Category Archives: Thought of the Day

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Today’s Going To Be A Great Day

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Danny

Today’s Going To Be A Great Day…

I am in Asheboro NC today after finishing up a planning session with the local manager yesterday.  I’m not sure I’ve ever talked about what it is that I do so here goes a quick snapshot.

I work for the largest daily print media company in the U.S. in the marketing division in the southeast.  I started off as a digital marketing account executive in June 2016 and was promoted to a regional manager position at the beginning of this year.

I travel the southeast helping our marketing people understand how to be more professional and better at the sales call process in order to help local businesses get more customers.  I’ll go in to a property and assess their skills and goals and then help them get better.

It’s a fun job and might be the perfect position for me with a little travel and an ever-changing working environment.  I like being in a different city each week and I enjoy working with different people every day.

Today I will be doing a pop-in surprise visit to review some training from last week and to check progress on a few accounts.  After this visit I will be in the car driving to Gastonia, NC (about 2 hours) to finish up a few things there and then back to Charlotte.

I hope that whatever today brings, you find yourself in a good mood, grounded and focused!  Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Danny

 

**opinions expressed in this post are mine and mine alone and do not represent those of my employer or any subsidiaries.

Ever Feel Like You Have Lost Your Way?

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Ever feel like you have lost your way?  I felt like that from about age 35-44 and it didn’t seem as if there was light at the end of the tunnel.  This blog helped a lot.  Reinventing myself in my current profession helped as well.

When I first started my blog I had an incredibly specific mission to grow my page to a large following.  I’m not sure why I thought this was the best measure, but it was the only one I knew so I set it as my goal.  I’ve almost reached the number of followers I wanted way back then, but now I’m lost again.

I’m not exactly sure what my mission is now.

I love the interaction and I’ve even rediscovered the joy of reading other pages again and I’ve started reaching out to new bloggers much like I did in my early days of blogging.  But sometimes it feels like I wake in the morning, grab the laptop and start typing.  And I do so just to type.

There doesn’t seem to be any reason behind the typing other than to hit publish.  Sometimes it feels empty.

Have you ever felt like this?

Danny

Wow My Habits Are So Incredibly Powerful

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Wow My Habits Are So Incredibly Powerful.

Have you ever spent time taking account of your habits?  Maybe assessed what you do each day and what types of results your habits produce?  Maybe you just see your results, which you don’t like, and wonder how you can make a change?

Something simple happened lately that reminds me daily as to how powerful habits can be.  Around 10 days ago I had to change the password to my laptop.  I travel quite a bit and connecting to public networks at hotels requires me to change my password once a month.  Anyway, you would think after 10 days that I’d automatically enter the new password, but after this much time I still find myself defaulting to the old login.

It reminds me of how ingrained habits become and how difficult it is to change them.  A habit is like a wagon trail rut-deep and difficult to escape.

Image result for deep motocross ruts

Of course this is a great thing if the habit is exercising or choosing better foods or controlling one’s finances.  But the rut can be bad if the opposite is the case.

For me it is important to assess my actions to make sure I am practicing solid daily habits.  My actions produce results.  If I don’t like the result then I must adjust the action.

It’s a pretty simple concept to say, not so much to always do.

Hope you have a wonderful Friday and weekend my friend!

Danny

The Most Common Blogging Mistake I See Is…

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Danny

The Most Common Blogging Mistake I See Is…

It is hard to believe I have been blogging for almost 4 years.  Way back in those days I was a sponge, soaking up every bit of information I could get my hands on.  I wanted to grow so bad and I wanted a large following.  It might sound a little vain to want a large following, but that wasn’t what motivated me.  I simply wanted to prove to myself that I could execute all the back-of-the-house stuff well enough to get more views and followers.

Anyway, one of the first things I learned about the WordPress platform related to tags and categories and it is the most common mistake I see bloggers making today.  For those who are not aware, WordPress limits a post to 15 total tags and categories.  This means if you use more than 15 total your post is treated as if it has no tags at all; basically your post is invisible.  I practice using 12-13 tags and one category just to be safe.

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I have been reading more than I have in the last few months and I see this violation every day.  Some posts will have 20-30 tags and I feel bad for the blogger because that one act negates the chance of anyone seeing their great work.

Another tip as it relates to tags is to use the Popular Tags list on WordPress.  (I will include the link here:  Hot Tags)

Some of the Hot Tags are created because of bots that are posting thousands of articles so be careful not to use these tags.  But “blog”, “blogger”, “life”, “love” are a few of my favorites.  I try to tag my posts in such a way that I give myself the greatest chance of getting in front of the most eyeballs.

If you are going to take the time to create great content, then why not take the time to learn about tagging that content properly?

Hope everyone has a great Thursday!

Danny

Why Is It That Hard Work Makes Me Luckier?

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Why Is It That Hard Work Makes Me Luckier?

There are a lot of people in the world who believe life just happens and you have to take what you get.  I have never, ever bought into this thought pattern.  Instead I have dedicated myself to executing a strong work ethic combined with continually trying to learn and be the best at my craft.  I used this mentality to grow my blog to almost 50,000 followers.  I used this mentality to become one of the top producers in my company.

I have noticed that the harder I work, the luckier it seems I get.

Many things in life are going to happen that are completely out of my control, but there are many things of which I am in full control.  I wake up every morning between 5-5:30 am and begin my day.  I walk each day to get exercise.  I use a to-do list to keep my day on track.  I plan my work.  I (try to) make better food decisions.  I dress for success.  I maintain good posture throughout the day to convey confidence.  I watch my mannerisms and language.  And all of these things point me in the direction of reaching my goals.

Some would say there is luck involved with success and to some degree I agree.  You have to meet the right people and you have to be in the right place at the right time.  These things are true.

But I believe luck is when preparation meets opportunity.  People miss opportunities every single day because they are not prepared to seize the moment.  My goal is to be prepared and I work hard to make sure I am.

The truth is I might be lucky, but luck didn’t create my blog page.  Luck was not involved in the hours upon hours of time I invested in learning about the online digital world of advertising.  Luck wasn’t involved in the long hours I committed to learning and honing my marketing and sales call skills.  These things took dedication, commitment and a lot of hard work.

When I was a golf pro I would have other golfers comment that they wished they could take time off and still break 80.  They were infatuated with the idea of being able to so “easily” shoot low scores.  To them they only saw the end result-low scores.  What they didn’t see were the countless hours on the range, sweating in the summer sun.  They didn’t see the hours of time I spent at home swinging a club in front of a mirror.  They didn’t see the hours of practice on the course.  And I committed myself to these practices for years and years.

It is easy to see the end result and attribute someones success to “luck”.

I still say luck is when preparation meets opportunity.

Have a great Tuesday!

Danny

A Quick Update For Those Who Are Interested…8/6/18

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A Quick Update For Those Who Are Interested…

I went to my GI doctor last week to get a check up on the ulcerative colitis issue and things went pretty good.  I am no longer having the stabbing stomach pains so we are going to slowly ween off of the steroid over the next 3 weeks.  Hopefully the gastro issues will normalize a bit and I can go off all the medicines.

The good news is there will not be surgery in my near future.  I have a simple procedure scheduled for October to check the GI tract and make sure the infection has subsided.  If it has then all is good.  This will allow the doctor to confirm that there has been no development in polyp growth.  In April I had 5 pre-cancerous polyps, which combined with the ulcerative colitis puts me in a high-risk bracket for colon cancer.  Worst case scenario they will take part of the colon out and that will eliminate the cancer risk.

Of course I’m more concerned about the cancer scare than anything else so I’m in favor of anything that eliminates the “C” word.

For now all is well, which makes me happy.  I hope you have a great Monday my friends!

Danny

You Know You Travel A Lot When You…

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You Know You Travel A Lot When You…

If you know someone who travels as a part of their job, then you might understand the challenges that come along with doing so.  Being a road warrior is not easy on the mind, the body or the family and it takes a tremendous amount of communication with loved ones to make sure relationships are being maintained.  Funny things happen though when you find yourself in a hotel room for half the month…

Yesterday I forgot to set up the percolator because I had it in my mind that I could simply walk downstairs and the coffee bar would be set up.  I will admit I miss the coffee bar when I’m home, but of course the trade-out is worth it.  Nothing compares to being home with Evelina and Bentley.

Funny thing #2, I looked in my wallet yesterday afternoon to make sure I had my debit card and noticed my hotel room card wasn’t in my wallet.  As I began to look around the kitchen for it I realized I wasn’t in a hotel.  Ha!

This coming week I will be in Quincy, Massachusetts which is about 90 miles east on I-90 from the town in which I was born.  On October 17, 1972 I was born in Mt. Holyoke Hospital and I always love being near Boston Mass because of the history about the revolutionary war.  Boston is my favorite city in the U.S.

My hope for you is that you have a restful Sunday and quality family time!

Danny

 

 

Is It Possible To Be Ultra-Successful and Have Balance?

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Is It Possible To Be Ultra-Successful and Have Balance?

Have you read or heard people talking about having work-life balance?  I have and I’m not sure I buy the concept.  In my experience it is the proverbial situation in which you can’t eat your cake and have it too.  Maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t witnessed a lot of ultra-successful people who have a lot of balance; professional athletes come to mind.

We make sacrifices every day we get up and go to work.  We decide that paying bills and providing for our family is worth leaving them for 8-10 hours.  We give up that time in order to get ahead.

But when I look at CEOs, professional athletes, entrepreneurs, etc. I don’t see a lot of balance.  I see a group of people that work hard to achieve their goals and sacrifice a lot of personal time in order to do so.  Typical entrepreneurs are not taking 3-4 vacations per year, but they are working a lot of nights and weekends totaling 70 hour weeks.

I wonder if the sacrifice is worth it.  At the end of life I have to believe that they wish they had spent more family time.  Or maybe I’m wrong, maybe they do not regret all of the personal time sacrifices.

I don’t know.

The one thing I do know is that if anyone wants to achieve a goal, tremendous sacrifice will be required.

Danny

It Is Important To Escape the Daily Grind

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It Is Important To Escape the Daily Grind…

Have you ever watched someone run at 10,000 rpms and think to yourself, “they are not going to last long at that pace!”?  I’ve been that person and I’m sure many of you have as well.  As I’ve grown older and become the old bull I chuckle when I see the young bull running himself or herself ragged trying to hustle and get ahead.  Sometimes you have to take some time away from the daily grind and recharge the batteries.

The simple fact is we cannot operate at maximum effort every moment of every day or else we will burn out.  There have been years when I sacrificed time off, but now I take every day my company gives me: every sick day, every personal day, every vacation day.

My time off is as valuable to me finding success as my days on are valuable.  It doesn’t mean you are lazy because you take time for yourself.  Conversely, it doesn’t mean you are more dedicated if you sacrifice your time off in exchange for working.

Take a break occasionally.  Hope you have a great Wednesday.

Danny

I Don’t Like Making A Big Deal Of Birthdays

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I Don’t Like Making A Big Deal Of Birthdays, but this year I’m looking forward to mine.  This is because for the first time that I can recall Evelina and I are planning a trip for my 46th.  And of course I picked Disney but I’m not sure if that is going to work out.  I want something simple and Disney is anything but simple.

I think it is time for us to purchase the season’s passes for Walt Disney World.  I ran the numbers last night and 2 trips per year to Disney more than pays for the cost of the annual pass and we go a couple of times each year.

We are fortunate to have a trip planned every month through the end of the year excluding December.  This is exciting and will give me something to set my sights on each month.  In August we are going back to Cherry Grove Beach, then in September we have a wedding in New York.  October is my birthday month and November is Evelina’s bday and we are going somewhere with her parents to celebrate her Big 40th!

I love having trips planned and having something to look forward to in the near future.  So now I’m off to the internet to find a cool place to go for my birthday!  Hope everyone has a great Monday.

Danny