The Plumber's Gift

The books never say one thing; they never say that creating a living from doing what one loves often seems like taking the easy way out. We're taught from elementary school on to really work hard and put our noses to the grindstone to get anywhere in life. We're told not to "cheat" or be lazy, not finish our work too early or too easily, not get ahead of the rest of the class. We're told not to let "the team" (the team being whoever reaps the most benefit) down, to get out and sell those Girl Scout cookies, that gift wrap or those candy bars.

They never say that, when people ask how much we'd charge to do a thing we love and are naturally good at just for them, it's really logical given our upbringing to think, "Ah, that's a piece of cake!" and lowball the price in order to play fair. It feels sneaky somehow, as though we'd be in danger of attempting actual fraud, to charge them a fee which would provide real profit. In our minds and hearts, we know it's an easy task and because it's so easy, we wind up with an amount that doesn't begin to pay our expenses. We put the needs of the other person first as we were so thoroughly taught to do and allow others to plumb our skills to their advantage, not to our own.

As little girls we were expected to help Mommy cook, clean and watch children. As teenagers, we were either paid a token amount for babysitting or, as I was, paid by an uneven sort of barter system. (I often watched up to 7 of my siblings at a time in exchange for fabric to sew clothes from or for my freedom on Saturday nights. Sometimes, my 6 cousins were added into the total too!) At the time, it was the norm. Every one of my friends babysat for money or time to themselves. Our mothers did not teach us how to create lucrative businesses out of using our gifts and talents. How could they have? We were being groomed for a future life like theirs, not for becoming entrepreneurs who work from a home office.

As grown up girls we've learned to support ourselves by going off to work every day; fitting into the corporate or academic worlds, thinking we have "made it" but still coming home to all the domestic tasks that sit and wait for us. The braver or luckier of us have managed to create businesses that allow us to work from our home offices or studios, scarcely daring to hope or believe that we are powerful, magical, or lucky enough to make it work. We wave our magic wands of talent frantically over our business plans while muttering prayers to the Angels and the Goddess to watch over us and protect us and make it all profitable.

But then, the awful thoughts come creeping again. "Well, I did do that work while wearing my bathrobe." Or "I did that at the same time I was (pick one) doing the laundry, rocking the baby, driving to the post office, etc. how could I really charge them so much for that?"

We've all probably worked with more than one woman who held a job similar to ours who told anybody within earshot how hard she worked, how much effort it took to achieve an assigned task, how many papers she took home to complete and how late into the night her candle burned. Would we choose to become like her (if only in our own mind) in order to justify the fee we charge?

Recently, I observed my plumbers as they replaced the pipes for both water and gas in almost my entire house. At no time did they sweat. At no time did they grunt or groan with physical exertion. At no time did they move with the speed displayed by almost every other contractor I've seen; certainly not with the speed of a waitress or cleaning lady or nurse or school teacher.

I observed them submit their estimate, which gave me heart palpitations and then, their bill, which made me catch my breath and gave me heart palpitations again. Did they display any signs of guilt at the huge sum because their job was easy? Did they lowball the fee because they enjoyed their work? Did they feel odd because they came late and left early? Did their voices waiver and their gazes wander about the room as they spoke?

Not on your life. They looked me in the eye and spoke slowly and calmly. In fact, attached to the bill was a paper attesting to 20 reasons why it was fair to charge what they did. The list, complete with decorative icons, included their technical education, work to stock the truck, travel to the job site, office expenses, licenses, taxes and all the rest.

Certainly, it could be fairly argued that anybody working has similar expenses.

Believe me, my plumbing is now beautiful, is in excellent shape, the gas leaks are gone and the house is no longer in danger of exploding when I light a candle while doing an Angel Reading. I have, curiously enough, relaxed as I can now stop prowling the house looking for the source of "that awful smell." I am happy with the work they did.

And I am grateful that they left me with their gift of showing me how to calmly value my work to a greater extent. I know now that I do not have to turn my work into something I perceive to be difficult to do in order to allow myself to value it more highly. The work I do is of high value precisely because it is simple for me to do yet it does not mean that anybody else can do it as well or in a similar manner. If it's a "cinch" to do, it means it's coming from the depth of who I am and who I am is highly valuable.

Work that's traditionally undervalued on the pay scale is typically the work that's perceived as being simple, something "anybody" can do. Therefore, the trick to increase our incomes is to do work that's easy but perceived by others to be impossible to do for themselves and also highly in demand. The plumbers knew I didn't have a clue about how to fix a gas leak and they took that fact all the way to the bank. Gas leaks must be fixed and that's that. I obviously place a high value on not being blown to bits.

What fun to use ability do you have that you can offer to the rest of the world? What can you do that others cannot or don't have time to do? What have you discounted and perhaps not even recognized that is actually a marketable skill? Pretend you're a plumber and give it some thought!

Catherine M. Kasper.

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Spirituality - Our Plumber Angels - Lessons on the Mountain

On a clear November day my wife and I set out to explore real estate in the mountains east of Jackson, Wyoming. We dropped our youngest daughter, then fourteen, with our oldest daughter who was in college a few hours away. It was the Monday before Thanksgiving and we planned on returning Wednesday night to spend the holiday with our daughters.

In our rented SUV and a suitcase of clothes that reflected our Texas lifestyle, we headed out of Jackson and down to Pinedale. I had recently left my corporate job to strike out on my own. Since I traveled with my consulting, we thought we?d find a place to live that we liked, it would be the first home location we had chosen since getting married thirty years before.

At the time our spiritual lives were in some upheaval and we yearned for a new start. Our daughter had been raped, then attempted suicide and we were just finishing some lengthy counseling over the ordeal and were trying to get the train of our lives back on track.

Our first stop in Pinedale revealed a cute little town of a couple thousand nice, friendly people, with moose grazing on the outskirts of town. We looked at one house and when the folks told my wife they went shopping once a month in Salt Lake, some four hours away, that was the end of that. We had a quick lunch in Pinedale and didn?t bother to tell our kids we had changed plans. Instead of heading further east and around the mountain back to Jackson we were heading south and west to Star Valley and the town of Afton.

As we headed south towards Rock Springs I could see from the map this was going to be a five hour drive down and around. I happened to see a road on the map about an hour south that headed west and over the mountain and dropped right down into Afton. It went right through the Bridger-Teton National Forest. It was a gorgeous fall day, so I ignored the two dotted map lines that was the outline of the road I?d picked, and we headed up the mountain. My wife immediately said, ?I have a bad feeling about this.?

Ignoring her feeling I plowed ahead. Three more times she would say, ?Ed, I have a bad feeling about this.? Four hours later, high in the mountains and deep in the forest we stopped at a ?T? in the road. Before us was two wooden Forest Service signs, with arrows pointing in opposite directions that read ? Afton 50 miles ? Pinedale 50 miles. While I didn?t admit it at the time I knew we were in deep trouble, it was 4 p.m. and about to get dark.

Instead of doing what my wife strongly suggested I plowed ahead towards Afton and one hour later, on a steep incline, we were stuck in three feet of snow. We knew we weren?t getting out anytime soon, much less that night. We had no cell phone, a few extra T-shirts, a Hershey bar, two diet sodas and a half tank of gas in our now buried SUV.

Dark surrounded us as my wife quietly wept next to me. We debated our next course of action as she humbled me in prayer. A former atheist turned Christian, I was still struggling with the spiritual side of my life since my daughters problems. I resorted to the macho, Marine Corp side. I was a Marine sniper for two-years in Vietnam and just looked on this as an adventure at first, an adrenaline rush, surely we?d get out of this.

The car was aimed up a small path heading to the top of the mountain. As I sat there in the black of night looking at the star filled sky, a plane went over. It was then it hit me, with my wife finally sleeping in the seat next to me, that we were in deep water and that I alone was not getting us out of this one. I had certainly been stupid enough to ignore my wife?s admonitions and get us stuck though.

We would later learn that we were fifty-seven miles from Pinedale and nearly ten-thousand feet up in the forest. We endured the night, cold and lonely and decided to walk to safety at first light. We were in our early fifties and not in great shape. Our clothes were light leather jackets and sneakers for shows. We were not equipped for the walk we were about to endure.

During the night my wife led us in prayer often. It was sometime in the early morning hours when I humbled myself and cried out to my Lord and Savior. I cried out to Him as never before and after some time could feel the warmth of His Spirit wash over me. I knew that somehow we would be rescued.

At first light we were off, heading down the mountain, committing to each other we would somehow walk for twenty-four hours if necessary to see our children. We left the SUV at seven a.m. and it began to snow. We walked patiently, feeling amazingly good, and reached the wooden signs we?d seen the day before. The signs were seven miles from our vehicle. We?d made the trek in about two and a half hours ? we knew we had help because we could not walk that fast on flat ground, let alone the snow that was increasing steadily.

We walked and prayed and walked and prayed and my wife grew weaker. I walked and prayed as I walked and the snow was getting deeper and coming down heavy. We stopped on one occasion to pray and it was two p.m. We?d been walking for seven long hours in the snow, the wind was picking up. As we started out again I noticed the light in my wife?s eyes wasn?t as bright and committed as it had been ? I knew we could not make the night.

As I walked trudging in the heavy snow across a high plateau at around seven thousand feet, I prayed as I had never prayed before. I prayed Lord, we have done all that we can. My wife is struggling ? we don?t want to die. Lord please provide us a miracle and provide it now. By three p.m. the snow was blinding. As I walked, looking ahead I thought I saw a small speck in the snow. What could it be? I was sure it was a mirage. I didn?t say anything.

We kept walking and soon a truck appeared. We waved excitedly as if they wouldn?t se us, the only two people in miles. The two men inside looked like they were right off a Marlboro commercial. They were plumbers heading to close down a new log house they?d been working on all summer. The man on the passenger side rolled down his window and said, ?I hope you two know you have someone walking with you out here today!? Indeed we did. He went on to explain they were supposed to be in and out by ten in the morning but were held up in town by an architect working on the house and the were running late.

We found out that the snow we were enduring was as they said up there the snow that shuts the mountain down. The elk had come down that night and now one would get up there until spring. We had walked seventeen miles when our Plumber Angels rescued us. The Lord had provided us with the miracle we asked for and saved us to see our children. He had rescued me from my own stubbornness and stupidity. He had taught me humility and that indeed He answers our prayers.

Ed Kugler is a former Marine sniper with two consecutive tours in the Vietnam War. He is also a former atheist and now a Christian. He as been changing for a lifetime. He is a recovering alcoholic, successful business leader who made it to VP of Compaq Computer with no college degree, flunked high school English and has written six books. He is the father of three, grandfather of three and has been married to the same woman for thirty-eight years and counting. http://www.lulu.com/nomorebsbooks and http://www.nomorebs.com

The plumber will find out sooner or later. Help them out and you will come out ahead!

You see your little one send something down the pipe!! It gets clogged and you try all kinds of different ways to solve the situation. You call the professionals. When the plumber arrives he/she asks if you know anything about what happened. You have a choice to make.

Now I ask you, Do you think they are going to find out anyhow what happened? If you tell them up front, Is it a better experience for you?

Believe it or not selling a home is just like plumbing. Professional Realtors sometimes are called in to fix things that not working. They come in, get down right smelly and dirty and at the end of the day the job is done! Is up to the client if they want to help the plumber by disclosing what they know. One thing is for sure, the professional is going to find out sooner or later the real reason why the thing is not working right. Knowing up front will make it better for the client not necessarily to the professional. He/she is going to do their job period.

As an active Investing Realtor I get to see and hear a lot of sellers. As of now, just in case we have not known, it is a buyer's market. That means that buyers pretty much get what they want. That is bad news for you if you are trying to sell your home.

Can I help focus your thinking about you are trying to do? * Why are you selling? * How much money do you really need? * How soon do you need to move to another place? * What is the average day on the market for homes in your area? * How much are Realtors getting paid at the end of the day to move your home? (For me it is one of the most critical questions you need to answer truthfully.)

The answers will bring up the real situation that you are in. I ask, can you live with the worst case scenario if you sell the house today? When I go to sell one of my properties all I really look at is the money that I will collect for me and my family the day of closing. You have to do the same.

Real estate is done in black and white and in a sheet of paper. No buyer or buyer's agent is going to get fooled by me or you trying to get them to see that they are getting a "plasma tv" or a years worth of association paid up front. My question is why not just lower the price and give THEM a true bottom line so they also know at the end of the day how much is going to cost them to buy.

About the only thing you can do is the old tried and true thing that "spruce" up a home. If you have no ideas on what do go to: http://www.IsellOrlandoHouses.com and get the reports on what to do to make your home more marketable.

Tulio Troche is a local Investing Realtor in central Florida. When ever he is not with his family he spends his time looking at the real estate market and getting his share of it. His latest quote: "One never owns enough real estate"

Tulio Troche, GRI Broker Associate Exit Real Estate Professionals 11555 Lake Underhill Rd. Orlando, FL 32825 407.581.7470 Tulio@TulioTroche.com www.IsellOrlandoHouses.com

Tulio Troche, GRI Broker Associate. Investing Realtor in Central Florida helping out some selected families to buy or sell homes

How To Become A Fully Licensed Plumber

 

Starting At The Beginning And Training Up To Fully Licensed Plumber Status

It takes a lot of work to enter the world of plumbing. Starting off as an apprentice, you develop skills and gain experience during this time, but you want to take it to the next level. The next step is going out on a limb. On your own as a licensed plumber.

How To Become A Licensed Plumber

In order to apply you must have gained 3 years of more experience as an apprentice plumber. Once you have done so you are eligible to apply and sit the plumbers license exam. You need this experience beforehand, it's imperative. You must also have worked under a master plumber during this time and done in excess of three hundred hours of theory work.

What Is The Minimum Age I Can Apply?

You will need to be a minimum of eighteen years of age and in a position to meet the requirements outlined above. You will also need to actually pass the exam before you can gain certification as a licensed plumber. Your term of apprenticeship will enable you to gain the skills and experience necessary to successfully undertake this exam and pass.

Other Skills And Knowledge You Will Need

You will need to be able to work almost unsupervised

You will need to be able to read documentation and understand it. You will need to understand technical diagrams and accurately estimate how much jobs are going to cost any potential customer. Setting a fair price and being able to accurately assess this using estimates is essential.

You should be able to do basic mathematics and have good dexterity.

You will need to display an aptitude for mechanically related tasks as well as being comfortable using hand and power assisted work tools.

You must be able to relate well to your customers, and communicate in a clear and easy to understand manner.

You should be able to draw up paperwork showing what work was undertaken and the materials used.

You will need to be physically mobile and able to lift modestly heavy weight.

Even though this may sound daunting at first, do not be discouraged. Providing you have the above attributes or the capability to learn what you currently are not able to do, over time you will develop the skillset required to apply and successfully pass the plumbers license exam.

These skills are currently in high demand and the wages are very good, which makes it a worthwhile career undertaking.

Richard Davies writes for Plumbing Problem Solutions. Find out more about becoming a licensed plumber, hourly rates, emergency plumbers and lots more for free at => Plumbing Problem Solutions