Are you Angry?

Stoic Quote of the Week:

How much more damage anger and grief do than the things that cause them. -Marcus Aurelius

What I learned this week:

Over the years I have learned to control my temper better, notice I said control and better. I’m not sure if the control comes from 55 years of practice or becoming more mindful of who I am and who I want to be. Most likely, it is both. One of the most influential things that I have learned is that when you are angry, pissed off, or whatever you call it, decisions made in that moment, are rarely good ones. Even when they are good ones, those decisions end up being a quick fix that feeds your irrational desire. I have also learned to ask myself, what good is being angry? Is it serving me? Generally speaking, it isn’t. Anger can be used as a tool to generate movement. Once you start movement, the anger fades and action takes hold. When action begins, our decision process gets better because we can foresee a better outcome. Decisions made in the moment of anger are for instant gratification and rarely provide solutions for a long-term positive outcome. When you are pissed off, ask yourself, how is it serving me in this moment? Then begin movement in a direction to a positive outcome. That movement generates action and action pulls you out of anger. Then it is time to create a solution.

Planning thought of the week:

When it is time to put together a plan, whether it is the next day’s or week’s activity, life vision or business plan, be in a positive state of mind. If you just stopped a home project that wasn’t going well (home electrical for me) that is not the time to sit down and write your business plan. Break that frustration feeling first, then sit down to write the plan. Be in a positive mindset prior to developing a plan. The plan will be much more successful.

Business idea I heard about or thought of:

There is a lot of talk of additional training for our police forces around the country. I can vouch that the training isn’t there. I provided some of that missing leadership training to a police force last year. The other piece that is missing is enabler integration. Police have become the problem solvers for everything that happens in our society. That is a lot to ask of one person, possibly two. In SOF we have enablers. Sure, the Green Berets, SEALS and Marine Raiders are the sexy Hollywood trigger pullers but we have a whole lot of enablers behind us and with us that allow us to do our job at the highest level. The enablers ranged from someone to talk to aircraft for support to women to interact with women on the targets we would service and whole host of other behind the scenes that could be called on. That is the support the police around our country needs. They need enablers integrated and on-call. Everything from social workers to psychologist to marriage counselors. Someone has to coordinate that for the police forces. Time to start a new company.

Veteran opportunity of the week:

Did you know that Cabela’s and Bass Pro have a 5% military discount? Time to buy that new rifle and get it zeroed for hunting season this fall.

Someone I met this week:

I was introduced to Jordan by another new acquaintance a couple of weeks ago. Jordan is a former Army Ranger turned entrepreneur. He and his brother are working in the tech industry solving some interesting problems. One of the businesses they have started is called Load Traxx. Load Traxx is an app that takes the paperwork out of load tracking and invoicing for short haul truckers. The amount of paperwork those drivers accumulate in a day is crazy, picking up loads, dropping loads multiple times and likely multiple locations during the day. That’s a stack of invoices, load tickets and mileage charts. What a cool idea.

Thank you for your support.

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