Do you find it more and more difficult to break through the wall that your wife, husband, son, daughter or friend has built with their phone? That devise that serves as a phone only a small fraction of the time? Or does your kid walk around with ear buds permanently attached to his/her head? Like they’re living in an alternate reality? Or maybe you have developed a compulsion to check your phone frequently to see if someone texted or messaged YOU!? Last I heard on average we check out our phones 80+ times a day. And that’s an AVERAGE! Well I’ve experience it all. In fact I think I’m addicted!

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MESSAGE: I’d like to get started with my own business in construction, but I’m 50 and female, working for a large corporation as an engineer.  I just watched a man “put out to pasture” due to his age and not ability. In a few years, that’s going to be me if I don’t take control and have my own business. 
Working 50 hour weeks and commuting doesn’t leave much time for building a business though. Where do you start?

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But now it’s 2018. People are making all kinds of claims about who I am and what I believe. And who you are as well. There are now so many different categories that people are getting pushed into by other people.. Race, Gender, Sex, Christian, Muslim, Secular, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Conservative, Liberal, Leftist, Socialist, Communist, Gay, Straight, LGBT etc. etc. etc.

Caricatures have been built that describe each of these above titles with one group of people defining that category one way and the other the opposite. We are, all of us, whether we like or not being placed into an identity box with specific alleged attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and desires. But way to often these caricatures are not who we are.

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It’s true! There is an Artist living inside you. He/She has been there since day one. You were born an amazingly complicated, marvelous, miraculous and creative being possessing the ability to think up, design and create. It’s in you DNA! You can’t help but be artistic.

But you say “I can’t draw” or “I’m not creative” something I’ve heard numerous times from people for years. My response to that…? I say Bunk! Every day you decide what color shirt or blouse to wear. What combination of clothing accessories to put together for your “look” before you launch into your day. When you move into a house or apartment do you make any decisions as to what should go on the walls or what kind of furniture to buy? Of course you do! Even if you delegate that to someone else the truth is you actually do have an opinion on what should go into your living space.

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America. Land of the free and home of the brave. A land that was built on the system of free-market capitalism. Where a person is free to design, build, or create something that people need or serve them in some way in exchange for money. In essence all of us are either solving a problem or meeting the needs of someone each day we go to work.

Some jobs take years of training to perform while others no time at all. And more training generally means you make more money….but not always.

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Why the heck go into business? Good question. A question however that lot’s of people never seriously ask. Maybe because they’ve heard how hard it is to run a business? Or how much money it might cost to get one started? Maybe they think it’d be to complicated or if it failed they’d be too embarrassed? The truth is that owning and running a business can and does involve all of the those fears and potential realities at times. But from where I sit owning your own business has so many more benefits the risks are totally worth taking.

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To create, to design, to build and make are the attributes of only one species on earth. Humans. This among other things separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. And what a great difference and gift it is for us! To be able to take simple elements and turn them into objects of beauty, function, and purpose. This is, in fact, what I’ve been doing for decades. Firstly as a dental technician, then a sand sculptor and more recently working in concrete and steel. Building waterfalls, grotto’s ponds, and pools in artificial rock. But today let’s look more specifically at concrete waterfalls on swimming pools.

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If you Google “The Power of One” you find info on movies, books and lots of quotes on how amazing and important a single person can be at positively impacting their lives and the world. Even Hollywood loves to have a hero or heroine as the center of the story-line in their movies. And all of us love to hear how someone overcame great odds to win the prize, conquer the foe, or get the girl…or the guy. We imagine being that person and how awesome it would feel to experience those victories and get all the “goods”.

In truth however life isn’t really like that. When you think about it even those heroes had people, (or creatures or beings of some sort) helping them on their journey….and recently I came to understand this all too personally.

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Suffering SUCKS!  It's real, it's unavoidable, it hurts and it's awful.  And we have tons of words to describe it with.  Pain, difficulty, rejection, sorrow, sadness, and hurt.  Discouragement, grief, depression, unforegiveness, despair, and frustration.  Tribulation.  Turmoil.  Hatred.  Assault.  Offendedness and regret.  Then the biggey, hopelessness is always there ready to round things out to make us utterly miserable.   With so many words to describe things that cause suffering how the heck are we supposed to deal with it when it comes our way?  Truth is there are a number of ways we can and do "deal with it".  Some ways are good.  Some are not so good.  And some are terrible. 

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When I started my career in water feature construction decades ago it was exclusively in the field of pond construction.  I used rubber liners and pond kits.  The projects were natural plant and fish ponds or biological features.  I then added pondless waterfalls as well.   

But I learned early on that I was somewhat limited in what size rocks or boulders I could use.  If they were too heavy to carry by hand then I needed to use excavators and heavy equipment to move in and place the stones.  It was doable but it also added considerably to project costs and budgets with some projects being pretty much inaccessible for heavy equipment at times and thus not doable.  And that's never good when you need to tell a client you can't make what they are asking for.  

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Just a few days ago a fire blazed through my little town of Alpine.  Over 400 acres in size with 55 structures being destroyed including 34 homes.  One day they were there, the next just smoldering ruins.

My home is just under 2 miles away from it's origin.  It started right where I get on the freeway everyday and began just a few minutes after I past this location around 11:20am on my way to work.  Had the gusty winds been blowing eastward instead of westward I might not be writing this blog to you on this computer right now...

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Is your business growing?  Are you happy with the way it's being run?  The way your life is?  Would you like to make $500, $1,000, $5000 or more each month extra?  Well duh, of course we all would. 

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  "Beginning is half done"!  I heard that decades ago in a book, workshop, or from a speaker.  Don't remember which.  It was true then and it's true now.  And the reason we need to hear these phrases and admonitions is most of us don't do what we say we need to do, want to do or wish we could do.   How about you?  Are you taking action on all the specific steps needed for you to achieve your goals?  Today?  Every day?...  Me either. 

    But I also heard another phrase, "progress not perfection".  I like that one.  As long as we are making progress we can be assured that each day we are closer to achieving our goals, desires, and dreams.  But how fast and consistently are we moving and is it fast enough? 

    Well let me share my story.  What was the key or keys to making things work out for me?  Well the answer was I just started.

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Now you have a new idea.  You want to change your life.  Go in a new direction.  That may be why your reading this.  Well I say BRAVO!  You have already begun the movement, the "going towards" that which you want.  Because without taking that first step a thousand mile journey, or even a one mile journey, will never take place.

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