I know. I know. It just isn’t fair!

Well, that’s right … It isn’t.

We would like to think that everything is good. And barring that, at least “I am good.” With the not often missing complement, … “and therefore, if you are not like me, you are bad.”

See, in law there are always no less than 2 contests.

The contest that most people think about is their precious rights. Well, the axiomatic corollary of this is someone else’s responsibility. These are the case merits.

The other contest is the procedural war of attrition attendant to the drawn down resources of money, emotion, and time.

Notably, that order is from least expensive to highest.

While most people think that money is the biggest concern, it’s not … with the right attitude and willingness to learn and act, there is plenty of money. This is the cheapest resource to expend.

The second is emotion. But, for most people unless they have had so much experience with lawyers that they have learned that they are renting someone else’s mind to do all the worrying for them and otherwise let it go, the emotional roller-coaster is going to be one you will never forget.

And then there is time. We all have exactly the same amount of it … the present moment. Do you want to waste that on a petty litigation instead of doing something that you enjoy.

So what’s the answer? In most cases, begrudgingly you have to walk away. You might even have to run.

You want to have justice?

Look to yourself. How can you take responsibility.

Here, I’m not advocating that you take responsibility for things to which you have no relationship. I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work out well.

Do take full responsibility for everything to which you do have an attachment or interest.

This means that if you have a dispute with your neighbor, “own” it.

Take so much responsibility that it is no longer your neighbor’s issue.

Hell, purchase their house, adjust the line, cut the tree, create the view easement, and then sell the property if that’s what it takes.

You can do it! And if you can’t right now, well then I can help you to grow so that you have the ability to do so … as long as you are willing to take action.

“But, I don’t want to!”

Well guess what, I am not attached to you … at least not yet. And, I don’t want to help you to run your life further into the ditch … and take money for the “pleasure” of doing it.

What type of lawyer says that? I don’t know of to many. It’s called the TRUTH.

I want to help my clients in and out of conflict and up to their higher selves as soon as possible.

If that’s something you might like? Well, let’s look to see how I can help you.

If you want to bitch and moan … go take it somewhere else…!

—

Source: Paramount Pictures

Chinatown (1974) is a film which explores corruption and other dark themes that morally ambiguous protagonist Jake Gittes played by Jack Nicholson finally find both illegal and revolting. But, as he is powerless to order change, he must walk away.

Above I have represented two stickpersons in conflict aided by the teachings of my mentors Bob Proctor and Sandra Gallagher of the Proctor Gallagher Institute.

Both represent two parts of the mind – the conscious mind (represented by the upper half of their respective larger circles) and the subconscious mind (represented respectively by those halves below).

Both also have a body represented by the smaller circles.

Moreover, both instead of thinking positively are in a very bad way.

They are both allowing their perspective as to outside circumstances control their thoughts in their respective conscious minds, their respective feelings in their sub-conscious minds, and their actions performed by their bodies.

This is demonstrated by the fact that the negative sign for each of them is circled instead of the positive sign above their respective minds.

But, this is where all the similarities end!

Noticeably the stick person to the left believes that he is entitled to the title line marked as “Y.”

Whereas the stickperson to the right believes that she is entitled to the line of historical use marked as “X.”

In cultivating relationships with some of the country’s foremost surveyors, national leaders such as Gary Kent, Brian Lucas, and Curtis Sumner, there is one idea which is repeatedly hammered home.

If surveyors can only find the problem and are unable to fix it, surveyors are the problem.

Well, the solution is to help clients to move from a triggered place of fear deep within their subconscious which is negative, to a place of knowledge.

Both parties “know” consciously that they are right. An attorney’s job is to assist clients to reconcile this knowledge with legal truth.

What heretofore has gone unrecognized is that the sub-conscious mind, that part which actually controls much more than half of most people’s thoughts and actions, in both parties goes into a state of bewilderment in which the mind is unable to determine which line is correct.

This sets up what my mentors call a “double-binding” message which causes such extremely odd behavior between neighbors.

So, how about real property boundary dispute attorneys? Well, I suggest that the idea for them is very similar to that which is for the surveyors.

If attorneys can only address their clients’ conscious real property disputes, then attorneys are the problem.

See, until the neighbors underlying fears of one another can be harmonized, there is virtually no way in which to come to a solution which doesn’t involve an incredible waste of time, emotion, and financial expense.

And for what? Five Blades of Grass?

Whether you are a surveyor, real estate agent, title insurer, or homeowner, if you are contemplating involvement in the utter irrationalities of a boundary dispute, you really should make sure that you understand the materials provided by the Proctor Gallagher Institute.

Not only will they save you multi-faceted hardship, they will help you to learn how to get anything you seriously want!

Now I would suggest that you make a decision and contact me right away, PGI’s materials can aide in the resolve of any conflict – family, employment, corporate, and even international.

Yet, for those who want to learn more about PGI before doing so, by all means I encourage you to do further study at BoundaryBreakthroughs.com

In either events, have a most spectacular day!

Whether you are currently involved in a boundary dispute with your neighbor or in that period of despondency following the conclusion of your matter, you almost certainly feel had.

Why didn’t your legal counsel tell you at the beginning that you would feel like a spent cartridge laying around at a crime scene after all was said and done?

Not a hard question to answer, either your counsel knew what was going to happen and was willing to suck the venom out of you in the form of money, emotion, and time and went ahead with it anyway … or they didn’t.

A lawyer’s competence at pursuing a matter at court is at best 5% of the contest. The remaining 95% or more is about keeping you convicted in your pursuit.

But, here’s the rub. Attorneys are taught to “think like an attorney.” What does this mean? It means that they are taught to strip out all the emotionality and make the matter a pure intellectual exercise.

The problem with this though is that these problems are never purely an intellectual exercise. In fact, it is rare that they have anything to do with the intellect at all.

Instead, neighbors are seeking to litigate something on the ground vis-a-vis their neighbors as a proxy for something about themselves that they are seeking to litigate with themselves.

Without fail there is a component of fear involved. Fear which when we get right down to it exists on both sides of the often rather small little wedge which is at contest.

That fear can be very focused toward a neighbor who is perceived to be acting aggressively or without any focus other than if I give up on this my other neighbors will no longer respect me.

Sure there are other outlets of fear which may be the manifested cause of the issue in between these, but ultimately the concern does relate to fear.

The ironic thing is that though many attorneys who regularly practice in this proceed to lead their keep like sheep to slaughter because their clients are fearful of being fleeced by their neighbor, the contest in the vast majority of cases is going to cost more than the value of the land ever could.

So people get to that point of “tap-out” and they have to now negotiate a truce with the opposing side. What an abject waste.

Why should attorneys gain in a situation which is best akin to the Vietnam idea that ‘we had to destroy the village, in order to save the village?’

The attorneys essentially come in and by drawing down the resources of the respective sides, take all the will to legally fight out.

The neighbors relationship is now completely destroyed. Again, what a waste!

So, what to do to recover after your cartridge has been spent and the lawyers are gone?

It’s time to rebuild. Rebuild yourself in such a way that a matter like this will never come up again.

At minimum, that means taking precaution as you move seek to purchase any property.

I would add though, that what it really means is to figure out a way to move beyond fear.

The fact that you got yourself into a situation in which you likely spent well north of $10,000 is highly suggestive that being able to eliminate fear is something that you really value.

The elimination of unhealthy fear is something that is attainable. And if you are a ‘spent cartridge’ it is highly likely that it is necessary.

That being the case, I encourage you to switch out of the hell of litigating with your fear line at the margins and instead go for what you really want.

What do you really want? That’s something that you might not have the answer to as of yet, but working on helping you figure that out and then going out and making it a reality is now my line of work.

I spent far too much time helping neighbors from mauling each other like big cats on the savannah. My aim is to help people quickly move past that miserable stage of life so they can refocus their formidable strengths not on protecting “Five Blades of Grass,” but rather using it to make meaningful changes in their lives.

So, if you haven’t sorted out your neighbor boundary dispute mess, let me help you do that and get you to a spot far beyond your current condition.

To do so, I invite you to click on over to start learning how you can initiate your own Boundary Breakthroughs [HERE].

—

Photo Credit: Jaco-Mari Futcher at https://randfonteinherald.co.za/280296/update-attempted-robbery-turns-shooting-cbd/.

This year I concluded my real property boundary dispute law practice. The misery of neighbors engaging attorneys as mercenaries to fight at “Try-All” has been an absurdity throughout that full run. But for many people, land issues can trigger ‘animal spirits.’ And just as the case with big cats on the savannah, neither the victor nor the vanquished ends unmauled. What a waste!

Why did I stay in this environment for so long? Well, in addition to the fact that it is just plain hard to get out, I had a vision of how to make the law – at least in this arena – more instantly cognizable.

With this cognizance, comes both vastly increased case research and prediction. How so? Smartly, I finally sought out the expertise of Data Literacy’s Ben Jones. In less than two full day’s work, Ben was able to whip up my Tableau Software data visualization project.

This was a project which I had conceived almost 30 years ago in college; secured an independent study unit 15 years ago in law school to graduate a 1/2 semester early notwithstanding my then inchoate write-up; and published 6 years ago this month in the King County Bar Bulletin – not at all incidentally the same month that Tableau Software went public.

See http://www.kcba.org/newsevents/barbulletin/archive/2013/05/article18.htm .

At present these data visualizations stand textually unaided at the website my friends at LexBlog built out for me. So, here my LinkedIn friends and associates, I would like to share a few thoughts about the theory I seek to apply and how this is represented in the two data visualizations themselves which are now live at JusticeSmiles.com.

Overall, the area of boundary dispute law has been an ideal sandbox to seek to bring the insights of data visualization to law because while it is an intensively fact driven case arena, there is a manageable universe of published cases which are decision not based on which rule rules, but on the facts.

The overarching idea is that each case fact serves as a data point. An aggregate of any case facts in turn rolls up to case holdings which in turn itself serve as a data point. So, by “scoring” each case as to the presence of their facts as well as how the cases were decisioned we can “view” aggregate and specific fact strengths.

At JusticeSmiles.com, the “Fact Aggregate” visualization shows how increasing the number of (unweighted) facts increases the likelihood of a case toggling from an invalid adverse possession claim – which is shown in red – to a valid claim — which is shown in light and dark green.

True, that’s a pretty obvious insight, but the potential comes into play when greater numbers of cases are pushed through the case scoring funnel and case weightings can be determined.

What do I mean by this business of case weightings? Think of it this way. If someone regularly mowed grass beyond an inaccurate title line, that fact probably doesn’t bear much weight. If they have a drive or roadway for which the seam is beyond the title line, the weight of that fact is greater. Tipping the scales most completely then is the weight which occurs when a house extends beyond the title line.

(As an aside, the Washington Supreme Court’s majority effectively decided in Proctor v. Huntington, that the build of a house beyond the property line was so strong that they would loosen up on the enforcement of the 10 year statute of limitations period required for all other claimants of adverse possession to validate their claims. Proctor v. Huntington is certainly not a case of “go big or go home” … it’s a case of “go big and go home!)

Returning to “Fact Aggregates,” we have things interactively organized based on courts, fence, land and water. The default courts showing has the two Washington Supreme Court cases at the top, followed by the division one, two, and three jurisdiction appellate cases.

Use Tableau’s interactivity at the top to switch to fences and you will see case divisions based on no fence, partial fence, full line fence, and a full enclosure fence. Notice that without the fence, there are still four cases in which only one or two facts were necessary to prove adverse possession and as such “go green.”

Why’s that? Those cases are all agricultural cases (whereas Bryant is actually the Timber lands case (we’ll get that swapped, if not already by the time your eyes hit this line in nested parens)). Moving on, the other three scored categories for the land cases are urban and suburban; exurban and vacation; and remote or mountainous. The reason this is important is because different land types require lesser and greater degrees of notice to satisfy adverse possession claimants’ element of “open and notorious.”

Why water cases? There are two reasons, for surveyors these are much more technically complex at the level of high math. For lawyers, while the parties are often more legally sophisticated, they also generally have more money to invest in their legal project and so these legal lines generally fully litigated by counsel of equivalent strength – i.e. let the blood sport begin!

Ok, switching to the “Fact Specific” visualizations, please find that all of those factors are interactive so that with a touch of the mouse, one can find all the cases in say Division I and determine their case disposition again by the color red or green and whether a back or forward slash.

What’s this business about the slashed lines? Well those cases (which were depicted with lighter colors) in the “Fact Aggregates” viz indicate that the matter had to go to trial to be decided. By contrast, full (robust) lines represent those cases which were so strong that they were decided at summary judgment – i.e. without the need of wasting anyone’s time with a trial because it’s so blatantly obvious who is going to prevail – or are now a new legal standard because the Washington Supreme Court decided them.

What’s next for legal visualizations at this small corner of the legal world. I anticipate after getting my new mediation blog – BoundaryBreakthroughs.com – and a relaunch of – BoundaryDisputeLaw.com – as my consulting and expert witness blog, we might get in place visualizations which indicate those other fact specifics which drive the cases like grass mowing, storage, gardens, landscaping, eaves overhang, etc.

Those facts demand volume to start depicting results and where will that volume come from. If lawyers were willing to make the commitment to populate that information, it would be spectacular. But while I think some really industrious crew may want to pick up the torch for their family law, wills contest, UCC Article 3 commercial paper, or any other high volume arena and corner the market, I’m not so sure we will have all that many people tripping head over heals to populate boundary dispute law.

But, heck beyond the other misfits that find themselves “Groundhog Day(ing)” their lives away in this practice area that I am sidestepping, there might actually be some passionate young associates cutting their civ pro teeth on these matters who are willing to cross the legal chasm from laggards to join those “reasonably” respectable classed society members comprising the late majority. In that way, these young associates may actually jump the que a little bit quicker out of Boundary Dispute “Fun Land” to attain their well deserved post of non-equity partnership.

More promisingly for those in data viz land, we may get a fair amount of that information from mediation clients, but in those cases much more creative remedies can be placed on the table. The upshot by unqualified definition is that the resulting lines in those matter aren’t fully litigated.

But there is an area where the information is decided and not currently captured which would really help. These are the decisions made on these cases at the trial court level. True, those cases don’t have precedential value. But, they certainly do have value which goes beyond the two disputants tying up the court’s most precious resource of time. Here’s how.

Say we have 20 cases throughout the state in which the facts are all limited to these two – (1) a fence line exists up to which (2) a lawn was regularly mowed. Well, if 17 cases spin out for the claimant of adverse possession and only 3 did not … what is likely to happen with your case with those same facts?

For those seeking to hue to the title line, it would be so much better to know that they will likely lose than to pay $25,000 and on the eve of a summary judgment motion when the judge will likely not only throw out their case, but very well might shift attorney’s fees and costs based on intransigence, it would be so much better to know how the law is going to spin out and just get the thing resolved … don’t ya think?

Note: Concurrent LinkedIn Publishing at my profile ) Republishing of 2014.05.04

Fill or Kill. Yes, it’s the lore of James Dean in Rebel without a Cause. 

But, it’s really onto only what I call endpoint thinking … it’s deadpoint thinking.

Consider a game of chicken in which two drivers barrelling down on eachother finds one, or possibly both, yanking out the driver’s wheel and throwing it out the window so the other driver will sway or yield course.

But then what? The car(s) without a driving wheel quite likely will end up ditch bound with driver thrown through the windshield.

Well what about the brakes? It’s quite possible that slamming on the breaks caused the car to spin out of control and then flip before coming to a rest.

So here’s the question for plausible pro se litigants of boundary disputes:

Do you think that throwing the equivalent of your steering wheel – i.e. your mental faculties – out the window is really going to be a productive way in which to resolve your boundary dispute issue?

The answer is an emphatic: NO! Don’t do it!

You will look back and realize how much of a fool you have been.

You will look back and realize how much emotional damage you have done to yourself and your neighbors.

You will look back and realize how much money you have needlessly spent.

Most importantly, you will look back and realize you have frittered valuable time away to assuage what Bono (and later Johnny Cash) sang in the song One as “the lepers in your head.” [1] & [2].

What a complete waste of time! When Justice Smiles tells anyone be it a prospective client or the neighbor in a writing that they don’t stand a chance …

Don’t think that throwing out the steering wheel will in any way diminish the merits of your case.

Just thank me for the fact that I am willing to pound a little bit of sense into you instead of cutting your soul out of you.

Point your will to win in a useful direction and realize that you have infinite potential which will allow you to yield real results where it really counts … putting money into your pocket instead of bleeding it out in a needless boundary dispute.

—

Photo Credit: https://florianbieber.org/2015/02/13/rebel-with-a-cause-greeces-chicken-game/

[1] Enjoy Bono’s One [HERE].

[2] Enjoy Johnny Cash’s One [HERE].

I received a note from Derek G. Graham OLS OLIP alerting me that I had goofed on the titling of my previous blog post – linked [HERE].

In this post I’m going to own that error more fully than I think even I expect by just letting my fingers serve as the extension of my stream of consciousness.

Obviously, the later representation of the two forms here titled is grammatically proper.

I should probably acknowledge that, change it, and just move onward.

But, I’m going to play with the error a bit to see if I can massage it out. That will probably amount to smearing more tar on myself … but I can take it. So here goes …

Is it possible that my error could actually have been one of punctuation, but not to be corrected by converting “Your” to You’re?”

I’m going to argue that Ali is an external reflection of the best that all of us can be?

All this Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, and Bob Proctor material that I have been recently studying speaks to the idea of “infinite intelligence” and how we are all tied to one another on a spiritual plane.

Essentially, instead of being material beings which have spiritual experiences, we are all spiritual beings engaged for a brief period of time in a material experience.

I know; this is pretty trippy stuff. These are ideas that few experience and even fewer attempt to explain because it is so far beyond the normal realm of recognition that it can and is considered by most as balderdash.

Ok, good! I’ll try to position these ideas in a way that might be more recognizable to those with a statistics background by considering the bell curve.

As we all know, the bell curve over a normal distribution has a bulge which tops at the center with tails to either side which – at least in theory – asymptotically approach zero.

Now quite some time ago, I had recognized that I tend to be out on not one, but both of the tails as to the way in which I think.

I am and have been a macro thinker all my life. Somehow I am “blessed” with the ability to see the big picture. But, this “blessing” is a curse if not able to share the ideas with others.

So, for the past decade I have gone to the other extreme by going not just to the micro, but rather to the “nano” level of thinking in which I have allowed myself to become an advocate for clients when they and their neighbors get exercised over what I call ‘Five Blades of Grass.’

Ok, so what does all this Macro-Micro thought business have to do with anything?

First, I realized that being able to go out to the statistical tails is the equivalent of being at the “international date line.”

Here, think of that bell curve on a piece of paper that you roll over and to which you tape the “tails.”

Now, if one flips this upside down, a new “center” is created at that “international date line” as identified which is at the top.

The result is a new bell curve and with it a new “average.”

Well guess what? That’s exactly how I feel about myself. I’m just an average guy. Except for one thing. I can meet damn near any person wherever they are.

I am as comfortable with CEOs as I am with the homeless and virtually everyone in between … except KUKD sycophants.

KUKD? That’s the acronym for “Kiss Up Kick Down.” Look around and you will find that there are a heck of a lot of folks who act that way … and for what? An insecure grasp at the next rung of the ladder as best as I can make out.

Now returning to this idea of the person who is out at both tails simultaneously, I was amazed when I saw this phenomenon also described and depicted in Peter Theil’s book Zero to One.

 

Normally we expect opposite traits to be mutually exclusive: a normal person can’t be both rich and poor at the same time, for instance. But it happens all the time to founders: startup CEOs can be cash poor but millionaires on paper. They may oscillate between sullen jerkiness and appealing charisma. Almost all successful entrepreneurs are simultaneously insiders and outsiders. And when they do succeed, they attract both fame and infamy. When you plot them out [on a normal distribution curve], founders’ traits appear to follow an inverse normal distribution[.] (Emphasis added to text at pages 175-76 [which depicts an inverted bell curve by way of explanation].)

Ok, now I suspect my dear readers to be scratching their head thinking: “What the heck does that have to do with the difference between “your” and “you’re”.

The answer my friends is “manifest” when you look back at the wisdom which Bob Proctor identifies as “infinite wisdom” – aka God.

Regardless as to how you perceive the creator and his-her-it’s creation, we are all a part of it … and to greater or lesser extent we are all recognizably not apart from it. Get it!

In other words, though I wrote “Your the Best.” Perhaps instead, I should have written:

Your “The Best”.

In doing so “Your” becomes interchangeable with “Our.”

Ali, who like all of us wasn’t perfect. But, Ali was the best that he could be and in that we share a piece of humanity with him, he brought out an image of us being the best too … just like MLK.

Now, did I intend “your” error. Of course not. But am I going to just lay down like Sonny Liston. Cheers!

PS – Nice catch Derek. Thanks!

—

Photo Credit: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2016/06/04/muhammad-ali-dies-obituary/85357592/

 

Wow! In light of everything that I have been studying about Napoleon Hill and some other protegees of his this past month or so, I find the above picture and comments extremely interesting.

Perhaps the biggest idea is that one needs to be able to really believe themselves to have already achieved that which it is that they desire.

Essentially, instead of the insidious quip that I have applied to boundary disputes identifying them as “an external manifestation of an internal problem,” this is the positive corollary.

To wit, one who can perceive themselves as having already accomplished a task will create in their mind a way to focus on its achievement and through action will engage in a personal version of “manifest destiny.”

Essentially, Muhammad Ali did exactly this!

Also, I think it extremely fitting to note that Ali was a boxer, but not a fighter. What?

Well, boxing is a contest occurring within the bounds of the specific rules of the ring.

Yes, it’s a slugfest, but due to the cabining by these rules it is legitimate … as (at least in theory) is law.

But, Ali was not a fighter with respect to the Vietnam War for which he was drafted.

The Washington Post [HERE], published Ali’s comments about that “contest” as …

“My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America,” he had explained two years earlier. “And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger, they never lynched me, they didn’t put no dogs on me, they didn’t rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father. … Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.”

Yes, it should never be forgotten that Ali the greatest boxer was a humanitarian on the same scale … he lent his gravitas to prove the point as to the toxic hypocrisy and downright ecclesiastical vanity of that war. This is what happens when people do become the best that they can be instead of retreating into fear.

Well, it is fitting that Ali’s birthday of January 17, 1942 is so close to when we celebrate MLK.

I think this renaming of the Louisville, Kentucky airport in Ali’s honor is just as fitting as our county’s attribution to MLK.

Ali helped all Americans – certainly not just those of African descent – FLY. Cheers!

Today, Past King County Executive who a decade ago this May took the role of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in DC gave a magnificent speech to open up this year’s MLK weekend.

He shared stories about how growing up he was told by a teacher to tell his parents – who were civil rights protesters – to behave; how his and an Asian American’s extensive science fair projects were denied entry; and how in high school as he was to be recognized as ‘most inspirational’ his coach purposely broke the award in two before handing it to him. Why? Because he was not the same.

He then shared with us the story of how a conservative republican from the east side came to him while a Seattle counselman and said that as a matter of conscious, he wanted to work with Sims to change the attribution of our county to Martin Luther King from what seemed to originally be unknown was a slave owner and slave proponent from Alabama. He mentioned that the aim was never to take away attribution from the later, but only to uphold the former. Isn’t this what we should all do?

Well, I recollected that I had this article in my archives and I brought it along for a visit to my former Rotary club. At the time of publication in May of 2009, both Sims – taking his role at HUD – and our former governor Gary Locke – assuming the role of Ambassador to China* – were apparently a little bit lost in “the other Washington.”

If these gentleman were lost then, I can hardly imagine how ‘dazed and confused’ they would be in the Washington of today.

As Paul Newman’s Cool Hand Luke most certainly exclaim for much less than the government’s furlough: “What we have here is failure to communicate.”

A friend at Rotary sent the above image and asked how I intended to use it. My reply – which I purposely kept unspecified as to addressee for the simple reason that my attempt is to convey a universal message as we kick of this important celebratory weekend – is provided immediately below. Enjoy!

Hi –

I want to breakthrough the boundaries that divide us as people in rebuke of the increasing divisiveness in our neighborhoods, communities, nation, and world. There is just no positive benefit in getting in a kerfuffle over ‘5 Blades of Grass’ and there is always a solution when people are willing to be reasonable. After being at it for now over a decade, I realize that fear of ‘the other’ really amounts to the fear of an unexplored part of one’s own dark and cavernous psyche. Boundary disputes are what I call “an external manifestation of an internal problem.” I just want to show people that it is appropriate to let slide some things because in the grand scheme of things, they – both the things as well as the parties – are insignificant. So, it is our duty to enjoy each other notwithstanding our imperfections. Essentially, I think I have finally been able to grasp the touchstone of all religious traditions – having empathy and love for one’s neighbor and oneself. This is important because our world is now such that we are all neighbors whether willing to recognize it or not. Cheers!

+  BZ/JUSTICE SMILES, pllc

* Correction: Gary Locke was appointed by President Obama as U.S. Commerce Secretary from 2009-2011 and then was Ambassador to China from 2011 – 2014. Locke has currently returned as counsel to DWT and has established his own consultancy.

 

I had a fantastic day learning Tableau Software as the first customer of Ben Johnson’s Data Literacy.

So much, that I have to confess I need to sleep on it before returning to much of the data that I had organized with the collaborative aid of my graphic designer using brute force.

It’s clear to me that I did allow myself to get far off course by trying to pursue the law in more traditional means instead of staying focused on getting going with Tableau … it’s just so quick and easy.

In that the day was exhausting and I need to think things through further before posting out more thoughts about our learning sprint, I want to post some additional comments about the website immediately below the line.

The above picture is what I get when I look at my handheld from the side.

I’m not keen on the justice smiles face in the brown to the right of the center.

Since the three menu bars are fully responsive to design in that they will shift to the far left regardless if the phone is held in the most common place way of portrait style as opposed to landscape, the menu should be able to be shifted to the right and the logo to the left instead. One would think that the language “Justice Smiles” could reposition so it is always in the middle.

I looked more at this and realized that a “freaky friday” type color scheme switch to have a contrast of background in the shade of light blue and the selected bar in brown ought to look good.

Gosh, I still think the color with the tree band is odd.

I know that thee branches of the tree to the side without more is weird.

I find myself seeking to justify the rest. It’s weird that I should intellectually think it too all be kookie and then find that it is actually fairly peaceful.

Maybe it is perfect as the line between good and evil for this very reason. I need others to help give their opinion … will you?

Though my immediate desire is to get in to Tableau Software so I can learn and earn through an exchange of time and wisdom for value, my approaches haven’t generated my desired outcome … yet!

So, I find myself in the gap between what I thought I was going to be walking away from and meaningful employment.

I find this ironic because it is precisely “the gap” for which I have been fighting others to peacefully close as a boundary dispute attorney.

This has given me pause and cause to reflect on my situation from differing perspectives.

For anyone who has been following along for the last month at home, you will notice that I have ensconced myself in Napoleon Hill’s work Think and Grow Rich.

In addition to this, I have been following his “intellectual grandson” – Bob Proctor who had worked with and for Hill’s protege – Earl Nightingale.

I’ve decided to go through consulting training at the Proctor Gallagher Institute.

As a not incidental aside, I find it of great interest to note that Sandy Gallagher had been a banking and securities attorney for Seattle’s Davis Wright Tremaine before walking away from her practice to work with Proctor. So, I feel myself to be in [a] good company.

But, this still doesn’t speak to what to do in the here and now to provide for my family that which they need and want.

As is my general way, my intention is to integrate differing roles in order to generate what Bob Proctor identifies as the ideal, generating multiple sources of income.

To do this, I realize that it is ideal to follow his overall template to help clients resolve conflict with their neighbor and settle boundary disputes.

I should note that the former – which law has an extremely difficult time getting its mitts on is what I would estimate to be perhaps 90[%] to 95% of the problem leaving only about 5% as real legal work.

The result is a extremely emotionally taxing “legal practice” which involves a scant amount of “legal work” and instead the yeoman’s work is what I have referred to as “psy-opps” – i.e. the war and/or peace of psychological operations in which I have sought to harmonize opposing neighbors’ underlying interests, come to and document the agreed legal solution, and then hope that the spirit of Rodney King blesses the parties whereby they both ask “why can’t we all just get along?” … and then work to make that a reality. Pie in the sky … right?

Well, the insight that came to me was that if clients were willing to put 1/10th of the resources they might otherwise pledge toward a boundary fight into making self-improvement, they would experience “moon-shot” style growth.

With this insight in tact, I am changing everything … mostly for the better.

My intention is to maintain two blogs. This “Boundary Dispute Law [Blog]” and a new one for the purpose of positive paradigm coaching ala the PGI Institute which will have the URL: https://BoundaryBreakthrough.com.

In between and pointing to those blogs will be a website which LexBlog is putting together for me. In fact, I received a proof to this website which I had paused at the end of last year’s Q3.

The above is a screen shot from my handheld and in that I am already generating a blog post, I thought I might offer my 2¢ here and then later send … as I am sure they will not wade through my ramblings to find it here.

Ok, so here goes (below the line).

  1. Setting aside the middle band of color which will need to be reimagined completely, I will want the background colors on the top and bottom bands switched such that blue – and likely a lighter shade – is above in the “sky” and the brown is where we “go to ground.”
  2. I’ll want to have the navigation bars in the upper left (not right) corner for two reasons: (a) as a practical reason it is easier to hit with the index finger of the right hand and (b) this will allow “JUSTICE SMILES” to be centered.
  3. Continuing with respect to “JUSTICE SMILES” and the “J” in “JUSTICE | TRUTH | PEACE” … I will want it sized the same as the rest of the words. Perhaps the “J” in this font naturally pops beyond all the other capitalized letters, in which case greater manipulation is necessary. But, realistically I suspect that this “hook” is currently at a larger font size which simply has to be reduced so to represent like the sentence below.
  4. For that sentence, at present I like the gold color of the language “Justice Smiles”, but will want to see if my sentiment remains when its background is brown. One thing that I do note is that at least on my phone there is language “below the fold”, so …
  5. Let’s try the language from “JUSTICE SMILES IS A LAW FIRM THAT SETTLES REAL PROPERTY BOUNDARY DISPUTES AT A FAIRLY” and leave it at that.
  6. With respect to the logo, all is excellent for the large one, but we have some pixelation issues for the small one. Unless the blue boundary makes the small one represent better, I’m going to need a swap out perhaps with one which has thicker – i.e. bolded – lines, so that it is clear.
  7. That might all be good enough for government work, but I also will want to see how the values under the large image represent after the “J” in “JUSTICE” is adjusted. The ideal would be to have the point of the shield’s “chin” directly above the “U” of “TRUTH”. The second best would be to have the shield’s “chin” “T’eed up” directly above the “T”. However, in that these will probably shift the language too much to the left and right respectively, we might need to just put it over the “R”. I suspect it is because there is some uneven “terrain” below it that it appears off center.
  8. Ok, now returning full circle to the color in the middle. This is supposed to be a nice clear day with green grass below and in the PC version – i.e. here off the screen – there is an oak tree to the left. So, my question is why does this look like a post-apocalyptic fall-out? Well, maybe that’s what people thought I and others felt about the business in the past. But as that famous S.E. Hinton book was titled: “That was then, this is now.” So, let’s get this thing to happy mode because Justice Smiles will actually be able to help people … instead of “assisting” them to be the lesser of two losing parties. Cheers!