“If happiness is on the other side of success, you’ll never get there”.- A great quote to remember when you say to yourself, “If I just had “insert your wish here” (million dollars, the next big sale, a hot girl friend). If your happiness is defined by what comes after success, you will go through life miserable.

The new quote I heard was, “NEVER confuse activity with results”. This one struck home. Think about going to the driving range and hitting golf balls and expecting to be better, just because you went to the range and hit some balls. Or what about thinking that just because you made 30 phone calls you expect to make a sale, when on the call you didn’t have plan or script to follow. And lastly, I love that you can use this when it comes to marketing your business…just building a website or running ads online or on the radio aren’t necessarily going to get you results…at least not without a solid strategy and performance tracking.

This is my latest thing, lending money through micro loans to business owners in need, who have LOTS less than we have. Check it out, what a great way for business owners to help others. What a great business…please take a moment to look at it. Your time and small loan will change lives…it is amazing what people can do with $25.

So it got me thinking, how will I be remembered? A loving husband? Benevolent boss? Or as an asshole? Below is the list on how others described Steve Jobs:

So how will you be remembered? How will I? I think everyone will remember us in their own way, but hopefully, we live our lives in a manner that people can overlook individual events that have transpired and see the totality of our goodness (assumingly) and be remembered for that…if not, I will take “Impetuous Genius”.

When I was a teen, they were challenges, keeping me from having fun, hiding the places I wanted to explore.

When I had a family, I thought often about them. I even put one up to keep others out.

And now I’m old and I would give anything for help in climbing. One last chance to conquer it.

Oh look, a gate.

We all have to sleep at night and I try everything to make sure that my conscious is clear to do so. I am always thinking, “Am I doing everything I can to help the person, team and company get succeed.” When problems arise, and they always will, the person needs to be talked to like an adult. They need to know where you stand and they need to be given a path to rise above the situation that got them in the hole to begin with. The team needs coaching, and learning that no one person is bigger than the team and that the team will go on without the star is an important lesson everyone on the team needs to learn. And then the their is the company. Every decision I make, has to be best for the company and the 20+ people that rely on me and what my team has helped me create.

Am I perfect…Hell no. I make more mistakes in a week than most people make in six months. But the one thing I do better than most people I believe, is to learn from my experiences and improve upon those situations the next time they transpire. As the saying goes, “Punch me once, your bad, punch me twice…mine.”

Now my problem is this: what will I do with the data? Will I continue to use the hand dryer or rip it off the wall for being the time sucking device it is? Switch to paper towels and forego my “green” ambitions? Or buy new hand dryers that are faster? These claim to totally dry your hands in 10-15 seconds: www.exceldryer.com. These bad boys run about $650, plus installation of $50. If I value my time at $250 per hour, the math works out that I should have these ordered and installed this week. Adding my employee’s bathroom habits into the equation, I am grateful that someone put paper towels in the bathroom, it just saved my company tens of thousands of dollars.