Experts only need a couple skills

I'm struck that mastery of the basics is almost all one needs to become an expert. The other thing you need: doing it (racking up hours/experience).  I noticed this in skiing... I've only got a couple skills. But, I can apply them in different ways at different times depending on what the terrain and snow conditions require and what I'm trying to accomplish.  Knowing how to apply them and being able to apply these skills consistently is what makes it possible to be an expert skier.  I think the same is true with Basketball or cooking or supervising people.  In what are you an expert?

Goodro Lumber's excellent customer service

Why I love Goodro Lumber:
Today, I called and got Steve. I asked him if he could pick out a grout that was the same color as the tile I bought from them but slightly lighter in shade/color.  He said, "yup, no problem."  He called me back a little later and said that he thinks he found the right one.  On top of that, he called the manufacturer to clarify a detail to be sure he gave me the right one.

Now, get this.  Cheeks drives by Goodro some days when she teaches class.  I asked Steve if he could have the grout ready for her to pick up.  She stopped in and picked it up.  She said she was in there for about 2.5 minutes.  Talk about convenience!

Thanks guys for your excellent customer service.

Tuna

Community, jail and a Franciscan priest named G-dog.

This morning, I woke up to the radio show On Being. Krista Tippet had guest Father Greg Boyle (G-dog). I loved what he was saying. He is clearly a love-filled man. So I googled him. I found this video.  It is well worth the 20 minutes if you have ever sensed that we as humans are connected yet live as though we aren't.

Simplicity and Getting Things Done

Seth Godin writes a blog. Today he posted this:

Hooked on hacking life

Perhaps you can quote the GTD literature chapter and verse, understand lean and MVP and the modern meeting standard. Maybe you now delete your emails with a swipe. It's possible you've read not just this blog but fifty others, every day, and understand go to market strategies and even have a virtual assistant to dramatically increase your productivity.
That's great. But the question remains, "what have you shipped?"
You're saving a ton of time, freeing yourself up to... do what, precisely?
The productivity industry doesn't do this work to entertain us. They're trying hard to help you get more done better. Emphasis on done.
Striving to get smarter, better and faster helps us create our future. The risk is that merely collecting, trading and discussing the tools turns into the point.
It's possible that your next frontier isn't to get more efficient, it's to get more brave.

I like it. I struggle with this. I love tools! I love tracking and understanding and learning.  Sometimes I forget to simply do the thing ("ship").

Cool story regarding doing the thing (shipping) - we're low on Lynx registrations (next week's snow camp).  Last night I created a two paragraph regular ol email via our camper database software (Campwise). No pictures. No attachments. Not even HTML. I simply asked people to come and tell their friends. I said we'd give them a $25 discount because we aren't full. I sent the email Fri. evening. Within 2 hours, 4 more campers were signed up and I had heard from 10 parents. Today, I'm still hearing from parents about that email and a few more have signed up.

KISS (keep it simple stupid)