Wherever You Go, There You Are

Although some may find this phrase comical, it became my life’s philosophy many years ago. Here’s what I mean, the way you live your life is a direct result of your mindset. If your friends think of you as “Gloomy Gus” because you always see the negative, I propose that you will accomplish far more if your friends, relatives and family think of you as “Mr. Positive”. This is true in your family life, your church life, your woodworking/woodturning club life, where ever you go there you are.

You can train yourself to react in the positive or in the negative to any situation, it’s up to you. Let me share an example. Let’s say you’re trying to learn to roll beads with a skew chisel and you get a catch again. On the negative side your reaction could be “skews are impossible to use, they always catch, I’ll never figure this out.” Or, on the positive side you could choose to say “I almost had at that time, I think I know what went wrong, I’m going to figure this out and when I do I will be able to roll the sweetest beads you ever saw!” How you react is up to you.

Here is a second example. I was recently enroute to a business appointment when as I went through an intersection a lead tire weight pierced a brand–new very expensive heavy duty tire on my pick–em–up truck right smack in the middle of the tire. (PIC)

The whole was much too large to patch or plug so I had to buy another brand–new very expensive tire. Since my mindset is to always see the positive in a situation here was my disciplined reaction. I pulled over to discover this huge lead weight sticking out of the middle of my tire, but my tire was still holding air – not for long! I grabbed my smart phone, searched for the nearest tire store and made a beeline to get there as quickly as possible before the tire went completely flat. I made it the 3 miles just in time. The good in this situation was that, 1) I was by myself, my wife was at home so she would be spared the inconvenience which and inevitably was ahead of me, 2) I had a good spare tire, 3) I wasn’t pulling my 35 foot fifth wheel at the time. Imagine the same event happening out on the freeway in the middle of nowhere when I had my family with me pulling my big old trailer in the middle of the night. So actually I was kind of lucky!

One more quick example taken from my days as a door–to–door salesman. The day was dark and gloomy fairly chilly with periods of cold rain. The little voice inside my head said “If you go out in this rain you might get a cold which could turn into pneumonia and you could get very sick.” The disciplined side of me had this reaction, “If you do go out in this rain you might make a sale, you might get a paycheck, you might be able to buy groceries this week, and pay your mortgage, win the sales contest, and get a bonus!” So, I made those calls, I got those sales, I won that contest and claimed my bonus.

This week tell yourself you can do it, you will do it, then go do it. What project have you been wanting to try but hesitated because you weren’t sure you could do it. I’m here to tell you that you can do it. Perhaps not on the first try but you will figure it out, so put your thoughts into action and send me the pictures. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Because “Wherever you go, there you are.”