Pokery, Strokery, Game Stop, Woke, and Broke People
“There’s something that doesn’t make sense. Let’s go and poke it with a stick.”
Thursday morning epiphany, I’m no longer a morning person. It’s been a 30 year or so run since I was 20 or so I was convinced that if I got up at 5:00 every day, I would be successful, well, not at 51, my plan may or may not have paid off, but I no longer feel compelled to get up at 5:00.
In addition to my new found love of the morning hours, I have found I appreciate sleep more and more. My Queen and I kid at night, “about how early we can hit our bed”; we cook together, dine, do dishes, then watch a show looking forward to our lovely warm bed. I think we got to bed about 8:30 last night; I got up at 5:30. I believe that is 9 hours of great uninterrupted sleep.
If a young person has any want of tips for success, I would be the first to recommend you get your arse out of bed at 5:00 a.m. The reason is that you can get about 2 hours on the rest of the world. You can use that time to plot your day and get your work done to focus on your gifts and talents. It served me well; I used that playbook for 30 years, but at 51 no longer feel the need or want to get up so darn early.
When I get up, I have my routine, my regular readers can tell you how I spend my morning, but if you are new here, let me walk you down my standard morning path. I get up, make coffee, and let the dog out; I then pour a strong cup of coffee and open a piece of Nicorette gum. I feed my dog, heat my rice bag (old man stuff), and then wait until she wants to go outside. I let her out and sit down and start writing what some might describe as “pokery, strokery, or morning agitation.” When you get my age, you get to make up words, hold on kids, the best is yet to come. Poke and stroke are my new favorite activities.
Why am I up at such an early hour if I have chosen not to be that morning guy? I’ll blame Sam and her merry bunch of being followers. I’m a spiritual man who does not spend too much time in our fathers’ home, Sam shared she and some other friends were doing a faith-based group at 7:00 a.m. on Thursdays. When I committed, I was still on the morning train, she’s invited me many times, but I have not been up to join.
She caught me this week at a Synergize meeting, asked if I was going to join, and I said, “yes, the problem is you send the invite after 9:00, I’m always in bed, by the time I see the message, it’s too late.” So, last night at 8:05, I got a text with the link-sharing “it’s before 9:00 p.m.!” So, I set the alarm for 5:30, and here I sit, making some soup for those hungry for more than critical race theory. I’ll do a deep dive on CRT in the future; I don’t have the energy this morning.
I’ll join my friends at 7:00; then I have some work to do on a Ted Talk I’m doing in Denver next week. I’ll prepare my bullet points to help push me forward on my talk. I’ll send it to my mentor to set up on the teleprompter and then get ready for my day. My Queen has found another company to purchase possibly; we’re meeting with the ownership group today, it could be another great opportunity; we have cash reserves for the acquisition.
Expansion in these crazy times, I think it’s time to seek out opportunity, while the rest of the world toils in can’t do this, can’t do that, we’re looking for things we can do, and growing our business is one of those things. How does one develop a successful business? First, find good, hard-working people; not everyone wakes up and states, “I want to suck today.” Find those that wake up and say I want to kick ass and add them to your team. Next, develop policies and procedures for them to follow, put someone in charge to keep them moving and grooving.
Find motivated people that love to talk to strangers and like to be held accountable for their promises. If they promise they can kill a shark a month, make sure they are killing three sharks a quarter. If not, recalibrate their goal or find someone that can fill that fisherperson’s role. Maybe move that person to the Tilapia crew or let them fish for another band of disciples. We are looking for the best of the best, the Eddie Van Halens, the Keith Richards, the Jimmy Hendrix of the insurance world.
One of our salespeople found an enormous opportunity yesterday. In addition to a possible acquisition of another firm, one of our people dug up a large whale that needed our services. In addition to the whale, a large moose asked us to begin working with her team in May. We are positioning our firm for our best year ever, taking advantage of the “vaccine boom.”
I caught a story yesterday that might have long term market implications. If you have a little time, google Game Stop and see what a small group of “common folk” have realized. It seems some regular folks with a bit of stock market prowess just took down a large hedge fund, and they are gunning for more. I watched a couple of clips from CNBC, and you could see the look of terror on the faces of the “experts” that were encouraging people to follow the traditional investment model. It seems there might be a glitch in the investment Matrix.
If you know a stock has been shorted, drive up the price and let the short betters lick their wounds. We have an organized effort to take down the large investment hedge funds, and I don’t think this will end soon. The world’s working people can now use the formally top secret information to impact the stock market. I’ll keep my eye on this story; I might play with some investing on my own in addition to my bitcoin experiments. Diversity is my word for the year, but it has a different meaning than those woke and broke people.
“There’s something that doesn’t make sense. Let’s go and poke it with a stick.”