Tag: listening

How full is your toolbox? Planning to dig a well when you are thirsty?

One of the common characteristics of people I meet is that they have no skills, no tool box, they are waiting for the right opportunity to do anything. They will start to learn the right skills when they need them, when they’ll know what they want to do. And, of course, it is too late to dig a well when you are thirsty… they languish of thirst…

I am a lot like Bob in the movie “Bob The Butler”.

I am inspired by that movie to do even more skill building to fill my tool box.

I am 70 years old. I have 27 skill sets, 27 ways to make a living. I am an architect. I am a brick mason. I can lay wooden floor, I can lay tiles both on the floor and on the wall. I can hang wallpaper. I am a plumber. etc. etc. etc. One time I counted. I have forgotten more professions than you know how to do.

What did this do to me? What did this do to Bob, the butler?

Continue reading “How full is your toolbox? Planning to dig a well when you are thirsty?”

The connection between how you listen and how alive you are…

You listen… approximately. And your life can be no better… you are at best approximately alive.

Your powers of distinguishing the relevant from the irrelevant, the worth listening to or the noise, the worth reading or the noise, the worth knowing or the noise are not even on a kindergartner level.

Why? Because you have all these amazing human abilities, but you don’t use them.

When I tell you to practice the Amish Horse Training Method, and I explain that the way it goes is that the Amish farmer ties the young horse in training to a pole next to a busy highway, and leaves it to deal with the noise of the highway for 30-60 days. Continue reading “The connection between how you listen and how alive you are…”