Tim Rethlake

When the world shut down over a 99.9999% survivable virus, I had to tell a few dozen rig hands they were out of a job. Then I had to tell even more frac hands. Then snubbing hands. Then I went home to wait for my layoff. Then I spent 6 months applying for jobs with no interviews because corporate America had banned White men in honor of Saint George Floyd, Patron Saint of Fentanyl. A great Twitter friend who I am indebted to forever got me a job with a 25% pay cut, and I had to work physically harder than I had in a decade. Anyway. Nobody in news media ever reached out for my story. And it wasn’t a unique story, I was one of a couple hundred thousand guys going through this.

Sometimes the most useful thing a coach or mentor can do for you is to not lighten the load you are carrying, but to make it feel so heavy you’re forced to lay it down. To lay something aside that you have been struggling with can feel like quitting. But if it gives you more energy to focus on something that serves you better, that’s not quitting, it’s simply changing the direction of your journey. Ponder point for this weekend: What load would you put down if you hadn’t told others you were carrying it?

@KRobbinsMN Who is paying all his travel expense? Does a DPS officer travel with him?

Democrat Tim Walz runs to failed talk show hosts to make excuses for the BILLIONS of dollars of fraud that happened on his watch. Of course, he is also AWOL in the closing days of the Legislative session. He just got back from a global leftist “mobilization” conference in Spain before he jetted to LA. Walz recently claimed to care about small towns, but he really just wants to use them to jet set with the global leftist elite. x.com/RNCResearch/st…

“We are a generous state” are the most warped words in Minnesota government. And I hear them all the time. First, you can’t be “generous” with other people’s money. Second, to the extent that you feel entitled to use other people’s money - you must be judicious and careful with it. Tim Walz and Minnesota Democrats are not, have not been, and are incapable of being judicious and careful. After everything that’s happened the past 5 years, Democrats will still tell you we have a “revenue” problem (aka we don’t tax enough). “Generosity” in Minnesota government simply has meant taking as much as you can get away with from people who produce in your state (forcing many of them to leave), in order to fund ill-defined programs with little-to-no oversight, so you can justify your own political existence… even when it inevitably gets discovered a ton of the money went to fraudsters anyway. That’s not generosity. It’s self-destruction. x.com/EricLDaugh/sta…

I have been thinking about something for a while now, and it’s the answer to this question: Is there such a thing as the “Secret to Sales Success”? I actually believe there is, and it’s hiding in plain sight. The most successful salespeople are those who expect to make the sale. Period. Yes, I can see you rolling your eyes🙄, but stay with me a second. Their expectation of making the sale is rooted in confidence, not arrogance. Their confidence is born from a history of putting in the work, honing their craft and maintaining high standards and ethics. Their past is proof of their future. When you expect to make the sale, the customer feels that in you and their confidence increases that your solution can actually solve their problem. Of course you still have to put the work in, but if you expect to get the sale, it’s easy to put your best effort forward every day which leads to. . . making the sale. This is so simple and basic, it is often overlooked.

Community banks are the last place in America where a man in a short-sleeve dress shirt can approve a $400,000 loan based on the fact that he went to high school with your dad. There are 4,100 of them left. There were 14,000 in 1984. Every time one gets acquired, a teller named Brenda learns a new software system and a small town loses the only institution that would lend against a combine. The acquirer always says nothing will change. Brenda is gone in eighteen months. The lobby cookies go next. Then the branch closes. Then the building becomes a vape shop. This is not a financial trend. This is the slow administrative murder of the only version of capitalism that ever knew your name.

You can set your watch by it: Day 1 - My LI post gets a 👍🏻 from someone I’ve never heard of. Day 2 - My new post gets a 👍🏻 and a comment like “💯” from same someone I’ve never heard of. Day 3 - I get a non-personalized request to connect from same someone I’ve never heard of. Day 4 - I get a reminder in my DM to connect with same someone I’ve never heard of. Day 5 thru Eternity - Not a peep from same someone I’ve never heard of. This has become a daily occurrence. I realize these “someone’s” are mostly “water bugs” (bots) just skimming along the surface. None of this is news to any of you, but from LI’s perspective, I’m curious how this is in any way helpful to their “pay to play” model? Or, if I upgrade to LI Premium, can I rid my feed of these water bugs? And then I wonder if LI is the one sending them my way? 🤔 Semi-retirement gives one a chance to come up with a lot of useless thought spirals.

THE TRUTH IS OUT! The Minnesota auditor report has been released, and it confirms Tim Walz's Department of Human Services literally made up records and did not verify grant recipients. It also found they tried COVERING THEIR TRACKS, enabling massive fraud. Walz needs to immediately resign... and we're excited to hopefully see him behind bars! "Perhaps the most EXPLOSIVE revelation is that managers within DHS tried to cover their tracks by backdating and creating NEW DOCUMENTS." "Sent millions of dollars out the door in grants without making proper checks into who was receiving them. And that is not even the most jaw-dropping finding!" "One outrageous example, the auditors found a grantee that was paid $672,000 for one month of work WITHOUT ANY INFO on what they do!" "And the audit says the grant manager who paid it then left DHS a couple days later and became a paid consultant for that company!" "TO ME, THAT'S CRIMINAL." "During the audit multiple DHS managers backdated or created new documents to try to cover their tracks." REPOST for widespread exposure! #thinblueline #lawenforcement

Coffee with a friend yesterday who was bummed that one of his top performers just gave notice. He was upset because of losing a key player, but more upset that it took him by surprise. As in totally blindsided. He asked my opinion about counter-offers. That’s an easy answer, “Never.” For a ton of reasons. If they are a strong performer, send them off with a sincere “This door swings both ways. If your new gig doesn’t turn out as you’d hoped, let’s stay in touch.” We spent most of our time discussing “Stay Interviews” which his company does not use. They are just what they sound like, a tool to take the temp of your team members so you’re not blindsided by a departure, and can possibly proactively stay ahead of it. Exit interviews are like autopsies. They can only give you cause of death, IF your departing member is honest with you. But most won’t be. It’s less confrontational to say “I’m leaving for more money”, instead of “The Sales Director has happy hands and doesn’t respect boundaries”. If your company does not use Stay Interviews, you should. Your preferred LLM tool can probably build a decent template for you in about 8 nano-seconds that’s customized to your business. Or, you can be like my friend, and be a happy little clam, until the second you’re not.

You may not be a fan of his business model (Amazon) but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn from Jeff Bezos. Their internal data said customers calling the CS line were on hold an average of less than 60 seconds. This didn’t square with online comments by angry customers. In a staff meeting, Bezos used a speaker phone to call their own CS line. They were on hold for over 10 minutes before a CSR came on the line! Turns out their internal metric didn’t count abandoned calls and thus gave a false reading. Bezo said, “When the data and anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.” How about your biz? What data are you torturing until it only tells you what you want to hear? When your brain and your gut disagree, it’s time for a gut check because it’s probably right.

A prayer for us this week: “Creator of all, this week we humbly pray and ask for the gift of curiosity. Curiosity is rooted in humility. To know that we don’t know. That you alone Lord are omniscient. Gently remind us this week that when we’re being curious, our attention is on others and not ourselves. And you Lord know we could all use a little more of that in a world that feels awash in toxic certainty and judgement about everything and everyone. Amen”

This quote from Christine Caine gives us our ponder point for this weekend. Unless we are clear-eyed about who we are and why we are on this earth, there is no shortage of people who would love to change you into their image of who you should be and what you should do. HINT: The reason why you are on this earth, is not of this earth. Happy pondering. . .

Two things are true for almost everyone of us. We all think we’re better drivers than we actually are, and that we’re better communicators than we actually are. It might take the State Patrol to verify the first one, but you only need the people around you to verify the second. It sounds like this: “I’m not always as good of a communicator as I think I am. Would you mind repeating back what you heard me say were the top three outcomes and due dates for this project?” It works because you’re putting it on your communication skill and not on their listening skill. If you just say, “Repeat back what I said”, you insinuate they are a crappy listener. Try this a few times in a few different settings. You may be surprised at the patterns that emerge on how differently you communicate up and down your org chart.

Mary Moriarty won’t be charging Paige Ostroushko, one of the individuals who violently attacked @Savsays. These Soros-backed prosecutors are happy to spend millions going after law enforcement, but when a conservative journalist is attacked on video? Nothing. It’s infuriating.

🚨 The View hosts get caught doing a complete 180 on Eric Swalwell. When it was Trump or Kavanaugh, it was "believe all women" and "no one would lie about this." Now that multiple women are accusing a Democrat congressman of sexual assault and misconduct, including a former staffer alleging rape, suddenly it's "he's denying it" and "let's hear his side." Watch their faces and reactions at the end when the hypocrisy hits... priceless. Democrats and their media allies only care about "believe women" when it hurts the other side. What a joke.

Minnesota is so retarded We give hundreds of Billions of dollars to daycares and autism centers and they don’t verify they are an actual business or have kids or clients there Meanwhile, I’m getting my kitchen remodeled. My licensed and insured contractor had to get a permit to unhook and rehook my sink Then we had to have a city inspector verify the work The Government literally does more auditing on a citizen installing a sink than they do to verify that learing centers getting Millions actually have kids there

I genuinely don’t know whether to laugh or lose my mind anymore at this European hypocritical double standards. When it comes to Vladimir Putin, suddenly it’s Churchillian resolve. No compromise. No dialogue. Arm Ukraine to the teeth, sanction everything that moves, wreck your own energy security if necessary - because tyranny must be confronted. Fine. I actually respect the consistency of that … in isolation. But then you turn around and lecture us - us - the Gulf monarchies, Jordan and Israel, about showing restraint with Tehran? About dialogue? About coexistence? Are you serious? For forty years - forty bloody years - this regime has been waging a shadow war across the region. Militias, proxies, sleeper cells, terror networks, destabilizing entire countries - Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen - and threatening the Gulf monarchies, Jordan, and Israel nonstop. This isn’t theoretical. This isn’t abstract. This is lived reality. And yet here come Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer, and the rest of the European choir, gently advising us to calm down, de-escalate, and - what was it again? - “give diplomacy a chance.” Diplomacy with who, exactly? With a system that has built its entire regional strategy on plausible deniability and proxy terror violence? You were willing to absorb inflation, energy shocks, and political backlash at home to confront Moscow. You made that choice. You said: this is the price of standing up to a tyrant. So don’t come here and tell us - after decades of being on the receiving end - that we should just sit down, smile politely, and “coexist.” Either you believe in confronting tyranny everywhere .. or you don’t. Macron, Starmer, rest of EU leaders and top bureaucrats should just STFU and spare us the self righteous sanctimonious lectures!🤐🤫

When I was working in a public company, HR said, “Hey, in order to have our org chart be consistent with the other operating companies, we’re going to have to change your title from VP to Director.” “Are you changing my comp?” “No, just the title, comp stays the same.” “Well then, knock yourself out.” Too many folks today get all wrapped around the axle over titles. Which is a bit silly since titles all mean different things inside different companies. Do I enjoy this role? Can I learn and grow in this role? Is the comp fair for the level of responsibility I have? If you can answer “Yes” to those three questions, whatever they call you is of secondary importance.

After the tragic shooting at Annunciation Catholic School, not a single Democrat has supported safe school support for non-public. @BenBakebergMN: "Every single kid deserves to be safe. This package will keep kids safer in school. We can pass this today if we have a Democrat that is willing to side with us."

I’m going to be blunt. I’d like to talk about some of the very stupid things that people are saying right now If you’re not catholic, I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to people who say they are Catholic. Let’s start with the talking point about the pope sitting behind walls. Have you been to the Vatican? These “high walls” that were built in the fourth century leave an opening about a half a mile wide so that anyone and everyone can simply walk in anytime. Look at an image of Saint Peter Square you’ll see exactly what I mean. What the heck are you guys talking about with high walls? Would you like them to tear down a fourth century wall so that you think their politics might be more defendable? Would you like a pope that runs about shouting “cry havoc and let’s slip the dogs of war!” is that the pope you want? What mighty army would he summon? How did our invasion of Iraq in the Afghanistan go? How many corpses do we need to pile up until everyone understands that war is a horror. Statistically, more than 99% of the people screaming for war will never be affected by it. Maybe The Pope should call for a crusade? I’m sure all 27 Americans who replied to it would make a huge difference. Your political masters .2 about eight posts to see how bad the pope is. You believe them. He’s given a ton of speeches about Islamic violence, he’s done everything in his speaking power to encourage people toward peace. But your political masters told you different and you followed like good acolytes. Most of our Protestant brothers and sisters love us, Catholics. But the Huxter‘s and the insecure don’t. I’m watching Catholics repeat the talking points of anti-Catholic madman and acting like they have a geopolitical sense greater than that of a man in charge of a world wide institution with 1.3 billion members. Pardon my intensity, but I am very sick of Americans being more formed by right wing and left-wing political commentators then they are by the spirit of the living God. Do you want war? Go fight in one. Stand with me at the funeral of these beautiful lives, shredded and cut short so that your political masters are appeased.