“I like to deal with honest people,” Pete says. “In fact, I’d rather deal with a rattlesnake if I knew it was a rattlesnake than to deal with somebody pretending to be something else but actually is a rattlesnake.” Then he tells me a story.

He and a man named Preston quibbled for weeks on the price of a prize-winning, 2,800-pound bull Pete had up for sale. Preston was known for driving a hard bargain, and the two were $16,000 apart in their negotiations. As previous deals with Preston had stretched beyond a two-week span, Pete became exasperated over the current back-and-forth conversations. So he proposed, “Look, Preston, we’re not going to haggle over this forever. Let’s flip a coin. Heads, we go with my price. Tails, we go with yours.”

The man replied, “Only if we can use my quarter.” Pete agreed, and Preston flipped his quarter.

“Shoot,” Preston spat. “You win, Pete. So, okay, I’ll pay you the extra sixteen thousand.” And so he did.

Pete grins as he adds the punchline to this tale: The coin-flipping conversation took place over the phone. Pete was in Texas while Preston was in Colorado.

By Jim Keen

Great Ranches of the West

“It’s true. The early bird gets the worm. So does the late bird, and the bird in-between. Because by design, there are always more than enough worms. In fact, the only bird that doesn’t get a worm is the bird that doesn’t go out to get one.”
— Mike Dooley

I am a new subscriber to Brian Johnson’s Philosopher’s Notes podcasts and downloads, but I am really enjoying his takes on the “new age” philosphy of authors like Eric Butterworth, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer and T. Harv Eker. Every day or so I have been receiving an emailed invitation to download his podcast, about 15 minutes in length, which I copy into iTunes, and sync with my iPhone. I have all of my collected Philosopher’s Notes in a single playlist. My 3-miles hikes through my very hilly neighborhood while listening to Brian Johnson makes the trek seem to melt away in just a few moments.

Brian does a superb job of nailing the “big ideas” of these books, and expressing them in his unique, exuberant style. He doesn’t just read from the featured tomes, but gives his own insight on what these big ideas mean to him. Here Brian is commenting on a big idea by Eric Butterworth, “Why Be Average?”

“…why be an average person? All the great achievements of history have been made by strong individuals who refused to consult statistics or to listen to those who could prove convincingly that what they wanted to do, and in fact ultimately did do, was completely impossible.” [Eric Butterworth]

Love that. I’m smiling as I remember the times in my own life when the “experts” I consulted told me I couldn’t do something. 

The most vivid memory: I was a 24 year-old law school drop out in 1998. The only thing I knew I wanted to do (besides burn my resume was coach a Little League Baseball team. I did that. In the process, I had a vision that within 5 years every team and league in the US would be using the web for everything–schedules, standings, directions to the field, pictures Grandma and Grandpa could check out if they missed the game, etc. I wanted to get 1 million (!!!) teams using a web site I would build. I thought I could do that within 5 years. I talked to some smart, successful mentors who told me it was impossible. How would I, a 24 year-old law school dropout with no business experience, no money and no connections do that?

Just the feedback I needed to get to work. (In a way, they were right, though. It took us 4 years, not 5 to get our first million teams using our site, eteamz.com. [Brian Johnson]

I really hate the idea of being average. In things I can’t be great at, I want to be at least “different,” but not “average,” please. Yes, as both Butterworth and Johnson discuss, we each have the potential to accomplish “the impossible.” But we each have the gifts of a different perspective, different skills, different knowledge and something uniquely special which we bring to our work, our social lives and our associations. Once you get to know someone, how can they ever be “average” again?  [Jim Hance]  

If you’d like to subscribe to Brian’s free newsletter with podcast downloads, direct your browser to:

http://philosophersnotes.com/newsletter/new

I suspect you will become a fan too.

“The safest way to get what you want is to deserve what you want.” — Charles Munger


”Every survival kit should include a sense of humor.” — Author Unknown


”Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.” — Film Director Robert Bresson

“Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”
Musician/Comedian, Victor Borge