“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” Bruce Lee

Most people are guilty of analysis paralysis from time to time. Some times there are legitimate reasons for needing to do more analysis before taking action such as when we need to consider consequences for actions or compare alternatives. As the old cliche goes, “haste makes waste.” However, most of us fail to take action because we are afraid of failing. When we imagine that we might fail, we fear looking silly or stupid which, in turn, we fear will damage our worth as a person. Continue reading →

Good judgement comes from life experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgement.

This is another observation from the guy on the tractor seat. This brings to mind a conversation I had the other day with a former student. This young woman graduated a couple of years ago and is shocked and dismayed to find that after two whole years in the job market, she isn’t the manager of her department yet. When I asked her why she thought she hadn’t moved up the ladder as fast as she expected, she said: “My manager says that I don’t have the life experience I need yet. She says I need to make a lot more mistakes and learn from them before I can manage others who make mistakes.” I asked her whether she believed her manager had a valid point, and she begrudgingly allowed that the woman might be right. Continue reading →

I recently received an email from my daughter with a list of “wise sayings from the seat of a tractor.” Of course, the implication is that you don’t need to be a Ph.D. to understand some basic rules for relationships. Since I totally agree, I am going to share some of this “wisdom” over the course of the next week or so.

Letting the cat out of the bag is a whole lot easier than putting it back in.

Anyone who has ever had their trust betrayed or who has betrayed the trust of another knows how damaging this can be. We learn very quickly that trust once damaged or destroyed is seldom ever completely regained. Although we may be able to forgive people for their betrayals, we seldom forget. And as the old saying goes, “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Trust is hard to gain, and easy to lose. It only takes a quick slip of the tongue or a thoughtless comment to destroy long-time relationships because, once those words are said, we can’t stuff them back in our mouths and pretend like they were never uttered. Continue reading →