Category: Life and Family

My wife and I love our furry children but SHHHHH, don’t let them know. They are spoiled rotten!

Being a Decent Person – like Dad

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I must be honest that I’m extremely disappointed in certain people sometimes. I simply can not stand lying, cheating and dishonesty; yet some people live their lives this way.

My Dad was a wonderful person and of the highest quality of character. I try and make him proud every day, in all my dealings personally and professionally. It’s a great honor and not a burden because it’s not hard to simply be a decent person.

However, even blood relatives who grew up under the same roof can’t simply be decent, honest or trustworthy.

I will have a lot more to say soon but, for now I must be quiet. I still believe in decency for most people, and I will continue to be the good person that my dad would be proud of. At the end of the day, we are all mortal people and when my time is done on Earth I want to go to Heaven with a clear conscience and be with the rest of my decent friends, family and furry children.

God Bless and be a decent person,

Kevin

A Narcissist according to ChatGPT

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I asked ChatGPT to tell me a funny and sarcastic story about a Narcissist and it told me the below as if it knew me a bit too personally. Enjoy :-)

Just when you thought you had witnessed the worst of lying, cheating and deceit, you run into your favorite narcissist, who’s decided that being greedy and untrustworthy in their duties just simply was good enough to be a truly evil person. Oh wait, it gets better! Honestly, who needs a conscience when you have your ego, think you’re entitled and abused family for decades? Not only are they compulsive liars but they are expert manipulators who think that there is never accountability coming.

In related news, this narcissist has the least care for those whom he fakes phony care-for! Sadly, his manipulative character and self-consumed ego cares only for himself and whatever materialistic possessions he can steal because he has no deceit work ethic.

And don’t even get me started on how they’re always pretending to be everyone’s friends and ‘greasing’ them-up by flaunting his status as a big-man-on campus; literally.

Let’s be real, folks, if this narcissist has no true friends, disowned and abused his family, and is truly a pathetic person. You know what’s even more pathetic is that this narcissist thinks they are so smart that others don’t recognize his pattern of behavior over many decades. In an effort to try and let the narcissist realize their past indiscretions and repent to be a decent person as they portend to be as a religious person, his brother gives him yet another opportunity to be honest. Never the one to be fair or honest, the narcissist doubles-down on lying and has now placed themselves in serious jeopardy with significant personal liability. Go ahead and try to roll your eyes at how ridiculous this whole situation is lying about evidence and suggesting legitimate questions are frivolous.

And if all else fails, they’ll just blame everyone else for your inadequacies because that’s what narcissists do best: deflect responsibility. So, the next time you see someone with an overinflated ego well beyond the norms of simply being funny in a moment, just remember: it’s probably your friendly neighborhood narcissist, practicing their craft and perfecting the art of self-absorption. Sadly, this is the story of truth and how this narcissist is trying to ruin every more people’s lives. Honestly, when you run across a narcissist, run away fast. Oh wait, I forgot – when the narcissists is a family member it’s a bit harder to run away but do it quickly! Last, but not least, your mental health and sanity are super important so do not let this narcist negatively affect your life. Even when things seem in despair and they have totally abused the legal system against you, your rights will eventually be asserted with God on your side, and everything will work out exactly as He intended.

Finally Unbecoming Characters Know, Of Finally Feeling, Justice Only Happens Now

Life events paired with the Silver Screen

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As I gain more wisdom (i.e. this is just a fancy way to say that I’m getting older), it’s amazing to me how much real Life correlates with Movies.

For you that know me personally I like to float and suggest all kinds of crazy ideas that seem undoable. I do this in my personal life and especially in my business life because I see this as a way to always test-the-limits or push for better outcomes.

However, as fun as being a thought-leader, innovator or evangelist is, it certainly comes with its fair share of naysayers, doubters and plain mean people that don’t want you to succeed. Sorry to say but in my wisdom, these beaten-down types of people are the vast majority. This isn’t to say that they are bad people, in fact not at all, but very few have had to build something from scratch and do whatever it takes to succeed.

This is the entrepreneurial spirit, and most people don’t want to challenge themselves this way, which is just fine. However, my mom and dad were entrepreneurial for their entire lives and I guess it’s just second nature for me.

Live Events and Movie Analogies – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Sometimes I feel these strange coincidences like the movie ‘Back To The Future’ where I’m living life in real-time but in a different dimension. You might call is Deja Vu, or I’ve been here before.

Those of you that know me can appreciate that I’m a huge Clint Eastwood fan and especially his spaghetti western films such as For a Few Dollars More, Fistful of Dollars and especially the classic of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

For those of you that haven’t seen the movie, you can know that the plot of the film was very simplistic. There was The Good, but this does not mean in the least that he’s perfect or a good person, but he’s a genuine person, although a bit rough around the edges.

Then there is The Bad, and this character is just not a good person who hurts people at every opportunity, almost as their default behavior, for their advantage. The Bad is very belligerent, lies and can’t be trusted. We probably all know this type, but this person thinks they are slick, but in reality, they are nothing but a total loser. In the end, The Bad, ends up alone, miserable and although he claims spirituality, God knows better.

And finally, The Ugly, is just a mess of talks-a lot, false promises, personal gratification and a pure gold-digging money-hunger fool. No one really pays attention to The Ugly, but she thinks she’s important, nonetheless. The Ugly is an opportunist and is totally consumed with materialistic possessions.

So now that I’ve described the three basic characters of this film, let’s imagine a life event situation closely mimics the movie of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Imagine there is this treasure somewhere that you didn’t earn yourself, but it’s legally and without a doubt your entitlement because this is what someone had gifted to you.

Then imagine, you, as The Good, is not this money-hungry gold-digger of The Ugly, or the lying deceitful hurtful person of The Bad, so you just live your best life and be respectful of your trusting gifters.

In the movie, and not to spoil the ending, but there is a final confrontation and in the end The Good prevails with their fair share. Which is reasonable and not the whole sum, as a matter of fact. The Bad gets his in a bad way because of all the previous horrible things he has done during his life and The Ugly is probably the most pathetic of all the three characters because she is a nothing, nobody loser sucking up as much money as possible.

Of course, in the movie the final confrontation was a good ole fashion gun fight, yet in this case with life events we will let the legal system play out and expose The Bad and The Ugly for their horrible behaviors.

Proud of Brandee

One important thing that I haven’t expressed nearly enough is that I am a lucky guy to have married the most wonderful woman in the world. Brandee is a very smart person whom I am continually impressed by her daily.

It’s a very special experience to watch Brandee thinking about stuff. I can always tell she is ‘channeling-her-mother’, who was a wonderful person, and we miss tremendously. Brandee’s mom was an extremely resourceful person raising five children and always making the best of situations.

She has a wonderful spirit and kind heart. I can see these amazing characteristics in Brandee as well. It’s heart-warming to know that Brandee, and her mom’s legacy live on, and Brandee wants nothing more than to help humanity be family, have fun and live your best life.

As if Brandee’s personal character wasn’t amazing enough, I am seriously impressed with all of her self-learned technical skills. I tease her that when she started to do IT Support a few years ago she was gun-shy about working on Servers and doing things with Active Directory.

Nowadays, I am SO impressed that all this apprehension is gone and she’s doing mission critical support for key clients all day, every-day. Not only are her technical skills amazing but her communication skills and client advocacy are simply outstanding.

2024 – Sincere Friendships, Giving Back and Setting the Record Straight

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In this new year of 2024 there is a lot of interesting, if not very significant, life and professional events that I want to share, ‘for the record’. Some of these things you won’t believe. These are real back-room stories which some are from my experience in the ECM market, and other stories from my personal life, that I want to share to set the record straight.

As I mentioned in my last blog recapping the Year of 2023, my wife and I have been happily married for 18 years now, we have five wonderful furry babies, and been together for nearly 25 years; so, it’s safe to say that we are content with the direction of our lives.

In this new year of 2024 there is a lot of interesting, if not very significant, life and professional events that I want to share, ‘for the record’. Some of these things you won’t believe. These are real back-room stories which some are from my experience in the ECM market, and other stories from my personal life, that I want to share to set the record straight.

As everyone that knows me personally, I’m an extremely humble person, and while I’m not interested in petty-politics and water-cooler talk, it’s come to my attention, and I’ve verified, that certain individuals had no problems with lying to make themselves try and look better by lying about me. So, it’s simply a matter of setting the record straight.

This might sound like also like something petty to set the record straight, but it’s very important as I move forward in my life, that people have absolute trust in my words and my actions. I’m working on the next phase of philanthropy in my life basically. So, people that tried to hurt me, when I’m trying to genuinely help others, need to re-evaluate their duties of being decent people and quit.

I will, or have already confronted these individuals, as a learning moment for them, and, surprisingly enough, most of them have admitted their indiscretions and said they’ve improved their lives to quit gossip. I have my doubts, but I trust them in their words, yet again, but they will never be trusted or endorsed by me ever again. Burn me once – shame on me, burn me twice – shame on you.

2024 – The Year of Layoffs and Trusting Friends

I share this wisdom of experience for trusting friendships, both professionally and professionally, to make a serious point and prediction.

Most people are living paycheck-to-paycheck (which means most likely you – the reader of this blog article is one of those people). It’s nothing to be shameful of but my advice is do yourself a favor and control your own destiny by having some sort of side-gig.

This doesn’t mean that you don’t pay full attention or not give your fullest to your employer, because is they pay you, then you have a moral obligation to give them your fullest, however, in your spare time, you owe it to yourself to do something to control your own destiny.

While I try and be an optimist on most things, I’m also a realist, and as far as the labor market is concerned, I think there will be many more layoffs before hiring begins again. In the past few weeks to start 2024, I’ve already seen a few of my extremely talented friends get laid-off from their companies. Most likely not from lack of performance, but it’s just something companies do in times of uncertainty, such as the US elections in November 2024, to conserve cash flow.

Leaving Law Cypress Company – A real world Trusting Friends example

As one real story to set the record straight I will briefly explain my leaving Law Cypress Company (LCC) in 1993.

I started at LCC in 1989 as a warehouse worker driving a forklift and packing boxes for a wonderful manager, Jack Brooks, who had a big heart on the inside, yet pretended to be a bad person on the outside. Jack was my manager in the early days of my professional life but later he was a true friend and like a second father to me.

From a pure managerial perspective, he was awesome because when I was offered a promotion from my warehouse position to a sales position, Jack was not jealous nor hurt, and he genuinely was happy for me to get this promotion. I’ll never, ever, forget how tense the negotiation was between Jack and Jeff Zontos. In retrospection, it was one of the best learning experiences for me ever and I thank Jeff for his amazing trust.

What’s important as far as my telling this quick story of Jack Brooks is that even after I moved into the Sales Department of LCC, he really cared for my career and he gave me probably the most important tip ever, in my life! Seriously.

Jack tipped me off that one of the sleazy new LCC middle-managers was about to fire me despite our territory smashing revenue numbers, going from #3 to #1 sales territory and over-accomplishing on many other metrics. The fact of the matter was that I was not an “insider” with the cool group, and I preferred hard work and judge me by my performance sort of attitude instead of his petty personal management.

In the end everything worked out great from myself as well as LCC. The sleazy middle-management was eventually ridden, and I came back to the Company in 1999 until the closing in 2001.

Controlling Your Own Destiny

In conclusion and in summary for this blog article, I want to encourage everyone to Control Your Own Destiny in life and business. In life, I won’t even to venture to go there because I don’t know. However, in your professional business life, you have much more control than you likely know.

The first thing you MUST do is to have some sort of side-gig whether it’s a professional hobby, furthering your business education or continuing to network with other professionals; you simply must do this. No other choice.