Category Archives: Metaphor

Mine Your Way To Success

Once there were two miners. They came to California during the gold rush back during the eighteen hundreds. They were both from the same small town in Kansas, although they had never met before they met up in California. At the time, the small town in Kansas was experiencing a lot of economic difficulties. The railroad, which was supposed to be building a main stop in town, which would be great for business, decided against it. There was a small mountain range just outside of town, and when the surveyors for the railroad company had come to take a look, they discovered a large iron deposit in the Earth.

This, of course, caused the townspeople, at first, to become even happier, as they imagined that the discovery of this resource would bring a lot of additional money and business to the town. But the problem was that the deposit of minerals were on different parcels of land, and they were difficult to get to. The legal ramifications were relatively complex, so in order to build the railroad, the railroad company simply opted for another town with fewer problems, and left the townspeople and the various iron miners to sort out there differences.

Just when all this was going on, people started hearing stories of the gold that you could find in California. There were all kinds of stories of people striking it rich every day, and all you had to do was to show up and find gold and all your problems would be solved. There were other stories of people finding diamonds, and oil running in streams in some mountains, and all the businesses that needed to support the gold finding industry.

So these two guys, without knowing each other, each decided to sell everything they had that was worth anything, and head out to California. They hitched rides on trains, wagons, walked for several miles, and after several months of traveling, they finally made it to the hills of San Francisco.

They both began in earnest looking for treasure, but they each had a different strategy. The first guy had been studying all about gold, and talking to people along the way. He had a clear idea of exactly what he wanted to find. Because he knew exactly what he wanted to find, he could easily choose the right equipment. And he listened very carefully to stories of people that had found exactly what they were looking for. He made sure to study their methods, study where exactly in the hills they went, what kind of landscape surrounded their findings, the exact kind of river and every detail he could get his hands on. He kept a notebook of all this detailed information.

Naturally, when he got to the hills of San Francisco, he began in earnest. He panned for gold in the exact same method of those who had already became rich. He stayed in one spot only long enough to determine, based on the amount of gold dust that he found, whether it was likely he would find a large amount. He kept this up, until after a short while, he had found enough gold to easily retire wealthy and happy. From his perspective, he thought it had been fairly easy. He looked around at all the people running around not sure what they were doing and wondered why they hadn’t become rich already. Then he bumped into the fellow from his small town.

After they recognized each other, they exchanged greetings. When he asked him how he had been doing, the other guy was upset.

“This whole place is a scam. I’ve looked for everything, diamonds, silver, rubies, and all those stories I heard are all made up. I think they are made up by the people that want to sell you the material to find this nonsense with.”

“What did you say you were looking for?” The first guy asked.

“Well, first I was looking for diamonds, because I heard about some guy who came here three years ago and found one big one. Then I heard another story about a family that had discovered rubies in the root of a sycamore tree, so I started digging up sycamore trees. Then I heard that the real money is in finding oil, but I haven’t found any of that yet.”

“Hmm,” said the first guy, stroking his chin. He wondered if he should tell him that in order to find what you are looking for, you first have to know what you are looking for. Then after you know what you are looking for, the best way to find it was to do what other people had done that had already found it. And the next thing to do is to simply decide to keep looking, until you found it. Because other people had found it, you could be sure that if you did the same thing they did, of course changing it to suit your own personality, you would find the same thing.

But he decided against it, as he suspected the old timer would figure this out on his own.

Clear Intentions Leaves no Room for Mistakes

I was waiting at the train station the other day. It was a Saturday afternoon, and there were a many people. Mostly out shopping, a few kids that had to go to school on Saturday, as that is fairly common here. I started talking to this woman sitting next to me. She had an interesting book that was about baseball. It turns out her son is in university and plays baseball for the university baseball team, and she because she never really knew anything about the game, she decide to buy a book to figure it out. It turns out that her son had always been interested in baseball before, but he never felt comfortable expressing an interesting, because when he was a kid his parents had always placed so much importance on studying, getting good grades, and getting into a good university. Only when he went away to university did he find the persona l freedom to explore his desires. And he found out he was really good.

The funny thing was that his mom told me that had he said something about baseball earlier, like in junior high school, she would have loved to help him explore that option. So there she was, reading this book about baseball. The particular chapter she was reading was all about signals and signs and secret messages inside other pieces of random communication. In baseball strategy is very important, but sometimes communicating changes in strategy to players on the field is difficult. So they devised a complex set of signals and hidden messages. And because both teams are doing this, it can become very complicated to send signals that the other team can’t understand. Otherwise they would intercept their strategy and know what they are planning to do. They go to great lengths to conceal the intention behind their communication.

While I was talking to her this guy started walking behind us, mumbling something incoherently. He was holding some map of some sort, which looked to be a local train map. A few people looked like they wanted to help him, but he wasn’t really making any sense, so people just kind backed off. He stopped a few times, looked at his map, and then looked at the large map they have of all the different lines and their stops and intersections and times. They have it written in three different languages, so that all travelers can understand the sign.

When I asked the woman if she had ever talked to her son about why he didn’t express his interest in baseball earlier, it turned out that he had, she just didn’t understand, or maybe he didn’t communicate it very clearly. He would always watch baseball on TV, and when his parents asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, a couple of times he said a baseball player. His parents, of course, didn’t know that he was serious, as he never showed any interest in signing up for the local team. Of course, when he went to find out about it, they required a form signed by his parents, and the very day he brought the form home for his parents to sign, his father had decided that was the time to give him a lecture about choosing a career path, as he was soon entering high school. His father, of course, didn’t know anything about his desire to play baseball, and the son didn’t know that it would have been allright had he of asked.

When he finally told his parents how much he was enjoying playing on the University Team, they were both very happy. I asked the lady what she thought was interesting about reading about baseball signs, and she said she never realized that before the games they spend a considerable amount of time going over the signals so there is no miscommunication. Not communicating properly can lose a game. And when the lady went over and asked the man where he was going, it turned out he was going where most everybody else was. The reason nobody could understand him was because he was from a prefecture that is out in the countryside where they speak a different dialect. When the lady figured out what dialect he was speaking, everybody could understand what he wanted. It turns out he was a visiting professor that was going to give a lecture on communication.

Speak Your Skills and the World Will Listen

Once upon a time there was a bricklayer. He had been doing this job for about ten years, and he was very good at it. He was well known amongst his peers as having a very dedicated work ethic, and an incredible amount of skill. There was a waiting list or at least three years long for those that wanted to apprentice under him, as he was well regarded as having the best skills in the area.

He mostly did non-residential buildings, like museums and churches and some city centers. Occasionally he did some small residential projects, fountains, and a few private temples here and there for the religiously inclined. He was very successful, and very happy.

He was also very young. He had only been in the business for ten years, starting fresh from high school. His father had died when he was very young, and as soon as the law would allow, he took full time work. He quickly realized that he had found his calling, as the work was both rewarding and challenging. And he had always made decent money. Yet to start a family on his own, he still gave the bulk of his salary to his mother, who had raised him alone since he was six years old.

Something was happening, though. Although his list of apprentices kept growing, the jobs he was finding were becoming fewer and fewer. Many companies were starting to buy pre-fabricated walls and other structures, as it was much cheaper. The work slowly began to dry up, until he had a list of apprentices wanting to learn under him, but no work to do. Finally he had to suspend his apprenticeship program, as he had to take on simple mundane jobs that even his would be apprentices were qualified to do. Many times he found himself working right alongside of them.

He started to get worried to the point of letting his fears overcome the pleasure he had always received from doing the work. He began staying up late at night, unable to sleep, imagining a future where his skills were no longer needed. His life, which had been so promising, filled with delight and a positive future now was clouded by thoughts of a life filled with performing unskilled labor for low wages, never knowing where his next paycheck was going to come from. It became almost too much to bear.

Then one night he had a dream. In the dream his father came to him. He had always kept a picture of his father on the nightstand next to his bed, always imagining his father looking on hi with pride. In the dream his father said to him:

Son, you have a skill that few possess. When people hire you, they hire you for the beauty that you impart on their buildings, their places of worship. Before, you relied on your work to speak for itself. But now, you must speak for your work. You must proclaim your skills. You must make it easy for others to choose your work over the easier path. You must convince them of your value, and the value your work will bring them. I have faith in you.

He woke up, barely remembering the dream, but he had a new motivation. He set up a meeting with three of the projects that had canceled only a few weeks before. He asked for a meeting with whoever was in charge of deciding on traditionally laid bricks or prefabricated bricks. When he met with them, he spoke with passion and belief and conviction. All three of them agreed to hire him. Soon word spread of his work. Word spread of the conviction with which he spoke of his work. Soon he needed to hire a personal secretary to handle all the calls from around the country of people that wanted to hire him. And now he had two lists of apprentices. One to learn bricklaying, and one to learn how to tell others about their skills, and the value that they would bring to others.

Divide Your Differences to Combine Your Resources

Once upon a time there were two communities of rabbits. They had lived near each other for a few generations, and they had a truce that had not been broken for several years. A truce because they had a long history of fighting behind. They lived on two separate sides of a small river. The river was large enough that it supplied both of them with water that they needed to live, but not big enough to keep them for crossing when the level was low.

On the east side of the river, there was an abundance of blueberries. Both rabbits loved blueberries. One the west side of the river was a huge crop of naturally growing lettuce. Rabbits love lettuce. Before the truce, each side would war agains the other side to try and take all they could before crossing back safely into their own territory. Every time this happened, there were many deaths. Finally they agreed that they would only send a team of six rabbits across, at the same time, but only when the river was low enough to cross, and only for a total of four hours. And most importantly, only at the same time.

Every time the river receded, two teams would gather one each side. One team, containing the six rabbits that would go and collect the food, and another, much larger team that would observe the “visiting” group to ensure they didn’t take more than they were allowed. After the allotted four hours, they would meet and ensure that each team had taken an equal share. They both agreed that this was the best method, but deep down they would love nothing more to destroy the other side’s community completely, and take all the resources for themselves.

Then one day, as they were gathered along the shores of the lowered river, preparing for their respective incursions, there was a huge, and long earthquake. The ground shook for what seemed like hours, and the distant mountains trembled, causing huge boulders to tumble down the mountainside. When the earthquake was over, they were shocked to see the river had completely change course. Not only had it completely changed course, it was nowhere to be seen. Both teams of rabbits immediately squared off, unsure of what to do. They were both terrified and excited at the same time. Each side saw this as a clear opportunity to demolish the other side once and for all, and take all the resources for themselves.

Finally, cooler heads prevailed, as they realized they had a much more pressing and potentially devastating problem. There was no water. Without any water they would surely die. They decided to form a survey team, a team that would go out in search of water. The two teams went back to their respective councils to choose team members. They smartest from each tribe were selected, and they met at the site of the old river. They agreed to share whatever they found, the threat of their mutual extinction overshadowing any hatred that they used to have.

The team set off. They searched for days, until they made a startling discovery. The river had split in two, about four miles upstream. The river had forked, running down the valley, encompassing an area containing both rabbit tribes.
At first the two tribes were perplexed. How would they manage? They survey team continued to search all the area between two rivers, which now contained both rabbit tribes, instead of separating them. They determined that not only was there an abundance of lettuce and blueberries, but there were various patches scattered all through their new mutual home. The two councils decided to merge into one, much larger council, and the rabbits quickly found that by combining their efforts, they could easily build a better community. After a time, they began to celebrate the day of the earthquake, as a time that split not only the river, but also their differences, and joined the two tribes into a powerful and abundant community.

Stay Focused On Your Target

I had a friend of mine that worked for a trading company. It was a medium sized trading company, and their mission statement was to be the biggest trading company in the world. They had set that goal several years ago, and had been steadily growing to that end. However, with the recent economic troubles, their market share had been slipping, and they were in danger of not achieving their target. My friend that worked there worked in the new accounts department. His job was to find foreign markets for the products that they were importing from other countries. They had certain requirements for each distributor, and sometimes it took a while to find out the information that was required.

They had the company goal written on a large poster. They spent a lot of money on a graphic artist to come up with a symbol of their future goal. It was a combination of a graphical representation of the market share they were after, combined with the symbol for the company as chosen by their founder a over a hundred years ago. It was a very impressive emblem that everyone was required to have in their office. My friend had his hanging over his desk, so that he would see it when he first came in every morning.

He also kept a large white board in front of his desk, as sometimes they would have meetings. When they would have issues that came up during the meeting he would leave them on the white board, so he could look at them while he worked, sitting behind his desk.

I remember once when was a kid. I went away to summer camp while I was in boy scouts. The way it was set up was that you chose about five or six merit badges that you wanted to get, and then you spent the time working on them while you were at camp. It was important to choose what you wanted before camp, because they learned from experience that if you didn’t choose beforehand, you would just kind of mess around and not really achieve anything. They said that even choosing one thing with confidence was better than choosing a bunch of merit badges that you think you might enjoy getting, only to realize you didn’t really want to get them enough to go through the actions required to actually get them.

One of the ones I chose was archery. It was pretty cool. We had to learn all about the names of all the equipment, all the safety requirements, and you had to score a certain number of points on a regulation archery course. Before doing this we were required to practice a lot of mental visualization. The most important one was to focus on the target above all else. The instructor told us that in order to hit our target, we had to imagine the arrow going straight into the bull’s eye. You had to take several deep breaths before shooting, and then see the arrow hitting the target in your minds eye. Then you had to exhale slowly, pull back the bowstring, and slowly release.

One thing I never thought about was how to adjust for you misses. In order to get enough points to get the merit badge, you didn’t have to hit a bulls eye every time. You could even miss the target completely. So long as you were able to watch where the arrow went, and then adjust your aim accordingly. The instructor told us that it was important to accept every result that we got, and get upset if we missed our target. To simply watch where the arrow went, and adjust our aim accordingly. He said that if we did this, then getting a merit badge in a couple of days would be automatic.

One day my friend had an idea. He switched the placement of the white board, and of the emblem that his company had designed for the goal. He placed the emblem in front of his desk, where he was always looking at it. And after the meetings, he would leave the main issues on the whiteboard as before, but he would roll the white board so it sat behind his desk, where he could turn around and look at it when he needed to remember what problems to move away from. He found that by keeping his problems behind him, and keeping his target in front of him, he found it much easier and much quicker to achieve the company goals.

The Tulip Save

Once upon a time there was a family. They were a normal, modern family with normal, modern family problems. They had two kids, and the father worked as an account executive in a large advertising firm. Because of the recent economic problems, the father’s company was experiencing problems, and so his company wasn’t paying out big bonuses like they normally did. When the father joined the company several years a go, he opted for payment plan B. Which at the time was great. Only now it wasn’t so great, because a large part of his salary was based on bonuses.

So of course the family was struggling. The wife had a small flower stand that she worked several days a week. It wasn’t a full-blown shop; it was just big enough to store a few dozen different flowers to catch the attention of people as they drove by to and from work. You know how when you are just going along and minding your own business, and then you see something that captures your interest, and you think to yourself you have to take a look at this? It was like that. It was more of a hobby than anything else. She just made enough to pay her rent and the expenses. She never really had any expectations of making a living selling flowers. Which was fine with her, because she enjoyed raising her children and making sure they did well in school and stayed out of trouble.

She was also fairly lucky in that her grandfather had owned a large farm. Her grandfather had passed away several years ago, and they had inherited the land. Because the family wasn’t very interested in continuing the farm, they let the land go. It was only a couple acres just on the outside of town. Fortunately, the land produced many wildflowers that she sold in her shop. Her shop was known around town as a shop that sold wildflowers and other things like that. The kind of people that shopped there were a unique brand of people. They usually bought flowers for other than main flower buying reasons. Usually just to give to somebody for some spontaneous reason, and not a rose for Valentines Day or any other socially required gift.

But then one summer, the flowers on her farm started changing. They were only wildflowers, and they grew naturally, so she really had no idea what was happening. She had a friend who knew about these things and they investigated for her, and determined that there was a particular strain of a plant disease that had infected her flowers. Her source of her hobby was at risk.

She went home, and was surprised how depressed this had made her. She had always thought of selling flowers as nothing more than a hobby, so she never really gave it much thought to how it affected her personally. But when her hobby was threatened, she noticed how much pleasure she received when she sold somebody a flower, who in turn was going to give it to somebody else. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do.

When she arrived home, she was in for another shock. Her husbands company had decided to discontinue their bonus plan altogether. And despite efforts to reorganize the pay structure so it wouldn’t be so bad, the family was going to take substantial financial hit. The kids had just entered high school, and they were not completely unsure of their futures. They all sat up late at night after dinner, discussing how they could handle the impending financial crisis. Nobody could come up with an idea that didn’t involve them selling their nice house and moving into a cheaper one, and having to choose a less expensive college for the kids.

The next day at work, something incredibly fortuitous happened. A stranger came up to the flower shop, and brought some flowers that the woman had never seen before. They were beautiful, with a swirl of colors she never thought was possible outside of a painter’s studio. The man was just curious, as he had picked them on a drive in from outside of town. When he saw the shop, he’d decided to ask her about them, merely out of curiosity. She was amazed when he told her where he’d picked them.

When she arrived at her grandfather’s farm, with her friend, they saw hundreds of flowers just like the stranger had brought in. The “disease” had somehow changed the flowers into the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. She gathered a couple dozen, and brought them back to her shop. They sold out within an hour, and the news of the unique flowers quickly spread. They repeated this, until fully half the wildflowers from her grandfathers farm had been sold. Her friend determined an easy way to repeatedly grow the same flowers, with the same colors. Pretty soon people were driving hours from all over to buy these strangely colored flowers. She made more money selling flowers than she’d ever thought possible.

Experts from a nearby University came to test the soil of her grandfathers farm, and said it was a unique blend of minerals they’d never thought about before, that might potentially have limitless medical applications. They government leased her grandfathers property from her, in a hundred year lease, for an enormous price. Her husband was able to quit his job, and help her in the flower shop. Because of the income from the government lease, they never had to worry about money again.

Something that they had that they thought was only a source for a passing hobby turned into a magnificent source of income for a lifetime, for reasons they never would have expected.

The Hills Are Alive with Wave Energy

When I was a kid there was a new family that moved in. They had two young boys that were about the same age as me. Of course, being boys, the first thing we did when we saw each other was to start throwing rocks at each other. We didn’t actually hit each other, but it took a while for us to get over our imagined differences that you sometimes see when are doing things like this. After we started to play together, without wanting to kill each other, we started going to a park that was behind our neighborhood. It was an old park, I don’t if they city had given up on it, but they kind of let it get overgrown and stuff. It wasn’t really dangerous, there weren’t any poisonous snakes or patches of quicksand or anything like that, and it was just an old park that had a bunch of overgrown trees and stuff. It had large hill in the middle of it, but the hill was heavily populated with trees, so you couldn’t really ride your bike down the hill or anything, because you might crash into a bunch of trees if you weren’t careful.

I remember watching a surfing competition once, and there was a big pier in the middle of the contest. While it certainly wasn’t required, for insurance and legal purposes, to “shoot the pier,” that is to catch a wave on one side of the pier and ride it through the pier, without crashing into the pier itself, surfers who would venture through this would ooh and ahh the crowd. Of course, the judges weren’t’ allowed to give any extra points for this, because they might be held liable for any body that injured themselves. Sometimes it’s important to make sure the recognition you want to receive from something is the kind of recognition that wants you. It’s important to balance the recognition that pays your rent, and bread and butter that inspires you to greater things.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been surfing, but it’s an interesting study in how to harness a naturally occurring phenomenon. Waves have been around long before mankind ever showed up on earth, and will likely be around long after mankind has left. The waves don’t care if you are in a good mood, or if you just got fired from your job. They just keep coming in regardless, based solely on a few basic laws of physics and gravity.

It’s interesting the different ways that humans have used to harness naturally occurring phenomenon. Wind energy, solar energy, and recently ocean currents have been, and continue to be a valuable source for electricity. And no matter how many billions of people live on Earth, the wind and solar and ocean currents will remain unchanged. It’s amazing the things that have been around for millions of years, before humans were a gleam in a single cell bacteria’s eye, and will likely be here long after out demise, will continue to consistently behave in a predictable way. And when you consider how ancient people used these same resources, compared to how we use them today, you can only imagine the creative ways humans will be using them a few thousand years from now.

After the new kids and I went to the park a few times, we realized that the densely wooded hill would be a perfect place for playing wargames, like capture the flag, and laser tag, and paintball. Before, I had never considered doing something like that. Maybe it was because our first instinct was to throw rocks at each other, but using that area for much different kind of games proved to be a great way to create lasting friendships, and build teamwork skills. We spent many summers trying to think of creative ways to run around those woods trying to pretend to kill and sneak attack each other. It’s really amazing what you can do when you figure out how to use the resources that have been around you since before you took the time to notice them, now.

How to Shut Off the Voices from Your Past

I knew this guy that had bought a new car recently. For him it was a big deal, because all of the cars he’s ever driven have been used. And when he bought them used, they were at least several years old. He is a very successful businessman, and I always wondered why he didn’t want to spend a lot of money on cars, because I was sure he could afford it. He had expensive clothes, and he lived in a nice area of town, in a very upscale apartment building, so I wasn’t really sure why he insisted on buying used cars all the time.

But whatever the reason, he apparently got over it, as he bought a brand new, state of the art, top of the line SUV. I think it was made in Germany because the quality was incredible. One thing though, he didn’t like at all. It had this navigation system that would always talk to him while he was driving. None of his other cars had navigation systems, and he had always prided himself on being able to find his way around, even when he drove to strange cities that he’d never been to before. He said he could “sniff” where he wanted to go. When he was going to a meeting or something important to his business, he would only get the major cross streets, look at a map briefly before he left, and then go only by memory or by instinct. So when he got this talking car that told him what was what every time he turned a corner, I could understand why he was so frustrated with it. Especially since it was always telling him some potential danger up ahead.

He said it was like having a voice in your head that is always telling about something bad that will happen. Like when you want to get up and give a speech or ask out a pretty girl, there’s always this voice saying, “be careful, you might get hurt or embarrassed.” Most people hear that voice and then obey it completely, like it is a voice from God himself or something. Others don’t even hear it at all, they just get a funny uncomfortable feeling, and when they decide not to do what they were thinking of doing, the voice shuts up and the feeling goes away.

One interesting thing my friend did was figure out how to reprogram his navigation system. What he did was program his goal, or destination into the system, and then put in the time he needed to be there. Then whenever it talked to him, it only told him things specific to his goal. When he realized that the voice he kept hearing were only suggestions, and because it was some mechanical robot voice making them, he didn’t have to take them into consideration if he didn’t want to. He could always listen to them, and then decide what to do based on what they said. Most of the time he just ignored the voice, although sometimes he paid attention just to see what happened. And the time that he did that, although it saved him a few minutes, he decided that it wasn’t that much fun paying attention to some robot voice. So eventually he took his car to the dealership and had the thing dismantled.

And when I finally asked him about why he always drove around used cars, it was because when he was a kid, his dad was a used car salesman. And his dad had told him that since used car salesman always have a bad reputation, he would try really hard to give people an honest deal. So when my friend would buy a different car, he would specifically buy them from used car lot out of respect for his dad. When he figured he’d respected his dad enough, he decided that it was time to move on, and generate some of his own respect. Which is one of the reasons, I think, he became so successful.

House of Receding Horrors

I remember when I was a kid there was an amusement park I would go to. It wasn’t a huge amusement park like Disneyland or anything, it was one of those small, local ones that some cities have near beaches. They had a few rides that were ok, if you were a kid. Sometimes I wonder how those places can get insurance with all the questionable people they have working there. I don’t think I remember ever seeing somebody working there that seemed like a person you see working someplace else, like at the grocery store or your local coffee shop or something. The kind of person that gets to know you and what you buy or order or whatever.

If you’ve ever seen a person like this outside of their your normal meeting place it’s always kind of weird. You either don’t recognize them, and wonder where you know them from, or you recognize them, but you both feel kind of awkward because you are away from your normal comfortable meeting place. Maybe I’m paranoid, but sometimes the thought strikes and makes me wonder if all those times they are being friendly is because of their job or not.

One thing about this amusement park always scared me. It was the haunted house. I had only been inside twice when I was a kid, and both times scared the crap out of me. I only went in because my friends and I all dared each other. Of course I didn’t let on how scared I was, and I suppose my friends were all the same, to some extent. But I can’t forget how scared I was both times. The place was dark, you couldn’t see where you were going, it had this weird smell like an old doctors office that hadn’t been cleaned in a while, and there were these weird sounds that you couldn’t really tell where they were coming from. It seemed like no matter which way you were facing, the sounds seemed like they were behind you and getting closer by the second. I couldn’t get out of there quick enough. Probably the thing that terrified me the most was at one point I almost panicked, and had to leave, but I couldn’t find where the exit was. There were no exit lights anywhere, and all I could hear were those sounds like some old lady breathing right behind me, and everywhere I turned seemed to be a dead end. I almost fainted from shock.

One time used to hang out in this bookstore once a week, and it only took the people a couple weeks to realize that I ordered the same thing every week. Pretty soon when they saw me, whoever it was, they would just smile and say “large iced tea?” right away with raised eyebrows just to make sure. I remember seeing one of the girls that worked there in a total different environment, and before any of those uncertain feelings or questions came up, she said “large iced tea!” with a smile, instead of this time, saying it like a question, she said it like a statement of recognition. It took care of all my concerns in one fell swoop.

I visited my friend a couple weeks ago that lived in the town where they had that amusement park. I was sure that it would be torn down and replaced by affordable housing or something, but it was still there. Just for fun my friend and I went to that haunted house, and I’ll admit I was a bit nervous going in, but boy was I surprised. It smelled like some incense you buy at a car wash, and the sound they had piped through was completely laughable. It sounded like some old woman who had been smoking for too long, but it was on this crappy loop that lasted only about four seconds, and kept repeating. There was an obvious gap when the tape repeated itself, which gave it an odd cartoonish feeling. And even though the exits weren’t marked where they normally would, because they had to have them noted by law, they had decided them to write them on the ground. So all you had to do was look down and see where the arrows were pointing to leave. The exit was never more than a few steps away. I couldn’t this pitiful haunted house had caused me so much fear earlier. I guess that’s what happens when you let your imagination run away with you.

Altering Behavior Can Lead to Tremendous Results

I was waiting at the station the other day, waiting for a train, and I happened to be sitting next to a guy that was working on some very complicated math problems, or problem. I wasn’t sure if it was a bunch of different problems or if it was on big problem that was somehow interconnected to all the rest. Because he had them written on several different pieces of paper. He would write a bunch of equations, pause, and stare off into the distance, and then write some more. There were many people walking around, and it is summertime, so there are a lot of distractions that can steal your attention from a math problem, if you catch my drift.

Sometimes you can only focus on a problem for a certain amount of time before you need to give your brain a break. It’s kind of like lifting weights. You can only do so many sets before you need to set the weight down and give your muscles a chance to repair themselves. That’s how you get bigger muscles. When you lift weights, you are actually breaking down the muscle fiber, and then if you give yourself enough rest in between the exercise with proper nutrition, your muscles will rebuild themselves better, stronger, faster, just like Steve Austin.

Sometimes working on a mental problem is the same way. You need to give your brain a rest. I don’t know if there are brain fibers that break down and grow bigger, although it certainly can seem that way if you’ve ever done a lot of math homework. Einstein said that you could never solve a problem at the same level where it was created. So maybe staring off into the distance every so often gives your brain to look at things in different perspective.

Finally after the guy seemed to stare off into the distance longer than normal, I asked him what he was doing. I didn’t think I was disturbing his thought process. His body language seemed to indicate that he was taking a longer than usual rest. He told me he was working on some thermodynamics applications for his business. He is a chemical engineer at a local beer distillery, and he was working on some equations that are related to the process before fermentation. He was that they result that they were getting was adequate, but if they could streamline it a little bit, without giving up any quality, they would be able to increase their profit margin.

He said it’s all a matter of results and behavior. He said the problem is when you focus on only one side of the equation. The results, in this case, were the end product. The different brands of beer that his company produces. There are specific ways to measure results in his particular case. He explained that it’s important to stay away from measuring results subjectively, because obviously different people will have different opinions. It’s important to have an objective way to measure the results you get, so you can reproduce them or even improve on them. Specific gravity, alkalinity, color refraction index are different ways to measure the exact results. The other side of the equation is behavior. In this case the behavior is how the chemicals interact with each other in the fermenting tank. Time, temperature, sugar levels, ingredients of the initial mix are all things they can vary. The trick is to vary the behavior and see what the easiest and quickest ways are to get the results that you want. If you can find a relatively easy behavior that will give you the results you want, you’ve got a winner. Then you can go about varying your behavior and see if you can even improve on your results, which is even better.

I wish I would have gotten his name, or business card though. Going on a tour of a local brewery would be a pretty cool experience. I never thought that brewing beer was such an involved, scientific process. Go figure.