About
Welcome to Simple Philosophy! The site is dedicated to providing simple, straight forward information and content about personal development, fitness and weight loss, personal responsibility, business management, and finding the “real you”. While this may seem like an eclectic range of topics, they are actually interrelated. Personal responsibility is a key attribute for a person to possess if they are to be successful in business, in weight loss, finding out what makes them tick, and, most of all, in recognizing the need to keep developing as a person and productive member of our society. It is a simple matter of just owning up to the possibility that you could be wrong and then setting out to ensure the action will not be repeated in the future.
Now a little bit about me. I am a 51 year old male with a Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in California and a Masters of Business Administration from California State University at Bakersfield, California. In addition to the formal education, I am a registered California Civil Engineer, have a private practice in Bakersfield, California, and am a partner in a company that specializes in providing back office management and estimating for small companies in the construction industry. Over the past 27 years I have worked in a wide range of organizations, ranging from municipal and county government to private engineering consulting. I have held senior management positions in local government and companies ranging in size from a sole proprietorship to over 2000 employees spread across the U.S.
Working in these organizations, with differing cultures and management styles, I have found two recurring themes that serve to frustrate and hamper the development of the organization. The absolute lack of personal responsibility at all levels and the persistent need of management to take an idea that should be simply implemented and complicate the crap out of it. I have very strong feelings about this and will express them in upcoming posts.
For my entire life I have struggled with my weight; however, for the past 15 years the weight just piled on year after year until I went from 220 pounds to a peak of 311 pounds. After trying every fad or popular diet plan (I have the books to prove it), I was beginning to believe that I had killed my metabolism and was insulin resistant. Simply put, I was never going to be able to lose the weight. In May 2007 I investigated a program called Lifestyle 180 being offered by Terrio Therapy and Fitness in Bakersfield. Besides offering a nutrition and exercise program, a critical part of the program is a lifestyle coach that challenges you to find and address the issues underlying the pattern of failure. The workbook exercises and counseling sessions caused me to take a close look at ME. I began, and am still on, an introspective journey that has proven to be both surpising and enlightening. Since May 2007 (at this writing it has been 4 months) I have lost 48 pounds, have resumed running and are halfway to my goal of 200 pounds. The process has been interesting, and amazingly successful.
This blog is an outgrowth of this journey. I realized that God wired me in such a manner that I enjoy sharing information and ideas that will be helpful to others. Now do not get the idea that the content will be geared to “New Age” or “feel good” pop philosophies. At my age (beginning the second half of my life) I do not have the patience or the tolerance for trendy quick fixes. What this blog is going to focus on is SIMPLE ideas that work! My posts may not always make you feel good, in fact they may get quite confrontational (a lot depends on what my engineering clients have put me through that day), but my intent is to get you to stop and think about what works in your life, what is not working and what YOU need to do to fix it. This is an inside out job and it is ultimately up to you to take responsibility for you.
I encourage comments. Healthy feedback will make this a much more useful tool. Tell me if something I have said resonates with you or that I am full of crap. If I am not talking about a topic of interest to you, then let me know and I will do the research and write a post about it.
Just remember it is all about honesty, integrity and character with yourself and others. And, oh yeah, KEEP IT SIMPLE!
Enjoy, Steve