What is the best piece of advice tht you have ever been given?

Don Bauman, the old boy who I had coffee with every morning at the sawmill I worked at while going to college. He was the mill right. Didn't say a lot and had a great sense of humor when he did say something.


Don: "Randy, I hear you're getting married this weekend."​
Randy: "Yup, decided it was time to grow up before she changed her mind."​
Don: "Well Randy, I've met her a few times and I've known you for three years. Just understand, you don't bring anything to the table that she couldn't replace by noon tomorrow. Behave accordingly."​


I spit my coffee out my nose when he dropped that one on me. But, it is probably the best advice you could give a 24 year-old guy who thinks he's gonna wear the pants in a marriage.

I miss that old boy and our morning coffee. He was a mule deer hunting nut. He passed a couple years later from cancer.
My sincerest condolences… Enlightening and sound advice..
 
Years ago before leaving for my first deployment, everyone in my family was giving me all kinds of advice and telling me how much they would miss me, etc. My great uncle pulled me aside at a cookout, and whispered, “give them hell son.”

From the show Parks & Recreation, Ron Swanson: “never half ass two things when you can whole ass one thing.”
 
If you don’t work, you don’t eat.
Closed mouths don’t get fed.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds.

Never let slide something you’ll lose sleep over..
Baseball all wrong, man with 4 balls CANT walk….
 
My Dr. " I've examined quite a few bodies and haven't found an expiration date on one yet.". An answer I needed for me when other Dr's had said that I only had a few short months to live. 23 years ago..

Andy Dufresne Shawshank redemption: "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things."
 
“Just because you’re right doesn’t mean you’re right.”

There’s lots of ways this applies, but in today’s polarized social environment it speaks to the need to try and at least understand other people’s perspectives vs. being so binary and judgmental. In relationships (which is the context in which I first heard it - marriage counseling) it’s about valuing the relationship and impacts that arguing your point (even if you’re technically correct) has on those relations. In other words, you may be right about the issue, but you’re wrong to continue arguing it if it’s damaging the relationship.

I struggle with it, so I guess that’s why I’ve always considered it good advice. I’d guess a few other “not to be named” HT’ers do as well! 😂
I love this. I learned the hard way when working with others early in my career. Now I ask myself (and other younger leaders), "Do you want to be right, or do you want to be part of the solution."
 
“Only you can decide if you are happy, and it’s absolutely a choice”
Another classic! I used to tell my kids when they were little, "every day you wake up with a choice - to be happy or to be sad - that's on you, not anyone else". While I still believe it to be generally true, I don't use it much anymore now that I have learned a lot supporting a kid who struggles with clinical depression - not as simple a choice for her.
 
I have received a lot of great wisdom over the years (god knows I needed it), listened to some, and ignored some (often to my own detriment). But one passing comment by a college professor forever changed my perspective on the political wars - "Republicans think everyone is too lazy to help themselves and Democrats think everyone is too dumb to help themselves - if we can't see past this conceit we can't solve the real problems we face." It caused me to quit blindly accepting the political assumptions of my family, of the media, of other professors, etc and to step back and really look at the issues without the oversimplified and self-serving narratives we are constantly handed.
 
I have received a lot of great wisdom over the years (god knows I needed it), listened to some, and ignored some (often to my own detriment). But one passing comment by a college professor forever changed my perspective on the political wars - "Republicans think everyone is too lazy to help themselves and Democrats think everyone is too dumb to help themselves - if we can't see past this conceit we can't solve the real problems we face." It caused me to quit blindly accepting the political assumptions of my family, of the media, of other professors, etc and to step back and really look at the issues without the oversimplified and self-serving narratives we are constantly handed.
Yep. Don't be a sheep.
 

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