What are your expectations?

I was at Starbucks this morning. There were 23 people in line. No one was mad. Everyone waited patiently for their fix. It's amazing to me the brand lock-in that Starbucks has. And amazingly, people don't have a problem paying $3.00 for coffee in a paper cup, nearly twice the cost of having it in a mug across the street at the local "greasy spoon" with endless refills. I wonder why?

After I doctored up my joe, I left and on my way to my car, a homeless person looked at me and asked, "Do you have any spare change?" Have you ever really thought of this line? Why would someone who needs money, only ask for change? I looked at him asked him, "Is that all you want is change?" "Or, do you want dollars?" What do you really want I asked. "Do you want a job?" "Do you want to work?" He said he would like more than change but didn't know what to do. I said if you want to work, then I can get you more than change - but you have to decide. Life will give you what you ask from it as long as you are responsible. But if all you do is look for handouts, you will probably always end up with change. He never answered me so I gave him.....

Quotable Satch

Baseball is in full “swing”. You may recall the name Satchel Paige. Everyone’s thinking that a couple of months ago it was his 103rd birthday, but it doesn’t much matter. He’s a legend. He played professional baseball for 40 years. He finally quit when he was 60, after pitching 3 shut-out innings for the Kansas City Athletics.

I was reading about him in USA Today and just loved a lot of his musings and quotes, so I thought I’d share them with you.

“Don’t look back. Something might be catching up with you.”

“We don’t stop playing because we get old. We get old because we stop playing.”

“Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man that got to be common.”

“Don’t pray when it rains, if you don’t pray when the sun shines.”

“You win a few, you lose a few. Some get rained out. But you got to dress for all of them.”

“I ain’t ever had a job, I just always played baseball.”

“Mother always told me, if you tell a lie, always rehearse it. If it don’t sound good to you, it won’t sound good to no one else.”

Sage advice for us all. I value our relationship.

Todd

How to Have Certainty in an Uncertain Market

How does the song go…”another one bites the dust.” I’m saddened right now that some key mortgage companies and banks are going out of business. Big ones and smaller ones alike – the fall of the mortgage industry is not biased per se. Some companies are getting blindsided. Some perhaps could have avoided this. But make no mistake, we are in real times and the collateral damage is very real. It may be masked by the false sense of sustainable success because of the refinance volume over the last five months but if you don’t get back to some smart planning and doing, you could be doomed.

So how do you have certainty in times of uncertainty? Plant seeds like you have never planted before. There’s an excerpt from The Season’s of Life by Jim Rohn I stumbled on called The Spring:

Following the turbulence of winter comes the season of activity and opportunity called spring. It is the season for entering the fertile fields of life with seed, knowledge, commitment and a determined effort. It is not a time to linger, nor to ponder the possibilities of failure. Foolish is the one who would allow springtime to pass while dwelling upon the memory of the successful crop last fall or the failure to reap last fall in spite of the massive efforts last spring.

It is a natural characteristic of springtime to present itself ever so briefly or to lull us into inactivity with its bounteous beauty. Do not pause too long to soak in the aroma of the blossoming flowers, lest you awaken to find springtime gone, with your seed still in your sack.

Good luck as you prepare for the harvest