MR. FIX-IT

In 1985 Jean and I moved from Chicago to Albuquerque, New Mexico. That was a great year. The next year the kids found us. Our excitement tapered off a bit, but we still knew the Southwest was for us. When we arrived in Albuquerque, we bought a house and had a swimming pool installed.

We had our pool, deck chairs, table, umbrella and pool toys, but something was missing -- a shelf. We needed a shelf mounted outside of the kitchen window. On that shelf we could put party items like blue corn chips with salsa and being health nuts, the juice of several margaritas.

We asked our neighbors for a recommendation for someone to furnish and install the shelf. Their recommendation -- Mr. Fix-It. Despite the dorky name, we gave him a call. An appointment was set.

Mr. Fix-It arrived, right on time, and much to my surprise (the first of many), Mr. Fix-It, the handyman/carpenter, was dressed like my version of an English professor. I explained our shelf needs and asked for an estimate.

As we walked around to the backyard, Fix (I felt I knew him well enough by that time to call him by his first name) asked me more questions about how we use a backyard than the real estate agent asked during the entire home-buying process. He took measurements, asked a few more questions, and gave me an estimate.

Since I didn't want to seem too easy, I said I'd get back to him with our answer. As a result of his previous probing questions, he got me thinking about other things, like where we were going to store the chemicals, hoses, covers, all the miscellaneous pool paraphernalia. Really into this spending money thing, I asked him for an estimate on a couple of additional cabinets.

Consider how a man calling himself a handyman/carpenter might react to that "buying signal." Fix said, "Mr. Payne, you told me you have not enjoyed a summer by your pool as yet, so I would like to make a suggestion. Before you invest additional money in cabinets, spend a summer, use your backyard, and use your pool. After you have lived with what you have for a season, if you still feel you would like cabinets, you'll have a better idea of how many and where they would be most conveniently located."

I told him waiting to order additional cabinets sounded perfectly logical (although unexpected from a handyman/carpenter), and we would be getting back to him on the shelf quote.

As we walked to his van, I saw the reason for Mr.Fix-It's rather unconventional behavior. On the side of his van in large letters read: Mr. Fix-It. That, of course, was no surprise, but under the large letters was written the reason Mr. Fix-It showed up exactly on time, the reason he dressed and spoke as he did, the reason he asked the questions he did, the reason he responded to my not-too- well-thought-out request as he did, and the reason I'm writing this story. The entire message read:

Mr. Fix-It
Adjustments to Human Environment

Mr. Fix-It didn't see himself as a handyman/carpenter, he saw himself as an "adjuster of human environment" and behaved as someone committed to adjusting human environment would behave. How might he have behaved if on the side of his van was written:

Mr. Fix-It
Net $100,000 This Year

If he believed his purpose to be netting $100,000 this year, you can bet I would have had cabinets over every square inch of the backyard that wasn't water!

Lesson: In the long run you will act in harmony with what you believe. Be
sure you know what you believe.

THE FUTURE DOESN'T THE PAST MAKE

You can only experience things for the first time once.

The reason for that obvious and gnarly statement is that you can never approach something "clean" the second time around. Through filters of the first time is the way you "reapproach" any person, place, event or experience. You apply to all areas of your life a future that's based on the past.

How do you know if future changes in your life will benefit you or cause you to slobber uncontrollably on your shirt? In truth you don't KNOW, but you have a definite belief based on your prior experiences.

Since viewing your future through the lens of the past is natural, it's worth taking a good look at what beliefs from your past life (lives?) you're allowing to create that future. Your past beliefs have gotten you to where you are. Your beliefs are and should be a major input into future decisions. However your beliefs can not, and should not, be firmly locked in concrete like Jimmy Hoffa.

Think of your beliefs as a wall of safety deposit boxes--all yours.

These boxes are different from the standard, bank-assigned, safe-deposit boxes. They do not contain your run-of-the-mill odds and ends like stock certificates, rare coins, wills, and one half million in unmarked bills. These boxes contain something important. They contain your beliefs.

Each box contains a past belief you hold concerning a specific issue. When your present life's experiences lead you to a new belief concerning that issue, and you go to store the new belief, you quickly realize the box is not big enough for two conflicting beliefs so you toss out your past belief, and deposit your current, new belief.

This concept of conflicting beliefs is worth expanding upon. You cannot hold two conflicting beliefs at the same moment. Your "boxes" are just not big enough. And since the belief you choose to deposit, old or new, drives your future behaviors, which ultimately drive your life's results, which belief you choose to stuff in your metaphorical safe-deposit box is a critical choice.

Lesson: The past got you to where you are now, but it doesn't have to take you to where you're going.

LEARNER, LEARNER YOUR FUTURE'S ON FIRE

Peanuts cartoon:

The character, Rerun, was hiding under a bed. Lucy asked if he's coming to school. Rerun said "no" because, he exclaimed, the teacher was sarcastic to him. The teacher had asked him if he thought he had "learned everything he needed to know." Lucy, being Lucy, queried "Well, do you think you've learned everything you need to know?" Rerun replied, "I think I've learned everything I need to know to live under a bed."

Rerun's philosophy, at this stage of his young life appears to be, "If I'm going to live under a bed for the rest of my life, what is the sense of learning anything more? Logical, but somewhat flawed, thinking

Maybe today all he needs to learn is what's necessary to live "under a bed," but tomorrow he may find himself "under a dresser." Does he know how to live under a dresser, or does he only have "under the bed" skills?

I remember attending a then live concert by the now dead Jim Croce.

He was a gifted songwriter, minstrel and between-songs philosopher. That evening he spoke of his college experiences and said, "During four years of college I took philosophy, psychology, sociology, all of these "ologies," and I came out totally prepared for life in the 12th century."

If you don't learn how to learn, you will be, just as surely as the terminally inconvenienced Mr. Croce or the dust bunny covered Rerun, preparing for life under a bed in the 12th century. You'll find yourself able to function quite well in a world that has ceased to exist.

For those who use statistics to generate personal excitement, try these: 95 percent of what you use daily is learned after you leave school. Every five years 50 percent of what you know becomes obsolete. Doesn't say much for stagnant learning does it?

If you don't buy those statistics, and believe you have all the education you'll ever need with your high school, college or college plus degrees, try this little exercise. Dredge up the report card from your last year of formal education. See if you even remember taking a particular course, much less what was taught in that class. How would you do if you took a test today on the material you were exposed to in your last year of school?

With the high obsolescence rate of your knowledge you obviously can't rely on "used learning." Therefore continuous learning is critical at all stages of life. But of the gabillion things there are to learn, what specifically do YOU need to learn? Selective learning is no easy task considering you have very little idea of what you should select to learn.

No matter how well you have planned your life, your life has a life of its own and that life is full of surprises of all sizes. What do you need to learn when your spouse runs off with the circus? Didn't plan on that I bet. How about a job loss; quadruplets; lottery winning; hemorrhoids; aging?

It is one heck of a challenge to prepare for a life that has never been lived before. Will life hide you under the bed or stick you on the top shelf?

Lesson: Learn something everyday; you're never sure what you'll need to know or when you'll need to know it.

IS GOOD GOOD ENOUGH?

Growing up in a middle-class neighborhood, getting B- grades in school, being chosen 5th out of 11 for the block football team, being promoted with peers, being in the top 40 percent in income, having 2.5 children, living in a house costing $10,000 more than the median.

That's all good, right? Yes, but that much good can be bad.

When what you have is desired by 3/4 of the world's population, your drive to improve is weakened, because not much more is expected of you. If as a kid you were consistently picked 11 out of 11, a desire may have been triggered to "show them" by improving so to became more wanted by the others. Or you might say, "the heck with it," and never play football again. Being picked 5th is good -- good enough.

When making $5000 more in yearly income than you ever dreamed you would make is good, where is the incentive to exceed your dream by even more? It takes significant effort and energy to move to the next level in life. When you are hurting, miserable and down, that effort becomes worth making. When your life is "good," that effort is often seen as not worth expending.

Frequently in stories of successful people, we read of their disadvantaged background or possibly they came from great wealth and managed to keep and/or increase their fortune. How much do you read about successful people who started out just a tad above average? Either they don't make good copy or there are not too many of them.

I believe climbing to the top from the bottom is easier than climbing from the middle to the top.


Lesson: The major obstacle to being great tomorrow is being good today.