Good morning, ladies and gentlemen: As many of you know; my grandson who is 14 years old, came to me and tells me that that he wanted to be like me and dress like me, wear cologne like me. His reasoning is that he sees how people notice and respect me wherever we go. (Yes, I'm having a proud moment), The one thing that I did, was to teach him the way I was raised; if you can smell yourself then others can smell you, now this can be in a good way or a bad way. Either way the point was personal hygiene is crucial to oneself. My grandfather raised us men in the family that you always wear some type of cologne; at the time the cheap thing was Brute 33 and Old Spice. Now, I am not going to spend hundreds of dollars on cologne for a 14-year-old boy unless he is on stage with his four brothers (the Jacksons Five, the older generation). But I wanted to teach him the same values I was raised with, so I buy the generic versions that I found of name brand colognes so he can learn and also build confidence in himself. I had to attend a parent teacher conference at his school, and I had never been in the school before nor have I met any of his teachers or the office staff, ( let me paint picture; I'm black and he is white) ( paint, lol sorry, I digress) but when I walked in everyone knew who I was and who my grandson was. In speaking to his teachers, all of them had one thing in common, they all complimented on how nice my grandson smelled every day and how they loved that he wore different fragrances all the time. Some teachers actually said, they have him sit next to them because he smells great all the time, (little creepy but I get it), some say they have him by the door, because unfortunately some kids do not have proper hygiene and the tend to bring that odor in the classroom with them so when other teachers and adults walk in they smell my grandson first, (again creepy but I get it). I personally get compliments all the time on my colognes and yes, even some made the comments" I am so glad you are here because someone has bad body odor." I have been to conferences where people have asked me to sit at their table because they had someone there that did not have a favorable odor on them.

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." Thomas Edison Have a good day brothers.

Time to see how the year is going after the first 90 days, and also my mid week self meeting to see where I am at in the task for the week.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, As many of you recall over the past. Several months I have been de-digitizing myself, and this has been very life changing in beneficial for me. I have minimized the use of my cell phone to basically answering the phone and messages. And this have allowed me to regain my mental cognitive functions and increased my memory and attention to details when I went back you using a notebook for my day to day activities. So yesterday I had a pretty busy day and was receiving phones calls and notifications. But the one thins that I did come to the realization was that most on the notifications were nothing of importance, and the calls that were coming in were calls that could wait till I was free to return them. But here was the issue, when I was with people I did not answer the phone, ( out of respect to the person that I was engaged n conversation with), or did I check the notifications. But what I did noticed was that I was distracted by the phone ringing or the ding from notifications, this would cause me to be distracted from what the person was saying and who knows what I actually missed in that moment. So I decided to remove the notifications, and place my phone on vibrate, now there are certain numbers that was able to set to notify me in the case of emergency but all others goes silent, and the notifications are now silenced. This gives me the ability to put all my attentions to who I am with. It also cleared my mind to focus on things and not worry about the “dings and ringtones “. This morning I had a men’s meeting and then another short meeting and I was not just focused on what was going on but the feeling of freedom, not letting and electronic device control me. I have been in my office now for over an hour and have not worried about or thought about have i missed a call or a notification, but rather, when i had a moment i took a quick look to see was there anything pressing, then back to what I was doing and you know what? I was able to get back on track and continue without having to try to refocus. Just a little win, win testimony for me.