AsktheBuilder.com Issue #1251 (I think)

September 17, 2023

Dear ,

Are you a brand-new subscriber? Greetings and solutions as my dear departed father-in-law would say.

This is a bit of a departure from a normal newsletter. Two days ago I had a unique one-hour video call. I knew during the call that it would serve as a powerful teaching moment for you.

I saved two lives during the call and I know I can save your bacon too. If you do the call early enough, I'll also save you in excess of $10,000.00. Don't believe me, just ask Cathy. She'll be at the Moosehead Lake Meet Up. More on that in a bit.

The morning after the video call an overnight email confirmed my heroism, if you want to call it that.

You're about to discover:

• What happens when you misplace trust in someone
• True Misinformation - Is There Such a Thing?

Let's get started.

Oh, one more thing. Can you do me a favor later this week and visit my AsktheBuilder.com website? I told my ad-network provider to CUT IN HALF the number of ads.

I want to IMPROVE your viewing and reading experience.

Let me know what you think of the new cleaner format. If there's more work to be done, I'll take the necessary steps.

#DoNotComply

Once bitten, twice shy...

We are ⛳  League Champs!

My partner Ed and I won our golf league championship game this past Tuesday. Sixty-four players were in the league and Ed and I were the last two standing. It's almost surreal for me as I wasn't playing that well at the start of the season. Ed did all the heavy lifting 60% of the way until I started to wake up mid-July and begin to play respectable golf.

Here's a photo of the official league scorecard from this past Tuesday. The circles indicate holes WON by a team.

It's an odd scoring format. Each player gets one-half point for showing up. Each team gets one-half point for tied holes. Winning a hole gets a team one point for that hole. The point totals for each team MUST add up to 11. Get 6 points and you win the match.

The asterisks in a cell indicate that player gets a stroke on that hole. I got five strokes during the match because my handicap is 14 and the other Ed has a 9 handicap. This means if it took me five strokes to hole the ball, my NET score is a 4. What you see in each cell are the ACTUAL strokes for each player in the match.

The banquet is this coming Tuesday. Maybe next week I'll have a photo of a tiny trophy or ribbon to share. 

If you're a math wizard, you'll note that the other team COULD HAVE WON the championship. But they were quitters.

Quitters never win - Winners never quit.

Had they won the last two holes (highly unlikely with as flustered as they were), we would have had to continue to play until one team won a hole. My guess is they either couldn't do math or they knew in the last two holes Ed and I would at least get another 1/2 point to seal the win.

I have to tell you I set up camp inside the head of the other Ed and his partner Mike at the first tee box and was stoking a nice smokey fire throughout the match.

Having played lots of sports in high school and college, I knew that this championship match would really be about which team was mentally TOUGHER.

I'd like to give you a peek inside the kimono of the head game I was playing with the other Ed and Mike. 

Hole #6 is the TOUGHEST one on the course. I had a really good drive to the right edge of the fairway. I was 115 yards from the pin. I used my 9-iron and put the ball on the green pin high about 16 feet away. I was the only one on the green in regulation.

My partner Ed came up to me and said softly, "Tim, just get the ball CLOSE for a tap-in par. I know you can do it."  I nodded my head as I had been totally silent during the match never talking to or looking at the other Ed or his partner Mike. That was by design to transmit that I owned the frame, not them.

Truth be told, my putter was white hot the past three weeks. I was draining 12-footers like water disappears in a fierce whirlpool.

Once it was my turn to putt, I focused, took a breath, exhaled, waited one second, and stroked the ball. It went right for the pin and stopped about 16 inches short.

"Do you mind if I putt out?" I was looking directly at the other Ed - our opponent. I believe he grumbled, "GO AHEAD!"

I tapped it in, bent over, retrieved my ball from the cup, proceeded to stare at the other Ed's eyes and said, "Well well, that was a PAR!"

At that point, the walls started crashing down inside the other Ed and Mike's heads. I rushed to pack up my tent and sleeping bag and got out just in time.

They KNEW they had to start taking low-percentage shots to try to win. Pros can take low-percentage shots and have spectacular results. Amateurs crash and burn.

There was a vast amount of wreckage on the 7th green as you can tell from the scorecard.

Ed and I celebrated, but we both felt soiled. The poor-sportsmanship our opponents put on display had us shaking our heads.

They, unfortunately, have to live with that shame.

🛟 Saving Two Lives 🛟

"Great suggestions that we will implement. Your call was, I want to say, life-saving, definitely affirming and comforting. We will be in touch."

Several days ago I was grouting brick at my son's home when my phone rang. It was Sue. Sue's a subscriber to this newsletter. I know she's reading this. She wrote the above quote to me just two days ago.

She was having difficulty purchasing a one-hour video phone consult listed in my shopping cart.

"Do you do PayPal or Venmo? If so, why not just send the money that way?" I suggested.  Sue replied, "I can do PayPal." I gave her my special PayPal email address and said I'd be able to do the call the next day at 2 PM.

In the meantime, Sue sent me several great photos and a brief summary of the problem. I think she says it best. Read her pre-call summary:

"We signed a contract to:

The Trust Bridge

Early in the video call I discovered Sue and her husband Terry had coughed up, like a bad hairball, a significant amount of money as a deposit.

There are only a few things that act as incentives for a contractor to do great work and show up at your job each day. Here they are:

• honor
• integrity
• the highest ethics and best morals
• MONEY

You may have a few others to add to the list, but suffice it to say the first three bullet points above are often scarce or in very short supply based on the thousands of emails I receive from homeowners just like you.

Note I have no bullet point for legal action. That's a rabbit hole you want to avoid. READ THIS to understand why.

That leaves money. If you pay a contractor UP FRONT most/all of his profit on a job, he/she often becomes VERY DISINTERESTED in you and the outcome of your job.

Here's what you need to know about HONORABLE contractors. 

They know they'll show up. They know they'll do a great job.

They have NO FEAR that they'll satisfy you and that you'll only be TOO HAPPY to pay them.

An honorable contractor will negotiate a payment schedule such that he gets operating capital from you every week, every two weeks, or in the last few days of a month BEFORE he has to pay his suppliers.

An honorable contractor has, or SHOULD HAVE, thousands of dollars in his business account. He/she can easily make payroll for weeks at a time.

If a contractor doesn't have this type of working capital, it's a HUGE SPINNING RED LIGHT 🚨 that should put your head on a swivel.

But Sue and her husband were TRUSTING. 

I get it. You want to BELIEVE other people have your best interests at heart. More often than not, they don't.

I think we can agree that's not the case. For example, over the past three years many MILLIONS of people have been too trusting. Each day news stories leak out that show you may have been one of the many that were played like Charlie Daniel's fiddle. Your health may have been negatively affected by this misplaced trust. But I digress.

I want you to STOP TRUSTING most of the contractors you deal with. 

Trust is to be EARNED.

Trust is EQUILATERAL. Your contractor needs to TRUST you too. When they ask for a deposit, they're silently saying, "I don't TRUST you to pay me."

Trust is NOT something you give away like you might on a first date.

The Other Mistakes

Sue and her husband Terry made a few other mistakes.

They proceeded to sign a contract with insufficient plans and no guarantee that the local zoning officials would even allow the improvements.

They advanced money with no building permit in place.

They probably never had the contractor submit a certificate of liability insurance and a current Workman's Compensation certificate.

They probably didn't specify in the contract how the oversight of the subcontractors would happen.

I could go on and on and on.

Fortunately, Sue and Terry had the fortitude to reach out to me when they did.

I was able to cast live preservers to them and gave them a plan of action for this Monday morning.

I'm pretty confident they both slept well on Friday night.

Do you want to SLEEP LIKE A BABY and REST ASSURED you will NOT LOSE MONEY with a contractor?

Then GET ON A VIDEO CALL WITH ME BEFORE you start to develop plans for your project. 

Do you understand that?

You and I NEED TO TALK BEFORE you spend too much money on plans and BEFORE you even THINK of talking with contractors.

I have another story to share about poor-quality plans but I need to get permission from someone before I do that.

Maine Meet Up

The Maine Meet Up in remote Maine is happening. It's going to be in Greenville, Maine at the south end of Moosehead Lake.

I'm not exactly certain of the date, but it MIGHT BE on Sunday evening October 8th. It might just end up being me, one other person, and a few loons.

If you have any interest, you need to REACH OUT to me very soon or otherwise you'll be camping out. Motel rooms in Greenville, ME are in very short supply this time of year.

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel - The BEST Love Story of all time - well, maybe a close second...

Pearl Harbor Book

Look at this book cover.

I've not bought this paperback book but I do wonder if the Forward was written by Peter Riegert.

What does this book telegraph to you about the level of intelligence of anyone who had anything to do with this book, especially the cover designer?

This is a great example of misinformation. Is it intentional or just blantent ignorance?

God help us!

That's enough for a Sunday morning.

Peace out.

Tim Carter (PhD, FullyAwakeology)

Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com

No More Ads! Check it Out: www.W3ATB.com

My Pronouns: Told/You/So

Do It Right, Not Over!