My Wishlist

An Unhealthy Way to Manage

Today’s blog is an angry rant. A painful, physically and mentally painful testament to why being in charge of people is an unhealthy stressor. How the constant repetition of explaining and showing how to do things is tiresome to the point of extreme exhaustion.

Reliability is at an all time low. Accountability is nonexistent. I wish making excuses and not owning up to wrongdoings was a fireable offense!

I wish employees would do their actual jobs and stop conducting their personal business while on company time.

I wish I could convey these messages and people hear them, believe in them and actually respond and do them.

I wish, because as a child we grow up fast and are taught to believe and make wishes. I’d rather be taught at a young age that failure is real and relying on others will break you!

I wish, I could stop wishing… I write because this is my release and my way to vent… I can type without being interrupted.

Confidence doesn’t exist in people anymore. Belief in oneself is a missing trait and because of that most work is incomplete or incorrect.

My final wish is to see an influx in solid, confident and skilled workers who accept accountability and put the business first before online shopping, family matters, chatting up strangers and friends and ignoring phone calls.

It’s all wishful thinking, not because I don’t think people exist out there who do the job right, but because I don’t think many people out there actually care…..

Growth Over Ego

The moment you stop defending… is the moment you start improving

“I used to think being right meant I was winning. Turns out, it just meant I wasn’t learning.”

Back in the 90’s, my family owned a small dive bar in Follansbee, West Virginia. Behind the bar hung a simple sign:

“Politics, religion, and high school football are prohibited.”

Not because those topics weren’t important, but because they were guaranteed to turn a conversation into an argument, and an argument into something worse. Everyone had an opinion. More importantly, everyone believed theirs was the right one.

Looking back now, that sign wasn’t really about avoiding conflict.
It was about managing ego.

And ego shows up everywhere.

It shows up in business.
It shows up in leadership.
It definitely shows up when you’re dealing with people.

I’ve seen it firsthand with staff over the years. You can explain exactly how you want something done… clearly, repeatedly, and still watch people default back to their own way. It’s easy in those moments to think, “They’re not listening.”

But growth forces you to ask a harder question:
“Am I communicating this in a way that actually connects?”

Because leadership isn’t about being right. It’s about being understood.

Before owning a business, I spent time in law enforcement. And like a lot of people in that field, confidence comes with the territory. You have to trust your instincts and make decisions quickly.

But there’s a fine line between confidence and ego.

If I’m being honest, there were times I didn’t think I was wrong, often enough to cost me opportunities to learn. And I saw others take it even further, where being right wasn’t just a belief… it was their identity. And that’s a dangerous place to live.

Because the moment your identity is tied to being right, you stop being open to being better.

One of the best reminders I’ve come across didn’t come from business or law enforcement… it came from the mats.

At my jiu-jitsu gym, there’s a decal on the front door:

“Leave Your Ego At The Door.”

And inside one of my gis, it says:

“Flow without ego.”

You can’t learn if you’re trying to prove something. You can’t improve if you’re too busy defending yourself.

The mat has a way of humbling you real quick. It doesn’t care about your opinions, your past, or your excuses. It just shows you where you stand and where you need to grow.

That lesson applies everywhere.

In conversations.
In leadership.
In life.

There’s a quote from Charlie Kirk that fits this idea well:

“You should be constantly testing your beliefs against others. If your ideas are strong, they’ll hold up. If they’re not, you’ve just learned something.”

That’s the shift. Ego wants to win the argument. Growth wants to understand why it was wrong.

And the truth is, most of us walk around thinking we’re open-minded… until we’re challenged. That’s when ego shows up. That’s when we defend instead of listen. Someone once told me, “it’s hard to listen when your mouth is always open” They weren’t wrong.

But if you can pause in that moment, just long enough to ask, “What if I’m missing something?” That’s where real growth starts.

Not in proving a point. But in being willing to reconsider it. Because at the end of the day, being right doesn’t make you better.

Getting better does.

So the next time you feel the need to defend your position… ask yourself—are you protecting your ego, or pursuing growth?

Pride in the Small Things

I was watching a scene from A Memory of a Killer recently that stuck with me.

In the scene, a young guy finishes washing dishes and thinks he’s done. The boss checks them and tells him to do them again because they aren’t clean enough. The kid protests, saying someone else doesn’t even do dishes. The boss responds with something simple but powerful: when his own son had that job at the same age, the dishes were spotless because he had pride in his work.

When the kid shrugs and says, “It’s just dishes,” the boss gives the real lesson.

It’s not about the dishes.

It’s about being given a task and doing it right.

That scene resonated with me because it reminded me of something I learned long before I ever ran a business.

My first job started at midnight.

I worked for the city park and pool from midnight until eight in the morning. While most people were sleeping, I was cleaning bathhouses and helping with pool maintenance. It wasn’t glamorous work. Nobody was applauding the guy scrubbing floors in the middle of the night.

But looking back, those hours taught me something important: the size of the job doesn’t determine its importance. The pride you take in doing it does.

Later on, when I worked for a tree service, I learned the same lesson again. After the cutting was done, I was told to rake and sweep the yard and the street. Nothing fancy about that job either. But I made sure that place was spotless when I finished. The yard looked better than when we arrived.

That’s when it really clicked for me.

Small tasks aren’t meaningless. They’re where character is created.

Anyone can step up when the moment is big and everyone is watching. But the people who take pride in the small jobs, the unnoticed ones, the ones nobody brags about, those are the people you can trust with bigger responsibilities.

Great responsibility isn’t handed out randomly. It’s earned in the smallest tasks.

Because the way someone handles a simple job tells you exactly how they’ll handle a complicated one.

The task may be small, but the character it reveals never is.

If the City Manager Runs the City… Who Exactly Are We Electing?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how city government actually works, not how it’s explained in civics class, but how it functions in real life.

Take a city like Steubenville.

We have a city council made up of seven members. We have a mayor. We have a city manager. We have full-time police and fire departments that constantly need funding for equipment, training, and staffing, along with neighborhoods that need representation and real attention.

And like a lot of taxpayers, I keep coming back to one simple question:

Who’s actually in charge here?

Because from the outside looking in, it feels like everyone has a title, but nobody has clear responsibility.

In our system, the city manager runs day-to-day operations. They oversee departments, budgets, and execution. For all practical purposes, they are the CEO of the city.

The mayor? Mostly ceremonial. Runs meetings, represents the city at events, and breaks tie votes. Which raises an uncomfortable question: could those duties be handled another way and save taxpayers money?

City council approves budgets, passes ordinances, and hires the city manager, but they don’t run departments or manage operations. They create laws, yet they aren’t responsible for enforcing them.

So when residents see police officers needing equipment or firefighters asking for resources, frustration builds quickly. Taxpayers naturally wonder why solutions move so slowly when so many elected officials are involved.

And that’s where confusion turns into distrust.

Because when something goes wrong, responsibility becomes blurry.

Residents blame the mayor, who doesn’t control operations.
Council points to administrative limits.
The city manager, the person running daily operations, isn’t elected by voters.

Everyone holds authority, yet no one appears fully accountable.

To be fair, this system wasn’t created by accident. The council-manager model was designed to prevent corruption and political favoritism (unfortunately, these still exist) by separating politics from administration. The idea was simple: let professionals run the city while elected officials set policy and represent the people.

On paper, it makes sense.

But in smaller cities facing tight budgets and aging infrastructure, the structure can start to feel disconnected from reality. Essential services fight for funding while residents struggle to understand who is responsible for fixing problems.

And maybe that’s the real issue.

We elect council members to support, represent, and solve problems within their wards and neighborhoods. If residents don’t see that happening, it’s fair to ask why those positions exist at all.

The question isn’t whether these roles should exist…. it’s whether the people holding them are visibly leading, communicating, and owning decisions.

Because government works best when responsibility is clear.

Right now, many residents are left wondering:

If the city manager runs everything… who exactly are we electing?

And more importantly, who answers when things don’t get done?

Welcome to Social Media: Where Everyone Talks and Nobody Listens.

Social media is a lot like Peter Parker’s famous lesson, with great power comes great responsibility.

At least, that’s what it started as.

For me, social media was originally about connection. Keeping in touch with friends and family. Networking. Creating group pages where coworkers, relatives, and communities could actually communicate and help each other. It felt useful. Positive. Almost… wholesome.

Then the pages multiplied.

“I’m From This Town” groups. Neighborhood watch pages. Crime alert feeds. Jeep groups. Toyota groups. BMW groups. Hobby communities. Local discussion boards.

And honestly? Most of them began with great intentions. Need advice on a vehicle modification? Ask the group.
See a safety issue in your neighborhood? Share it.
Want to warn people about a hazard or help someone solve a problem? Post it.

Simple. Except somewhere along the way, the problem stopped being the platform… and became the people using it.

Now, genuine questions are labeled stupid. Helpful posts get mocked. Someone trying to inform others gets buried under sarcasm, criticism, and outright bullying. Half the comments are people tearing someone down, and the other half are arguing with those people.

We’ve somehow turned community spaces into digital food fights.

Tone doesn’t translate well online. Humor gets mistaken for insults. Sarcasm becomes outrage. Someone is always offended, someone else is always furious, and the modern battle cry has become “FAFO”, usually typed by someone who has probably never confronted anyone face-to-face in their life.

Let’s be honest: most keyboard warriors wouldn’t say a single word in public. The confidence only exists behind a screen, drinking a diet Dr. Pepper.

And yet, here’s the irony, we’ll all keep using social media.

Some of us use it for genuine connection. Some to share experiences, journeys, and photos. Some to learn. Some to help.

But understand this: even your happiest moments… your vacation, your success, your progress, will attract negativity.

Not because you did anything wrong.

But because jealousy and boredom are powerful motivators for people whose biggest adventure is scrolling through someone else’s life.

Social media didn’t change humanity.

It just gave everyone a microphone.

Confusing Attention With Relevance

Why Social Media Has Turned to Sh*t (Even Though Many of Us Still Use It for Good)

There was a time when social media actually meant something. People shared ideas. Businesses connected with customers.

Conversations, actual conversations happened.

Now?

It’s a digital carnival of noise where attention is mistaken for importance and relevance is buried under a pile of fake outrage, staged videos, and algorithm-chasing nonsense.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped asking “Is this valuable?” and started asking “Will this get clicks?”

And that’s when everything went sideways.

Attention Is Not the Same as Relevance

Let’s clear something up that social media desperately refuses to understand:

Getting attention doesn’t mean you matter. It just means you were loud enough, absurd enough, or annoying enough to interrupt someone’s scroll.

“Look at this!”

“Watch till the end!”

“Most people can’t answer this!”

“How many dots do you see?”

None of it is insightful. None of it is meaningful. It’s mental spam.

Attention is cheap. Relevance is earned.

But relevance takes effort, honesty, and God forbid, thought. So instead, people chase the fastest dopamine hit the algorithm will hand them.

Algorithm Farming: The New Side Hustle Nobody Admits

Let’s call it what it is: algorithm farming.

Posting content designed solely to trigger:

comments – arguments – outrage – emotional reactions

Not because the creator believes it. Not because it adds value. But because engagement equals visibility, and visibility might equal money.

“How many dots do you see?”

“If you believe this, unfollow me.”

“Only idiots disagree.”

It’s not conversation, it’s bait. And millions of people take it daily.

The worst part? The algorithm doesn’t reward truth, intelligence, or usefulness.

It rewards:

anger – stupidity – division – repetition

So guess what rises to the top? Fake Videos, Fake Reactions, Fake People

AI voices. Scripted “random” encounters. Influencers pretending they just discovered something groundbreaking that’s been common knowledge since 1998.

Everything feels staged because most of it is.

We’re watching people perform authenticity for engagement, while real experiences get buried because they’re not dramatic enough to trend.

Reality doesn’t scream. Clickbait does.

“If You Voted for ___, Unfollow Me”

This is where social media fully jumped the shark. Instead of discussion, we get ultimatums. Instead of nuance, we get tribal warfare.

It’s not courage. It’s not conviction. It’s insecurity disguised as a moral stance.

Shutting down conversation isn’t strength…. it’s fear of being challenged.

And ironically, the people screaming for tolerance are often the least tolerant of disagreement.

Why This Makes Social Media Miserable

Most of us didn’t sign up for this.

We joined to: promote our businesse – stay connected – share ideas – learn something new

Instead, we got force-fed outrage, nonsense, and fake urgency.

The problem isn’t that social media exists. It’s that it’s been optimized for engagement at the cost of sanity.

And your brain feels it. That constant low-level irritation? That feeling of being talked at instead of talked to?

That’s not you aging into irrelevance. That’s you recognizing bullshit.

The Quiet Truth

There are still people using social media the right way:

creators – small business owners – educators – thinkers

They’re just harder to hear over the noise. Social media didn’t turn to shit because people stopped caring. It turned to shit because attention became more valuable than integrity.

And until relevance matters more than reach, the loudest voices will keep winning, regardless of how empty they are.

If you’re exhausted by social media, congratulations. It means you still have standards. And in a world addicted to clicks, outrage, and fake importance, that alone makes you relevant.

Things I’m Supposed to Accept… But Don’t

We live in a world where inconvenience is enforced immediately, but accountability moves slowly… or sometimes not at all.

There are things everyone pretends make sense, and I’m not buying it anymore.

Ladies and gentlemen, I keep being told everything I’m about to mention is normal. That it’s just how business works. Just how people are. Just how the world is.

Today I’d like to submit a simple argument: normal is not the same thing as reasonable.

Let’s start small.

It is apparently normal to drive fourteen miles down the interstate with your turn signal on, passing exit after exit, never turning. At some point you stop wondering if it’s accidental. Eventually, everyone else just adjusts, drives around the confusion, and moves on.

That’s what acceptance looks like. Not agreement …. exhaustion.

Now let’s talk about business.

Every business depends on basic services like trash pickup. You sign a contract expecting a service, not a lifetime membership. Shop around, find a better rate, try to make a smart financial decision, and suddenly leaving becomes nearly impossible.

Cancellation windows, automatic renewals, clauses buried deep enough to require a legal team and a flashlight. Contracts so complex David Blaine couldn’t escape them.

A service confident in its value doesn’t need traps to keep customers.

And then there are issues that stop being frustrating and start being serious.

We are told justice is blind. We are told accountability applies equally. Yet time and again, ordinary people face immediate consequences while powerful people seem protected by delay, influence, or silence.

Justice loses credibility the moment people believe status changes outcomes.

We fine ordinary people instantly.

We bind businesses with contracts they can’t escape.

We tolerate daily dysfunction without question.

And when accountability approaches the powerful, suddenly patience becomes endless.

Maybe the issue isn’t confusion.

Maybe we understand perfectly, and we’ve simply been told long enough to stop objecting. I don’t accept that anymore.

And if questioning that makes me unreasonable, then maybe reasonable isn’t the standard we should be defending.

Being “Nice” Is the Most Expensive Mistake in Business

The biggest mistake you can make in business is being nice to employees.

Some people need discipline. Some people need to be fired. And pretending otherwise is how small businesses bleed out slowly.

Post-COVID didn’t just disrupt industries, it rewired work ethic. And small businesses are paying the price for government policies that rewarded not working while punishing those who kept showing up.

You can explain expectations until you’re blue in the face. You can train, retrain, document, demonstrate, and remind. And still…. people just won’t do what’s required. They’ll do the bare minimum and convince themselves that it’s “enough.”

Meanwhile, business owners are handcuffed.

• Food specials? Forget it — cooks “can’t handle” the extra.

• Drink specials? Forget it — servers don’t want to promote anything new.

• Responsibilities and accountability? Forget it — that’s suddenly “too much.”

We survived COVID. Despite shutdowns. Despite losing half our staff. Despite every attempt to pull the rug out from under us. We made it with what we had.

And now?

What we’re left with is an employee pool that’s lazy, disengaged, and painfully lackluster.

People love to say, “You can only go up from here.”

I disagree. When you’ve been stuck at the bottom long enough, sometimes the only way forward is to bail out and find a new starting point.

Between rising rent, food shortages, delivery delays, missed orders, and the added burden placed on owners because employees simply don’t care, it’s enough to make any sane person walk away.

But here I am. Circling the eddy. No paddle. Going down with the ship. Because that’s what captains do. Because we all know sanity isn’t my strong suit!

WV PEIA: Insurance That Doesn’t Insure Health—Just Delays Relief

Let’s get something straight right out of the gate:

WV PEIA does not insure health.

They insure hesitation. They insure delay. They insure the hope that if you wait long enough, you’ll either give up or learn to live with pain.

And honestly? They’re very good at it.

PEIA hates done care

Preventative care? Fine.

Routine visits? Sure.

But done care, you know, care that actually fixes a problem instead of endlessly managing it? That’s where PEIA starts clutching its pearls.

Spine surgery. Structural repair. Long-term solutions. Suddenly it’s all “Have you tried suffering longer?”

They love treatments that: Are temporary. Need to be repeated. Kick the can down the road.

Injections? Approved.

PT forever? Absolutely.

Actually fixing the problem? Whoa there, cowboy.

You’re discouraged from using the insurance you pay for. PEIA technically exists to provide coverage, but their real specialty is making you feel like you’re doing something wrong by asking for it.

Need advanced care?

You’ll be buried under: Prior authorizations. Documentation requirements. Appeals & Denials worded just politely enough to still feel like a slap.

The message is clear: “We’re not saying no… we’re just making this so difficult you stop asking.”

They make you feel guilty for being sick or injured

This one’s personal. If your condition is labeled “degenerative,” PEIA treats it like a character flaw.

Wear and tear?

Aging spine?

Long-term damage from physically demanding work or life?

Apparently that’s on you.

Never mind that:

Degeneration causes real pain Degeneration causes nerve damage Degeneration doesn’t magically stop because insurance says it’s “normal”

You’re made to feel like needing care is somehow indulgent…: as if you’re asking for luxury healthcare instead of basic function.

“Medical necessity” as a weapon. PEIA loves the phrase medical necessity the way villains love monologues.

They don’t use it to determine care. They use it to deny care.

Case in point: I was given five criteria to meet in order to appeal a denied surgery.

I met four out of five.

FOUR. OUT. OF. FIVE.

Denied anyway.

Among the criteria I did meet:

Proximity to provider. Established relationship with provider. Failed conservative care.

(And yes, failed care means PT, injections, and time. Lots of time.)

What did PEIA say? Nope. Still not good enough. So let’s be honest, this was never about criteria. It was about cost avoidance.

They charge you for “being insured” and then don’t count your payments

Here’s where it gets even more outrageous: I met my deductible 100%. I even have the receipts to prove it. Yet PEIA continued billing me, claiming I “didn’t meet my deductible.” Why? Because apparently, I was “technically in-network but out of state.”

Translation: all the money I already paid… doesn’t count.

Where did it go? Who cashed it? Certainly not toward the care I needed. Certainly not toward my deductible. Just vanished into the bureaucratic void, like some fancy magic trick.

This isn’t just incompetence, it’s a scam disguised as policy.

PEIA doesn’t insure health, they insure delay!

Here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud: PEIA’s model works best when:

People put off care. People manage pain instead of fixing it. People eventually stop trying.

They don’t measure success by recovery.

They measure it by how long they can delay paying for meaningful treatment. And for teachers, public employees, and families who depend on this coverage?

That delay isn’t abstract. It’s physical. It’s emotional. It’s exhausting.

Healthcare shouldn’t feel like a moral failing. Needing treatment shouldn’t feel like a negotiation.

And insurance shouldn’t act like it’s doing you a favor by barely showing up.

WV PEIA doesn’t protect health. It protects budgets. And the people paying the price?

They’re the ones just trying to feel normal again.

Patriotism Without Blindfolds

The past several days, I’ve been paying close attention to the news….local, national, global. And what I’m seeing doesn’t sit right with me.

Let me be clear before anyone starts foaming at the mouth:

I’m 100% American. I vote, even though some days it feels more symbolic than impactful. I support our government, even when I don’t agree with its tactics. And I will defend this country against anyone, foreign or domestic, who seeks to do it harm.

That said… loving your country doesn’t mean pretending everything it does is noble.

What’s disturbing to me is this: it feels like the United States is always first through the door, bombs loaded, while the rest of the world watches from the sidelines. We’re constantly inserting ourselves into conflicts, storming into other countries, toppling leaders, “restoring order,” and somehow acting surprised when chaos follows.

Meanwhile, most major world powers aren’t openly policing the globe in the same way. Yes, there are ongoing global conflicts. Yes, terrorist organizations exist and deserve exactly zero sympathy. But it’s hard to ignore the pattern: the U.S. is always involved, always escalating, always paying the price later… financially, morally, and with blood.

And now, at home, we’re hearing rhetoric that’s just as unsettling. When governors start talking in ways that sound more like separation than cooperation, when the idea of activating the National Guard or cutting ties is even floated, it should terrify all of us. That language doesn’t lead to unity. It leads to fractures.

Here’s the part no one wants to say out loud: Politicians created this mess.

Decades of leadership…. presidents, governors, senators on both sides, have fueled distrust, division, and hatred while padding their own pockets. They’ve convinced us the enemy is our neighbor instead of the system that keeps them wealthy and untouchable.

Now we’re left with offices filled with dishonest, self-serving politicians. People so convinced they’re morally right that what citizens actually need gets buried under party loyalty and personal gain.

I’m not anti-war. I understand wars happen. I’m grateful to live in a country that is militarily superior. That strength has kept us safe more than once.

But I’m starting to believe many modern wars aren’t about defense, they’re about profit. Manufactured chaos that benefits politicians, defense contractors, and corporations, while everyday people pay the price. The “little people” fight. The powerful people cash checks.

This isn’t the 1800s anymore. Civil war isn’t an answer… it’s a fantasy fueled by anger and ignorance. A so-called governmental “cleanse” would only give us new faces playing the same corrupt game. Same incentives. Same outcomes.

So what’s the fix?

Inflation. Terrorism. Violent protests. Political hatred. Complete distrust in leadership.

There’s no single savior coming. No perfect candidate waiting in the wings. If we’re being honest, the last several commanders in chief, Republican, Democrat, Independent, have all failed in different ways. They argue nonstop, but agree on one thing: how to benefit themselves.

The truth is uncomfortable: You don’t fix a broken system by swapping out the faces running it.

You fix it by changing what the system rewards.

More accountability. More transparency. Less corporate influence. Fewer career politicians. Stronger local communities. Leadership that serves people instead of exploiting division.

I don’t hate America. I hate watching it be used.

And if that makes me unpatriotic in some people’s eyes, so be it. I’d argue real patriotism means caring enough to speak up… without blindfolds, without party loyalty, and without pretending everything is fine when it clearly isn’t.