Mike Browning

Tag: Personal Responsibility

  • Nobody Will Ever Know

    Nobody Will Ever Know

    Except some times they do.

    The cashier hands you fifteen dollars in change on a five dollar purchase. You gave her a ten, but she thought it was a twenty. You could keep it. Odds are nobody finds out. Or they will find out they are a little short later, but won’t know it was you who benefitted.

    Same with the number you rounded in your favor. The little fib about why you’re late. The expense you didn’t mention up front because it was small, and you figured it was less likely to kill the sale later than if you pointed it out now. The kind of thing that makes everybody love buying a car.

    Usually, nobody notices. And on the rare occasion somebody does, it’s almost never the person who will later be deciding whether to hire you or do business with you.

    But sometimes it is, and you never get told in advance which time that’s going to be.

    So look at what’s actually on the table. Ten bucks on one side. A client, a partner, or a deal on the other. It isn’t close, and nobody would take that bet if it were laid out in front of them.

    It’s important to practice complete honesty on the stuff that doesn’t matter. Especially there, where it costs you little and nobody’s watching. That’s where the habit gets built.

    Because one day you’ll be in a pinch. The deal’s wobbling, or you’re behind on something and someone wants to know why. Lying might look like the easy way out, at least short term.

    If honesty is already just what you do, you don’t have to decide anything in that moment. If it isn’t, that’s a bad time to start figuring out where the line is.

    And the lie doesn’t pay off. Not when the price is a relationship instead of ten dollars.

    It’s the kind of thing Jeff Olson talks about in The Slight Edge. Small choices that are easy to make and just as easy to skip, with nothing to show for them today. Being honest when it’s free is one of those choices. So is the other kind.

    The people who matter won’t say anything, either. No confrontation, no warning. They’ll just quietly move on, and you’ll spend a while wondering why the calls stopped.

    Get it Here

    P.S. That link goes through Amazon, and I’m an affiliate. Doesn’t cost you a dime more, but if you click through and buy the book, or anything else while you’re there, I get a small commission.

  • The Open Shirt Rule

    The Open Shirt Rule

    You can be legally right and still be the problem.

    Even if you don’t follow soccer, you’ve probably caught some of the World Cup coverage this month. One thing that keeps coming up: visitors are surprised by what kind of country this actually is.

    If all you knew was social media, you’d think we’re at each other’s throats. Police and immigration checkpoints on every corner. Nobody happy to be here. The place a mess.

    Then people show up and it’s nowhere close to that.

    It’s nice watching that land on someone in real time. You’d think it might make the rest of us put the phones down. Stop getting ourselves worked up over whatever someone decided to be offended by this week.

    You’d think that. You’d be wrong.

    A little over a week ago, a woman in Celina said a local restaurant made her leave for breastfeeding her infant. She posted about it. It went everywhere. People who weren’t in the building had a lot to say about how we’ve apparently traveled back in time a hundred years.

    The owner, also not in the building that day, said it was a miscommunication and that breastfeeding has never been against their policy. That part got considerably less attention.

    It made the paper, which tells you something on its own. Read the article and what you mostly get is one woman’s account, repeated back as fact, plus some comments from people online. The owner’s side is in there, technically. A video statement, summarized. Her first name. No last name. Strange, for a story where the reporter supposedly tried to reach her.

    If you’d actually talked to her, you’d probably have that. Or you could have asked around, it’s no secret who owns the place and she’s reasonably prominent around town.

    I don’t know what happened in that restaurant. Neither does anyone who wasn’t there, which is most of the internet. What people will walk away remembering isn’t the truth. It’s just who got cast as the villain.

    On the breastfeeding question itself: I don’t know a single person who’s bothered by it, or thinks it should be against the rules anywhere. I know plenty of people who believe in being considerate when you can be. Those aren’t the same position, and treating them like they are is how you end up shouting at people who already agree with you.

    You’re allowed to open carry in Texas. I think that’s a real right and I’m not interested in arguing about it. But when I see a guy walking through Walmart with a pistol on his hip for no particular reason, I don’t read that as confidence. I read it as someone hoping somebody says something so he gets to be right about it.

    Same instinct, different subject. You’re allowed to do the thing. Doing it the most visible way possible, without consideration for others, isn’t really about the thing anymore. Maybe the other person is wrong, doesn’t hurt you to accommodate them.

    Do what you need to do. Just notice when you’ve stopped doing it for the reason you started.

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  • It’s a bad idea to try to fix yourself.

    It’s a bad idea to try to fix yourself.

    You’ll usually make it worse, and it won’t even fix the real problem.

    The end of the Book of Judges is a long, ugly chain of decisions that all trace back to one moment.

    Israel made a vow not to give their daughters in marriage to the tribe of Benjamin. At the time it probably felt justified. Benjamin had done something so evil that the other tribes went to war over it.

    Then the war ended, and the consequences of that vow became clear. Benjamin wouldn’t recover. An entire tribe of Israel would disappear, not because God commanded it, but because of something they said.

    They saw the problem, but they wouldn’t deal with it directly. They could have admitted the vow was wrong and broken it. That would have cost them, mostly in pride, but it would have been clean.

    Instead, they started working around it.

    There was a town that hadn’t joined the war, so they attacked it, killed the inhabitants, and kept about four hundred young women alive to give to Benjamin. That solved part of the problem, if you ignore what they had just done to get there.

    It still wasn’t enough, so they came up with something else. There was a festival at Shiloh, and they told the men of Benjamin to hide nearby and take the women when they came out to dance. That way, technically, Israel wasn’t “giving” their daughters.

    They stacked one decision on top of another, each one designed to protect the original vow, and each one making things worse.

    Most people don’t go that far, but the pattern isn’t hard to recognize.

    We don’t like admitting we were wrong, so we adjust instead. We explain it, justify it, and look for ways to clean it up without ever backing up and saying it shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

    That trade almost always goes the same way. A smaller, honest wrong gets replaced by something bigger that’s easier to defend.

    The instruction from Jesus is simple. Confess.
    Not manage it. Not reframe it. Not work around it.

    Confess, and He will forgive you.
    Even the mess you made trying to fix it.

    The sooner you set aside your pride and say it plainly, the less you usually have to clean up later.

    Or you can keep digging.

    P.S.-If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary.
    No telling you what to think.
    Nothing to buy.
    Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

  • It’s Not Too High For Everyone

    It’s Not Too High For Everyone

    Focus on becoming someone who it’s not too high for.

    I don’t know if it’s because today is primary election day where I live, but for some reason I thought of the “Rent Is Too Damn High” guy from New York.

    I don’t remember his name.

    I don’t even remember what office he was running for. Mayor, I think.

    But I remember the slogan.

    Give him credit for one thing. You don’t remember most politicians’ campaign lines. That one stuck.

    It had the same problem those Progressive “Don’t turn into your parents” ads had. I loved the ads but for the longest time I couldn’t remember what they were selling.

    Rent was too high. That’s all I knew.

    And here we are, years later, and politicians are still running on the same thing. Different words, same pitch.

    Groceries are too high.
    Gas is too high.
    Housing is too high.
    Somebody isn’t paying their “fair share.”

    That message never goes out of style because it feels true.

    Costs do go up.

    But here’s the uncomfortable part.

    Prices are mostly outside your control. And politicians.

    Your income isn’t.

    You can spend a lifetime voting for someone who promises to make everything cheaper.

    Or you can spend that same lifetime figuring out how to make yourself more valuable so you can make more money.

    One of those gives you control.

    The other gives you a yard sign.

    Even in real estate I see this constantly.

    People tell me land prices are crazy.

    Sometimes they are.

    But I’ve watched plenty of landowners quietly get wealthier while prices were “crazy” because they positioned themselves correctly, reduced taxes legally, structured deals well, and focused on making smart decisions instead of arguing with the market.

    You don’t lower the tide by yelling at the ocean.

    You either build a better boat or move uphill.

    I won’t tell you who to vote for.

    But don’t confuse politics with a personal income strategy.

    If rent is too high, the long-term answer isn’t hoping someone else fixes it.

    It’s becoming the kind of person for whom it isn’t too high anymore.

    PS- For people who want to make smart decisions involving their land, I offer the MBR Land Reality Check for any non residential property.

    Request Yours Here

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  • It Doesn’t Help Anyone If You Leave It In the Box

    It Doesn’t Help Anyone If You Leave It In the Box

    The greatest tools in the world don’t help anything if you don’t use them.

    I tend to make a big deal about how important it is not to procrastinate. Just get started.

    Do the thing when you think of it instead of putting it off.

    It almost never hurts to do something a little earlier than you absolutely have to, instead of waiting until the last minute.

    So I’m going to tell on myself.

    A while back, for my birthday, my dad bought me a portable car battery booster. One of those little jump-start packs. I didn’t even know I wanted it, but he got it for me, I said thanks, and that was that.

    Fast forward to a few days ago. One of my daughters called and said her battery was dead. And where was that booster?

    Still sitting in the original Amazon box in the back seat of my truck.

    Now, I’ve got jumper cables, so it wasn’t the end of the world. But it would have been easier. And that’s the point.

    Low-risk example. Same lesson.

    Normally I wouldn’t bother mentioning the booster itself because it has nothing to do with real estate. But these things are actually great.

    It fits in a small bag. You carry it in one hand. If your battery is dead, you hook it up and start the car. No second vehicle. No asking strangers for help.

    No waiting around in a parking lot hoping someone stops.

    I’m probably going to buy one for all my kids.

    My daughters especially worry about being stuck somewhere and having to deal with people they don’t know. If they’ve got one of these, they don’t need anyone. It’s just handled.

    You can also charge your phone with it. It charges by USB, so you can plug it in while you’re driving. It’s got a flashlight built in too.

    It’s not much more expensive than a decent set of jumper cables, and it takes up less space than most glove box junk.

    They’re just useful.

    If you’ve got kids, it will give you peace of mind.

    If you have one already, don’t be like me. Take it out of the box. But if not, go buy one and actually use it.

    You can get the same one I have from Amazon at the link below.

    Or buy a nicer one. I don’t care. Just don’t leave it sitting in the box like I did.

    Get it Here

    Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. That means if you buy something—anything—after clicking that link, I may receive a small commission. It doesn’t change your price.

  • Begging Strangers Is a Terrible Strategy

    Begging Strangers Is a Terrible Strategy

    “Thoughts and prayers” won’t pay your bills, proper preparation will.

    I’ve ranted before about people who think they can predict the future—and insist on telling you even though nobody asked. If they really knew, they wouldn’t be here lecturing you.

    They’d be too rich to waste time on you.

    But here’s one prediction you can take to the bank:

    If someone starts with “you know I’m not racist…,” you can bet your last dollar the next word will be “but,” and whatever follows will be racist.

    And when someone says “I’m not trying to be political…”? Same story.

    It’s either about to get political, or they’re pointing out something so obvious it shouldn’t be controversial—although there’s always that chunk of society that will argue with a stop sign.

    So. I’m not being political here.

    A while back, somebody told me their friend got sick—cancer, I think. No insurance. Didn’t know what they were going to do, except maybe start a GoFundMe.

    Apparently my response wasn’t the “right” one.
    Instead of a sympathetic head tilt, I said, “Maybe they should have had insurance.”

    You’d think I’d just kicked a puppy.

    Here’s the thing: insurance isn’t a mythical gift your employer hands you if they’re feeling generous.

    It’s for sale. You can go buy it.

    I do. And it’s not cheap—I pay more for my family’s insurance than I do for our house every month. It sucks. But that beats begging strangers on the internet for treatment money.

    But if you don’t make much money? What do you do then?

    I literally just helped someone price full coverage. For them the total cost—premiums plus max out-of-pocket—worked out to about seven bucks a day. That’s a fancy coffee.

    Don’t mistake this for an endorsement of Obamacare. I wish it were gone yesterday.

    But you play the hand you’re dealt, not the one you wish you had.

    It’s called being prepared.

    If you can protect yourself for $7/day—or even my number—it’s a no-brainer.

    What’s this got to do with real estate?

    Nothing… except that being unprepared there will cost you, too.

    If you own land or lots and there’s even a chance you’ll sell soon, is there any downside to having the most current info?

    Especially considering I’m not going to charge you a penny to talk.

    You know what to do below. But if you’re not subscribed yet, fix that first—before your GoFundMe for “real estate mistakes” goes live.

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