Nice Cycle.

As l have stated in a previous newsletter, my number one rule in life is: Pay Attention. I have been reminded of this recently by a sweet old lady. I didn’t come up with paying attention as the number one rule in life, or discover it on my own. However, after hearing Jordan Peterson talk about the Egyptian god of Horus and thinking about it for quite some time. I don’t see anything else that can come before it. Placing it at number one. Until now? Maybe. There might be a very close second, which could also indicate a better prioritization of numerical order. This is going to be a can of worms. Worth opening, I think. And it’s going to take some racetrack knowledge to put them all back in.

This week, I noticed on my phone’s calendar that it said, “Last Day to Exit Boeing” on Thursday December 19th, 2024. I must have set this up as a goal to achieve back in January of this year. The funny part, I totally forgot I set up a time limit and accomplished it on March 6th, 2024. I started a Handyman business, called Home Adjustments LLC.

Since starting a business preparation and “preparing for tomorrow”, has become a massive part of my life; like never before. It’s not like I make sure that I have my lunch box, company badge and head off to work. I’m enjoying this larger responsibility that used to be a minor, elementary habit. Being prepared has a huge impact on my business. Just like showing up to a corner, prepared, has a huge impact on your lap time.

Preparation enhances your ability to: Pay attention, seize the day, perform, all meaning the same thing in the context of this newsletter.

How can you seize the day if you are preparing for tomorrow? You can’t, that’s why it’s called a sacrifice. These concepts have a dichotomous relationship. However, put into a cycle, they compliment each other.

If I sacrifice Monday to prepare for Tuesday. What happens if I need to perform on Wednesday as well? I need to break up my cycles, either sacrifice half of Tuesday for preparation and half to perform. Or sacrifice Sunday and Monday in preparation for performing Tuesday and Wednesday. Kind of like a Screamer firing order versus a Big Bang firing order.

There are many smaller cycles within larger cycles. Such as, on the day of performing, when building a fence, I am preparing a cut by taking a measurement. Where the measurement is the preparation and the cut is the performance. These small repetitive cycles are all happening during the larger cycle of building a fence. In motorcycles terms this is like the exhaust camshaft is always preparing the cylinder by evacuating the burned gases for the intake camshaft to deliver a fresh charge. This cycle only happens at half the speed of the crankshaft. However, even at 14,000 rpms the camshafts are still spinning at 116.6 revolutions per second, as discussed in the “Revolutions per Second” newsletter. All of these small short cycles lead to larger cycles of braking and accelerating around a racetrack.

You need to pay attention while preparing. Such as the, “taking a measurement for the cut” example above. So, “Paying Attention” is still number one, but it is nice to have a close second, because it authenticates the first.