PineWood Derby: Getting Rid of Life's Friction

DISCLAIMER:
I am not a pinewood derby expert. I am far from it. In fact, I believe the pinewood derby was invented by insecure men who wanted to make men like me feel stupid. But I don't. My self-worth is not tied up in how fast my son's car is, as long as he and I had a good time making it. And we did. That said, here's my pinewood derby story and lessons learned.

Our cars never compete. They look great, and are usually pretty unique and original; but they're never fast. We simply don't have the know-how, the tools, or the skills to make a fast car. But all my talented friends tell me that the way to make a fast car is to concentrate on the axles. Apparently, proper weighting and aerodynamics make a minor difference, but the true speed comes from the relationship between the wheels and axles. The faster the wheels spin, the faster the car will go. (It makes perfect sense, we just can't seem to put it into practice!)

Allegedly, there are two crucial steps to preparing a pinewood derby car's axles for the big race. They are:

• Polishing the axles (the process of REMOVING imperfections that cause friction)
• Lubricating the axles (the process of APPLYING solution that eliminates friction)

If you didn't already figure this out, The enemy of speed is FRICTION! The more friction and causes of friction you eliminate, the faster your car will go.

Think about your life right now. Whether you want to focus on your family, your job, relationships, hobbies, or your spiritual life; you have some kind of friction you're dealing with. Friction is the stuff that holds us back or slows us down in the pursuit of what we know is right. You have friction, I have friction, we all have friction.

How well we deal with the friction in our life will determine how quickly we get to the place we know we need to be. The same process we use to handle friction in the wheels of a pinewood derby car will work to handle friction in our lives (I don't mean sandpaper and WD40 here, I'm speaking somewhat metaphorically).

Here are three questions you can ask yourself to deal with the friction in your life:

1. What is the cause of my friction? (you can't deal with the friction until you understand its ROOT CAUSE. don't settle for your first answer here, keep asking "why?" until you get to the bottom of it)
2. Should I polish with sandpaper or a file? (the bigger the imperfection, the more "grit" you need to polish it. You may need to start with a file and be really aggressive. Then, as you begin to eliminate the imperfection, you can start using less abrasive sandpaper. Eventually you can polish to a shiny finish using very fine sandpaper. The truth is, getting rid of friction causes takes time and endurance)
   
3. What systems can I create or modify in my life to avoid and eliminate friction? (you are probably doing some good things the wrong way, and you are probably doing some wrong things. Change your systems to avoid having to keep dealing with the same friction)

Taking time regularly to evaluate and deal with the friction of life will help every area of your life run a lot more smoothly, and will get you to the finish line in a lot better shape! (and yes, that's our car/jet at the top!)

How I Got Burned By McDonalds. And What We All Should Learn From It

This would appear to be a normal, run-of-the-mill cup of coffee. If you are a coffee drinker who drinks McDonald's coffee, you'd probably drink from this cup.

And if you did, you'd get burned.





Because unbeknownst to you (but knownst to the person who passed the cup out the window to you), this cup is defective. Making matters worse, the top of this cup is positioned perfectly so that the cup's defect can have its maximum effectiveness. See the chunk out of the top (yes, it looks like someone took a bite of it, but that has such disgusting ramifications i don't even want to think about it)? Yes, all the coffee comes out there, not out of the opening in the top.

Which means, of course, that the hot coffee ends up on me... not in my mouth.

Lesson: Usually, when you get burned in life, it's by something you never saw coming.

So here's something to think about:

When life burns you because you didn't see something coming, don't spend your time kicking yourself for not seeing it. Don't beat yourself up over what you really didn't have an opportunity to stop.

BUT

Don't let it happen again. After my first attempt to drink coffee ended with a lapful of the liquid gold, I didn't try again until I had taken the top off to see what went wrong. Then I decided to not try that method anymore. Now I'm sipping my coffee without the defective cup and I'm really enjoying it, burn free.

Don't let the hiccups of life turn you into an indecisive willow. When life burns you, fix what went wrong and start living again.

Thanks, McDonalds.