For those of you who have read the previous issue and are coming into this with an expectation, this is what I promised. It may not be what you were expecting!

Well-known marketing expert, Seth Godin, is reported to have said:

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”

I love that.

Let’s be clear, however, we all need a change of scenery periodically. We perhaps need to make more time to spend with our children or our spouse. We have a healthy desire to see the world. All those things can be and often are important. But Seth isn’t talking about not taking a vacation; he is talking about building a life in which a vacation isn’t something to necessarily be looked forward to more than what you were doing in the weeks before or in the weeks after.

It’s often difficult to really process something because of all the attendant noise that accompanies the thinking. What I know I want and, I suspect, what others want is less noise and more clarity. If only there were a way to quiet the noise. Well, what I’ve discovered is that there is…

I am starting the draft of this newsletter in July of 2025. (No idea if/when it will be published.. I am on what has become my annual summer trip to Boulder, Colorado, for an extended stay. When this started four years ago, the purpose of the trip was to (A) spend time with my spiritual teacher, (B) ride my bike in the mountains (C) work on learning to cook. (It has been explained to me that I do not “cook”, but I “heat things”…

Simple. Yes. Easy. Probably not. But it starts with a decision. Whether you are the owner of a company or an employee with lots of constraints (real or imagined), whether you feel boxed in by expectations or adrift without direction, it starts with a decision: to stop assuming you’re stuck and nothing can be done. The only thing that is truly stuck is your thinking. So, in that regard, yes, it really is simple.

If you’ve spent any time on my website, you’ve likely heard me talk about this before…this thing that won’t leave me alone. But it won’t leave me alone. It seems that behind everything I do, it is lurking. It may be influencing everything I do, but I don’t sense that. However, I am sure it is the driving factor behind at least some of the things I do and think about.

For any regular readers, this may be a different sort of newsletter. It is a bit of a peek behind the curtain into Greg’s life.

Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi was born in the early 1200s and is known today for having been a deeply spiritual being and a mystical poet. I confess that I’ve never been much for most poetry (which I think is a reflection of my shallow thinking, left brain oriented mind), but Rumi is credited with a quote that I have always found instructive and profound. (And, perhaps, a little unsettling!)

“What you seek is seeking you.”

I hope I do not have to convince you of the importance of reading. Reading can not only be a source of enjoyment, but by reading, you can learn new things and become better educated if you want. I do not want to diminish either of these, but there is another important thing that reading can do for you.

As the typing starts for this issue I am sitting in my office with nothing on my calendar or to-do list but this: Write. I have all the time I need and I don’t have anything I want or feel the need to say. Here is the quote that has appeared in my mind as I sit here… From James Clear: “Don’t wait to start writing until you have something to say. Start writing so you can find out what you have to say.” Sigh! Here goes…

Being stuck is not a problem. It is a symptom. And working on symptoms rarely solves the problem. It may effectively mask it, for now, but the root cause remains. So, what is the root cause?

There’s a quote attributed to Jim Rohn that’s been bouncing around in my head lately:

“If you don’t design your life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”

It’s funny, or maybe it’s tragic, how easy it is to drift into living a life someone else imagined for us. It could be a parent, a spouse, a boss, a buddy, anyone. It doesn’t happen all at once. No one hands you a fully written script on your 18th birthday and says, “Here, follow this word-for-word.” It happens gradually.

I am the luckiest man in the world to have been married for more than 48 years to my wonderful wife, Moni. She has, however, the unfortunate habit of using profanity. When something doesn’t go the way she wants it to, she uses a filthy, very foul, dirty word. That word? “Should”.

Henry Ford is reported to have once said, .“Thinking is the hardest work we do, which is probably why so few engage in it” Lately, I am discovering firsthand that he is right. I had previously accepted the idea because it sounded good, and if we look around, we see all sorts of people following the crowd, accepting the status quo without giving any real consideration to other ways of thinking. (Not that either you or I would ever be guilty of that). It's just much easier to follow the crowd. It also does not require any critical thinking (or even much uncritical thinking!)

To, again, quote Ben Franklin, “Many people die at twenty-five and aren’t buried until they are seventy-five.”

I’ve used this quote in the last two newsletters. Let's try it a third time. Let me start this way.

YAWN!

I mean, do you really understand it? Most people look at work as a way to earn money so they can put a roof over their heads and food on their table. While that isn’t wrong, it is an understanding at the most simplistic level. (Just because you can add, subtract, multiply, and divide does not make you a mathematician.)

Wisdom is timeless. Regardless of when it was originally authored, it continues to speak to us even with time. Mark Twain is reported to have once said, “There are two important days in your life: the day you were born and the day you find out why.”

Two or three years ago (I wasn’t keeping track), my impending mortality came into my awareness.   We all know our bodies are going to die at some point, but most of us (including me) spend most of our lives acting as if we are going to live forever.  

For most of my adult life, I have worked in the construction industry. Perhaps like all industries involving blue-collar workers, there is an emphasis on productivity. The entire Industrial Revolution, which began in the 1800s, was about creating machines to enable people to be more productive.   This was, undeniably, a good thing. 

I subscribe to a marketing newsletter from a guy named Jason Stapleton. His daily emails are ultimately designed to get me to purchase his services, which I may do someday. But, daily, his emails intend to provide value. His email started today with this: “What would you say is the greatest sin someone could commit against themselves? Suicide, maybe? Intentionally destroying your body with a bad diet or other vices? Both would be high on my list, but not #1.