Sometimes it takes sacrifice and removal of vices to get our bodies and minds on the right track. If you can start with just one little thing, you’ve already laid the foundation for bigger and harder things. The simplest of acts is what starts building the best of skills.

Technology is something that simultaneously demands awe and fear. The advancements in technology are nothing short of incredible, and the capabilities of our modern amenities and comforts would have shocked people even a few decades ago. With the advent of the ATM I wondered how banks planned to cope if you could withdraw, deposit, and cash checks at a small machine hooked into a wall

Everyone is looking at how people dress, talk, what they do for a living, and any qualifier you think of. Imagine how hard it would be to force everyone to dress how you’d like, talk how you’d like, and do what you’d like. You’ll find most people would rather keep to their own standards and march to their own beat. This is why you’ll always have hypocrites: everyone thinks that their worldview is the only view that matters.

A true friend will try to challenge you to meet potentials that you can’t always see for yourself. These challenges will come in the form of questions, competition, and sometimes that friend may get a little pushy. That’s what real friends do: they factor in your best interest and know that watching you sit on your couch all day isn’t going to be too good for you in the long run.

We limit ourselves within a certain capacity as we go about doing our work, saving up energy and willpower for whatever tasks come along. Here’s the thing, when we encounter something that challenges us, we are met with a fierce rebuttal if we go in half-cocked. Then what to do we do? Some give up, some get help, and the rare breed comes at it with one hundred and ten percent effort.

The most bitter medicine is often our own. When we judge ourselves we have to be critical, but denial dilutes the effectiveness of our assessment. It’s hard to come to terms with mistakes and external criticisms, because it can be humbling.

You either love it or hate it, but it’s one of the most beneficial things you can do. Reading can open the gateway to seemingly infinite knowledge or it can transport us from the dull monotony of our daily life to another world in an instant. Whether it’s reading an informative work or diving into a solid story, reading is one of the most basic methods of self-improvement.

People love to judge but hate to be judged. Being judged is inherently an uncomfortable process by which are weighed, willingly or not, and found wanting. It’s a subconscious act, to look at someone and measure up their worth. One of the overwhelming problems with that stems from how we use our own criteria. We are not fit, being inherently flawed, to judge the merit of others.

Memories . . . Something more valuable to most people than any other resource is our memory. In this case, I’ll say memories, because really, it boils down to having a plurality. As we get older, we put more and more stock into our memory and memories, as we rely on our memory to show us the memories of the things we cherished for so long in our lives.

Attitude and gratitude are two uniquely human perspectives that, for the most part, result in us having to make strong adjustments to what many consider to be a natural human reaction. When something doesn’t go our way, we tend to lash out in bitterness and blame ourselves, God, the universe, whatever is close at hand.

Learning something and applying that knowledge is something, but to understand requires an empathic connection with that experience that is necessary for growth. A growth mindset is what enables people to develop skills and mature in a way that is unique to our species. To dwell in the past is to reject that growth, but a forward lifestyle that values progress over stagnancy tends to reward us with greater personal development.

Everything in life requires some degree of effort. Sweeping a porch doesn’t require the same amount of effort as building a porch, but both require the motivation to get the job done. A lot of us coast off of motivation, others have moved past motivation into discipline. Regardless, there’s a lot of thinking that centers around the idea that being lazy requires no effort. I find this funny, because often enough, trying to get out of one’s duties and shirk on your responsibilities often means putting in more work just to escape the obligations or commitments.

Credit where credit is due, a great deal of this stems from something I heard on the radio not too long ago, but felt I needed to share my own story with with it. By anyone’s standard, you could say I am successful. I’m self-employed and run my own business. By the world’s criteria and my sense of self-confidence, I’m a pretty well-off guy. But here’s the thing. By my standards, I’ve come up short.

The nature versus nurture debate is an ongoing battle that has been raging for centuries. Within this intellectual war, lies a cold hard truth that we’re going to touch on for just a brief moment, if you’ll bear with me. In thinking about the phrase, “a product of your surroundings” we typically wonder about how people are influenced and changed based on their environment.

Seasons refers to the change and transition from one stage to the next. For better or worse, this is something many of us look forward to because it signifies the chance to start again. I believe that seasons can refer to periods of time as short as a month, down to a week, and in some cases even a day. God gives us the gift of sleep with the hopes that when we wake up, we have the chance to capitalize on a new day.

When I started in the industry, 40 hours a week was a bare minimum. Suddenly, it seems like 30-32 hours is the official part time company line. Statistically speaking, the people who are bringing in the real money aren’t working 40 hours a week. They’re working 10, 12, up to 14 hours a day for 7 days a week.

Details define and illustrate everything you see and everything you do. In a construction business, they play such a crucial role that even missing the most minute detail can result in disaster. From the engineering aspect to the production and shipping aspect, if the details aren’t correct and confirmed, the whole process can be moot. Just the other day we were preparing an order when we get a call from a fellow asking when he could expect his delivery that day.

The Golden Rule. Despite the amount of conditioning we receive as children to do unto others as we would want done to us, we have a natural drive to do unto others as is done to us. That instinctual lust for vengeance. We want an eye for an eye even when, in the long run, the process would be more costly than just letting go. The

People will race to beat the red light with every ounce of strength they can muster. They will do so with little regard for the safety of others. It’s almost as though the instant they shut themselves off in their car or minivan, everyone else outside of that little met

If today is the last day on Earth, what would you do? Apply this train of thought to your day-to-day activities and see what happens. As I’ve drilled into your head by now, you are the only you that will ever exist. There may be people with your same name, there may be people who could be your twin, but your capabilities, interests, and choices will always set you apart from anyone and everyone else. That makes you unique.