The Pork-Barrel State

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

Interesting to learn that World War I and II had huge impacts on how the government collects money. The action point is to draft a ballot petition for a balanced-budget amendment in my city. Then go to the city council meeting and evaluate expenditures against budget limitations. I fear I wouldn’t be happy about what I saw. Working in both the federal and state government I’ve seen quite a bit of waste and tactics that ensure organizations keeps the budgets they have. It’s an unfortunate state.

Impossible Without Your Consent

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

My thoughts are my own. The external things that happen can influence thoughts but ultimate I have control over those thoughts. I allow them to fester and affect my decisions. That happened yesterday. I felt stressed and needed relief. I did things to try and remediate that. I ended up having a midnight snack which I’ve been trying to avoid. If instead I had not allowed those thoughts of stress affect me, I may have instead gone to bed and avoided the scenario. It’s easy to say I should do that. In practice it’s a bit tougher. I am working on that mindset though of identifying when I’m in those moods and making effort to reframe the thoughts.

Failure of Central Planning

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 is to empower employees and make sure they are trained properly. I’ve started doing that this year. I’m handing over more responsibilities to my team. I’m challenging them to do more and newer things. Team of Teams by Stanley McChrystal and Tantum Collins is a great but on this topic. It talks about the Iraq war and how the military had to shift away from centralized planning and become more empowered in making decisions. It’s a book I plan to have my team read at some point.

The Beauty of Choice

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

The results are the beauty. How I came to a result is dependent on my choices. This can be both a good and bad thing. Ideally more good. Mindset is something I’ve really worked on. I don’t want to be negative. I’d like to remain positive. Some times that gets tested. I have to often catch myself and reframe the thinking or thought. I’m actually kind of tired right now. I’m trying to decide what to do next. I have several choices some good and some bad. The exhaustion doesn’t help make good ones. It leans towards the bad. Yet, I can still reframe my thinking to not focus on the tiredness. I can choose to focus on something productive that will make me happier in the long run.

The Daily Drucker(s)

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

Yesterday - Reprivatization

The action point is to identify which sectors will privatize next and determine how we can benefit. I think space exploration is already on that path. Healthcare has always been privatized which makes it an interesting case because there hasn’t been a lot of innovation in the space and in fact it’s very confusing and not as ideal as we’d like. I think the postal service is next because there are already other competitors doing packages at a better rate. This could help with things like what’s essentially spam mail. We could put a block on senders we no longer want to get unsolicited mail from.

Today - Management and Economic Development

The action point asks what impact the company is having in the developing world and are the activities raising the managerial standard. That’s a big part of the business for the company I work at. Companies are taking more charge of helping manage their employees health.