Pumpkin Patch

What a great time. Boys went on a hay rack ride, see the animals (Chickens, goat and rabbits) and go through the maze. Really a low cost outing.

Jenifer wanted to go to the other pumpkin patch in Dorrance. In my opinion the commercialized patch. Pay for a train ride (Little carts pulled by a tractor), Pay for maze, Pay for pumpkins, Pay for petting zoo, pay for smores (You cook for yourself) and everything! Plus pay to drive the 45 min there.

What are YOU DOING?

The media is asking that quite a bit right now.

What are you doing to secure your financial future?
What are you doing to protect yourself from the recession?
What are you doing to secure your kids financial future?
What are you doing to protect your community from the recession?
What are we going to do in these "Terrible" financial times?

I have to be honest, the media has created a self fulfilling prophecy. If all every one talks about, looks for and sees is financial problems they will come true.

It even has my wife asking "What are you doing?"

I have to ask the same question. What are you doing to show confidence in the market? What are you doing to look for the positive things. What are you doing to change things up?

More lessons in Golf

Spent a little time on the golf course yesterday. I really didn't have much focus the first 9. It showed. Poor shots, bad decisions and all around pathetic performance. After the first 9 however I had 3 par's in a row and it really came together.

I think that this is why you need focus in business. Without it you really have no goal, your wandering around the business course spraying shots and really achieving nothing. If anything you are still putting in lots of work, just no results.

This is also why you keep score. If you don't you can feel like your getting somewhere but when you check the score you just did average? Score isn't just to see who won, it is also to better yourself.

You can't teach common sense!

I have hear the term Book smart. I would refer to myself as more street smart. In fact I would prefer common sense. It is no secret that I struggled with the book smart. How interesting that now some of my most favorite TV and books are history and discovery? When I graduated college is when I think I started learning.

Sometimes I see things that seem basic and obvious, however some of the smartest people I know do the most stupid things.

I would love to figure out a way to measure common sense. I think that most "Good" Sales people are rich in this area.

Follow up to keeping score.

I was noticing that the great coaches rarely make excuses.

Same with Quarterbacks. Sure, excuses can be made; protection was bad, receivers dropped passes, play calls were poor and more. However the great Quarterbacks find a way to win with out the excuses.

When your performance is down are you looking for answers or excuses? It can be very difficult to look in the mirror and be honest where the problem is. Next time you feel like you are making excuses, be honest with yourself and be real.

Keeping Score

Its rainy today with a 100% chance of rain tonight and tomorrow. With that I spent some time waxing the Corvette, cleaning the garage, updating the family web page and such. Of course I had to add watching the pathetic Chiefs game, Cowboys whooping up on Cincinnati, little Nascar and golf! It is a real Picture in Picture type of day.

I was thinking, it is all about the score and the statistics. Races finished, interceptions, first downs, RBI's, Greens in Regulation, and I am sure that NHL measures something. These are real signs on the best teams or individuals. Almost without exception without being ranked in the top you cannot win.

What do you measure on your team? Yourself? How often do you measure it? Knowing what is in the pipeline is related to the future. That is the great thing about sales. You can pretty much measure every part of the process. Number of opportunities, activities and of course $'s. If you don't know where you are at, you are probably at the back of the race.