Things I wish someone would have told me…

I was asked to give a 30 minute presentation to a group of high school students  this morning at a job  and career fair.

I was asked to talk about on how I got into construction, what I look for  when hiring someone, etc.

I wanted to tell them  things I wish someone would have told me when I was their age…

Here are some of my notes…

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When I was your age, I did not have a clue as to what I wanted to do when I finished high school.   I felt the pressure of having to decide what I wanted to do with my life and I               just            didn’t                    know.

Several of my peers were planning to attend a state university.  (currently this year, that school would cost you about $21,800 for room, board and tuition)

I thought to myself , why spend thousands and thousands of dollars  just to party????   (I could do that and still live @ home)

So, I decided to work for a year in construction, save up some $ and see where things were at in a year.

My grandma was very disappointed her eldest grandson decided  not to go to college…

After a year , I realized I LOVED my job.

I loved the variety of what we did.

I poured cement, assembled metal buildings….

I loved the fact that my job moved around.

I loved that my job kept me in shape.

It was mentally stimulating.

The pay was good  and the potential was there to make more.

My days would just fly by.

What I’m telling you is,  I got into construction by accident.

Years later, I came across this quote that has become one of the touch stones of my life:

“Do what you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

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Quick story about my sister

My sister Karen  is a realtor

She  gets   paid on commission….no sales/ no paycheck

Ask:

Does anyone have any idea what a realtor makes?  (  answer: they gross between  3% to 7% on a sale typically)

So, if she sells a $150,000 house, she will gross between $4,500 and $10,500 for that one sale.

Karen  was telling me about some training her company was paying for her to attend…my ears perked up when she told me it was being put on by Dale Carnegie. Their seminars on leadership training are  not cheap/  but the information they cover can translate into thousands of additional dollars in the course of your lifetime.

If I had the  money, I would pay for each and every one of you to be able to attend.

It  is just that good.

I can’t do that, but I can do the next best thing….  I can tell you where to go to get the information they cover and it won’t cost you a cent.

You don’t even have to buy a book.  You can check it out @ your local library:

How to Win Friends and Influence People.

It is an easy read.

I read it 25 years ago and  to this day, I regularly apply things I learned from that book.

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Finally, I want to talk to you about the unlimited earning power of your mind.

If I get paid by the hour, there is only so much I can make in a week…if I get paid $10.00 per hour, and work 40 hours, that’s $400 gross.  If I really bust my chops and work 60 hours..that’s $600 a week.  but that’s a long week.  Even if I were to get paid $25  or $50 an hour..there is only so much I can make by myself…

Let’s say I start my own business…XYZ painting company.

I have 2 employees.  So in addition to my hourly rate, I also can make additional $ off the people  that works for me.  I pay them a good wage….plus overhead..and when it’s all said and done, I might make an additional $10.00 per hour off each employee..so not only am I making $25.00 on myself, but also an additional $10.00 per hour on my co-worker.

Then let’s say I bid on painting a parking lot…I bid it for $2,000 and get the job…we end up getting done early…after expenses I make an additional $500.00…so not only do I make my hourly wage, plus profit on my employees, I also make an additional $500 profit on the job…  I am now  working with my mind, in addition to my hourly paycheck.

Nobody ever talked to me about these things when I was your age..they just encouraged me to get a job.

I would encourage each and every one of you to think about starting your own business.

An honest profit is not a dirty word.

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Finally, I want to talk to you about the importance of knowing how to get along with  people.

There is more to a job than just having a skill.

You can be the best finish carpenter in the world, but if you have a dark, brooding personality, I won’t want to work with you.

People are people…sometimes when I order something through the lumberyard, things happen.  maybe it get’s lost, or back ordered, or there’s a mistake.  If I get angry and chew out the person on the other end of the phone…how are they going to feel?  (maybe hurt/ then get mad)  I guarantee you they are not going to recommend me to the person that comes to the store looking for a good contractor.  So keep that in mind when you’re dealing with people.

Learn how to get along with people and you will go far.

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and finally, here’s a link  titled
A modern take on Carnegie’s how to win friends and influence people

Starting a farm co-op

A co-op:  An autonomous association of persons who voluntarily  cooperate for their mutual social, economic, and cultural benefit.

I attended an organizational meeting of a new local food coop  getting set up in our area.

It got my wheels turning  (again)

Why not start my own mini farm-coop?

First project : raise free range chickens

I floated the  idea on face-book a couple of weeks ago.

I have been thinking I would like to raise (20) to (25) free range chickens this Summer  and wondered out loud if anyone else in our area would be interested in going into partnership with us.

I had (4)  families jump @ the opportunity…..

All were young families with children living inside city limits so it was not something they could do on their own, even if they wanted to.

We live on 4 and 1/2 acres so there is lots of room to experiment.

It is just about as easy to take care of 100 as it is 25.

The chickens will arrive April 12

We will let them mature into sometime late August..and when they are ready, we’ll have an old fashioned “chicken butchering party” …just like your grandpa used to do.

We will share the costs equally and all pitch in on butchering day.

One of the young mothers had obviously been thinking about this for a while….

I’m guessing she’ s been looking forward to the day when they had a place of their own in the country.

She asked if I would consider getting some Heritage breeds, and using Organic feed to supplement their free range foraging.

(Chickens only get 3% of their caloric intake from foraging so you have to supplement their diet with something)

“Why not?” I said.

We ended up picking (3) different breeds…

I can’t wait to take pictures  as they mature!!!!

(the pictures below are some I found on the Internet so I would know what they will look like)

Black Australorp’s

Silver laced Wynadotte

Rhode Island Red

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It’s too late this time around to be a part of this adventure, but let me know if you’d like to be a part of something like this next year.

Even if you’re coming from a distance, (I live in Iowa)  there’s nothing to say you couldn’t schedule a trip here the weekend we butcher.

Please don’t leave any nasty comments on how cruel I am, etc. etc. etc….

I’ll just delete them.

I do believe I will answer for how I treat the animals in my  care….

and I  also believe there is a reason my teeth are designed to eat meat as well as vegetables.

Well, it’s been a long day.

I filled (7) raised garden beds full of dirt,  planted  (5) apple trees, (450) hills of russet  potatoes

….and a 400 sq foot patch of grain.

I’m beat.  g-nite. DM

Row of seed potatoes before they were covered up

Wheel barrow full of seed potatoes

Sometimes less is more

The Native Americans called it “Beautiful Land”

I call it…..

]

home…

Took these pictures the last few mornings….

Thought if someone stopped by my blog, I would have the coffee on….

Got three minutes for a cup?

If  a couple of these pictures look familiar, you may have seem  them on my farm blog last night..

Anyway, this is going to be a shorter post,

and that’s OK

Sometimes, less is more.  DM

Occupy Yourself

by Miles Patrick Yohnke
(Canada)

“With credit card shopping available in one hand and my smartphone in the other, I’m living the current American dream…”

Recently, I was asked why I didn’t have the latest computer. Why didn’t I have a smartphone, and why was I not on any social medias given what computers can do today. My current computer seems to give me all the tools needed to express myself. During my life in the 80′s and 90′s, I had the latest (ahead of the curve if you will) of technology. Or so I thought. In reality, I was way behind the real curve. As I didn’t spend that time developing me. Upgrading me. I should have been the latest model or version. We should develop (place your name here) 2.0, 3.0, 4.0S, etc, versions of ourselves instead. Daily.

In the 2010 documentary film by Charles Ferguson entitled: “Inside Job,” (the film that helped spark the occupy movement), Ferguson brings us into the worlds of many so-called powerful people, including Chairman and CEO Richard S. Fuld Jr. of Lehman Brothers.

Richard S. Fuld Jr.’s face had been observed to be the universal symbol of Wall Street greed. On Oct. 6, 2008 (three weeks after Lehman Brothers filed the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history), he apparently walked away from Lehman’s a wealthy man who had earned $485 million. But taxpayers were reported to be left with a $700 billion dollar tax bill to rescue Wall Street and an economy in crisis.

According to the film, Richard S. Fuld Jr. has a $14,000,000 oceanfront home in Florida, a summer getaway home in Sun Valley, Idaho (filled with millions of dollars of paintings). He owns not one nor two, but six corporate jets, a 767, and a helicopter. This is along with many more luxurious properties.

Charles Ferguson goes on to interview Glenn Hubbard (who used to be the chief economic advisor to George Bush and is now the dean of Columbia Business School). Martin Feldstein (Professor of Economics at Harvard) is also interviewed. It appears that Fuld Jr., Feldstein, and Hubbard had misled the American people. For their own personal gains from greed. In the film and in watching them in many other programs, I find both men come off looking terribly stupid. Especially considering their statures. Weak. Insecure. They seem to demonstrate a lack of knowledge towards the basic fundamentals of life, which is also alarming, given the positions that they are presently in.

“Try not to become a man of success but a man of value,” said Albert Einstein.

Do Richard S. Fuld Jr., Martin Feldstein, or Glenn Hubbard’s lives have any value?

Can we truly blame them? I mean everywhere we turn, our modern world is so inundated with marketing and advertising that has one goal and one goal only. And that is to make a product so attractive that the consumer feels a need or desire to possess it in order to feel fulfilled or popular or happy.

Society tells us that if we have this car, we are somehow better than another. That if we live in this type of home, we are somehow better off than others. If we have this type of clothes, again, we are somehow better. Though the real story is that the woman or man is doing all this to be liked.

Glenn Hubbard, Martin Feldstein and Richard S. Fuld Jr. just wanted to be liked. From their current body language, pitch of voice, and how they conduct themselves, to me they still remain insecure people.

This is just it. We all want to be liked. In fact, it’s a basic human need, the need for acceptance. From the executive to the janitor, we just want to be liked. The problem comes in when we think our value is based on what we have, what we do, who we are. Our outer world mirrors our inner reality. To the extent that we seek to obtain the outer trappings of wealth, fame, and power, is to the extent that we reveal that within we need validation, somebody to tell us we are good enough because we don’t feel good about ourselves. We are all struggling!

These men and their lack of self-respect are obvious to the inquisitive. They forgot to develop themselves. To enrich their own being. You can’t buy respect.

Media like to put people like them on pedestals. People kiss their butts. They believe they’re all this or that. But arrogance doesn’t lead to self-respect. Nor does being inflated by media attention.

Oprah Winfrey is another great case. I believe any person that has to have their face on each and every issue of their own magazine just screams insecure. Have I proven myself to you yet? Am I good enough? Am I worthy?

When you love yourself, you’re much more likely to be loving to others. People with sincerely good self-esteem have much less or little need to demean others. When you respect yourself, you’re much more likely to respect others.

Glenn Hubbard, Martin Feldstein and Richard S. Fuld Jr.’s behaviors show their true self-images. People who love themselves don’t sabotage their careers or do such blatantly stupid things.

Their actions show what a superficially inflated level of happiness they have. Low self-images. Money, expensive possessions, and career success don’t translate into happiness. It begins from inside and radiates out.

Social medias are not really about connecting. It is a platform for self. Let’s talk about me. Myspace should hook up with Facebook and you’d have MyFace. For the most part this is what it is really all about. Yeah, look at me. ME ME ME. What one posts or tweets about is mostly mundane with little value and disconnects us long-term. From self.

I truly believe that if you want to create a healthy and honourable movement, you’ll start by occupying yourself first. Developing and upgrading your own being. Upgrading your mind. Upgrading your own hard-drive. We must input new data. My input determines my output. Garbage in, garbage out. Good in, good out. You must now download anti-virus software of truth to rid your hard drives of self pity, indecision, doubt, greed, ego, low self esteem. Downloading apps of love, joy and peace to your own soul.

We need to stop and take ownership of our lives. To develop and accept that happiness isn’t within possessions. Happiness lies within us. If one wants to change the world, one must first change themselves. Occupy yourself.

As Dr. Suess said: “We can, we got to do better than this.”

By Miles Patrick Yohnke

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I (DM) read this one this morning on facebook…it was a keeper and wanted to pass it on.

To my great, great, great, grand daughter…

You came to mind this morning

a hundred years from me,

My daughter’s

daughter’s

daughter….

a hundred years from me.

There’s some things I  want to tell you

Bout  things  that shouldn’t be.

about the world

you woke up in this morning.

100 years from me…..

I think about my grandpa,

and his grandpa too

I wonder if they ever

gave much thought

bout the things

they’d say and do

the choices that  generation made

are landing at  my feet

We used to have 4 foot of top soil

Now it’s measured in inches

And now our leaders  spend like drunken fools

  you’ll be picking up the tab

I want you to know I wasn’t for it

I spoke out  for what it’s worth

“We’re  sorry” just don’t cut it,

hollow words

to my ears they sound.

We’ve got to live with a long term view

if we hope you’ll be around….

You came to mind this morning

a hundred years from me,

My daughter’s

daughter’s

daughter….

a hundred years from me….

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I  wrote this poem  Fathers day of 2009 so you may have seen this one before. I was reading some poetry my mom wrote this afternoon about her family and it  got me to thinking. DM

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You may have seen this video before, especially if you’re a long time reader of my blog.

It’s worth watching again if you haven’t seen it in a while.

it’s called “Generations” by Sarah Groves…

This line makes me think every time

“Generations will reap what I sow,

I can pass on, a curse or a blessing, to those I will never know…”