As children, we were taught that once we started working, we had our choice of either a blue or white-collar job. For as long as we can remember, that was the norm. You went to school and got a white-collar job, or you skipped school and started working right away at a blue-collar job. We could be a worker, or …
The Other Side of Fear
Fear. The word itself strikes (ahem) fear in our hearts. Fear is often defined as an important psychological response to a physical or emotional danger. For our ancestors, fear was incredibly important. It’s what kept them safe and allowed them to survive. They would be afraid of an erupting volcano, and head to safety. Hungry predators would strike fear in …
Leadership
Being a professional home inspector is an interesting job. We get paid to go into a stranger’s home, walk around testing stuff, opening things, and generally checking to make sure that all the different items in a house are functioning like they should. We do our investigating, we report our findings, and we’re on our way, out the door, heading …
The End Game
In business, as in life, there’s usually a goal (or there should be a goal) behind everything we do. In the back of our minds, we should always be cognizant of the effect that our current actions could have on our ultimate objectives. If we don’t keep our eyes on the prize, those goals are going to be difficult to …
What Do You Want?
It’s a fact of life: we’ve all got to work for a living. One way or another, we’ve got to do something to make money. It’s hard to live in today’s world without an income. If we like food, shelter, and the creature comforts available in our modern world, we’ve got to figure out a way to earn money to …
Riding the Elevator
The elevator pitch. It’s a phrase we often hear in the business world, and unfortunately it’s something that we all do in our own businesses. Is giving the elevator pitch always the right thing to for us to do? How’s that working for us? And what the hell does it really mean, anyway? Wikipedia says an elevator pitch is a …
How to Get SMART in the New Year
As I’m writing this article, it’s two days before January 1st. The start of a new year is always a time of reflection, thinking back on your accomplishments and failures of the past year, analyzing what went right and what went wrong. It’s also an opportunity to look forward, pondering the upcoming year and trying to shape some plans to …
The School of Hard Knocks
As I sit down to write this, it’s about a week before New Year, and like every other year, we’re overwhelmed with information about prepping ourselves to make the upcoming year our best ever! And who wouldn’t want to have their best year ever? The season always ushers in more commentary about how we should approach our lives (personal as …
Setting Yourself Up for Success. What Does that Mean?
Setting yourself up for success. It’s a well-worn phrase that you’ve probably heard hundreds of times. In fact, you’ve probably heard it so many times that it hardly even registers anymore. And it can mean so many different things at the same time, what are we even to make of this saying? It can mean different things to different people, …
Help to Achieve Your Goals
Hope that this post finds everyone happy and healthy. I wanted to start out today with a quote from an unknown author, which is “Write it down. Written goals have a way of transforming wishes into wants; can’t into cans; dreams into plans; and plans into reality. Don’t just think it – ink it!” I want to underscore the importance …