. Sometimes, that may be exactly what you wanted. However, there are times when you need not only to avoid burning those bridges, but you may even want to repair one now and again so that it will be there when you return down the path. Not every path you take is a permanent direction for you. You may even decide that you want to take that “road less traveled” just to see what’s down that path. There’s no use destroying the road as you go, you may find that it leads you in a direction that you have no desire to pursue.

The most common problem with bridge burning relates to jobs. The old adage of “the grass is always greener on the other side” applies in great measure to job hunting. Just when you find a job that looks promising, another turns up and looks like it is just the thing you need to be doing. But what if it doesn’t work out? What will you do then? Well, if you’ve burned your bridge (left your job with out proper notice and on good terms), you can forget going back, there will be nothing but ashes there to walk across. Unless you’re a fire-walker, you are out of luck… and out of a job.

When you drive down the road, your mind begins to wonder and you find sometimes that you have not been paying much attention to what you have passed. Sometimes, you suddenly realize that you have gone through a whole town (or two) without noticing anything. You also cross many bridges when you drive. I’d be willing to guess that you cross bridges everyday and don’t even realize it. On your way to work or school or to the store or whatever tomorrow, notice the bridges. Some are small and cross only a drainage ditch. Others may cross rivers or highways or other things. But they are a part of our lives that we take for granted and rarely notice. The challenge then, is to notice the bridges first. Then, you’ll have the opportunity to NOT burn them. If we’re not careful, we may sometimes race across a bridge (a figurative bridge) so fast that it burns in our trail. Then, it’s too late to go back that way, and we didn’t even know we burned it!

Well, Dad rarely burned a bridge on either side of him, and hopefully, I’ve learned to do the same. If I can just learn to notice the bridges…

Don’t Force it, Get a Bigger Hammer

Dad would often let us help him with projects that he was working on, giving us the opportunity to try new skills with hammers, screwdrivers, even drills and saws. I’m not sure, but I think that on every project, Dad would find at least one opportunity to tell his favorite “tool joke.” It would usually come right after a particularly difficult nail had to be straightened out to be re-nailed into the wood. Seeing the difficulty, Dad would quip: “Don’t force it, get a bigger hammer!” and we would all smile and work around the problem. For years, I thought it was just a joke… until Dad taught me the basics of hammering.

Now I realize that “Don’t force it, get a bigger hammer” is a lot deeper than it sounds at first. All of the physics involved with hammering enter into the phrase. It’s more than a lesson in hammering, it’s a lesson in life itself.

How many times in life do we enter into a situation with the wrong hammer? A small child makes a little mistake and instead of shaping the metal of their delicate minds, we charge in with a full sized sledge hammer and make a dent halfway through their sensitive ego. Or, when the situation calls for some “regular” hammering away at a problem, we’re sitting by tapping at the problem with a toy hammer designed to knock those little wooden pegs through the imaginary shoe, making no progress at all with the situation.

Having the right size, weight and fit of hammer will make your job easier. You’ll still have to put forth an effort, but the job will make continuous progress as you work. That is success: Progress toward your goal. So what if you can’t hammer a nail with one blow? If you can drive it straight down and finish the job, that’s what is important.

The heavier hammers have what I call quiet confidence. It is the type confidence that we have when we just know we can do a job. There is no reason to brag, or draw attention to ourselves… just do the job and do it right. People have great respect for those that do just that. You may not hear it from them, but when they need something done right, they will seek you out and truly appreciate the job you’ve done for them.

So when you get ready to do a job, whether it’s with lumber or people, make sure you have the right hammer for the job. If you can’t do the job with the hammer you have, you may have to consider getting a larger, more “confident” hammer. Otherwise, you may end up pulverizing the stubborn nail.

Lately, when I get to work on something with Dad, we’ll come up to a difficult situation and one of us will say: “Don’t force it…” and the other will reply: “… get a bigger hammer.” Then we both smile or laugh and go on working. It’s at that time, I think: “Thank you again, God, for Dad. I love to work with him.”

Don’t Overcorrect

One of the real learning experiences of my teenage years involved the darkroom that Dad and my older brother, Jack, put together. I was about 15 when they built it and was allowed to participate in the darkroom processes and, eventually, to use it on my own. It was so interesting to learn the in’s and out’s of the photographic process. Learning about exposure, the development process and chemicals was a real thrill.

For those of you who have not had the experience, enlarging negatives is a lot like taking a picture with a camera, only the scene is in the enlarger, light is shining through it down on the paper and you have to decide how long to expose it to make it just right. Unless you have some automatic system, you rarely get it right the first time. It usually takes a few attempts to get the exposure just right. If there is too little light the picture is all washed out. Too much and you either have all dark or the contrast is so high it looks like an ink blot.

Dad taught us a method of reducing the number of attempts it takes: When underexposed, double the time you exposed it, if that makes it over exposed, cut the time difference in half. So, if five seconds was not enough, you would then try 10 seconds. If that was too much, split the difference and go with seven and a half, and so on. By doing this, you could save several attempts from the old add-a-second-and-try-again routine.

As it turns out, it is some sort of standard mathematical process for determining a value. I’m sure it has a name. It’s probably named after some Greek mathematician. I’ll just call it Dad’s algorithm.

Another place where controlled correction is essential is in driving. For instance, if you accidentally allow your right wheel to fall off the pavement on to the shoulder, you have to handle the situation just right or you’re in trouble. If you jerk the wheel back to the left, you can cause the momentum of the car to result in flipping the car across the right wheel and rolling over and over. However, if you move too slowly, you’ll chew the inside of your right tires to pieces and cause an eventual blowout.

The right way to correct in this case is to travel down the road a little while you get your bearings. Next, look for a level place to re-enter the roadway. If you can’t find one, “bump” the car up on to the pavement by using a gentle, yet firm, slight, turn to the left until the wheel is on the pavement, then turn back straight.

In each of these cases, the main idea is to correct… but gently. Overcorrecting can really cause some nasty problems. If you don’t believe me, then next time someone close to you makes a little mistake, try jumping up and down and yelling and screaming at them that they did it ALL WRONG! Then stand back and see if they point a gun at you. (Warning: First read the Wizbit about guns!)

Do Something Even if It’s Wrong!

My three brothers and I managed to provide our parents with ample opportunity to practice the delicate art of discipline. Fighting, screaming, yelling, pinching, hitting, beating, and attacking were our usual ways of displaying our love for each other. It must have nearly killed my parents. However, they seemed to always have something to say, and usually a little something extra for us, like a belt properly aligned with just the right velocity to render our seat unusable for about 10-15 minutes.

Often, in exasperation, we would be accosted for failure to do something that we had been told to do. This provided a rather nasty situation since we hadn’t really done anything wrong, we had just failed to do anything. In a way, this was like the one-talent man in the Bible who was afraid and merely hid his talent rather than try to make something of it in trade. When his master returned, he was severely punished and his talent was taken from him. When Dad came in from work and we had failed him, I felt sure at the time that the same fate would be mine.

Once, when Dad came in and found us floundering, he raised his voice (and our fear level) and asked why we hadn’t done our work. We probably responded with some weak excuse like: “we didn’t know what to do” and then he said the words I’ve never forgotten: “Well, do something, even if it’s wrong!” At the time, I’m sure I jumped and hit the hall running toward whatever it was I was supposed to be doing, but I still remember those words and use them to spur me on whenever I’m tempted to just stand around.

When I took the “Dale Carnegie Course in Public Speaking and Human Relations,” one of the things I was taught was how to get things done. As I recall, one night, during the class, we were taught a chant that we first whispered, then spoke, and finally shouted to get us going. The chant went like this: “I know men in the ranks who are going to stay in the ranks! Why!? I’ll tell you why! Simply because they haven’t the ability to get things done!” Upon further analysis, we discovered that people who get things done, move ahead. Those who move ahead tell us that they make decisions more quickly than those who do not move ahead.

I guess what I’m getting at is this: Making a quick decision usually tends to be more accurate than waiting and wondering. We get our best “heart-felt” decisions that way. We are told that our first response is usually our best. So by saying “Do something, even if it’s wrong!”, Dad was telling me that action is better than inaction. Moving on is better than moping around wondering how bad things can get. Making a decision and working toward a goal is better than sitting down and crying about how bad things are.

I’m not sure I got all this from that one sentence from my childhood, but I have been able to build on it and make it work for me. To this day, I still find myself trying to say the same thing to my children. I look for different ways to say it, and sometimes try to elaborate, as I’m sure my dad did, but they will probably remember it better if I’ll just stick to the original wizbit.

Don’t Put all Your Eggs in One Basket

If you lived in North Alabama in the 1960’s, if you didn’t live on or near a farm, you either knew someone who did, or were related to someone who did. The good side of this was that you got to learn about some of life’s little secrets through the eyes of a farmer.

If I recall correctly, the idea of not carrying all your eggs in one basket relates to someone who went out to gather eggs from the hen house. You can carry a lot of eggs in a basket, but if you put them all in one basket, then drop that basket, you’ve lost them all. However, if you had two or more baskets, you reduced the chances dramatically of losing all your eggs.

The same holds true about most any job. If you only have one client, and you lose that client, you are ruined. Many clients help to smooth out cash flow and reduce risk. It is vitally important, in most situations, to be diversified to reduce your risks.

This lesson has been important to me. I have carefully tried to find just the right thing to work on that allows me to complement my main source of income, for instance. Dad did the same thing. Since before I can remember, Dad had little side ventures that kept him busy, developed his skills, taught him lessons and sometimes even produced additional income!

Dad has always been able to keep some sort of operation going. One of the first major undertakings was an ice cream drive-in that is still in business today, some 40 years later. It must have been a good idea. Others came and went like fads and fashions. In addition to the “business,” Dad has either owned or been involved with a number of businesses and ventures over the years. Of course, there has always been the long line of horse trading of cars, boats, guns, motorcycles, and too many other items to mention.

He taught me that this free enterprise system we have is very valuable. It provides us with opportunities too vast to even comprehend. Around every corner there awaits a new possibility. I don’t think Dad will ever stop making deals and trading things. It’s in his blood.

During the course of all this trading and wheeling and dealing, Dad taught me one more lesson that I think he learned as he taught me. That lesson is that when you have too many baskets, you cause problems too. With eggs, the problems are pretty simple. Too many baskets meant having to make several trips to the house, or having to watch the other animals while someone made the runs to the house.

With other things, the problems get more complex. Sometimes you try to carry all the baskets at once. This creates a similar, yet different problem. You may end up dropping a basket and not even realize it. You may juggle so many baskets that you trip and lose them all. Anything is possible. If you work too hard, your family suffers. If you spend too much time with your family, work will suffer.

The trick is to know how many baskets you can carry, then never attempt to pick up more than that number. Doing so would be certain disaster. Just look around the barnyard at all the broken eggs. It happens all the time.

Fantastic! Now What?—The Sausage Mill

When I was in outside sales, working for Dad, I worked hard to prove myself as a productive employee. I didn’t want anyone to think of me as a family freeloader. My brothers and I all had to go through that.

One month I had done exceptionally well and broken all my previous sales records. I went to Dad to tell him the news. He was very excited with me and then almost in a 180° turnaround, said: “Fantastic! Now, what are you going to do this month?” I was astounded! Here I had come to him with the greatest sales record of my “career” and he had “fluffed” it off and asked about this month! I was almost mad!

Dad noticed my attitude and went on with his explanation. He reminded me of the analogy that he taught me when I first got started in sales. It’s called the Sausage Mill Theory. A sausage mill is the grinder that makes sausage. It has a large hopper that you fill with the meat and spices, then the ingredients are pushed down the “throat” of the mill into a corkscrew that forces it through a plate filled with small holes. A rotating blade cuts the sausage as it passes through the holes.

The idea is, that in order to get sausage out of the mill, you must first fill the hopper. Once you have done that, it often takes a while before anything comes out. If you stop putting in the meat and spices, there will be a time later when no sausage comes out for a while. It is a continuous process.

Successful sales must include the same process with the “meat” of sales, prospecting and proposals. You must continuously work with clients and potential customers in order to keep the mill full. As long as you keep putting potential sales into the hopper, sales will continue to be produced. Stop working and somewhere down the road, you will stop closing sales for a while.

Even after closing your best month ever, you cannot rest on your laurels. You must continue to produce. Doing well is great. It is a time of celebration. Just be sure you don’t let your celebration time interfere with your production time.

Sales, relationships and even living life are all continuous processes. When things are going well, we have a tendency to sit back and relax. That’s the time we should keep going, though, taking advantage of the momentum we have.

Continuous productivity is the key. No matter what we do for a living, whether we have to make commissions to pay our way, or are on a salary, we are responsible for being productive. When we stop being productive, even for a while, things will slow down somewhere down the road. It is not evident at first, but later, you pay for it.

Keep on keeping on. Never give up. Always persevere. It has been said many times, in many ways, but the story is the same. Don’t stop the sausage mill.

If You Don’t Have Time to Do It Right,
How Will You Find Time to Do It Twice?

Most of you have probably heard this one or one very similar to it. I think it’s in some parents/bosses manual somewhere. Dad used to tell it to us, too, and it has stuck with me through a lot of ‘doing.’ “If you don’t have time to do it right, how will you find time to do it TWICE?”

I’m not really sure what I had done the first time I heard Dad say this, but he had plenty of opportunities to say it to my three brothers and me. Dad was really good about letting us learn to do things and tried early to help us develop responsibilities. More often than not, we would try to do the task in what looked like the easiest way for us. Usually, this meant that we were taking a shortcut that left some important step out of the process. Dad would come in, survey the progress, then shake his head and give us the wizbit.

We probably returned to him a look that would seem to say, “Huh? Are you talking to me?” and tried to ignore him. Eventually, he would have us back up, repeat the last two or three processes, and include the right one as well.

The other wizbit that goes right along with this one is: “If something is worth doing… it’s worth doing RIGHT!” Between the two of these, we had no choice! We either had to do it right, or suffer the consequences.

As usual, the wisdom of the ages holds true again. Now, when I undertake some repair or building project. I have plenty of opportunities to do things in some “quick and dirty” method, ignoring the correct way to do them. However, I’m finding more and more that I choose the correct way. It probably stems from the fact that I know that somewhere down the road, I’ll be really sorry I did it wrong and have to do it over again, probably replacing all the connecting parts that wore down because of the poor job I did in the first place!

This one certainly applies to life and human nature. Just imagine how delightful it would be if we all did things right the first time! I know, we don’t always know the right thing to do. However, in many situations, we try to “get by” and do the least we can do. Well, someone has to do that job over. Maybe not you, but jobs done poorly never last and have to be re-done. You may think that you’ve gotten away with it because you didn’t have to personally repair the problem. You’ll probably inherit your share from others who did their job wrong the first time.

A job done well is always appreciated. A job done half-way is rarely appreciated. So, why not go ahead and do the little extra it takes to be appreciated? From my experience, it’s usually only about an extra 10% commitment to do a job right. Not much of a price to pay, is it?

Dad’s Hammering Technique

If you’ve never had anyone teach you the basics of hammering, you probably have had a lot of trouble with even the simplest nailing jobs. Hitting your thumb, scarring the wall, bending nails… are all symptoms of poor hammering technique. For those of you who may have missed it, here’s a short version of the hammering technique (as taught to me by Dad, of course). Bear with me for this short course and I’ll try to make it worth the extra reading.

The Hammering Technique: A few rules of hammering will make all the difference to you and your finished work if you will abide by them. They are as follows:

1) Let the hammer do the work. Too many people try to attack nails as if they have some sort of animosity toward the nail. They draw back and swing the hammer with every ounce of strength until either the nail is pulverized or there is a large, round, hammer-shaped hole in the surface next to the nail. That is the wrong way to do it. The correct way is to hold the hammer as an extension of your arm, lift it up with the whole arm, with the elbow bent, pivoting at the shoulder. Then when the appropriate height is reached, change direction and bring the hammer down by guiding it to the head of the nail, letting the weight of the hammer do most of the work.

When this technique is learned, you can start to add a little force to the downward motion and increase your effectiveness. But remember, “slamming” down the hammer will bend nails and make your arm extremely tired.

2) Get a hammer that fits your hand. If you plan to do major projects like building a deck or making furniture, getting a hammer that fits your hand is as necessary to a handyman as having a correct tennis racket is to a tennis pro. A hammer with too small a handle will make your hand wrap too far around the handle and cause fatigue. Having a handle that’s too large will do the opposite, make it impossible to reach around it properly and difficult to hold.

3) Get a hammer that is the right weight for the job. To hammer in a small nail for hanging pictures, you’ll need no more than a small hammer, even if it has a small handle. The force required is small and you’ll not be doing very much hammering at one time, so the fit is not as important. However, if you’ll be nailing four-inch galvanized deck nails, a little “puttering around” hammer will not work. You’ll need a 16-ounce or better hammer that will provide the proper force for the job. My father-in-law recently spent nearly $30 for a hammer because he wanted the right one for the job.

4) When the job demands it, get a bigger hammer. As I said, I thought this was only a joke, but as it turns out, bigger jobs need bigger hammers. That’s not all, different jobs require different hammers. Take a look next time you’re at Sears or Home Depot or your favorite hardware store. There are hundreds of different shapes and styles of hammers! There really does appear to be one for every job!

When you nail two 2x4’s together, you can use a “regular” hammer. But if you’re working with large machinery and need to break the bond of two rusted-together parts, you’ll need a small sledge hammer. The reason stems back to number 1 and 3 above: The weight of the hammer, and letting the hammer do the work for you. The force that the heavier hammer has will do the work without tiring you out.

No extra charge for this little course. I think you find it’s probably worth the price of the book even if you don’t learn anything else. It has been worth a lot to me.

If It Is Broken, Fix it! If it Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It!

Although it’s very hard to pinpoint exactly when and where I learned some things from Dad, it is very obvious that I did learn them. One example is the tendency I have to repair things that break. I don’t think Dad ever came out and said “If it’s broken, fix it” but he did show me that over and over.

I really don’t remember the first thing I saw Dad repair. I’m sure I was too young to notice. He probably repaired my crib while I watched. He seemed to be able to fix anything. He worked on toys, cars, houses, doors, floors, bicycles, radios, televisions… nothing was sacred. He would attempt to fix just about anything that was broken… and he usually did fix it.

So having seen with my own eyes that it was OK to take things apart, I began early to do just that. My mother was often disappointed at my over zealous curiosity that managed to destroy the toys they bought that used to work. Usually, there were no more than two or three parts left over when I finished “working” on them.

I have somehow managed to end up with Dad’s ability to size up a situation, determine what is needed and charge ahead with full steam until the problem is fixed. That’s not to say that I am always successful, or that I never have problems. However, I do usually manage to be able to make a repair that works. Sometimes it looks kind of “rigged-up” and will not last, but the item will work (at least for a while).

In my attempt to recall just what Dad taught me about repairs, I remember one thing he did say: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” (pardon my Southern). At first, this seems like the obvious, but look closer.

When you attempt to fix things that aren’t broken, you risk breaking them in the process. Many a toy had to be thrown out after I “fixed” them as a child. Carried a little farther, most things that are working are better left alone unless you are aware of some preventive maintenance that must be done.

Some things are actually made worse by repairing a part of them. An example is replacing a part that is one of a set. Brakes, for instance, have a little cylinder at each wheel that pushes the brakes into action. If you repair one of these (and not the others), then it is too strong and will cause the others to burst.

Relationships are often forced into quick “fixes” that aren’t necessary, too. People think that divorce is a fix for problems in a marriage. However, love is the only real fix. Divorces are just broken homes. You cannot really fix something without all the parts. It just won’t ever work right again.

Maybe as I get older, I’m learning more how to tell the difference in something that is broken and needs fixing, and something that is working that needs a little attention. It must be very hard for some people to tell the difference. I’m glad that Dad started teaching me early to learn that valuable skill.

The Lazy Man’s Load

Very early, Dad taught me to work and to try to do a good job in a short amount of time. This led to a tendency to try too hard. Sometimes we would be told to clean up a room or move toys and clothes from one room to another. Often we would get all we could carry in our arms to make as few loads as possible. You’ve probably done the same thing, arms full, something tucked under your arm, holding a stack of things with your chin and trying to walk up and down stairs at the same time. (Sound familiar?) At one of these times, Dad told me that I shouldn’t try to use a “Lazy Man’s Load.” Of course, I didn’t know what he meant and asked for an explanation.

Dad explained that trying to carry more than you should, even though it looked like you were doing a lot of work, was really the lazy way out. By carrying more than we should, we take the chance of dropping it all and possibly breaking something in the process. So what looks like a real effort to pitch in, turns out to be an irresponsible act of laziness. I was probably very stubborn about it and I’m sure tried over and over to “shorten” my work with more of these loads. I’m sure I still do it today from time to time. But I have also proven the “Lazy Man’s Load” by dropping some very fragile items that we now miss very much.

There are other areas where we attempt to carry the lazy man’s load. Think about the “jobs” on which you are working. Are you carrying too large a load, or too many items? Are you approaching (or passing) the limit of your capabilities, risking dropping the whole load?

Do you find it hard to say “no” when asked to do something else? Are these responsibilities adding up more quickly than your personal computer can count them? You had better watch out, you may be about to drop the ball. When you have too much to do, each thing you are trying to accomplish will begin to suffer. Little by little, you will become so inefficient that you will soon be doing a poor job on all your efforts. You have heard I’m sure, that too many cooks spoil the broth, well, too many broths will spoil a cook, too! You’d be better off to do one thing at a time, and do it well, than to do many things poorly.

I’d be the first to tell you that there are times when I am lazy. I often just don’t feel like doing one thing or another. However, I try really hard not to take my sincere willingness to do a job and turn it into a lazy man’s load. Dad has taught me that my load is more valuable than that. It includes my wife, my children and my whole extended family. It also includes my church work, my job and all my friends. It is a delicate balance, so I’ll try to carry a few of them at a time, then go back for the rest, so I can have them all with me at the end of my journey.

You Have to Make Money off Your Friends…
Your Enemies Just Won’t Buy from You.

Dad has been an entrepreneur from the word “go.” A lot of this spirit has been passed on to my brothers and me. From a very early age, I was working at ways to make a few cents here and there. I remember getting a Mattel™ Creepy Crawlers maker one Christmas. It was a device that allowed you to pour gobbledygoop into a mold and cook it until it got harder. The result was a rubber bug or worm or other such icky thing. I hid a few in my pocket and took them to school with me to show to my friends.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I found that some of my friends would pay me a nickel or a dime for those bugs! Soon, I was the leading business man in the fourth grade, and my biggest customer was providing me with support for my candy habit. Not surprisingly, the money rarely made it home with me… we passed two convenience stores on the walk home.

Later, in the seventh grade, when I started a new school, I was anxious to make friends and fit in. At this time, monograms were really “in,” whether it was on a sweater, a shirt pocket or your notebook. My parents ran a school supply store as one of their ventures and the store sold stick-on letters. So… I bought a pack and started selling them for 5¢ each. A couple of friends noticed that the whole package of about 200 letters only cost about $1.79 and knew I bought it at wholesale. A little quick math and I was being accused of making 1000%+ profit! I felt terrible.

I went home, almost in tears, feeling so guilty for using my friends. I went to Dad and told him how badly I felt. He smiled, looked at me and said, “Carl, I learned a long time ago that you have to make money off your friends… because your enemies just won’t buy from you.” It made sense at the time and has come to mean even more now.

In preparation for owning my own business, I took courses such as Christian Business Ethics and the Dale Carnegie Course in Human Relations. Both of these and others stress the importance of getting along with others in life and in business. Dad and I later had a computer retail store that I ran. In that business, I learned that making friends with my customers was the best insurance I could have for future business.

I still remember many of my customers, their families, the kind of computer they owned, the software they used, the business they were in, etc. That kind of attention made them feel like my friends who just happened to buy computers and supplies from me rather than customers whom I just happened to know.

As you may be aware, one of the fastest growing business types in the country is network marketing. It has many faces, but the primary focus for this business is the same: Get your friends to buy from you, then, get their friends to buy from them. It’s a grass-roots process that blossoms rather quickly, when it works. Just remember to be friends first, and a salesperson second, or you’ll lose the things that really are important.

You Can Catch More Flies with Honey than with Vinegar

Fly catching was never a sport for which I yearned. I often like to swat flies, but I have little desire to actually catch them. But the phrase that talks about the flies has very little to do with them.

I’m sure you’ve heard that you “catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” I’d like to share Dad’s rendition of it anyway. When Dad first said this I was really confused. We weren’t even talking about flies! We were probably yelling at one another trying to force something out of the other.

After the initial shock, Dad explained how you catch flies. The underlying fact is that you are trying to attract the files, not run them off. Honey attracts flies. Vinegar does not. If anything, vinegar would repel flies rather than attract. After all, what does it do for you? Honey on the other hand, is very attractive in look, smell and taste. Flies like it a lot.

When we heard this, we were not trying to catch flies. My three brothers and I did, however, try to catch each other from time to time. And very often, we would try, in our own way, to ‘convince’ each other to do something or to give us something they had. This convincing usually consisted of a lot of screaming, grabbing, hitting and general violence. This was, of course, very soothing to our parents. (What? You don’t believe me?!)

As Dad further explained, we found out that, according to Dad, if we would be nicer, we would be more likely to get what we wanted. This came as quite a shock to us and if we suspected someone of doing this, we would immediately refuse to give in. But since then, we have all found out that Dad was right. Love always prevails. It doesn’t always win, but it always is a winner. You may not get what you want, but you do have a better life. Just the same, the ‘honey’ does get you more than you would get using ‘vinegar’ in most every situation.

There is a joke about a man who’s pulling a chain down the street. When asked why he is pulling the chain, he replies: “Have you ever tried to PUSH one?” It’s pretty funny, don’t you think? But it is also very real. Pushing people is not very productive. Pulling people is much better. Forcing someone to do some thing is not satisfying for either party.

The really successful people in life are those who learn how to lead people on to great things. Zig Ziglar, the famous motivational speaker often ends his speeches by saying, “You can have anything you want in life… if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.” We need to remember that all relationships are give-and-take, not take-then-decide-whether-to-give.

We need to be fly catchers. Dad’s wizbit does it again. Let’s go make things better. Bring on the honey.

Never Point a Gun at Someone Unless You Plan to Shoot Them

When Dad was a kid, his parents wouldn’t allow him to have guns. But when my brothers and I were growing up, toy guns were in, and we wanted them! We had nearly every kind of toy gun they made. There were muskets, like Davy Crockett used, hand guns like Marshal Dillon used, bazookas like the Rat Patrol used, secret guns like James Bond used. I even had a “shoot-around-the-corner” gun that shot ping pong balls with the use of a special pivoting mirror sight!

Being a kid in the sixties meant that you were familiar with guns. We all knew guns could kill because all of us know where we were when the announcement was made that President Kennedy had been shot. We saw the pictures over and over that showed us what a gun could, and would, do. If that weren’t enough, we were shown on television every night the latest Vietnam “scoreboard” that actually showed each day how many of “us” died and how many of “them” we killed.

Dad knew, too, that guns were cool to the kids. He watched us play “army” and “cowboys and Indians” as we shot at each other, and occasionally made a “hit.” It was then that the actor in all of us came out and had its chance to show everyone in the family (and any unsuspecting visitors) just how good we could “die.” It must have been troubling to Mother and Dad, to see us shoot at each other and pretend to die. I don’t allow my kids to do that. Maybe it troubled me, too.

At some point, Dad knew we had to understand real guns and know the difference. He was not a big hunter, like some of his friends, but he had a .22 rifle. Dad would take us “plinking” on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. We probably didn’t go more than a few times, but it was very memorable because we got to shoot a real gun! Sometime along the way, someone would inevitably, accidentally, allow the gun to point at another person. That was Dad’s cue. He always noticed and corrected us. He would take the gun, and explain, “You never point a gun at anybody unless you plan to shoot them, and don’t shoot anyone unless you plan to kill them.” Don’t misunderstand me, Dad would never kill anyone, nor would he condone or recommend it. He was making a point. He knew that we would be appalled at the very idea of shooting, much less killing, anyone! This phrase got our attention.

I’m pretty sure that Dad even reminded us a couple of times when we pointed toy guns at him and he wasn’t expecting it. The point was well taken. He would even elaborate by reminding us that guns were made for killing. We had no business carrying a gun around, and doing so suggested that we had plans to kill. It made me very cautious then and now.

I didn’t steal Dad’s phrase, but I think I borrowed his underlying theme. In my family, our response is that the very thought of one of our children having a gun pointed at them, or pointing a gun at someone was horrible. We never wanted that to happen. So… if we point the toy guns often enough in play, we might one day decide that a real gun could be pointed, too. So, in our family, we just don’t do it.

Maybe the problem is that kids today often see blood and guts as something that is generated by Hollywood for the “Jason” or “Terminator” movies, and not a true-to-life experience like losing a President or watching friends go off to war and not seeing them come home.

I’m not sure what it is that makes kids want guns. I guess nobody knows. It’s still a problem and is getting worse. Our local TV news team had a story recently about how easy it is for teens to get guns. They interviewed teenagers who said they needed the guns to protect themselves. I wish those teens, and the teens they’re afraid of, had a dad like mine.