“You Own This”

Posted on 10/12/2013 by Grumpa Joe

When I began this blog my intended goal was to preach the benefits of human potential, or the power of positive thinking. I still preach allot but not much on positive thinking. In fact, I find myself struggling to stay positive in a transformative government. You see, I don’t want the country transformed. What I see coming is something everyone will hate, even the notorious millennium generation. They are just too young and idyllic to understand now.

I received an e-mail from my young son living in Texas. He isn’t so young anymore, but he is my baby. Mike, it turns out, is a better writer and a better motivator than his dad will ever dream of being.  Mike has three kids, all are gems.(This is where I preach about how great my grand kids are. I do so only because they are). Mike’s three kids are all swimmers. I mean swimmers who get up at 5:00 am to go to the pool to workout before school, and then they go to the pool after school to work out, They spend their weekends at swim meets, they live for swimming, academics, and music. I spoke to Mike last week and he told me that he was taking his daughter Abbey to a swim meet at Texas A&M. His wife Lisa was taking Danny to a swim meet closer to home.

This morning I told myself that I will have to call and get details of how they did. As I sat waiting for Peg’s foot to soak after a surgery I found his e-mail. I read it and tears of joy streamed down my face. Here is Mike’s account of  Abbey’s swim meet at Texas A&M last Saturday.

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1650 meters.  

5413.39 feet.
Just over 1 mile.
For swimmers, the 1650 is the ultimate endurance and conditioning race….66 laps.
 
 
Your grand daughter Abbey competed in her first 1650 meter free style event this weekend at Texas A&M University Champions Swim Meet.  Her coach told her that she would experience several emotions during this race: pain, anguish, quitting, crying, asking “why am I doing this?”  He also told her that she would experience physical signs, burning legs, burning arms, burning lungs, thumbing heart.  He was telling her what she didn’t want to hear, the truth.  I was lucky enough to be on deck timing for this event for Abbey.  I know better than to interrupt per pre-swim ritual and concentration, so I sat there watching her psych herself up for the pain.  Before getting on the block, she looked at me, and I told her: “You own this”.  She proceeded to get on the block, and prepare for the start.
 
The horn sounded, and she was off.  She looked very strong, and very consistent with her breathing.  Every 4 strokes of her arms, I’d see her head turn and come up for air.  Her split times were very consistent, almost to the tenth of a second.  She looked like a finely tuned engine in the water.  After 20 laps, she was still keeping her splits.  Her breathing pattern was not as consistent, sometimes going four strokes, sometimes 2, sometimes 3.  It’s obvious the burn had started.  
 
After 40 laps, her splits were amazingly consistent with the start of the race.  Her breathing was not as in synch, but she looked strong.  After 60 laps, her pace was still on.  By this point, I think I was feeling more emotions than she was.  She had told me she had 2 goals for this race, the first, to finish, the second, to finish in under 20 minutes.  As the last few laps were counted, down, she still maintained her initial pace.  
 
After the 66th lap, she came in strong, touched the wall, and I hit the button on the stop watch.  I looked down to see Abbey needed any help getting out of the pool.  She stayed in the water for a moment, so I gazed down at the stop watch.  She finished the race in 18:53:33!!!  That is an AA time for this event.  My mouth dropped open. I looked up and saw her drying off.  She wanted to see the time, so I showed it to her.  She looked at me and smiled, then went off to get her post-race talk with Coach Trent.  
 
I asked her if she had gone through those waves of emotions like her coach mentioned, and she said “not really”.  Then she told me “it wasn’t that bad”.
 
Here is a picture of the facility at Texas A&M, as well as her “reloading” on a nice big chocolate brownie after lunch.  You can still see how red she is in the picture.  This was at least 30 minutes after the event.  She actually went back into the warm down pool and swam a bit to cool down after the 1650!!
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A Major Milestone Reached

Posted on 29/07/2013 by Grumpa Joe
God Blesses America

God Blesses America

This is my 1000th post, and I am proud that I reached it. When I began blogging, I never imagined that I would ever reach 1000. In fact at the beginning of 2013, I saw 1000 as too far in the future. Well, it happened. This post will make me happy only if it is meaningful and memorable.  To begin, I decided to copy post number one and republish my thoughts from 1000 posts ago.

Here is Post Number One:

Well the words “income tax,” required that I really get myself motivated to file. Nothing like the drudgery of  looking through old receipts and bank statements to get one excited. I scheduled two days for the task. They came and went, Then I scheduled another two days to do taxes. Again they came and went. Finally, I told myself that a great reward awaits me if I start and finish in one day. What was my reward?  A walk in the park. That is exactly what I did today. I completed the bloody 1040 and then went for a nice long walk. I didn’t mind the cold or the drizzle. It felt good compared to the drudge of filing.

Motivation is about playing tricks with your mind. Promising yourself little perks as rewards for completion of tasks is one of them. Try it, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish. 

At the time, Grumpajoesplace was a blog about developing human potential. I dreamed of teaching people to learn how to visualize, how to prioritize, how to carry out goals. For a while, I did just that. I posted hints about how to set a goal, how to break things down into baby steps, and how to work on the right things. I spoke about defining High Payoff Activities. I quickly ran out of things to write about, but kept going anyway. Then, the campaign for the 2008 presidential election began. The campaign rhetoric reminded me of things I had heard before. It wasn’t like I heard the same old, same old stuff that politicians spew, it was a line of communist rhetoric cleverly disguised to intoxicate the masses. That is when this blog “transformed” into something different. I couldn’t just sit by and watch the country drink the Kool-Aid of communist socialist bull crap.

I am old enough to remember when Fidel Castro was a bright energetic freedom fighter who wanted nothing but to overthrow Batista the Cuban dictator. Fidel was charismatic, and a very good speaker. We all admired him and even the US Government became intoxicated on his rhetoric. Fidel managed to overthrow the dictator and run him out-of-town. Then he changed colors and turned Cuba into a communist socialist state overnight. He even stunned our government.

I listened to the speeches of Obama, but I heard the voice of Fidel Castro selling his socialist bullshit.

Now, we have a divided country too dumb to understand that Obama is a Muslim Socialist. They are too dumb to understand that they are selling their personal liberty for a welfare state, and they elected him a second time.

It is funny that my first post was about the IRS, I bad mouthed them in number one, and I’m not sorry I did. They are ruthless, evil union workers who extort “We the People” for every last nickel we owe. Why is it that the Tax Collectors are always considered bad guys in the Bible?

For a long time, I concentrated on the campaign exclusively, but I tired of it. That is when I sat down and brainstormed a new approach, I decided to mix up the blog-content by injecting my personal interests along with the Obama bashing. It became fun again. That is why I include stories about the silly Wabbits who eat my flowers under “Wabbit Wars,” and review books and movies. Since Peggy and I travel some, I post travel exploits and photos under the “Burning Gas” series, and I show off my passion for flower gardening with flower photos, usually under the “Monet Vision” series. I cannot forget the cartoons which allow me to exploit my artistic drive. More recently I have begun to include articles by other bloggers who share similar views and who write some pretty convincing articles. I thank them for allowing me to “reblog” their work.

Thanks to all my followers and readers who have faithfully supported me by reading my stuff. I intend to reach two thousand posts quicker than it did to get to one thousand (64 months).

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Which Will It Be? Human Potential, Or Human Destruction?

Posted on 03/09/2009 by Grumpa Joe

Abraham Maslow created a theory which is presented graphically with the pyramid shown at the left in the cartoon below.  His theory is broadly taught in classes about human potential and motivation. I for one, strongly agree with his analysis. When a person is hungry, and cold without food or shelter, it is very hard for him to think about finding himself. All he thinks about is where the next meal is coming from. My life has closely followed this pyramid of needs. I am first now, at age seventy-something working at self actualization. It wasn’t easy to get to this point in life, and now I see a threat to my actually reaching the top of the pyramid. The threat is the “Wedge of Destruction,” as shown in the right panel of the cartoon. It represents the complete opposite of the pyramid of needs. It is a reverse pyramid, balanced on its tip. It is bound to fail, but not without destroying the USA in the process. We are headed toward becoming a “banana republic” which is mediocrity at its best. Let’s continue to redistribute the wealth, lose  liberties, and allow the government to make us wards of the state by complete submission.

Maslow's Pyriamid Of Need vs Obama's Wedge of Destruction

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He Has A Lot To Learn

Posted on 25/09/2008 by Grumpa Joe

Multi-tasking is not the modus operandi of a true leader. Multi-tasking is the result of a lack of focus. True leaders identify the problems facing their organization. They assess the problems to determine which ones have the greatest impact on the company. They prioritize using the 80/20 rule, i.e. eighty percent of the benefit comes from twenty percent of the effort. Once they know which problem is the correct one to solve first, they attack it with a vengeance. It is clear to me that BO has never had any real experience in a business situation where a solution to the number one problem will make the difference between success and failure. Had he taken the most elementary course in productivity, he would know that the principle is simple.  Define your problems, prioritize, keep your desk clear, and then attack the most important project with a vengeance. Why a clear desk? Clutter will cause one to lose focus from the task at hand. Everywhere the eyes turn they see another task to perform, and the mind takes you there. It is proven that the conscious mind can only concentrate on one task at a time. So the very concept of multi-tasking implies a mind that is skipping from project to project rapidly. The gurus of human potential tell us to clear the mind of all extraneous thought in order to concentrate on one task at a time. By concentrating on one project at a time with focus, there is a gain in productivity.

BO’s sophomoric remark about a president having to multi-task was rather naive. There is a difference between talking on the phone while driving, and working on a number of projects. Presidents do have huge numbers of problems before them, but I can’t imagine the president sitting on the pot, signing bills, and talking to a world leader all at the same time. It is proven that the conscious mind can only work on one thing at a time. Multi-taskers kid themselves into believing that performing many disconnected tasks during slack times is productive. Yes, we all have many things on our plates, and sometimes we all read e-mails while we talk on the phone, but is that the same as brainstorming solutions to a crisis such as the sub-prime mortgage bailout, and preparation for a debate? I hardly believe that a president will try to squeeze a phone call to the Kremlin into a bill signing ceremony. Each task requires concentration. Yes, the president is required to squeeze many activities into his schedule, but multi-tasking would seem to be the behavior of a person unfocused on the important.

Had BO learned the most basic rule of human potential, he would have learned that the key to effectiveness is focus on the correct things. BO prioritized, and chose his preparation for a presidential debate as the most important project on his plate. Senator John McCain prioritized and chose to “save” his country as his most important mission. In doing so, John McCain exhibited the traits of a proven leader. BO proved that he has a lot to learn.

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