Seth was talking about people and how they work.  Seth said that a professional is somebody who is expensive, but worth more than you pay because of the quality of the work that they do.  An amateur is somebody who is cheap, even free, because they are not doing it for the money, but for their love of what they are doing.  The “great unwashed” are people who are only doing it because it is a job.

Professionals? It seems so.

How many of us are the great unwashed here?  Sorry to say, but I expect that most of us are.  Too many people do what they do only because that is how they make money.  Some people start off with a passion for what they do, but later it becomes nothing more than a job.

Amateur, but loving what he does

After reading Seth’s article, I took some time to think about myself.  What am I?

• A Professional? I believe that in many ways I am a professional at the things that I do.  I strive to be the best.  I make a sincere effort to improve my skills and provide a good value for my clients.  In many cases, my services are expensive, but I believe that even though my fees may be higher than others in my field, the services that I provide are high quality and thus a good value.
• An Amateur? Sometimes I do things for free or for a reduced price because I do love what I do.  But, in the end, I mostly want to be paid good money for the value I provide, so I suppose that puts me more toward a Professional.
• The Great Unwashed? It’s easy for me to say that I am not in this class.  Why?  Because I only do things that I enjoy doing and that I am good at.  If I enjoy something but am not good at it, I improve my skills and make myself good at it.  If I do something to the point where it’s nothing but a way to make money, I change what I am doing and reinvent myself.  I have gone through a lot of careers over my life, because if I get tired of my “job” I change to something that I want to do.  That’s one of the beauties of being an entrepreneur like I am now.  I choose what I’m going to do.

So, what am I?  I would say that I am 80% Professional and 20% Amateur.  What are you?

Doing things that you love doing, and making sure you are good at them is a great habit to get into.  If you are just doing a job to make money, how can you enjoy life?  For me, you can’t.  You do hear, though, a lot of people say they are wage slaves.  Why would anybody want to be a slave to their job?  These days, it’s so easy to change what you do, and do what you enjoy!

But, even though it is hard to say, when we finally build up the fortitude to apologize for something, it also makes us feel very good, don’t you think?  It is rare that a person does not accept a sincere apology.

In a relationship like a marriage, the two people can get very bull headed and stubborn with each other.  Sometimes, no matter how wrong the person is, they don’t want to say those two simple words that will make a whole problem disappear almost instantly.

You don't need a neon sign to say you're sorry - unless you want one!

You really should get into the habit of saying “I’m Sorry” and meaning it.

I'm Sorry!

One bad habit along these lines is if you insert the word “but” after I’m saying “I’m Sorry.”  If you say “I’m sorry, but you know x, y and z.” well, you are just making excuses then.  If you really are sorry, and feel that you were wrong, you really just need to say that you are sorry and leave it at that.  No need for explaining it, telling the person why you did what you did.  Just hearing “I’m Sorry” is what the other person wants to hear, and it will go a long way to resolving the wrong that you committed.

So, get into the habit of saying those two words that might come a little hard.  When you let them out from your mouth, the hurt will go away and you will feel a whole lot better, like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders.

You won’t be sorry that you said “I’m Sorry.”  It’s a very good habit to get into.

What am I talking about?

Listening.

That’s right, listening.  Nobody ever gained any knowledge while talking.  We can gain knowledge if we listen, though!  Not all information that we listen to will make us better informed, but it is our brains that can weigh the information and decide if the information is useful or not.  If we do not listen, we won’t have a chance to even evaluate the information that others are trying to tell us.

Listening, but is the message getting through?

If you are having a conversation with another person, the only way to gain more information is by closing your mouth, stopping your talking, and instead by listening to what the other person is saying.  When you listen, you are gaining additional information.  After you listen to that information and process it, your mind may tell you that the information is of no value, is incorrect or somehow is not useful.  When your mind gives you this information after analyzing the information that you heard, then you can decide whether to retain the information, or to simply dispose of it.

Always try to listen, you will be rewarded!

However, if you don’t listen in the first place, you will garner no additional information.

If you listen to a person and he tells you information that is false, or in some way flawed, it is good to even get that kind of information.  Why would it be good to get false or flawed information?  Because it helps you decide if you should continue to rely on that person for advice or further information.  If a certain person consistently provides you with faulty information, it is a good indicator that it is not worth your time to listen to that person any longer.  In fact, not only can you stop listening, but you are wasting your time to even engage in conversation with that person, because you cannot rely on what they tell you in future conversations either.

By listening, not only are you gaining a chance to receive additional information, but you are showing other people that you are smart.  Others, when they have a chance to talk to you and be heard, will come to value you more, because they will realize that you are there to actually hear what they say.  If they are giving your valuable and accurate information in your exchange, you will act on that information, and they will see that they are wisely spending their time with you.  By showing them this, they will come to value you, and feel that they are as valuable to you as you are to them.  It’s a give and take relationship where each of you can benefit the other.

Try hard to engage your ears before your mouth.  That is what a smart person does, and you want to be smart, right?

Being the best that you can be is important for many reasons.  For one thing, it will make you feel really good, and thus even make it possible to improve on your best.  But, probably the most important thing when it comes to focusing is that it gives us purpose.  When we have something on which to focus our efforts, it gives us a purpose, it gives us more drive, and we tend to try harder when we know on what we are focusing.

Always chase your passion

For me, when it comes to my business, I have been working on focus lately.  I am an entrepreneur.  I like to start new businesses and get them up and running.  It is something that gives me joy when I see a new enterprise of mine start to take off and flourish.  Being an entrepreneur is good and enjoyable to me, but it is not always the best thing when it comes to putting money in your pocket.  Almost any entrepreneur would tell you that you have to come up with and try a lot of ideas before you get one that really pays off.  Oh, many will experience some success, but to really put serious bucks on the table, you need a really good idea, and you need to develop it properly.  Those kind of things don’t happen with every idea that comes to your mind.  Far from it.

I have businesses and activities in my life from a number of different areas or niches.  Most of my niches that I am involved with involve writing in one way or another.  Like this site, I write here, and I make a bit of money from it.  Well, it happens that many of my niches are relatively small niches that are not overly popular.  In today’s age of the Internet, though, even a very small niche can pay decent money, because the potential audience, although small in a percentage term, is still very large because you are drawing from a worldwide audience these days.  Gone are the days when your potential audience was either only near your base of operations, or was relatively expensive to reach because you had to use some kind of mass media marketing to reach a wider audience.  Now, with the Internet, you can reach people anywhere in the world for virtually nothing, if you know how to find them.

Two guys who are focusing on what they are good at - Bob Martin & Matt Mullenweg

Over the years, I have had people… mentors and friends, who have encouraged me to widen my niches into bigger areas with a larger audience by moving into other things than where I am really the best.  I mean, I could choose to write about topics that have millions of potential readers.  Instead, I choose to focus on niches that have a smaller number of readers, but those are areas where I have much more knowledge and am also more comfortable.  In short, I like to focus in areas where I have a passion.

Lately, one of my niches, probably the one that I am most passionate about has begun to pay off for me much better than it has in the past.  Because of this increase in fortunes, it has caused me to think.  Instead of following the advice of changing into bigger niches, I am now thinking that it is better for me to focus in on the things that I am best at, the things that have my true passion.  I have always been a big believer in two things:

1. When you do something that you are truly passionate about, the money will come.  There are other things you can substitute for money – fame, satisfaction, etc.
2. You should focus in on things that you have knowledge about.

I believe that these two things are important, and when done in conjunction with each other you can really be successful.

So, with the moves I am seeing relative to one of my niches beginning to gel and really “pay off,” I am only having my original thinking reinforced.  I am realizing that my thinking was right all along, and that I need to hone in even more in those areas where I have a true passion.

For all of you smart people out there reading this, I really encourage you to focus your energy in areas where you are good already.  Hone your skills and your knowledge.  Always get better.  Oh, it’s always good to spread your wings a bit and explore new things… but always keep your eyes where your passion is too.

In truth, you can be smart, yet also be ignorant.  Smart only entails the ability to learn, not that you actually have learned many things.  Having a high IQ would mean that you are able to learn, not that you have actually accomplished the task of learning.

Albert Einstein was smart and also well learned

The truth is, though, that on average, people who are smart have also gone to the trouble of learning many things.  Still, though, smart people are very likely ignorant on some subjects, even many subjects.  For example. a person may be very intelligent, yet they may also have a total lack of interest in history, and have avoided the subject, thus they might be quite ignorant on the topic.

Does your brain have the capacity to learn?

Other people may have a great capacity to gain knowledge, but have lived a sheltered life that did not afford them the opportunity to learn very much in the way of a formal education.  Not having knowledge does not mean that a person is unable to learn, only that to this point they have not learned, even if they can easily do it.

So, a couple of things come to mind.  Firstly, if you are an intelligent person, it is not a good habit to get into to consider yourself a “know it all” or to think that you are overly informed on any topic under the sun.  If you give off this sort of aura, you may find it difficult to find friends, or people who even want to spend time with you.  Secondly, if you are smart, and come across another person who seems to have little knowledge, you should not assume that the person is stupid, only that they have not had the opportunity to learn the things that you know.

On the other hand, if you are only of average intelligence, or below, you should not assume that smart people know a lot more than you do, because in fact, they may not.  They only have the ability to learn more information than you do.  Being able to learn and actually doing so are not the same thing.

Frankly, I had never heard of this TV mini-series before, but last week I was thumbing through a guide of TV shows, looking for something that I might enjoy viewing, and came upon a listing for this show.  I almost passed it by, not having a huge interest.  But, then it struck me.  Hmm… BBC.  BBC? Of course, the BBC is the British Broadcasting Corporation. The thought came to my mind…  “Hmm… I have never thought about the American Revolution from the British Standpoint!” So, I decided that this might be an interesting show to watch.

The end of the American Revolution. The British Surrender to the Americans as the French look on.

The show was a series of four 1 hour programs.  As I sat down to watch Episode 1, which was entitled “The Shot Heard Around the World” I was ready to see what this was all about.  The show was hosted by British Historian Richard Holmes.  He seemed a nice and likable fellow, but as he got started in Episode 1, I found myself feeling a bit hostile toward him.  I could not really understand my feelings, because I have no anti-British feelings.  After all, I am an American, and the British are among our very closest of allies.  We have a rich history of cooperation with the Brits.  Of course, not during the American Revolution, though, because the Americans were fighting against the British for our freedom and liberty at that time.  So, as Holmes began the show, he was in Boston, MA, and he was talking about the American Rebels who were going against the British and trying to “stir things up” in the colonies so as to start a fight against the British.  He had some harsh words to say for American heroes like Samuel Adams and other early voices in the revolutionary movement.  In fact, he called them “propagandists.”  I felt offended and angry at some of the things he was saying.

British General Cornwallace

Of course, this was all coming from a British perspective, and I was looking at this through an American perspective.  We were on polar ends of the debate, something which I was not used to for a Brit and an American.

After the first episode aired, I spent some time thinking about my feelings and reactions to the show.  I did find the show quite interesting and eagerly awaited the next episodes.  As I analyzed my thinking, I calmed down a bit, and wanted to just try to watch the show dispassionately to see what was said, and compare that to the things I learned during my American Education.  I realized, of course, that the education I received may be tainted a bit in favor of the American side, while the TV show seemed most certainly tainted toward the British.  Naturally.

One of the comparisons that Holmes kept bringing to the forefront during the show was that the American Revolution had close parallels to the Vietnam War in the 1960′s and 70′s.  Hmm… I had never thought of that before.  How could it be.

Of course, the comparison was that the British forces were equivalent to the US forces in Vietnam, while the American Revolutionaries were equivalent to the Viet Cong.  This kind of sat uneasily with me.  I am a bit young to say that the Vietnam War was the war of my generation, yet I was just becoming a teenager as the conflict ended.  As many Americans would testify, the Vietnam War was a very decisive subject among American people.  The American Revolution would have nearly complete support as an honorable war among Americans, though.  So, how could the two be compared with each other?

Well, from a British perspective, the analogy was pretty spot on, as I kept listing to the comparisons throughout the series.  When we Americans went into Vietnam, we were the powerful force, a world power, yet the lowly Viet Cong beat us, or at least fought to a draw, depending on the perspective.  Same thing in the Revolution, the Brits were no doubt the world Superpower at the time, yet a rag tag band of American “rebels” (the show was constantly calling the Americans rebels, which I suppose they were from the Brit view) beat the Brits.  Another comparison which was given was that in Vietnam the Americans won almost all of the battles, yet lost the war.  Same thing with the Revolution, the Brits won the vast majority of the battles, yet lost the war there.  Probably the most accurate comparison was that the British were fighting in a land that they were not familiar with, just as the Americans did in Vietnam.  Being unfamiliar was a disadvantage and helped the superpower be overwhelmed by a less powerful force.  Anyway, there were plenty of such Vietnam War vs. Revolutionary War comparisons, and the more I listened, the more I started agreeing with the comparison.

In the end, this was a highly interesting TV series for me, and I learned a thing or two – both about the War itself and also about myself.  I had never considered the war from the British perspective, nor, do I think, have most Americans.

So, what does this have to do with Habits for Smart People?  Well, it is a good habit to view a problem or a situation from multiple viewpoints.  Don’t get pigeonholed into a single point of view if you are making an evaluation, if you do that, your final results may not be accurate.

I want to tell you a story today about a time when a lady believed so much in personal responsibility that she even accepted responsibility when the event in question was not even really her fault.  I believe that this lady did a very honorable thing, even if it was far beyond what her true responsibility was.  This story revolves around a very painful event in my life.

In September 1979, my younger sister was killed by a drunk driver.  She was only 15 years old at the time of her death.   Her name  was Charlotte.

One day, after school, Charlotte had to stay late for a practice session for a fire baton twirling group that she was a member of.  The practice session lasted for several hours after school ended.  After the practice ended, Charlotte was driving home.  Yes, although Charlotte was only 15 she was driving.  This was perfectly legal, because we lived in Louisiana at the time, and the legal driving age there was 15 years old, and she had a legitimate driver’s license.

We lived about 10 miles outside the city.  As Charlotte drove home, out in the countryside, she came to a hill, and as she reached the top of that hill, her life changed in a heartbeat.  There was an older man, perhaps in his 60′s, although I don’t recall his age, who was coming to the top of the same hill from the other direction.  He was drunk, and he was driving on the wrong side of the road.  Because they met each other at the very peak of the hill, they had very little time to react to one another, since they didn’t see each other coming.  The man was drunk anyway, so perhaps he would not have been able to react in any event.  Charlotte was a young driver, so perhaps her reaction time was slower than an experienced driver.  Whatever the reason, they hit each other head-on at the top of that hill.  The drunk fellow died instantly, as he was thrown from his vehicle.  My sister, Charlotte did not die immediately, but rather lived long enough to be sent to a hospital.  But, as I said, her life was changed, because before she was able to make it to the hospital, she passed away.

It’s a sad story, no doubt, and it had a major impact on my life, but how is this related to personal responsibility?  Well, that comes a bit later.

A few weeks or maybe a couple of months after this traffic accident, a lady showed up at my father’s office.  My father didn’t know who the lady was, but she said that she wanted to speak to my father in private.  So, my father invited her into his private office, and they sat down to talk.  The lady told my father that she was the wife of the man who killed my sister.  She apologized to my father, and begged his forgiveness.  My father, as would be expected, was quite shocked by this.  It is not often that somebody would do something like this.  The lady was taking personal responsibility for something that her husband did!

This really had a deep impact on my father.  He told the lady that he could understand how she felt, because they had both lost a loved on on that highway that night.  He did not blame the lady, or get mad at her.  It was not her fault, after all.

I thought about this incident the other day, and it really struck me how honorable this lady was in her actions.  I had not really thought about this for perhaps 20 years or more, and when I remembered it, it brought a bit of a tear to my eye.  Both for the memory of my sister, and the honor that this lady showed in a trying time.

That was more than 30 years ago, and I don’t know for sure, but suspect that the lady has passed on by now.  Wherever she is, I hope that she is resting in peace, or living in peace, because she did an honorable thing, no doubt.  I certainly harbor no ill will toward her. In fact, I don’t even feel any anger toward her husband either.

I thought of this saying just this morning when I was reviewing my earnings from some advertising that I had placed on one of my websites.  I have been using this advertiser on a number of my sites for several years now, and the income that they produce for me is very good.  I would say that they are probably my best advertiser on any of my sites, without a doubt.

Over the past two months or so, my earnings from this advertiser have really increased greatly, and very quickly.  You see, I get paid based on results.  The better the ad performs for the advertiser, the more they pay me.  If the ad is on my site, but the advertiser makes little or no money, well, like them, I make very little myself.  So, over the past couple of months I have been very happy with the performance, and with my earnings in particular.

Oops, these aren't chickens, but it's not good to count any birds before they hatch!

However, in the past few days, I have seen a downturn in earnings.  Today, my earnings sprang back to previous levels, though, so everything is good.  But, results of the past few days left me feeling somewhat bad, because earnings that I had started counting on just were not there.

Ah, those are chickens. Some have hatched, some have not!

That’s the bad news… I had been counting my chickens already, and they had yet to hatch!

The fact is, when we start seeing results to our hard work, it is not time to rest and watch as everything starts to pay off.  When the results start to come in, it is a good sign for us, the things we are doing are right!  However, now that the work we did has been shown to be producing the results we expected, it is time to redouble our efforts and make sure that things continue going down the right path.  If we start to rest, we will forget things.  We will become weary of hard work, and we won’t follow through.  Seeing the results that we want is a good sign that we are doing the right thing.  It should also be a sign to us that we need to keep working if we want the results to continue paying off for us.

Counting your chickens before they hatch is an old saying that might not hold much meaning for us when we think about it.  However, as with many such “old sayings” there is some truth there, and we should be sure to follow that truth.

Good luck to you with all of your projects, and keep your nose to the grindstone if you want your work to continue paying your dividends!

Smart people can have good habits, and we should strive to keep doing these good things.  We can also have bad habits, and we should work to try to overcome our bad habits.

One bad habit is setting up a website, having good ideas on how to populate that site with informative and entertaining content, and then dropping the ball.  That is what I’ve done on this site.  I got it started, and wrote some articles, interesting ones, I hope.  But, I dropped the ball.  I stopped posting new content here.  That is something that is a bad habit, and I want to address that.

Gotta get back to the keyboard!

There are multiple ways to address something that has become a bad habit.  In this case, the bad habit of ignoring this site.  I can see two ways of addressing this bad habit.

1. I can simply shut down the site and move on with something else.  By doing this, I no longer need to worry myself about needing to write articles to put here.
2. I can push myself to change this habit, turn it around, and start posting new content here.

I choose to do #2.  I am planning to redouble my efforts and start posting content here for those who read the site to enjoy.  Frankly, I am lucky if I still have readers here, because I have ignored the site, and most readers have probably already given up on finding interesting content here.  However, there are things I can do to win readers back, and to start building up new readers here.  I intend to do those things.

It takes time to build an audience, no doubt about that.  For those who are brand new at blogging, it can take a very long time.  Even if you have great content, great insight and such, it just takes time for people to find you.  In my case, it is easier to gain a loyal following of leaders, because I already have other popular sites.  By promoting this site to my already loyal readers on other sites, I can build up a following here more quickly than somebody who is just getting started.  However, the downside is that if you go to the well too often, and then you don’t delivery, well, you risk the chance of losing followers, or if they continue following you on other sites, they just won’t follow you on new sites, because they feel that you lack the commitment to keep it going.

I want to turn that around.  I want to develop a new good habit of delivering good relevant content here.

Check back and see how I do.  It is my current plan to start adding a couple of new articles here every week.  Hope to see you again!

In our lives, though, we have many kinds of lemons.  Bad cars are called lemons.  Bad experiences are lemons.  Failures are lemons.  Why?  Because these things leave a bad taste in our mouth, a sour one.

But, there is a habit that we can employ to sweeten up those lemons in our lives… we can do what the old saying says…

Turn those lemons into lemonade!

Yep!  We can take those sour lemons, sweeten them up a bit, add some water, and we have lemonade!  Lemonade is delicious, don’t you think?  I like it a lot!  It has a certain tartness, but is sweet too!

When we make a mistake in life, if we learn a lesson from that mistake, we are basically turning that lemon into lemonade.  Yes, a certain tartness will remain from the original lemon, but because we can learn from our mistake, we won’t repeat it again, thus we now have lemonade.

Learning from the mistakes that we make is very important.  In fact, every mistake that we make presents us with opportunity.  What kind of opportunity?

1. An opportunity to improve.  If we make a mistake in our personal lives, we can study what went wrong and basically make ourselves better people because of the experience and knowledge that we have gained.  So, the mistake turns into an opportunity for personal growth.
2. Business opportunity.  In the past, there have been times when I have made business mistakes.  Sometimes they were almost deadly to my business.  However, by studying the problem that I have created, I have generally been able to turn the mistake into an opportunity to capitalize and gain more business.  You can do that too.  At the very least you can learn and be sure not to repeat the mistake.  At the best, you can find a way to actually profit from the mistake!

All in all, without a doubt, turning lemons into lemonade is a way for us to grow.  A way to turn a negative into a positive.  A way to make ourselves better.

Anytime that we give ourselves an opportunity to learn something new, an opportunity to grow in our personal lives, it is a good thing, and we should capitalize on the opportunity!