Tag: advice

If you are not embarrassed by your past self, you have probably not grown up yet. – from Excellent Advice for Living

While I’d like to think most of us are true to who we are and act well in most situations, the reality is that we’re always learning and growing, and we will make mistakes. If we don’t find some of them embarrassing in our current world, we likely haven’t grown much.

This isn’t being embarrassed by everything, but by some things. I would think many of us make mistakes, say things, do things, treat others poorly in the moment and we wish we hadn’t.

I think a healthy part of life (or family or community, or organization or country or whatever) is making some mistakes, growing and learning not to do the same thing, or a worse thing. Becoming a better person is growing up and that should mean reflection on the past, with some embarrassment over how the past played out.

At the same time, this doesn’t mean that you hold your past self to a higher standard. I recognize that it’s unlikely in many cases that I should have known/done/acted/said something better. I’m just embarrassed now.

Examples for me include how I treated many girls/women, with not enough respect and with my own selfish goals of sex in mind. Poorly treating some coworkers that didn’t know as much as I did, with arrogance or derision. Certainly plenty of times I was upset with my children for what I now see were not good reasons.

I’m mostly happy with who I’ve been, but I’m also embarrassed by some of my actions.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.

When in doubt, overtip – from Excellent Advice for Living

This is close to my heart, since I spent a lot of time in college and after working as a waiter and bartender.

In the US we have a culture of 15-20% of tipping at restaurants. There are also guidelines for people handling your baggage, valets, etc. In the EU/Asia, often tipping isn’t a common thing, but that is changing a bit. I’m less familiar there, so this is my US view.

I like to tip for service, but I also know that many people in restaurants get a very low wage. When I started working as a waiter, I got US$2.01/hour. When I stopped, I was still getting $2.01/hr. In that time, the minimum wage went from $3.35 to $5.25. The reason my wage stayed low is that it was assumed I made tips that raised me to the minimum or higher.

My view is that if I can’t tip, I don’t go out. I tip 15% as the service for someone bringing me food and drinks. Even if the service isn’t great, the person deserves to be paid for their work and they aren’t really getting that from the establishment.

If they do a good job and are pleasant, I usually tip 20%. If they’re great I go higher.

However, if I’m not sure, or maybe I realize I might not be in a good mood or distracted, I overtip. Especially for breakfast service.

It’s a few dollars for me, but it makes a big difference to someone else’s life.

Note: The current post-pandemic world where every counter service place adds tips also annoys me. I think most of these people are being paid minimum wage and I don’t often tip, but I do when people are pleasant. Or I appreciate their being there. I always tip at the airport counters because those people are driving a long way and I really, really appreciate they are open at 6m for my early flights.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. – from Excellent Advice for Living

We can summarize this advice as focus on what’s important. I too often see authors and others get distracted from the main point on which they are writing. I see this in meetings when people start to speculate about something related (or even unrelated) and forget the purpose of the work.

This becomes an even bigger issue when someone goes off to work on a project for a period of time and drifts away from their original goal or focus. You might think you don’t do this, but I bet most of you do. I know I do. I sometimes start to change my focus, thinking the current thing I’m working on is more important than the main goal.

An example is that I might be working on a new presentation. I’ll start to outline the talk, add some bullets and notes, maybe think about demos, etc. At some point, I get distracted with which pictures make my point and I start to waste time on choosing pictures, rather than remembering that the point of the talk isn’t a picture, it’s to teach something. The picture might help, but it’s not the most important thing and it’s not where I should spend a lot of time.

Today’s interruption culture of having notifications, slack, email, etc. available on devices makes this worse. The large amount of things we often engage in at any one time also makes this hard.

Focusing on what you want to achieve and keeping that in mind is important. For presentations, I often put my abstract in the first slide notes, so that I remember what I’m focusing on. For coaching, we often list a few things we want to work on, and as we run drills or evaluate the practice we can look back and see where our focus is. What was the main thing.

Keep the main thing the main thing.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.

Investing small amounts of money over a long time works miracles, but no one wants to get rich slow.  – from Excellent Advice for Living

This is incredible advice, and something my parents instilled in me at a young age. I’ve had mixed financial success here, but I do think about this in a different way.

Learning new things and growing your career are things that happen slowly as well, but so many people don’t see the value of small things learned every day. Or managers don’t see the value of having employees learn constantly vs taking a week for a class.

Note, they sometimes don’t even want to give you a week to learn.

Whether you want to grow your finances or your career, regular investment is slow, but it pays incredible dividend over time. Learn, experiment, and practice your skills regularly. It works in music, in sports, and it also helps your career.

I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.

To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.