Life Lesson #2

You Can Adjust to Anything You Need To

I know, it sounds like a bold thing to say. And I'll admit, there may be some circumstances that I'm overlooking when I make that statement. But I have discovered that you can adjust to things that look impossible from the start.

At the beginning of May, we thought that we had a couple of days or weeks that we would need to work through some challenges. Little did we know that it would be the middle of November before we would live in our house again. However, there's reasons that God doesn't always reveal the whole picture to us. If I would have had the whole picture in mind back in May, I would have just wanted to give up. However, by just taking one step at a time, and not knowing what's coming up, we were able to adjust to whatever we needed to to overcome the summer.

So if you're needing to adjust to something that you don't think you can, take it just a little bit at a time, and get a lot of people to pray.

Life Lesson #1

No matter how ugly you think life is, there are some things that are unchangeably good.

• 1. God, in his all-knowing, all-seeing wisdom. Sometimes it seems like He's playing a board game with us. Sometimes we are sent directly to jail, without collecting $200, and other times He gives us Boardwalk and Park Place with hotels on both.
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• 2. A family that loves you. I know that a caring family sometimes seems like a thing of the past here in the states, but I was reminded of how utterly important it is that we don't let family fall by the wayside.
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• 3. Friends that are right there for you when it feels like you've been sent directly to jail. There were many times that I had to chose to accept their help, even when I felt completely undeserving of their services (lawn mowing, house cleaning, etc), gift cards, money, food, taking us out to eat, and many other things.
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• 4. Probably the most amazing thing is how all three of the above tie together. It's all part of the board game of life.
  

Oh, The Lessons Of Life

It's amazing how God inserts things into our life to teach us different life lessons. Over the past 5 months, I've experienced this multiple times. With my wife on bed rest, at home and at the hospital, and having a son born 13 weeks premature, there were many opportunities for these valuable lessons to be inserted into my life. Were all of them fun to go through? No. Were all of them comfortable? No. Would I trade any of them for a normal summer? Absolutely not!
Although I wouldn't even close wish that anyone would go through what we did this summer, I really wish everyone could learn what we've learned. So, over the next couple of weeks, in an effort to give you the lessons without the pain, I am going to give you the blog version. Hopefully, the 'No Pain, No Gain' philosophy won't apply here.

Minimum Wage Increase: Perfect or Horrible?

I was listening to an interesting discussion today about the increase in the minimum wage. Is this the perfect timing for the increase, or is it the worst possible time they could have picked?

If you think about the fact that there are many people that will be getting $0.70 per hour more, that could mean millions of dollars being pumped into the economy. Might I also add that those millions wouldn't have to come from the government. I am sure that many families and individuals are glad for this wage hike since it may loosen up their budget.

On the other hand, there is an ugly side to the equation. How many businesses are on the brink of shutting down? How many of these will "kick the bucket" when they need to pay their employees more? When a business shuts down, jobs are lost, and the employees are in worse shape than they were before they got their "raise".

There's something else too. Take a pizza shop, for instance, that employs quite a few people at minimum wage. It could cost the owner around $15,000 per year more just because of this wage hike. I think we could all assume that pizza shop owners don't make enough money to just write off $15,000. So what happens? The owner jacks up the price of the pizza. People buy less pizza at his establishment. The owner doesn't have work for all his employees anymore. The employees get laid off. Back to square one.

So, while there are some pretty good arguments for the increase, I'm gonna say that they could have picked a better time to do it.

The Bizfisher

Mysteries of Marketing

I usually get a bit of a bang out of trying something that I'm not experienced at. Partly because I like to learn new things, and partly because I enjoy the challenge of blazing through new territory. Right now, marketing is one of those new territories. There's so many things to consider. With a very limited budget, what gets you the most traffic for your dollar? Which areas have more potential customers for your business? Is your business relevant to the interests of the residents in the area that you're targeting? Can you get more circulation for less money if you shop around a bit?

As I said, I really do enjoy the challenges that new experiences create, but sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed with all the options and all the loopholes that you need to be aware of. All this to say that I would definitely welcome any advice from all of you marketing gurus.

The Bizfisher

Tired of Listening to Your Boss?

Something random just entered my mind today. Have you ever thought about the fact that the employees are always the ones complaining? You hear it all the time, "Can you believe what the Bossman just did?" or, "If I were the Boss, I wouldn't do it like that." Or on the radio you might here, "Tired of hearing the boss? Tune him out and tune us in." Why is it that employees find so many things to pick on?

It makes me wonder if a boss gets together with his friends and talks about his employees. I think I should start a boss-friendly radio station. "Are you tired of putting up with your employees? Are you sick of them not doing what you want them to? Tune them out and tune us in."

I would like to take my hat off to the employers out there including my own. Though we may sound like complaining little children sometimes, we really do appreciate the jobs that you've created for us.

The Bizfisher

Help Me Become Efficient

Tell me, what do you do when you have a day that you feel like you're taking 1 step forward but about 20 back? Today just happened to be that kind of a day. I got up this morning, knowing that my day held almost more than I could handle. I had hopes that things would go well enough that I would be able to get everything done. Soon after I arrived at work I saw those hopes come to a screeching halt. It seemed that every corner I turned there was one more thing keeping me from getting done what I needed to get done.

Before too long I had too many things on my mind and couldn't even think about the job at hand. Now I would like to ask a favor of you. What do you do when you have a day like that? How do you keep from coming to the end of the day and having 20 things on your mind when you go home? What methods do you have to make sure that those 20 things get done the following day when the following day is already packed full too? Or is my situation just hopeless?

The wonderful thing about a day like this is that it gives you much more appreciation for the fun you can have with your family when you get home. Two kids running at you when you climb out of your truck is the perfect way to get your mind off of work.


The Bizfisher