Blue Collar Rich

08/30/2026

This week's thought is, no one can make us feel anything and it's been a while, sorry for that. My mental capacity with things at home and at work have been at max. My creative juices have been overrun with survival.

All of that said the term "they made me feel X" has come up so many times over the past couple weeks.

Think about it. If someone had you at gun point and said feel happy, could you do it? If your boss came to you and told you to feel content with your job, would that make a difference?

So, why do we let the words that come out of people's mouths "make" us feel things? The truth lies in CTFAR. If you're not familiar with CTFAR go back and read my previous posts. Our feelings don't come from what people say, circumstances. They come from what we think about the words that are said to us.

If a three year old came to us and said "you are bad at your job", we wouldn't think twice about it. If someone at our work says that to us we feel like we are failing instead of asking questions or performing an internal review of what we are doing.

Either way there may be truth in what the three year old or our coworker said but they may not have the whole story or see the entire picture.

Remain curious, gather data, and do the best you can with the facts. Don't instantly attack others or think you are a horrible person just because people can push air across their vocal cords. This doesn't mean that there isn't truth in what people say but the power is within us to decide how we feel and how we act.

Keep your power, be kind to yourself and be compassionate to others. Life is much easier this way, in my opinion.

08/09/2026

This week's thought is to be an active listener.

I was on family vacation a couple weeks ago and speaking with my kids (24, 27 & 32) I became abundantly aware that we are not good listeners at times. Myself included. We all want so badly to be heard and understood that we don't take the time to listen deeply and fully understand where others are coming from.

Couple that with crazy miscommunications and conversations taken out of context at work it just seems that communication is crazy. In my classes for life coaching that is one of the cornerstones of being a good coach. Listen actively and ask questions while avoiding judgement and trying not to focus on what we are going to say next.

This is a forever practice. If we are going to be heard and understood, we have to hear and understand others. One of my mentors once said "The most interesting person in the room is the most interested person in the room.". This has been true for me so many times in my life.

I was at a pool party this weekend and saw people there that I only have met once, a year ago, and they had reached to my friends how much of a good time they had with me last year. To me I didn't think I had done anything special and I had a really good time but didn't think it was anything special.

I thought about that today as I'm preparing for the next week and remembering last year we spent a few hours at a table with 8 of us last year and talked. We shared stories and I was very curious about these people that I had never met before. The saying that my mentor shared with me was true again.

That reminds me. Curiosity is the absolute best way to be an active listener and retain information about people. If you want to impress someone be curious about everyone they say, ask questions and be engaged. You'll be amazed.

07/19/2026

This week's thought is expanding on our 27,000 days.

We established that we have 9,920 "personal" days and how we want to live those days last week. In some discussions I've had this week, the point of our 10,090 days at work came up.

Shouldn't we be intentional about those as well? Absolutely, was my answer. We spend more days at work than we spend in our personal lives.

How can we make those days less stressful and gain enjoyment out of them? If we continue to see circumstances as neutral and think that everyone is living their own lives, with all their lives experiences guiding them, we can stay out of the heads of our coworkers, customers, vendors, etc.

The biggest thing that has moved the needle in my career is to stay focused on the solutions. It doesn't matter what other people's ulterior motives are. It is wasted energy spending time in other people's heads. I find these things come out naturally when we show up authentically and stay focused on the best outcome for all parties.

When we are worried about other people's motives that puts us in a victim mentality. We become victims to what other people want and lose sight of the goal. The goal of less stress and feeling productive.

When all we can do is see everything is happening to us from our outside circumstances, we are no longer in control.

Take control back. This is 100% applicable to everything in our lives. To our boss, spouse, kids, family, friends, coworkers, etc.

When we stop giving control away and stay focused on the solutions and outcomes it does wonders for our psyche. Our brains want to feel like they are in control, so control the things that you can. We can't control anyone else's thoughts, feelings or actions but we can control our own.

No go out there and take control. Live your Rich Life!

07/13/2026

This week's thought ties into CTFAR and how it relates to work and life.

If we take an average life span of 75 years, that gives us 27,375 days to live our best life. By age 20 we've used 7,300 of those days. That means the meat of our life is right at 20,075 days. If we work 48 weeks a year, minus holidays, sick days and vacation, that means we are at work for just over half of those days. 10,080 days to be exact from 20 to 62. That means we only have 9,920 days to spend with our families and friends.

I use these numbers as averages. Some people work more and some work less depending on your drive and goals. The point is life is fleeting. I've said it numerous times, don't sweat the small stuff and it's all small stuff.

Most of us can think about the really rough days and add them all up and they are probably less than 500 days. Most of the time those days are completely out of our control and we are just doing damage control or trying to make it through. There are some on this planet in war zones that have way more really rough days and there are some that live blessed lives that have way fewer. The point is all those days in the middle are still ticking away to our last day. Why not make the best of it.

When we realize that circumstances are out of our control and they are neutral, we can choose how to show up and how much it is going to affect our lives. Either negatively or positively.

A very poignant memory for me is that I had an amazing friend that I spent almost as much time with as I did with my family. We were in golf leagues, bowling leagues, rode motorcycles and traveled together. He passed away unexpectedly and it rocked my world. I spent days in a funk and I spent moments being thankful I had the time with him that I did. It took time but I realized that being angry, sad or depressed didn't do anything for him and it was definitely a negative impact on my life. I had to spend more time being thankful and living life.

Another circumstance in my life is that I've spent hours and days on vacation with my family working because I had to do a thing. Maybe I did and maybe I didn't. I do know now that I'm way more thoughtful about those circumstances and I have learned to weigh things, leverage team members and try to live the best life I can with all things considered.

It is easy to get consumed with work, people drama, politics, sports, hobbies and all the distractions in life but we are the ones in control. Understanding our circumstances, being conscious of our thoughts, feeling our feelings, owning our actions and our results help maximize the 9,920 days we have to live our lives rich as f@ #$!

I can honestly say that my life is not perfect, it is stressful, it is messy and I'm far from being monetarily rich but I feel Rich As F@ #$! Do you?

07/07/2026

This weeks thought ties us back to CTFAR. I learned in the past week that there is also a biological tie to CTFAR.

If we are following Circumstance, Thought, Feeling, Action and Result and sticking to the spirit of the process we can stay younger and reduce stress.

The trick to staying in the spirit of the process is to feel the feeling, sit with it and understand it. Don't resist it, don't ruminate on the past or the future.

By doing this it keeps your central nervous system from overreacting and releasing stress hormones. These stress hormones cause early aging, inflammation and fatigue when they are activated continuously.

This doesn't mean stop learning from our mistakes or planning for our futures. It just means accept and learn to keep moving forward in life. Everything has happened exactly the way it was supposed to, BECAUSE IT ALREADY HAPPENED. We can't change what has happened.

Even more interesting is that we need the perfect amount of resistance in the form of goals and adversity to continue growing as humans. Enough to keep us pushing forward and engaged but not so much that we are stressed to the max all of the time.

Accepting what is and that we are only human is the best way to pull ourselves back from that constant state of stress and fear.

Every living organism needs resistance to grow. Plants require gravity so they grow away from it. We've all seen evidence of that from pictures of trees growing out of rock faces towards the sky. This is two fold, resistance from gravity and moving towards sunlight. Bone needs resistance to grow.

Again, like everything we learn, it isn't easy, and we aren't going to become robots or automatons but bit by bit we can live Richer lives with knowledge and mindfulness.

Did this resonate with you?

07/01/2026

Last week's thought is unintended consequences.

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks. Sorry I missed last week. I'll double up this week but the theme for the past couple weeks in my life has been unintended consequences.

We all are doing our best in life and following on the coat tails of giving ourselves and others grace is the fact that most of us are trying to get things done and trying to have the greater good in mind, for all in our hearts and minds.

Even though we are doing our best and even with the best plans we can possibly imagine, there are unintended consequences. Luckily some of these consequences are blessings and turn out better than we imagine. On the flip side some unintended consequences are not so great.

We have to remember that we signed up and have to take ownership of the good and the bad. We have to do it best to avoid being a victim and lean into what we started. We need to deal with the fall out no matter what because we started the snowball and we can't stop it.

Take a deep breath and roll with it with grace and poise. This too shall pass and hopefully if all goes well our intentions from the beginning will shine through when the dust settles

If your heart is in the right place and you mean well, stay the course and accept the results. That's what you signed on for from the start. Sometimes it sucks and sometimes it's amazing.

06/16/2026

This week's thought is Grace. Give yourself grace and give others grace. This is the one thing that has helped free me from hosting too much judgement and anger.

It is much easier to give others grace than it is to judge, confront, get angry and frustrated. Don't get me wrong there is a time and place to make sure you get your point across and get the information you require but that isn't the easiest way to move through life. When our standing operation is in resistance all the time, it is exhausting. It's just like wearing a mental lead vest and trying to carry it all the time, every where.

More importantly we need to give ourselves grace. So often we judge ourselves, resent how we react to things or wish we had handled a situation differently. Our inner self talk is rude and self deprecating a lot of the time. We would never talk to our friends or family that way to motivate them to do better. We would lift them up and support them. We should absolutely do that more for ourselves.

Be kind to yourself and others and see how much more enjoyment you find in life.

06/09/2026

This week's thought.

So now we know the universal truth. Everything is better, right? Your life is falling right in line?

Lol, absolutely not. I for one am an eternal work in progress but a lot of things are better and some things are easier to work through. No matter how much we know we are still human and have human nature. Thank God!

If we weren't all unique and have our own idiosyncrasies then life would be extremely boring. CTFAR doesn't turn us into robots but gives a tool to figure out where we are and how we got here. It is constant work and practice that makes us better at living our best life but never perfect.

The thought that still gives me the most trouble is "you should already know this". Almost every time I have that thought it gets me in trouble. AND no matter how much I try to remove that automatic thought, I can't stop having it. This thought comes from my upbringing. Family, teachers and mentors displayed extreme frustration with me and repeated that phrase to me numerous times. It was ingrained in me.

I don't have that thought as much as I used to but when I'm in the trenches and running at 100 miles an hour, it creeps back in. Most of the time I can replace the thought with, they are learning, everyone learns at their own pace, I don't know everything that is going on in their life or some version of these replacement thoughts.

The point is the practice brings awareness and some control in our lives to get the outcomes we desire. Have you found a limiting thought or a thought that doesn't serve you? Do you know why you have that thought?

05/26/2026

First and foremost Happy Memorial Day. Thank you to all the men and women that have built our country to what it is today. Agree or disagree, it is hard work and sacrifice.

So, here we are on week 4 of 5 of our series on CTFAR. We have learned that Circumstances are neutral, that thoughts about our circumstances create polarity, our thoughts cause us to have a feeling about the circumstance and that brings us to action.

Action is the first moment that most of us start grabbing the wheel. From the moment we experience a circumstance most things in our life are on autopilot. It runs through our individualized preprogrammed CTFAR algorithm and we start acting.

Think of our CTFAR algorithm like the mouse in the maze with the cheese at the end. The first time the mouse is put in the maze it doesn't know how to get to the cheese. Like when we are growing up and we first experience a circumstance. Then after it is in the maze a couple times it just runs to the cheese with little to no thought. That is how our brains work.

Something happens to us in life, we learn and then it becomes part of our operating system. Sometimes we misapply lessons to other circumstances because humans are excellent at pattern recognition and if something is similar then the same action must apply. Sometimes this serves us, sometimes it doesn't.

And as I mentioned last week, no action is also action. There is always an action after a feeling. It is like physics. CTFAR is a law of nature. It is true and exact. Once there is a circumstance the Thought, Feeling, Action and Result will follow, without fail.

Now, can you think of things in your life that you are on autopilot with? Honestly, we all can, and should. We would be exhausted if we analyzed and tweaked every circumstance. Morning routines are great autopilot moments for some of us. Mine looks like this:

Circumstance- Waking up
Thought- This is an amazing day
Feeling- Motivation
Action- Get it out of Bed
Result- I move productively into the day

There are then hundreds of circumstances that have results from when my feet hit the floor to getting to work. Those all serve me. And in full honesty there are definitely days when I wake up and think "this sucks" and those days have different results. We are all humans.

What I'm trying to do here is help you realize how you tick. Show you what is going on behind the curtain so that in those circumstances where you aren't getting the outcome you desire, you can tweak the algorithm to get the result you want.

Have you been testing the laws? Are you more intentional with adjusting based on what we have learned so far?

See you next week and continue living a Rich Life!

Living a rich life.

05/18/2026

This is week 3 of this 5 part series. To recap we have established that we all encounter circumstances and they are 100% neutral and when we experience a circumstance we have a thought about it which gives that circumstance a polarity.

I had another great conversation about this last week. A great example of the neutrality of circumstances was being at the top of a 100' tall water slide. Some people will think "this is amazing", some will think "I made a mistake and don't want to be here" and others may think it's boring.

This brings us to the next party of the universal truth about the human experience, feeling. Once we have been presented with a circumstance and we have our thought about it, we have a feeling. This feeling is what is going to drive us to action.

We act, or don't act, based on our feelings. Like working out. Some people feel like it's hard, or amazing, or even driven to work out. No matter what, it's that feeling about that thought that is going to have you act upon it or not act. Not acting is absolutely an action.

The circumstance of needing a new car can elicit the thought of joy giving the feeling of excitement and you start thinking about how it's going to feel to be behind the wheel of that new car. While others will think this sucks and fear learning a new vehicle.

You starting to get the idea here? It is in these three phases of the human experience that we go on autopilot. Something happens, we have a knee jerk thought and that drives the feeling. It happens unconsciously, unless we are mindful.

We all have life experiences. Some of these experiences serve us well and give us fuel to build a Rich Life. Some of these experiences are just running in the background creating thoughts and feelings that no longer serve us.

Can you identify a thought and feeling that no longer serves you?