Get Your Phil

Take Me To Your Cleaners!

I’ve been a dupe most of my life.

Wide eyed and naive, I stumbled through existence believing almost everything people told me.

One day I finally figured out that life is a bell curve and depending on where I’ve situated my beliefs in it, that’s the pain or gain heading my way.

Don’t look here, nothing to see

still nothing here

Don’t Eat That Elmer, That’s Horse-Shite

My mother tried to warn me that not everything folks said was gospel but I had a hail of a time separating crap from cabbage. Many times I wound up being taken to the cleaners just to remove the thick layer of wool from my eyes.

In my early forties I read in a book that a person would have a better go at life by having a constitution or philosophy to use as a guide to overcoming the myriad of challenges we all face. Up to that time no one had spoke to me about having a personal philosophy and come to think of it, we never discussed anything we couldn’t easily spell.

Stand on Your Own Two Doubts

In 1997 I was working diligently to get past my second bankruptcy but the stench of failure slammed my smeller and thumped my thinker. I kept replaying my errors and omissions to the point were I seriously thought my sanity was slipping away. (now I recognize this as a normal feeling 😉 ) Thankfully, Shad Helmstetter and his book Self Talk fell into my possession about the same time and in it I learned that the thoughts I ponder about myself are critical to any success or failure I might enjoy. The fact that we are composed of the words we contemplate greatly intrigued me.

Soon after reading Shad’s book I decided to define my personal philosophy to see what it might look like. The constraints that my experience and current thinking put on that contemplation was alarming. I had to struggle just to think of what I might want out of my life because the possibilities had become more and more limited as my failures and defeats mounted.

Never-the-less, if I wanted to find out what I was capable of I had to determine who I was dealing with first so I took out a piece of paper and stared at it for a few days. What do I want? Who am I? Why am I even considering these questions? Don’t I have real work to do?

Slowly, word by ever changing word I developed a personal philosophy. It dealt with who I saw myself as, who I wanted to become and what I would had to do to make my life unfold as I desired. As I began to discover my own principles it dawned on me that very few people have a personal philosophy and that’s why most of us are so easy to sway to almost any way of thinking.

Get a Plan Stan

The summer of 2008 demanded directed, serious action from me and most of what I would do at that time ran counter to conventional wisdom.

My buddy Phil gives me ideas and courage

Owning a personal philosophy that I knew personally had been contemplated for hundreds of hours to this point provided me with the guiding principles I needed to survive yet another seeming catastrophe. I shudder to think what would have happened to me if I had not developed a clear understanding of who I am and what I stand for.

The precise evolved concept of who I could count on when the chips were down was the rocky reef upon which my fears would eventually be wrecked.

Without much thought in the game, the majority of folks obtain their philosophy from their country, employment or religion and while that works okay for them, it’s THEIR philosophy, not mine. I’m certain that I would not be writing these words today if I had not developed a concise concept of who Barry Williams is and what that feller can do.

Without those habits of mind to guide me today, I’d be much more hooped than I am.

I need my buddy Phil to help illuminate the path to success.

Someday soon I hope you Phil up, too.

Thank you, friend.

Barry out.