In his book, 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, ' Stephen Covey talks about emotional bank accounts concerning influencing & impacting others.

When we meet a new person, our account balance with them is 0; there is no previous history between you. But as you get to know them, you begin making deposits or withdraws from that account. 

Deposits may look like listening and trying to understand them, small acts of kindness, keeping promises or secrets, and being loyal to them in other interactions. 

Withdraws may look like pretending to listen, lying, talking behind their back, violating expectations, and placing blame. 

When we make deposits into those accounts, we build trust and rapport, and they are more willing to be influenced by you. You become trustworthy, and they see that you really do have your best interests in mind. When we make withdraws, that breaks trust, and they begin to see you as unreliable and self-interested even if that isn't the case. 

Stephen Covey gives the example of a father-son relationship, where many times parents will make big withdraws out of their relationship with their child and later wonder why they don't heed their advice on big life choices. 

Your reputation precedes you, and that will define what your starting balance is. Every interaction is important because it either helps you along or detracts from serving more people. If you want to be more influential in the life of a friend, son, parent, client, or boss, you need to be aware of the deposits or withdraws you're making on their account. People observe how you engage with others, and that gets added to your account with them. 

I spent the day getting these rocket kits packaged and completed for shipping out to potential clients! 

Though these packages aren't complicated, we're taking extra time ensuring each component fits together perfectly. My boss told me the other day that he would often use it when someone would ask about the speed of a job even if it wasn't due for quite some time. He would always respond, 'I move at the speed of excellence,' which I absolutely love! However, after asking why he stopped using that as a general term he would work by, he said that it sounded too much like the project was crawling along rather than front and center.

My boss always tells me that it doesn't make sense trying to speed things up only to make a mistake and scrap the whole part and start over. When you have to scrap a part it's 3 times the cost of the initial piece you were working on. The cost of the material, the machine run time, and having to fix that new problem. Now having understood that my boss does work along those lines, I'm going to adopt something similar to which I make my decisions. 

I'm a big believer in having a message to make choices off of in work and your personal life. I see this as your 'why' or 'purpose.' It aligns you with what you want to be about rather than whatever works at the moment. 

I love the K.I.S.S. principle! Keep it simple stupid. 

I never really understood the seeming need for complicated explanations or overuse of big words when often it could be said in simpler terms with the same if not fewer words. 

I like to use a good rule of thumb when writing or speaking; if someone has to re-read or ask me to repeat what I said, it's too complicated. If you have to read something several times just to understand it, you're not saving time by throwing in those dollar words. This is why I am especially partial to the use of analogies. Speaking or writing with a story is much easier to understand and activates our brains that help us remember.

When I write about my work, I visualize my intended audience and aim just under their understanding to reach a larger audience and make those it is intended to read and understand it faster. Writing is truly an art, and learning how to keep things simple and to the point is more challenging than using those 5 dollar words

In some areas, you can't avoid using technical terms, especially in the more technical industries, but reducing the number of complicated terms and reducing them to the principle helps you get your idea across faster and less friction. They don't have to break down every word you said and can actually focus on what you're saying. 

This is why I always try to respond to people with a summary of what we discussed in straightforward terms that still get the main message across. It also shows that you're paying attention and gives the other person to clarify something if you misinterpreted something they said. 

It seems like there isn't a day that goes by without another 5-axis problem on the VF2!

My boss worked on a set of parts that needed smooth blending on a cylindrical shape and had some slight offset issues. 

It seems that the centerline of the a-axis isn't quite aligned with the midpoint of the b-axis table and may have also caused some of the previous alignment issues. We were able to find out if it was off by cutting a flat on the block with the a-axis at 90deg, then rotating the b-axis 180deg and cutting the same flat on the other side, measuring it. It seems to be a whole 8 thou off (4 thou per side), which is quite large and I'm shocked that the issue hasn't really come up too much before. 

Thankfully to find the true center was as simple as getting the height offset from the b-table, which is done by edge finding the top of the b-table when the a-axis is at 90deg, then flipping the a-axis 180deg and finding the opposite edge, then subtracting the difference and dividing it in half. It seems that this solved the issue though I didn't have enough time to do more extensive testing to ensure it all worked properly.

My boss thinks these 5-axis issues were coming from when it got re-sealed, and some of the calibration systems threw off previous numbers, so we may need to do a more thorough look-through of all the offsets. 

It's small, constant improvements, building the quality of character, building a healthy diet, building a stable work environment. These things aren't easy, but taking a few extra minutes to make sure it's right will pay multiples of what it costs now.

It's winding down now this Sunday evening, and one passage from the bible that really comes to mind right now is "Turn away from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it." Psalm 34:14 

I first heard a commentary on this verse from Rabbi Daniel Lapin, where he broke it down a bit more and looked at the way the words were placed. It not only says do good and stop doing evil, but rather turn away from evil first, and then do good, emphasizing that you need to stop doing evil before you start doing good. Likewise, 'seek peace and pursue it' you have first to find out what peace looks like before you can start pursuing it. 

I was specifically thinking about this because it's the end of a long day with several hours of driving and meeting new people, and my willpower is very depleted. When this happens, I start doing things that are not in line with who I want to be. I've struggled with being overweight my entire life and only just last year did I lose nearly 100lbs in 7 months; though it was quite an achievement, keeping it off and avoiding the wrong foods is much harder. I needed to turn from evil, or in this case, stop eating what I shouldn't. That was my first and only goal, and until I reach that, I cannot move on to doing good, which would be working out and getting into better shape athletically. 

I think this can be applied to most things that we are doing that don't align with who you need to be. The first step is right now, at the moment, this very second, what are you doing, and does it align with who you're meant to be? It doesn't wait until tomorrow, next week, or the next new year.

I've discovered that the 'big battle' we are all preparing for in life is right now. It is how we treat those around us. It is those seemingly small interactions or decisions. It is that choice of taking a moment before responding. It is doing the right thing even when we don't feel up to it. It is telling the truth even though it damages our pride. This moment is the big battle, and sometimes it is easy, and we are confident, but many times it is not; at the end of a long stressful day, it is how you choose to respond in those moments that reveal who you really are. 

The final piece to this rocket kit project came in today, and I put the first box together!

This whole project is to be used for marketing and bringing in new clients. The rocket kit's genius is that the person assembling it gets emotional value on top of it being a pretty unique business card. It's an eye-catching piece that would look good on anyone's desk and clearly shows what the shop is capable of just being there. 

The potential client will get a box, the rocket, a few tools, assembly instructions, and the company business card. 

Since there are snipping pliers in the box, it wouldn't let the metal plate sit flat and rocked side to side. After a bit of testing, my boss figured that adding foam or cardboard lifts around the tools would allow everything to fit together nicely! Uline actually had foam used for making custom slots, depending on the purpose. It's basically a sheet of light foam cut into little cubes with only a small point connecting them. This allows you to trace out your tools and remove as many squares as necessary for a clean fit. You see this kind of foam used in hardcover camera cases. 

It did find it a little tedious to cut the foam out in the shape of pliers' shape sure it will speed up as I get the process down.

People are generally not very good at communicating, and I know because I am one of them.

I just got off the phone with someone giving me the outline of a possible project management position, and through this process, he highlighted the importance of communication in the role. That got me thinking about how often relationships are damaged by not communicating well and having misunderstandings.

I've found that I think something is seemingly obvious most of the time, I won't bring it up. But the other person rarely thinks the same way you do and so may not pick up on it. This creates a disconnect and causes confusion and misunderstandings. Learning how to communicate well is a massive skill to learn and will move you forward much faster than most other credentials will for any position. 

Even in contacting big-name people, communicating what you already know and asking a specific question will net you a specific answer. If you go broad and ask something like 'how do you be successful in life,' they will typically give a variant of the answer 'work hard and don't stop,' which isn't very helpful for your situation. But if you communicate where you are now and a specific scenario, then ask them what they would do were they in your position; at that point, they can give you a good response. 

Even sending thank-you's and considering what they would want and telling them is huge and something we often overlook! On its face, my mind immediately thinks of it as manipulation, but in reality, we are serving them. They want to see younger people genuinely interested and willing to put in the work to find more wisdom, and so you communicate to them that you are that person.

I'm back on the rocket project today, cutting the final operation on one of the batches of anodized plates!

Throughout my time working on this project, I've run into a series of odd height issues that I could not for the life of me figure out what was causing it. I would get certain parts of the plate with low points, which would leave a faded look to the cut causing me to lower the endmill until it completely cut the top face. This really isn't ideal as each time I have to lower the cut, the smaller the rocket stand gets, which makes a looser fit when putting everything together. 

My boss happened to be walking by a few days ago when he noticed I was clamping down quite hard on the mitee-bite fixture screws (off-center screws that revolve a hex-shaped bolt to apply pressure to the side when tightened). What I didn't realize was that you don't need all that much torque on those screws, and I was actually bowing the aluminum plate upward, giving it an arc in the center. Though slight, it was enough to get warped further when it got flipped over and cause issues. 

There isn't anything I can do to fix these anodized plates except creeping up on the desired height, but there shouldn't be an issue for the next batch of plates. 

I realize that there really doesn't need to be that amount of force needed to clamp down on material, and tooling and over-doing things cause a lot of stress, which could get released later in a catastrophic way. 

A few weeks back, my father mentioned adding the rocket formula to get into space and add that to the underside of the rocket baseplate. I got to try out a quick engraving and found an online vector image, which worked out beautifully!

A few weeks back, I had a fairly small crash on the Haas VF2 where the nut on the tool holder collided with my aluminum stock.

After inspecting the tool holder, it appeared to be functional. However, when putting a dial indicator on a gauge pin, there was nearly 2 thou (0.002") of run-out (when the tool doesn't spin concentric with the holder), which is not acceptable for machining. Thankfully after removing the nut and collet and checking the tool holder's inside taper, I found it to be within half a tenth (0.00005"). 

Unfortunately, after taking a closer look at the nut, my boss noticed two small cracks, which caused the crazy run-out. I mention this because after discussing my process for putting the tools together, he didn't realize how tight I was clamping down on the endmills. I had thought you really had to screw the nut on there when putting the tools together; however, after he showed the actual amount of force needed, I was amazed. He suspects that's why the nut cracked, and the crash was just the breaking point for the nut. 

He had me check through all the other tooling run out, and to my dismay, I found several tools with up to a thou of wobble. I removed many of the tooling setups for the Rocket project, reset each one with the proper amount of force, and got them all within a tenth or two. 

Thinking on it now, this may be apart of the reason I'm getting some odd finishes on my parts, and now that I know it doesn't require all that much force to put the tools together, I'm eager to test out some new finishing toolpaths.