Life advice, from unlikely sources.

[EddieWalker]

You always find things in the last place you look, so look there first.

Bruce

I forget how old I was, but I was pretty young when I realized that the reason it's the last place you look was because you found it and stopped looking.

I don't know why that stuck with me, but it's something that makes me laugh at myself for not knowing that until the day I did.

 

[ponytug]

I forget how old I was, but I was pretty young when I realized that the reason it's the last place you look was because you found it and stopped looking.

I don't know why that stuck with me, but it's something that makes me laugh at myself for not knowing that until the day I did.

So true.
It's the same with the old adage bout always breaking your leg on the last run down the slopes...

All the best, Peter

 

[dodge man]

Kind of like a ratchet going the wrong way when you first pick it up. Most likely the last thing you did was tighten something when you put it away and when you get it out you’ll loosen something first thing.

 

[Highlandr]

My uncle says, "People ask what I'd do if I won the lottery. I tell 'em I'll keep farming 'til it's gone." (everybody's heard that). Then he would add, "Ain't no chance of that happening though. The lottery is a tax on stupid people."

Always drink upstream from the herd.

 

[Sigarms]

My father...

"I brought into this world, I can take you out of this world"

"You can take this one of two ways... either stand like a man or take it, or you can run around all over the place with your head cut off like a chicken, but you're still going to get it"

No, my father never beat me, and I loved him dearly after age 28 or so (Mark Twain was right on dads), but he did lay me on my butt sometimes growing up and he did give me some swats when I was a kid. He was only perhaps 5'2" (joke was he was the runt of the family or he had a different dad because most of his brothers were 6' or higher) and had a weight of no more than 130 pounds. He only put me on my butt a couple of times, but I deserved it because I thought I could muscle him around when I got bigger and heavier in my teens years LOL

Dad was small, but extremely quick, and he helped to teach me how to defend myself growing up, as he did get into some martial arts when he was in Korea in the early 50's.

I did get into a scuffle one time in high school. His other advice (and it worked) was always "if a couple or more guys are going to mix it up with you with their fists, always go after the biggest one first, lay him on his butt and most of the others will run away because only cowards will gang up on one guy".

I think my dad might have been picked on growing up due to his physical size LOL

 

[WinterDeere]

From dad, when I canibalized one of his tools for parts to fix my RC car: "Don't break a $10 tool for a $0.50 part."

From my first boss: "Only work for your money once. After that, make your money work for you."

From my last boss: "Don't create a storm in a teacup."

From my predecessor and mentor, when I asked him what a doctor would say about our almost-daily mug of beer with lunch: "I've known more old drunks than old doctors."

 

[Sigarms]

From my first boss: "Only work for your money once. After that, make your money work for you."

From a older guy high up in the food chain at work when I interviewed for a promotion a long time ago, when during my conversation with him I mentioned "to be honest with you", he cut me off in mid sentence and asked me "do you normally lie?"

He made his point and to this day will ask people the same thing if they tell me "to be honest with you" LOL

 

[RSKY]

My father...

"I brought into this world, I can take you out of this world"

"You can take this one of two ways... either stand like a man or take it, or you can run around all over the place with your head cut off like a chicken, but you're still going to get it"

No, my father never beat me, and I loved him dearly after age 28 or so (Mark Twain was right on dads), but he did lay me on my butt sometimes growing up and he did give me some swats when I was a kid. He was only perhaps 5'2" (joke was he was the runt of the family or he had a different dad because most of his brothers were 6' or higher) and had a weight of no more than 130 pounds. He only put me on my butt a couple of times, but I deserved it because I thought I could muscle him around when I got bigger and heavier in my teens years LOL

Dad was small, but extremely quick, and he helped to teach me how to defend myself growing up, as he did get into some martial arts when he was in Korea in the early 50's.

I did get into a scuffle one time in high school. His other advice (and it worked) was always "if a couple or more guys are going to mix it up with you with their fists, always go after the biggest one first, lay him on his butt and most of the others will run away because only cowards will gang up on one guy".

I think my dad might have been picked on growing up due to his physical size LOL

Makes me think of my dad and uncle. We were standing by the stables when my dad's younger brother pulled up and got out of his car. I was about twelve years old. Dad looked at me and said, "You always let him whip your a$$ when he comes up. If you let him today it will be nothing like the a$$ whipping you're gonna get once he leaves!" Ahem......well, the uncle grabbed me and tried to throw me on the ground and he got me down on my knees but I fought back with everything I had and soon put my uncle down, straddled him, and held him down. He started laughing and that was the last time he rough-housed me or picked on me in any way.

RSKY

 

[Sigarms]

Makes me think of my dad and uncle. We were standing by the stables when my dad's younger brother pulled up and got out of his car. I was about twelve years old. Dad looked at me and said, "You always let him whip your a$$ when he comes up. If you let him today it will be nothing like the a$$ whipping you're gonna get once he leaves!" Ahem......well, the uncle grabbed me and tried to throw me on the ground and he got me down on my knees but I fought back with everything I had and soon put my uncle down, straddled him, and held him down. He started laughing and that was the last time he rough-housed me or picked on me in any way.

RSKY

Lone Pine Sportsmans Club in Middle Port Pa, I was maybe around 10, and my dad and uncle took me out to shoot the shotgun.

After I shot, I accidentally swiped the barrel across my uncles chest when I turned to talk to my dad.

My uncle literally gave me a swift kick in the arse, I was taken by surprised, it hurt, and he told me in a stern voice to NEVER swipe a barrel of a gun across someone, and I went crying my eyes out to my father.

My dad looked at me and said "don't come crying to me, if you would have done that to me, I would have kicked you harder".

Thought my dad and uncle were mean at the time, but the funny thing is I ALWAYS remember that lesson AFTER that, even though they told me not to do it beforehand. I wasn't thinking handling that gun, and that's what gets people killed.

Whenever I took my boys out back to shoot years ago, I always reminded them of that story, and that you don't handle a firearm without thinking.

Always remember that club because it's where I caught my first fish as a young kid. Instead of reeling the fish in, I turned around and ran as fast as I could to drag him out of the pond. I was so excited I didn't notice the burn barrel and ran right into it. Dad always remembered that story LOL

 

[Sigarms]

Love it! LOL

 

[BackRoad]

My best advice was learned from my grandfather, while at the age of 8. He said go wash your hands with hot water before supper. So I went and used the hot water faucet as instructed, but it took 2 minutes for hot water to actually show up, and no 8 year old has 2 minutes to spare just to wash hands.

Sure nuff, he asked if I used hot water. "Yes" I said, and so WE walked into the bathroom to check. Now technically, I used the hot water faucet, but when he turned it on, there was no hot water for a verrrry long, dreadful 60 seconds...

"Never lie boy!"

He said as the razor strop thwacked on the back of my legs for the third time...

That moment of education stuck with me for the last 60 years...and was the bedrock of a great career.

The people I worked with, along with my clients somehow knew I was never going to lie, even if there were going to be downstream negative results...

When you're the one responsible for the running of critical operations, you can never lie, or your career is over...

 

[Eagle1]

Brutally honest..... was my policy as a guy that had to fix your equipment when others failed.

How can a business make decisions without good facts? My estimates were best case and worst case and told them to plan for worst case. Get it up early everyone is happy but the plans were in place just in case.

 

[Sigarms]

The people I worked with, along with my clients somehow knew I was never going to lie, even if there were going to be downstream negative results...

I've done ok for myself dealing with people even though I prefer my dogs over most people LOL

I've told more than one friend / customer of mine it's funny, you can spend thousands of dollars for "sales training classes", but the ONLY reason why I consider myself somewhat successful is I only try to treat people the same way I expect to treat myself.

Luke 6:31 and Matthew 7:12.

I swear, if it weren't for the New Testament, I'd be an atheist LOL

Like anything dealing with a higher power, sometimes it takes time in your beliefs, and you may not see the results right away, but when you look back over 30 years and see how things played out, it pretty much turned out OK even if you didn't see it at that moment in time.

I do a lot of commercial work. I found out I screwed something up big time when I got a call from the guy on the roof with the crane. I told the guy I messed up and I would make it right (have a long winded reason as to why I screwed up), but he laughed and told me that is what he needed to hear.

Sometimes people get mad at me because after that happened in 1999, I'm over **** retentive on details, but I know not to make the same mistake twice.

TEST - ****. (got to love AI or whatever it is, I tried to type a n a l, go figure...)

You know your getting old because I knew a company I dealt with is using AI on texts. Called the owner and explained to him that I would be like screw this scrap with AI trying to figure everything out if I were his customer. He agreed with me and told me it was his son who wanted it LOL. Owner told me it's the "new generation". kind of glad I'll be gone in another 30 years or so (God willing).

 

[Paddy]

best advice I ever received was from my wife's grandmother
"If its worth having, then its worth working for it"

This grandmother was a good example of that wisdom. In the depression, she walked into a law office in our small town and she she would work for no pay for 6 months just to learn a trade. On her last day she started packing up the few things she had. They asked "what are you doing??"
She said "It's the end of my 6 months"

They offered her a full time job doing land abstracts, 5 years later she quit and open her own abstracting biz. Pass it on to my wife decades later.

So when I asked her if I should go back to school and work on getting my engineering degree, she said, "If its worth having, then its worth working for it"

 

[Complete Turf Care]

Working at a large farm supply company, I had a customer who was known to be a jerk, and he wanted a very complicated order delivered in a few hours. I told him we couldn't do it. He asked to speak to the boss.

A few minutes later the boss came to my desk and said "Deliver this order. You don't ever tell a customer who wants to buy something from you that you can't deliver!" I worked at that company for another 10 years and found a way to deliver every order.