Daily Stoic(s)

I am blogging everyday (or nearly everyday) on The Daily Stoic.

Yesterday - Don’t Unintentionally Hand Over Your Freedom

This stoic last year really stuck with me. This is where I learned that I have control over my own thoughts. I shouldn’t let outside influences take over my control. I still struggle with it and I’m practicing to be better about it.

Today - Find The Right Scene

You are a reflection of the people you spend the most time with. My reflection is about to change. I had two good friends move this past week. I spent quite a bit of time with them hanging out. They are good people and I intend to see them again. I am a social creature though and I am looking for new opportunities to spend time with the right people. I am curious if this works being online.

The Daily Drucker

I am blogging everyday (or nearly everyday) on The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done.

Yesterday - Modern Organization Must Be a Destabilizer

The action point asks when was the last time I created or helped create a new product or service and was it a fresh idea or from someone else. Security is built into every product or service we develop at the company. I build out the security programs that help with this. The last one I’ve built is the phishing program at work. We phish our employees on a monthly basis for practice and metrics. I leaned heavily on Chris Hadnagy’s book Phishing Dark Waters. It gave me the framework for implementing the program. Prior to that I established the vulnerability management program which helped us improve our security posture significantly. That did not fall any current framework. I just started a top 10 riskiest servers and we worked through them. Prior to even that I setup our application security program which was unique in itself. I certainly borrowed best practices and industry standards. The way I went about it was unique.

Today - Human Factor in Management

The action point asks if I’m a great actor in a terrible play. The rest of it talks about human interaction and the need for management to communication and individual responsibility. Making people understand their direction. After the pandemic started I knew communication between the team would be very important because we lost a lot of it not being in the office. I started a daily stand-up to discuss what people got done the last 24 hours and what they plan to do for the next 24 hours. I also started calling my team if I wasn’t in a meeting with them that day. This helped tremendously because I discovered that some of my directs won’t communicate with me unless they hear my voice. Despite having multiple other ways to communicate.

Daily Stoic(s)

I am blogging everyday (or nearly everyday) on The Daily Stoic.

Yesterday - Don’t Tell Yourself Stories

Don’t perform for people. Don’t dominate the conversation. Essentially, put the focus on other people. I’ve always gotten along with people well. The problem was that I could never hold friends. They would get sick of me. Eventually, I figured out that I would perform or go for the laugh instead of focusing on them. That didn’t make others feel great about me. When I started to put the emphasis on the other person, I could tell the difference in how people felt about me. They wanted me around. They wanted to engage.

It’s really hard not talk about my self. I’m a selfish person. We all are. I do have to real myself in. Forget the thing I wanted to get out in a conversation and instead focus in on what the other person was telling me and asking follow up questions. It sometimes feel like being a spy. I can have entire conversations with people. Get to know a lot of information about them and they don’t know anything about me.

Today - Don’t Trust The Senses

I recently became aware that I’m an extrovert. I’ve always thought I leaned towards being an introvert because I liked playing video games. What I missed was that I like playing video games with other people. They really recharge me. I thought it was the game amping me up. Instead it’s the collaboration with other people and communication that really amps me up. I hadn’t discovered this until recently. I’ll go to a happy hour exhausted and leave recharged and energized for the evening. That will lead to problems because I’m not ready for bed. Identifying that though allows me to adjust for it and compensate.

Organizations Destabilize Communities

I am blogging everyday (or nearly everyday) on The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done.

The action point asks if Wal-Mart wants to come into a neighborhood when it’s not wanted, what should it do. I think they have some very smart people that will analyze what people want and will make a decision from there. I’ve seen plenty of Wal-Marts be put into places and run other businesses, even big ones out of business.

I think there’s an ethical question there. Wal-Mart has plenty of controversy around what’s fair and ethical in regards to who they employ and how they employ them. What their business does to other local business. Amazon has the same thing. But what’s considered ethical?

Cutting Back On The Costly

I am blogging everyday (or nearly everyday) on The Daily Stoic.

I read a great minimalist book a year or two ago that really helped me keep down on the clutter. It had a great rule: if it’s less than $20 and you haven’t used it in a while ask yourself if it’s truly need. It’s amazing how much junk we accumulate and then realize it when we move or start to spring clean. This is why I looked for a smaller house when we moved to Tennessee. We just had junk that collected. Even in our current house we’ve filled just about every open space with something.