What do you do when you are not inspired?

We all have bad days and sometimes it seems like weeks and maybe it creeps into months and a year or two but how do I or you deal with it?  Today was one of those exceptional days where very little went right and I found myself overburdened, frustrated and defeated.  I am certain this never happens to you (just kidding).

Shouna and I were discussing this evening about how arrogant we can be when we believe that all we do depends on us or is about us.  Have you every worked so hard and just been frustrated beyond what you thought you could handle?  Well for me that is the utmost arrogance I can have because I claim to know Christ and yet I act like it all depends on me.  I see myself in a backward kind of way as earning or believing that my behavior is what God is going to use to measure me.  In my arrogance I forgot that God sees me through the cross as perfect and forgiven.  I could never be good enough or work enough or deserve it enough to be seen by God as worthy.  It is only through Christ.

The amazing thing is I feel great when I back away and look at what was important and feel accomplished but most of all grateful and inspired.  Inspired because He sees me as perfect amongst my imperfections and arrogance.  He never promised a rose garden (sounds like a song) and he never promised an easy life although living in America is an easy life.  If you don't believe me go to some of the third world countries where they get drinking water out of the same pond or trough the animals walk and take a dump in.

What do you learn in the Osage?

• Quality of life is dependent on your choices
• There are cows upstream in the same creek I am taking a drink from
• Your friends are drinking from the creek you are taking a leak in 

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

NOT MY JOB

It has amazed me over the years how folks take a job and and refuse to do things not on the job description.  If I ever said, "NOT MY JOB" to my folks I think I would have been six foot under sniffing dirt.   One thing I learned early on was there was nothing called "NOT MY JOB".  Let me give you an idea of what I mean.

Beth Shumate is in this pic but a t-shirt goes to the first person to name all of these

I thought it was NOT my job to work in the house because I worked outside feeding cattle, cutting hay, bailing hay, hauling hay, plowing fields, discing, planting and then there was cleaning the barns and gardening.  Now just to say gardening is one short explanation for a heck of a lot of work.  Planting was the fun part but getting ready to plant was back breaking.  Then once the harvest was ready there was picking, snapping or cleaning, sometimes boiling then canning.  Canning means you put it in jars and vacuum sealed by cooking in a pressure cooker.  Luckily when I was growing up we moved from canning to what we called "putting up" which is putting it in freezer bags and storing everything in the freezer.  Back to NOT MY JOB.  You see if I ever said it was NOT MY JOB you would be guaranteeing yourself a new job!

I do remember Mom making it clear to me that if something was NOT MY JOB then I would NOT EAT.  You see everything WAS our job but sometimes we got to focus in one area or another.  Another good example was when Beth Shumate, my third, fourth and fifth grade teacher, needed her sewer fixed.  Dad informed me it WAS MY JOB and I was not going to get paid for it because Auntie Beth was good to us and we needed to be good to her.  Now she was not my Aunt but that is how we referred to her most of the time.  That was the nastiest job I think I ever had to do and it was free except that she made me a cherry cobbler.  She was great on cherry cobbler.  She was one of the greatest teachers I ever had and I had her for 3 years in the same room.  All three classes met together.

Here is where I am going with this idea.  When I am being paid by someone else with THEIR MONEY, and I want to be paid, then I believe there is a GOLDEN RULE that applies.  HE WHO MAKES THE GOLD MAKES THE RULES.  It seems logical to me that if I want the job and the owner or boss needs me to adjust to do some special things (like sewer work) that I don't want to do I get to experience FREEDOM.  The freedom to quit or do what I am told.  I know a lot of folks disagree with this but that is ok.

Just today I was pleasantly surprised to hear of a new employee at Wings ( go look up www.wingsok.org) who was willing to do whatever they were asked.  Everyone was excited that she was doing lots of things that were not listed on her job description.  She was labeled as an excellent employee with a great attitude.  That is the characteristic of a person you want to hire and you want to promote and most importantly you want to be around.  They make it pleasant to go to work.

So what do you  learn in the Osage?

• you are not too good for any job
• if you want the job the boss is the boss
• Doing the right thing is more important than the money

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Sometime Less is More

Our first apartment in Dallas

I don't know about you but when Shouna and I got out of college and moved to Dallas where I went to work for Ross Perot and EDS we were excited, scared and broke.  We were young and in love so a lot of things did not matter, like money.

Here is a bit of wisdom given to us when we were first married.  "If you are young and in love two can live as cheap as one if one goes hungry and the other goes naked."  Well, I have to tell you I don't believe it.  But it was a great time and makes for great memories.

Luckily we paid for our educations by working hard and being disciplined about how we spent our money.  But one time we got in a real jam.  We had been in Dallas about two months when our only car broke down and it needed $400.00 of repairs.  At that time before taxes I was making $11,250 per year and our rent for a furnished apartment was $320 per month.  In fact we were busted with no credit cards and luckily we had not obligated ourselves to cable TV and there were no cell phones so we did not have those expenses.  The challenge is after taxes we were bringing home about 75% of 1/12th of $11,250 which means we took home $703 per month except that they took out another 10% to participate in the employee stock plan which left us with $633 per month less rent which left us with $311 per month for everything else including tithing to our church.  So by now you get the picture.

Well we had three more days until payday and we had about $2.64 for food which we were extremely low on.  Now this was a test to see if you could really live on LOVE alone.  The only time we had to borrow money from my folks was this time and we paid them back in about 60 days.  We borrowed $400 and got the car back.  We walked to the convenience store pictured below and bought some items to make a pizza at home.  It all seemed live a game show or "Survivor" which is Russell and Karen Whiles favorite show.  We made it.

our convenience store in Dallas

That turned out to be one of our favorite stories and one of our great memories.

So what do you learn from the Osage?

• It really does take more than love to live.
• Love is all about the adventure of two people living together sharing challenges and creating memories.
• You really can live on less and I am really believing that less is more.  Think about it.

 Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Crayola Crayons and life

I don't know what makes a person but I propose that a lot of small things make you what you are.  I remember grade school when we had Big Chief tablets and number 2 pencils and Crayola Crayons were the required school supplies.  Big Chief tablets were 10 cents and pencils were I think 5 cents.  I don't recall the crayons price but that is what I want to talk about here today.

Jon Tanny Olsen came to school with 64 crayons in his Crayola Crayon box.  It even had a sharpener.  I was jealous!  My dream was to own a set of 64 Crayola Crayons with a built in sharpener.  How could life get any better than that?  I could not imagine.  Then there was Joy Frank and Denise Logue who colored on their Big Chief tablet and kept it in the lines every time!  In fact they could put down the color so there were no lines from pressing too hard.  Mrs. Snyder and then Mrs. Casselman and then Mrs. Shumate would rave about how great they could color.  I felt like an outcast!  I tried as best as I could to please them in my coloring skills.  Now I had two problems:  no 64 Crayola Crayon set with a built in sharpener and no raw talent to use them.  I propose it was not the talent I wanted but the affection and compliments of my teachers who I desperately wanted to please.  

So here I was encased in an over sized body, 5 foot 2 inches in the 3rd grade, and no ability to color without pressing too hard on the page and having my lines show plus only 16 or was it 8 Crayola Crayons to choose from.  I was marginalized as a human being, prejudiced against and humiliated.  You would think I would grow up to think that the government should take those 64 colors from Jon Tanny and distribute them amongst the want-a-be's.  He did nothing to deserve those colors?  His parents gave them to him.  They should take their money and give it to everyone else so we could all be equal.  Isn't that fair?  What do you think?

But how could I take away the talents of Joy and Denise and get them distributed to us less fortunate ones who did not have the talent.  You would think that as I grew up I would think that if they became rich off their talents they should give me some  of their money as they did not deserve to have more just because they had more talent.  How could a loving God give them more than me?  

But what if I took my talent or over sized body and became an NFL football player who made millions of dollars, would I be obligated to give them a fair share of my money?  By the way I did not have the speed or talent to play in the NFL.  Let me propose it another way.  What if I grew up and worked harder and in fact worked a full time job at about 60+ hours a week and then took a job like selling Amway products on the side with my wife and did that for another 30 or 40 hours a week and made a lot of money and saved that money then invested it in real estate and other investments that created jobs.  Should I have to pay a higher percentage because I worked harder and longer and had less vacations than anyone else?  It seems to make sense that I would get to pay a smaller percentage because I did not spend the money buying stuff I did not need and in fact created more jobs because I invested it in something somebody else got to call a job and they made money off my money.  

That IS my story.

I got out of college and took it to heart that God created us all equal but not in talent but in grace.  God gives grace to everyone who wants it (John 3:16), freely.  I had two primary principles that I wrote down when I was in college:

• Give 10% to God which I will honestly say I was not always doing 
• Save 10% so that I would be prepared for opportunities and could always take care of my family and self which I honestly did not always do

I think wanting and needing, at least in my mind, those Crayola Crayons and wanting the talents of Joy and Denise is what made me have a passion to do well.  Obviously the values of my parents made a huge impact as well as those teachers and friends and everyone I grew up with especially my brother and sister.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• A little WANT is good for everyone
• We are all created equal in God's eye, we just screw it up when we think about everything
• Everyone makes decisions on what they do with their talents and it is their decision on what they make of it, not the Government!  YOU decide who you are!

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Football, What motivated me?

dear old Shidler High

You could probably say I was an adventurous person as I wanted to do everything that was available.  When I transferred to Shidler (the big school) I was more than excited.  I grew up loving the Dallas Cowboys and Tom Landry so being a Shidler Tiger football player was the ultimate.  Coach Gilstrap became almost a god to me as I would do anything he told me.   I actually transferred one year early, the eighth grade, to Shidler and the only reason I know for doing it was I wanted to play football.  The only reason I was afraid was I had heard stories about Mrs. Stebler and how hard she was and how you had to write a book.  Luckily I missed that but actually over the years I learned she was an excellent teacher and a great lady.

56 were in the class 

I knew nothing about the basics of football and I have always wondered what those coaches thought about me.  I was 6 foot 2 inches and 195 pounds in the eighth grade actually I was that big in the 6th grade.  Now when the coaches put me on the roster they listed me at 205 lbs.  which I knew was not the case but it sounded good.  I suppose they saw a rough farm kid who blindly did what they told me to do.  They may have thought I was going to be 6' 8" and 285 lbs. but it never happened.  I graduated high school about the same size I entered the 8th grade.  Anyway I ate it up and every play of every practice was like playing a live game to me.  I wanted to win every time.  The problem was Frank Ball and Jody Price and Tim Davis were just as big and just as tough and every time the coach would put me up against them.  They were all shorter but all out weighed me.  When games came I was so nervous and intense those days.  My hands would sweat and I would almost get weak from the tension.  I never thought about getting hurt or wanting to hurt someone (one time but that is another story and it occurred a few years later) but I wanted to run and hit someone as hard as possible every play.  I must have had a split personality or a lot of pent up aggression because I loved the violence of the sport.  Every play was a chance to do something great.  

I cannot say this is good or bad but as I looked around at my team mates I was always comparing myself to them.  I wanted to be fast like Steve Chrisco and AJ Jacques, Bo Fulsom, Larry Graham, Rick Cottle, Johnny Payne, Eddie Robertson, and of course Jay Snow.  I knew that if I was going to compete against them I had to have them in close quarters before they got away.  There is a lesson here and it is this:  If they are big like Frank and the boys, hit hard and fast and get away.  If they are fast like Steve and the boys, hit hard and fast and sit on them so they cannot get away.

Life was great back then just like my mom says, "those were the good old days".  But my mom also said, "life is better these days".  

What do you learn in the Osage?

• All days are good days, it is just what you make of it
• Decide that every day needs a chance to be great
• You decide your strategy in life 
• work hard, fast and run
• work hard, fast and sit
• Love your enemies, sounds like something from the Bible or maybe the Ten Commandments

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

I am so very glad I grew up with values

I think I will write a few stories about some of my experiences and some of them are not so pleasant but I have learned a great deal from those trials. This one is based on happenings from about 2000 to today.

Today I got the opportunity to drive to Mangum, Oklahoma to bid at a Sheriff sale on a house I sold to a person who refuses to make payments.  It is absolutely amazing how someone can live in a house they do not make payments on for almost two years and then think they are not getting treated fairly or to even think they are doing the right thing.  This story gets even worse.  First off I should explain if it is not clear.  I owned the house and financed it for the person as they could not get a loan.  I thought I was being helpful to him and getting a house I did not want sold.

Somewhere around 8 to 10 years ago I started helping a friend expand his development and construction business.  Then about 6 years ago it was discovered that the books (finances) that had been shared with the owners were not correct and in fact were extremely off.  Somehow the banks he was working with found out that he was kitting which has nothing to do with kites.  This was not a Ben Franklin kite although when it was all said and done I felt like I had been hit by lightening, get it?  Anyway it turned out the FBI and the banks pressed charges and he got to spend some time (6 months) in jail.  They suggested he had committed a crime which for about $1,300,000.   Because I was the guarantor on those accounts, I got to cover the missing money.  Now he only got 6 months in prison because I paid it down to somewhere around $700,000.  I guess I am making it sound like I was a great guy.  The truth is I did not want to pay it down but thought I was obligated to do so.  In fact when the FBI contacted me I expressed I did not think he was doing anything like stealing but had miss-managing the business. As time went on I learned a whole lot more.  He did cover up the losses and in fact represented just before being caught that we had made around 60 or 80 thousand dollars in profit for the year.  As Goober used to say, "Surprise Surprise Surprise".  Now I wish it ended there but when I finally got the computers and did some research it appeared there was over $6 million missing.  Praise God that was not true.  However there were about 50 houses either built or under construction and about $55,000 a month in losses or payments I had to cover plus about another $600,000 in accounts payable I  had to deal with.  I was shaking in my boots and stressed out.

Now I have to tell you I am absolutely amazed at God.  In fact I sit here and laugh because I know he is not taking me home soon.  The reason I know is because he keeps trying to teach me.

I have not lost my good credit and never filed bankruptcy but I do understand why folks have to sometimes.  I have obviously sold off most of the assets and gotten the negative cash flows down to where I can cover them but it has been extremely painful.  I figure in about another year (yes over 7 years) I will finally get rid of all the assets and will complete this nightmare with a loss of around $3,500,000 including interest but not including lost opportunity costs or the pain my family and I have suffered.  Please don't feel sorry for us because now I have a great set of stories to tell and I paid for them so I want to tell them, one at a time.

Back to that house.  In three more weeks I will finally recover my house and any mess he leaves or damage done.  That house was a great lesson.  Did I mention that I have four in Greer County alone.  Oh ya, there are more that I still own located all over the state of Oklahoma.  Well that was true, but now I am down to about four counties.

So what do you learn when you are raised in the Osage?  (I had to modify my question a little)

• you cannot help someone who will not do the right thing
• I wrote that about the guy who bought the house but it seems appropriate for much more than just him.
• Another way of saying it is, "only you can give away your integrity"
• by giving someone help they do not deserve or work for you are actually hurting them
• kinda like not punishing a child for bad behavior 
• you might relate this to-too many government programs or tax breaks
• Delight in God's lessons and don't be bitter, it only hurts you
• You have never lost when you are knocked down as long as you get up one more time
• I love these new beginnings.

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com