MM222 - Boots and Shoes; Amateur or Professional?

Decades ago, I realized that the difference between a professional and an amateur was the footwear that they choose. What do your shoes or boots say about you?

[INTRO]

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*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Welcome back to the Morning Mindset podcast. I am still your host Paul Markle and thank you once again for joining me for just a little while, while you sip your coffee, or maybe you're standing in your bathroom putting on makeup ladies if you're a dude putting on makeup at I hope that you're in the theater. Or maybe you're getting ready to go to the field. That's right. When I was in the Infantry, and we wanted to camouflage their faces up. We would put the brown and black and green and loam that's right loam is a color when we put loam on our faces before we would go out into the woods. Aggress the bad guys.
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But whatever you happen to be doing, good morning, good afternoon, good evening and welcome back to the Morning Mindset podcast. Thank you for taking the time to be with me and thank you to everybody who has shared this show with other people. Thank you to all of you out there who have left a review, whether the review was on iTunes or your favorite podcast player. Alright, what do we get to talk about today? This is something that I learned, oh many[x4] years ago.
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Boots and Shoes, boots and shoes. Often you will see people and they may be dressed as, let's say they seem to look and be dressed like other people, but the shoes and the boots are really what set people apart. Like for instance, when I was young, as a matter of fact when I was going through the police academy, I did a strange way. I actually went through the police academy on my own dime, or actually, I used the GI bill money to go, you say "Okay Paul get to the point." I'm getting there, calm down, to supplement my income while I was going through the police academy.
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Many of you may not know this, but a lot of times, when you go to a police academy, you're not being paid full time to be a cop. You have to get money from somewhere else, and so I got a job as a uniform security guard and they give you the uniform, they give you the shirt and they give you the pants, and so everybody looks the same. But the difference is what people have on their feet because you are required to buy your own shoes or boots, and I noticed this and this is like going on at least 25 years ago close to 30 years ago now.
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I noticed that people who were serious about their profession would spend the money on good boots or good shoes, and those who weren't would not. If you see people out in public, and you look at their shoes, if you look at their boots, this is a life hack for you guys. If you want to know who is a professional and who is serious about their profession, and who is an amateur. All you have to do is look at their feet. I give you a great example.
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One of the many things that I did when I was growing up, I was a teenager but the many jobs that I had, I was a field technician for a survey company and a land survey company. What that means is a field technician is a kid that carries all of the tools and gear and crap out into the field. That's you, a field technician carries shovels and the picks and the pins and sledgehammers and all that stuff. The theodolite and it's basically a glorified gopher.
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You're the guy who carries all that stuff so that the surveyors can use it, and I worked around a lot of outdoor surveying and construction type people. You could tell the guys who either weren't taking it seriously or were new on their jobs. For instance, people who show up on a construction site in tennis shoes to work. Mmm, and a lot of you guys out there probably laughing, you're like, "Yeah, that's a rookie mistake, amateur mistake". The shoes and the boots that we wear, because most of the time we're issued stuff like you get a job and you'll get, let's say you'll get chat uniform pants or you'll get a uniform shirt or you'll get, you know, whatever.
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If you're on construction, they'll give you carhartts, most don't but maybe they will or what have you but it's the Footwear that determines or that demonstrates whether or not a person is serious, because why? Because they are investing their own money in that Footwear. Yes indeed, it's indeed very rarely, even if you're working at a job where they give you a uniform, very rarely will they give you boots. Unless you're in the United States military, you're not going to be given boots as part of your uniform.
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You have to buy those yourself or shoes or what have you, and if you're looking for a way to Stand Out by good Footwear. If you could have the gym if you go anywhere, you can tell the difference between people who are actually genuinely serious about their Endeavor and those who are just playing at it or are amateurs or who haven't quite gotten the memo yet. Now, some people are fast Learners and they realize immediately when they show up for a job site, or they have to go out into the woods or were Construction in tennis shoes.
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But I'm going to work and it doesn't work very well, and we've got to do something else. Some people don't some people will show up for a training school in tennis shoes. I was once a day attended a firearms training academy and it was in the middle of December in northern, Arizona, and if you guys have ever lived out west in the in the mountainous areas of the United States of America, you'll know that it can snow any time does I don't care what Dick Goddard and the people that's a little Regional colloquialism for you guys. I don't care what the weatherman says there's always a chance that the weather is going to change.
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So there I am at this training class in northern Arizona in the high desert area, there are mountains and you know, desert so forth and it started snowing it wasn't supposed to. They said maybe flurries, flurries turned into six full inches of snow on the ground, and there was someone in the class with me that showed up for training, and all they had for Footwear was tennis shoes. Yes, because they didn't get the memo. They weren't quite prepared for that.
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Now after spending an entire day in six inches of snow in tennis shoes, this individual left and he drove to the nearest store and he bought himself some boots and came back the next day. So he learned his lesson. But then if you are young if you're a young person starting out and maybe if you're an older person you haven't thought about this or never looked at someone's feet and thought they're serious or there an amateur.
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It is the boots and shoes that immediately set you apart as either a professional or somebody who's an amateur and just screwing around and I saw that the other day it was actually very cold. In the town where I live and people came in, I was in a restaurant and some people walk in off the street and you can generally tell people that are visiting tourists and those who aren't and had a winter jacket on in a winter hat and slip-on tents like leather slippers. What rubber-soled leather slippers I thought "Hmm, yep. This person was not prepared for what they were going to experience."
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So as you progress throughout your life, especially if you're a young person remember that the boots and the shoes determine whether you're an amateur or professional if you want to be considered to be a professional spend the money on good Footwear. That's just good advice in general when it comes don't go cheap. Don't ever go cheap with Footwear. You will not regret it. It's like that old song about sunscreen, but trust me on the boots. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I am your host Paul Markel. Thank you for joining me and I will talk to you again real soon.

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*Alex*

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