A different approach - Not seeing eye to eye.

It is the end of the week for me and I am still catching up today. On my way in this morning I was going over a discussion I had with my future partner yesterday.

I was stating that I felt bad because I didn't get a chance to present a bathroom design before my customer went on vacation. She said that I didn't know how to put my customers off without them knowing it. This did hit a nerve with me but luckily we got interrupted before the conversation continued.

What she said is the major difference between us and our work philosophy. She is still operating from the angle of what works best for her and not what works best for the customer. In our business it use to be the customer was a little fish in a big pond and now they are a big fish in a little pond.

Over the years we have made basically the same money. I usually have more average size jobs mixed with a couple of larger jobs each year. She usually has bigger jobs that can takes months and even years to close and with more demanding customers.

It was hard for me not to comment on this view and I did say that I felt that if you gave people too much time to look elsewhere then someone slick salesperson could convince them to go with a lower end product.

With the market changing I think that making the most of every customer contact is important. This is my ego talking and me wanting her to think the way I think.

I have kept us afloat this year with my small jobs but by the end of the year if one of her jobs closes she will catch up with me. So there isn't really any right or wrong here just a difference in the way we think.

Here is a side note. The customer I thought I missed out on called this morning and wants to come in today. Letting go of the outcome of everything and I mean everything is really working for me. Trusting that everything is exactly as it is suppose to be is hard and I want improve on God's plan with my own ideas.

I haven't done such a great job on my own in the past so this time I am letting it all go.

Getting my mind straight

The powerful effect that positive thinking can have on your life today should not be underestimated. In fact, it just may be the key to a happier and healthier you.

I woke up a little off today. Happy to have work but feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment. Going from 0 to 100 in short time has really been an adjustment.

By deciding to see things differently I have had nothing but abundance coming my way. I guess it was piling up against the door waiting for me to change my attitude. When I cracked the door open I have been trampled by goodness.

While writing here a cutomer came in and wants to do a bathroom.

The above is today's horoscope I thought it was a sign to get my mind right today.

A remembered sunset - Healing the past

I had a long jammed packed business day yesterday. It started earlier than usual and ended around 6:30. As I was driving home I crossed over the highway and saw the most spectacular sunset. The beauty actually brought tears to my eyes.

I thought it seemed somehow familiar to me so fiery and so many colors.

I realized that it looked like a sunset that I helped paint for a high school play. I think I told this story before when I was in a painful place. How the art teacher whom I idolized asked myself and another student to paint a sunset.

We were so thrilled an honored that she picked us to paint it. We stayed up all night and painted a bright orange sunset with every color you could imagine. The colors represented who we were inside, a little outrageous a little outside the box.

When the curtain came up she had gotten one of the more talented inside the box artist to paint a foggy gray sunset. I quit taking art classes after that. I respected her and figured I must not be good enough to be a real artist.

It took m 20 years to start painting with that same enthusiasm.

It wasn't personal I know that now. As a teenager I took to heart and held it there and then carried all those years. Seems absurd now it was just her opinion but then it was my opinion of myself that kept it alive.

Yesterday I thought there's my sunset with every color imaginable painted with abandonment by God for all the world to see. A bigger audience than any high school play would ever have.

I see dead people - Who are they?

My birthday started out very quiet I just hung around the house, doing nothing really. I decided to visit my upstairs and see if I was inspired to tackle any projects up there.

One room had pictures strewn out all over the floor. I am always moving furniture around and I moved the chest of drawers they were in to my studio downstairs. I use to think it was Chester drawers, that was always confusing to me, why would they name a piece of furniture Chester?

Anyway, I started looking at this old photo album that came from my aunt's house. It is real old and full of people I don't know. Her husbands family. No one left on his side of the family. None of the pictures have names and some are so tiny it is hard to see the person.

I decided I would make an art project out of the photos. Use them to practice drawing and keep the photo and the picture together. I have been reading a book about famous successful people and how it takes and equivalent of 10 years to become really good at something, so I thought I better get started soon.

This book made me think how many times I saw what I thought was pure talent when really it was dedication and repetition that brought out a small talent. I am impatient and expect to be good at something instantly. If I am not then I quit and say I don't have the talent for it. Really I am not interested enough to put the time in or I am too embarrassed to suck at something until I get it.

Comparing myself to someone who has in some cases dedicated their life to their craft and expecting instant success is setting myself up for failure. Is it important enough to me to make the same effort. It is also a slam to the person who has spent time learning something.

It is the same with the program it takes time and effort to get to a place of serenity. In the beginning I wanted to be well I didn't like it when I found out that people had been there for decades. I felt better pretty quickly but here I am decades later still learning new things about myself.

For the project I have committed to drawing each photo ten times before moving to the next photo. I started yesterday and used a magnifying glass to see the details. One down and 50 to go. If I can get my scanner up and running I post some of drawings.

Let see if I have what it takes.

Final note. No one looked too happy back then. I guess with the depression and then war not too much to be happy about.

I was wrong - Again - Making amends

It is interesting to me how my recent awakening has caused me to see just how wrong I have been about everything, really everything.

We have a contractor that we have worked with for years. He is a hardworking honest guy and over the years we have helped him build his business. In fact his core business is based on people we have introduced him to and he rents from one of my customers.

It always bothered me that once I introduced him to my customer they turned to him from that point on. They refer him and not me. He in turn tries to direct the business back to us when it has to do with kitchens and baths.

He came by last night to discuss a job and I realized for the first time how hard he works to do what is right for the customer. Just like me. He also is a good business person and tries to squeak out every bit of business out of his customers. Just like me. He does what ever it takes to get the job done and make the customer happy. Just like me.

What I realized now that I am awake is once again it isn't personal. He spends way more time with the customer because he is living with them during construction and helping them through the day to day process. I can't do that and truthfully when he is on the job we know the customer will happy so less effort is spent to stay connected.

Last night I made an amends. It wasn't a specific amends more like a blanket amends. I just said I was sorry for anything I might have done over these past years that might have hurt him. I told him I haven't been myself in a long time and I was sorry. He graciously accepted my apology.

We are alike in many ways, both perfectionist and just can't let things go.

My level of respect for him has gone up. He of course has not changed it is me who has changed. I am sure there is more amends to come and maybe a better working relationship.

Truth and consequences

I have a birthday coming up on Labor Day. Isn't it nice that most of the country takes off to celebrate.

I am not sure what the plans are at the moment. I have to face the fact that I have jettisoned most of my casual friends and some of my close friends. I have some guilt about that when I think of all the birthdays we spent together.

I had to empty my life for what ever reason. I felt I drowning and weighted down my some unknown entity. I purged it all not knowing what was the problem. It was my past of course the belief that I could not escape it and I wasn't ready to face the fact that past only exist in my head.

I have moments of loneliness. Being fully awake has its drawbacks. I am responsible for being exactly where I am at this moment. The difference now is that I can feel the loneliness and let it wash over me as just for this moment of time. I don't have to thrash around and run like I use to chanting to myself. I don't want this, I don't want this...

I have felt such peace not resisting. I have been able to even look at my childhood religion and see that I have run from Jesus because I didn't want to have anything to do with anything my family was associated with. I could see that it wasn't him it was them I was running from. In my child like mind I didn't want to make them happy by accepting any of their beliefs, so I threw all of them out.

I liked the program because you weren't aloud to talk about Jesus. We talk about God and a higher power a power greater than ourselves. I wouldn't have stayed if Jesus had been involved. Jesus must carried the baggage of every crazy thing done in his name.

Hey I can say this because I was beaten in the name of Jesus so I understand the pain that goes with his name. I have been comfortable with God for a long time. I have read a lot of books on the idea of God. For me it was what I was resisting that was holding me back.

This was the boogie man in the closet for me the last childish thing. I had to see that it wasn't Jesus it was the negative power his name had over my life. The negative power I gave it.

I am not saying I have become a Jesus freak passing out pamphlets on the street like I did as a child or that I have joined a mega church. The point is that it is all OK with me now the resistance is gone. I can look at his teachings and take what I like and leave the rest. I can come home to some of my childhood beliefs and see the good there not just the bad.

I have found that anything that I resist has some fear associated with it. In this case a fear that I would become like them or I would fall in a hole that I could not climb out of. I did that anyway. I can separate from my emotions and say it wasn't all bad and some of the teachings were pretty good.

Byron Katey said if you stumble across a rope in the grass and you think it is a snake you might run off screaming. Once you see that it is just a rope you can never be afraid of it again. I am not afraid anymore.

Taking a beating - Have we learned anything?

Both in life and in business when times are tough people pull together to weather the storm when the storm passes and crisis is over things inevitably go back to the way they were unless we make an effort to learn from the past.

The ego steps in and we start to look after ourselves. It is human nature. This is what I am experiencing here with the guy in our building. He is slammed busy and feeling a little less generous or open to building a relationship.

We did talk and I could see that he he felt perfectly justified in stepping in and offering to build the cabinets and cut the price. He is right it was his customer and he could do as he pleased. I just thought if he had called me we could have worked together to reduce price.

I want to build something together a partnership with us making decisions together. They're some big egos in this business and they have taken a beating over the past few years. Have we learned anything? I know I have and I will move on if I need to.

It feels good to have a break in the storm where it seems things are returning to normal. What ever that is. But it is not a time to rest but a time to focus on getting our house in order. Preparing for the ebb an flow of this industry and of life in general.

You never know when the next lesson will arrive. It is possible that this could be the eye of the storm.

Treating people with respect all the time even when it isn't easy but it is always the right thing to do. I respect his decision to do what he thought he had to do to save the job. Even if that meant throwing me under the bus. I am over it now.