davidNprogress

This week I read the wonderful obituary of a man known simply as "H". His actual first name was Harold but based on the description of his life I get the feeling that he lived it with such gusto that he simply did not have time for the formality of his full name. "H" Now that is a man you can hang out with on the front porch while sipping a cold one or bushwhack through a jungle on a grand adventure. I kind of imagined what it would have been like to meet him for the first time. Hello, my name is Harold and I move pretty fast so all my friends just call me "H" and since pretty much everyone is my friend that is what you can call me". Nice to meet you "H" Here are just a few facts there were listed about his life: Born 1934 Met the love of his life in 2nd grade and was married to her 54 years before her passing Grew up on a 125,000 ranch near Mexico Started work as a roughneck at the age of 12 Went to college on a scholarship...

This weekend is the 25th anniversary of the OKC bombing. At the time, I was a government account salesperson for Cellular One and many of the people in the building were my customers. I would go to the building several times during the month to meet with people, deliver devices and perform other activities. On the day of the bombing, I was working at my desk to shore up a presentation regarding the Cellular One disaster support plan. My manager and our sales team served on a committee comprised of local first responder leaders including the fire chief, 911 center leadership and others. My role was mostly on the device side as I was in charge of creating an inventory of standby phones that could quickly be dispersed in the case of a disaster. Hard to believe, but back in 1995 phones were not as commonplace as they are now and our sales team needed to work hard to convince public safety officials on the value behind the need for cellular communication. I was at my desk...

It seems like it was just yesterday that we were at work with friends, co-workers, and the long talker that would trap folks for what seemed like hours to tell a random story about their weekend. Suddenly the world has changed and all of that is gone as millions of us have suddenly found ourselves forced to work from home. For those of us at home, our role now is to maximize the time to be the best possible worker we can while also balancing whatever may also be going on in the house as we deal with stir-crazy children, barking dogs and the reality of spending 100% of hour time with our family. It will come as a surprise to many to learn that the transition to working from home can be difficult. First, there is the design of the job itself. Your company may not have previously used tools like Zoom, Webex, Skype and others to connect workers with each other. Fortunately, these can be learned quickly if you have a tech leader that can help others to adapt. Next is the work at...

Last year I created a video and wrote a blog post challenging people to start each day in a state of gratitude and to write down their thoughts of thankfulness. Now with the growing pandemic and fear about where this is going to take all of us I see gratitude as more important than ever. I have to be honest. At the start of all of this, I went into full got to work hard and got to stay focused mode. I forgot for a very short time to take my own advice and spend some time each day reflecting and be thankful. Gratitude is the enemy of fear. No matter what others may be feeling or maybe doing, for each of us there are many reasons to be thankful. This morning I pulled up my list and the memories flooded back on of the past times and people that have brought such joy in my life even when times were hard. Reading the list and reflecting on all the years of good resulted in a wave of joy and positivity. Have you got gratitude? Are you clear on the many blessings that are in your life ...

Toilet paper aisle at a local Wal-Mart on March 15th  What a time we are living in with the Covid-19 virus hysteria that is in progress where I live and around the country. It seems that things are changing almost minute by minute and for sure what we have been experiencing is historical. There has been a stock market crash, rush to buy goods including toilet paper, “social distancing” requiring events and businesses to close down. Now millions of people are working from home and schools are closed. The list just goes on and on. It is not an exaggeration to say this feels very much like a fictional disaster movie. Group panic and group fear is a real thing. It is not out of the question to imagine people fighting over food items as this has happened already over--toilet paper. Meanwhile, there are even fake news stories out there about things that have not occurred which are intentionally trying to magnify hysteria. With a state of emergency declared, it would not be su...

I am a long-time listener of the Dave Ramsey show going back to when I first started getting fired up about being out of debt. We hit that milestone several years ago and thanks to his show being available 24x7 now on iHeart radio, I still listen often for motivation and information. After more than 20 years on the radio, Dave is consistent with his message and his method. Quite frankly, I wonder at times if some of the people calling in with questions have ever actually listened to the show. There are certain callers that every time are ensured to get blasted as they tell about the money mistakes they have made and their non-Dave approved strategies to fix them. Most recently I was listening when a fellow called in that was asking about what do with his car debt. As a recall, he was making less than $60,000 a year, had little savings, credit card debt, and payments on a $40,000 truck that he had purchased new. Through the radio, I could almost sense Dave’s blood pressure rise ...