Pest Management Professional, May 2014
whits world A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW Marty Whitford t Publisher Editorial Director Note For a back page break during the hectic spring season this space April through June will feature three life lessons the Silver Screen has gifted this writer Film Lesson 2 To evolve we must embrace all of lifes lessons G ood judgment is the fruit of experience and experience is the delicate fermentation of good and bad judgment To continue to evolve and grow professionally and personally we need to embrace all of lifes lessons the offshoots of our good and bad decisions and experiences In the 2004 flick Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Jim Carrey plays Joel Barish a man whose girlfriend played by Kate Winslet undergoes a psychiatrists experimental procedure to erase their tumultuous relationship from her memory Heartbroken Barish decides to do the same As the films story line plays out we learn theres no such thing as eternal sunshine of the spotless mind Even if we could remove all of our spots painful memories wed eventually replace many of them with similar experiences Life is both a classroom and teacher Key life lessons skipped or forgotten today often will need to be learned tomorrow regardless of whether we like it Here are a few key life lessons that painful experiences have taught me We have many employers Having been selfemployed for four years I learned the hard way that the term is a major misnomer We have many employers the company recognized by the Internal Revenue Service IRS as our official employer each of our clients and each of our teammates just for starters Case in point If we lose too many clients or co workers our IRS recognized employer likely will part ways with us too Not all business is good business As individuals and collectively as an industry we need to consistently sell and deliver unmatched value instead of competing foremost on price Case in point Sitting in a rowboat with his buddy a man points upward to a yacht and says Ive bid against that guy a thousand times and I always come out on top On top Really Money doesnt grow on trees Poor pricing Inefficiencies Product launches that arent customerdriven Failure to build customer relationships and revenue There are countless potential reminders of this painful lesson Case in point When I was a kid I saw a money tree commercial on TV and got to thinking red flag I borrowed a 20 bill from Moms purse and planted it in our backyard I planned on paying back Moms initial investment and then some before she was any the wiser I failed to realize my grand plan was sunk from the start When Mom found out she handed me a shovel and made me turn over soil all day I never recovered the money so my nine siblings and I missed out on pizza night that weekend PMP You can reach Whitford at mwhitford@ northcoastmedia net or 216 607 3766 96 May 2014 Pest Management Professional www mypmp net Illustration iStock com Rossella Apostoli
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