Tag: value

What’s Productive

The car on the left goes first.

This mantra played in my head as my car idled at a red light.

I was 18 years old, and I had only held a driver’s license for a short time. Yet, I knew that the intersection I was waiting at was trouble.

A double turn lane merged onto a single lane road. And a race from the turn lanes to that single lane road would surely end up in a demolition derby.

The rules of the road stood paramount. The car on the left goes first.

On this day, I was the car in the leftmost turn lane. But the car on my right had tinted windows and was blasting loud music.

These weren’t the trappings of a rule follower. But I still trusted the rule. And I expected them to carry the day.

When the light turned green, I bolted through intersection — only to find the other vehicle in my way.

Suddenly, I was getting pushed across the double yellow line toward oncoming traffic. I had no choice but to back off.

After a few moments, the road widened back into two lanes. Fuming, I cut into the new lane, speeding past the car that had just cut me off. On the way by, I flashed my middle finger at the driver.

I’d gotten the last word. Or so I thought.

It turned out there was a red light up ahead. And as I brought my car to a stop, the other car pulled up beside me.

The driver rolled down his window and motioned for me to lower mine. As I did, I noticed his tattoos and his chains.

This guy was from the streets. I was a feeble teenager.

I was no match. Still, I was indignant.

So, when the other driver shouted What’s your problem? at me, I shot back with aplomb.

You can’t do that. I had the right-of-way. You could’ve gotten me killed.

Shut up! the other responded, adding some profanities for emphasis. Then the light turned green, and he drove off.

By the time I got home, I was in a rage. How could this other driver do the wrong thing and then yell at me about it? Was there any justice in this world?

Still, as I recounted this tale to my parents, they looked concerned. I was lucky to be alive, they said. And I should’ve been more careful with my indignation.

This wasn’t about right or wrong, they stated. It was about what was productive.

Getting in a shouting match over blame would not yield a better outcome. If anything, it would cause further problems.

It would be better to focus on what could propel me forward.

It’s been half my life since I got that pep talk. And while I occasionally get a bit hot under the collar while behind the wheel, I’ve tended to avoid altercations. I know now that it does no one any good.

Yet, I’m far too alone in this thinking.

The Monday Morning Quarterback.

It’s an well-worn phrase in our society.

The day after a football game, onlookers will give their unsolicited opinion. They’ll state which playcalls were wrong, which throws should have gone to a different target, which rush attempts should have been executed differently.

Such punditry means to illustrate a point. If the team were to make the right decisions, it would see better results. This point would hold true regardless of the competition it was facing or the game scenarios it was up against.

This, of course, is all ludicrous. Hindsight is 20/20, and it’s often colored by the outcomes we observe. When the game is going on, that script is still being written. The options we see clearly in the morning light are fogged over in the heat of the moment.

But that hasn’t stopped Monday Morning Quarterbacking from catching fire. There are more than a dozen football games in each pro or college football season. And pundits will spend about 60 additional days reimagining the action.

Worse still, the Monday Morning Quarterback effect has spread to other facets of life. Many companies feature post-mortems to replay ventures gone sour. Congressional committees skewer officials from myriad industries about decisions gone wrong. Wall Street investors get spooked by isolated incidents, causing stock devaluations.

There’s a primal instinct behind these actions. An instinct to apportion blame and administer punishment.

Once those elements are doled out, we’ll theoretically be set. The pain of our loss will be alleviated. Justice will be served.

But something goes missing when we keep looking backward like this. Namely, a path forward.

Yes, Monday Morning Quarterbacking – of all types – is like my altercation with that street-hardened driver years ago. It’s anything but productive.

And it needs to change.

What’s next?

It’s a question we ask often when things are going right.

There’s always the next mountain to climb, the next challenge to embrace, the next puzzle to solve.

Such thinking keeps us productive. It diverts us from complacenty. It helps us strive toward better.

But it’s also created something of a double standard. One where improvement is exclusive to those who have their house in order.

We don’t ask What’s next? when things are going off the rails. Not initially, anyway.

We’re compelled to Monday Morning Quarterback the situation first. And the quest for blame and punishment only takes us further off-course. So much so that we rarely have the energy to pursue a path forward.

This is a problem. A problem that must be fixed.

It’s time to flip the order of operations. To put the What’s next? question front and center in every conversation and every circumstance. And to leave all the rest in the background.

Such a shift might not yield ready solutions. But it will get us in a mindset to properly pursue them. And it will keep us from mindlessly playing the blame game.

In other words, it will allocate our energy in the right places.

So, let’s reconsider our approach. Let’s make what’s productive paramount. And let’s see what impact this ethos has on our lives.

It surely will be a good one.

Getting What You Pay For

The scene of the crime was a Motel 6 in El Paso.

The motel was a stone’s throw from the interstate. Across the highway lay rose a vast desert landscape and a mountain range.

This Motel 6 seemed straight out of central casting for a modern Western movie. Perhaps it would be a place where bandits rested their heads between small-town bank robberies. Or where hired guns staged an ambush to recover a stolen briefcase of drug money.

But the crime in question wasn’t anything that illicit. The crime was simply that I was staying there.

I had chosen this Motel 6 for two reasons. The brand name and the price.

I was heading to El Paso to see my alma mater play a football game. The team rarely played within driving distance of me, and I was excited to go to the game. But I was also making less than $20,000 a year in salary. So, I would need to budget for this trip.

Knowing I would be spending three nights in El Paso, I looked up hotel rates for several bargain chains. This Motel 6 was the cheapest by a good clip, at about $39 per night before taxes. I jumped at the opportunity and booked a room.

It wasn’t until I’d arrived — after a 5-hour drive across the West Texas desert — that I realized what I’d done.

For the bed was a rock, as firm as the carpeted floor in my apartment back home. I turned side to side, trying to find a comfortable sleeping position. But there was none to be found.

And the shower was a house of horrors. There were only two temperature options — ice cold and scalding. I was forced to alternate between them as I frantically tried to wash up each morning.

As the days went on, my frustration grew. There might not have been bed bugs or dirty sheets, but this was clearly the worst hotel I’d stayed in.

The lack of a good night’s sleep or a consistently hot shower left me exhausted. It helped doom my El Paso trip to infamy.

I was frustrated at Motel 6. But mostly, I was mad at myself.

Because I had neglected a cardinal rule: You get what you pay for.

Growing up, I didn’t have to think much about compromise.

My parents prioritized quality over everything else. When it came to the food we ate and the clothes we wore, price was not the first concern.

Don’t get me wrong. We had plenty of nights finishing off leftovers for dinner. And my mother took advantage of those seasonal clothing sales at The Gap. But these occurrences were more the results of our choices than the cause of them.

It was a different story whenever we visited my grandparents, though.

My mother’s parents had grown up in the Great Depression, and they still had emotional scars from those years. So, they had one condition for choosing the food to put in their pantry — rock bottom prices.

If my grandfather made pancakes, we’d top it with the cheapest syrup the grocery store had to offer. Oven-fried chicken would be coated with the lowest-cost bread crumbs. Burgers and meatballs were prepared with the most affordable meat.

I didn’t think much of these spartan food options at the time. I was just a boy, and I was excited to spend time with my grandparents. Plus, they spoiled me rotten everywhere else.

But by high school, I started to recognize the effects.

I was spending a lot of time away from my parents, and starting to make financial decisions on my own. And even though I was a novice, I often gravitated toward the bargain bin.

This seemed prudent at the time. Why would I spend extra on anything, when I could stretch my dollar? Especially at a time where I was relatively low on dollars.

I never gave much thought to what I was giving up in the exchange. At least until those sleepless nights in El Paso.

Our society is obsessed with a good deal.

Sure, we like to splurge every now and then, just to feel special. And some of us immerse ourselves in luxury as a marker of status.

But by and large, we’d prefer to buy something at less than its sticker price.

Bargain shopping makes us feel powerful. It makes us feel as if we’re in control of the buying process. And our attraction to it is profound.

Our love of the deal has helped make Black Friday and Cyber Monday into de-facto holidays. It’s coaxed grocery stores into displaying perennial markdowns. It’s led dozens of retailers to bombard our email inboxes, promising 20% off a purchase with a coupon code.

But beneath our obsession with bargains lies a fallacy. We are attracted to a good deal because we imagine that by paying less, we get more value.

This is simply not true.

For the world of business is built upon simple premises. Revenues must be greater than costs and supply chains must be resilient.

Restaurants can’t provide a steak entrée at the price of a McDonald’s happy meal. Absorbing that cost would run them out of business.

The same goes for just about any other type of company.

Less price means less value. All those sales and deals are simply window dressing.

That value loss might come in the form of cheaper material, a less wholesome cut of meat or an overly firm hotel mattress. Regardless, we can see the signs if we look close enough.

There is no value hidden in the couch cushions. You get what you pay for.

It took me years to recognize the value trap. But that miserable trip to El Paso shattered any illusions.

Now, I purchase with my eyes wide open. I look up the cost of what I want and think about what I can reasonably pay for it. If the two prices don’t line up, I consider what I’m giving up by paying less for a bargain-bin alternative.

Sometimes, I proceed anyway. Other times, I hold off until I can meet the asking price of the more quality item.

None of these tactics are earth-shattering. And yet, there are still many who fail to follow them.

These wayward souls perpetuate the value trap. They go through life blissfully unaware that we get what we pay for. And they open themselves up to the letdown of unrealized expectations.

It’s time for those masses to wake from their idyllic slumber. To see the world for how it really is. And to adjust their habits accordingly.

So, let my experience serve as a cautionary tale. And stop seeking more than you’re willing to give in return.

You get what you pay for. Ante up.

Keeping it Consistent

Consistency.

It’s an attribute that I treasure more than just about any other.

Being consistent means being reliable. And, when it’s done right, it means being trustworthy.

Basically, it means being exactly what others think you are.

I see great value in this predictability. It provides for deep understanding and meaningful social connections.

And it keeps us at ease.

For, while we say Variety is the spice of life, constant spontaneity is stressful. When we don’t know what to expect from our family and friends from minute to minute, we tend to put up barriers. We become a skeptical observer of the world around us, instead of a participant in it.

Even the biggest hermits among us don’t want this. For if we can’t count on anything, if we can’t even rely on a roof over our head or clothes on our backs, the load can be too much for our mind to carry.

Make no mistake, consistency is a basic condition.

Yet, it’s an incredibly difficult one to pull off.

You see, keeping it consistent means producing the same output, time after time. No off days. No slip-ups. Consistency doesn’t allow for excuses, regardless of their validity.

But to err is human. Our actions and emotions can vary by nature. And this can make consistency seem like an impossible dream.

So, what can we do in the face of this conundrum? We can continue to work at it.

Take Words of the West as an example. Two years ago, I launched this website with four words, I am not perfect. I wasn’t perfect then, and I’m certainly not perfect now.

But I’ll be darned if I haven’t been consistent. I’ve put out an article every week since then.

This is not as easy as it seems. There are some weeks where the inspiration is lacking. And others where life simply gets in the way.

Yet, I continue to fight through these obstacles to put out fresh articles each week. I demand this of myself because my readers expect it from me.

And I can’t bear to break their trust by becoming unreliable.

We can all benefit by taking a similar approach.

By keeping it consistent, we can build connections. We can demonstrate our own reliability. And we can live more fulfilling lives.

This isn’t easy, by any means. It requires grit, determination and sacrifice.

But it’s certainly worth it.