The Poop Deck

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Now, I don’t know what a poop deck is, and I’m sure I could look it up on Wikipedia if I wanted to, or you could put this book down and do the same.  My guess would be that it has nothing to do with excrement.  This is the other problem with metaphors used in self-help books.  A comparison will often be made to a subject that the author has not lived.  I’ve never lived on a ship.  Neither have you.  Needless to say, comparisons that authors with PhDs make should be taken with a grain of salt.  That’s why my doctorate is more valuable than a typical doctorate, because it’s the doctorate of life.

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You Think You’re Messed Up?  Talk to Sally

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Sally was a single mother with three children, all of them under ten.  If that wasn’t bad enough, each of those children was from a different father, and each of those fathers was in jail or had been in jail.  She was seriously overweight and had diabetes.  She had a steady job, but she was underpaid and passed over for promotion again and again.

Now, when I met Sally and heard all this, I wanted to give her a big slap across the face.   (more…)

The First Lesson

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Imagine you’re on a boat.  The boat is one of those older boats, like the Mayflower, but with a different name.  And it’s riding along on choppy seas, with the storm coming in from the southeast.  Can you picture this?  You’re on this boat, and you’re sitting amidst a bunch of barrels.  What do the barrels say on the side?  Gunpowder.   (more…)

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Many people have come to me over the years, at least half of them willingly, and most not under sedation.  And of that half, some of those people have serious problems, and of those people, many of them do not know that I haven’t the faintest idea what I can do for them.  None. (more…)