Do the Little Things

Hey team. All right, so here we are. You can see by the picture behind me, I don’t know how many of you guys have kind of a ritual or something you do at the very first of the year. One of the things that Karen and I started doing when we first got married was we usually go up to the top of a mountain somewhere. Since we live so close to Mount Hood and since we’ve had the boys we usually go up and we do a little hike. Or we do some sledding or we now build a fort. My back is really sore. Jonathan, David, and I we dug ourselves a little snow fort. They had a lot of fun. Then we went down to Pietro’s Pizza in Hood River, played some games, and ate some pizza. We had a lot of fun.

Well today’s Wednesday Workshop and I wanted to share with you guys something that Napoleon said, was that the only conquests that are permanent, that last (I’m paraphrasing) and leave no regrets is the conquest of oneself. I think what he means there is that you need to conquer yourself.

You need to do the small things that make you better.

We have these things called New Year’s resolutions. I’m gonna eat less sugar, I’m going to work out three times a week, I’m going to…you know, all those things. The problem is we can have those aspirations and we never conquer them. I mean how many of you have a New Year’s resolution almost every year that you never make? You never make it part of your life because you don’t put real focus to it, to conquer it. You don’t put other things out of the way to make sure that this thing happens. Sure there are a lot of examples and reasons why we don’t accomplish those things. Other things crowd in, come in cloud our judgment, take up our time. The boss asks us to work more shifts, those kind of things.

But the reality is that if you ever want to become great at anything, you need to do the small things first. Do what is possible. Conquer yourself. Conquer those little things and before you know it you’ll be doing things that are really possible. Then you’ll be doing things that are almost impossible. You’ll accomplish great and mighty things by doing the small things. Do the little things.

It’s the consistency of what we do and how reliable we are in the small stuff.

You’ll be surprised what getting up at the same time setting your alarm and getting up at the same time every day, even on your days off, can afford you as far as time is concerned and getting things done, making a list.

Karen is great at making less and I’ve seen other team members here model her list making abilities to accomplish things. So in 2023, hard to believe I’m saying that, but 2023 start conquering yourself by being consistent with the little things. That you know you have to get done, the laundry, eating right, packing a lunch. When summer comes mowing your lawn. Doing the small things in your life. Polishing your shoes, ironing your clothes. Showing up for work five minutes early so that you’re ready to go, out the door leaving the house in the appropriate time to deal with traffic so that you can make it to work on time.

All those things of consistency will make you more reliable. They will make you more dependable and all of a sudden you might see a promotion here at work. You might see people taking notice of the fact that you’re able to handle yourself in such a way.

All right guys, be valuable because nothing less will do and I’ll see you next Wednesday. God bless you. It is a New Year. Talk to you later. Bye, see ya!