Before massive and frequent installations of vinyl siding started to put house painters out of business in North America, painting houses was a common summertime activity for homeowners or professional painters.  I did my fair share of house and barn painting, most of it while perched on a wooden ladder.

Dad was good at giving advice on painting.  Not too much at one time, though. 

Day one: Paint in the shade; the sun will dry out your brush quickly.

Day two: Wear shoes with hard soles.  The ladder rung will leave a permanent dent in your foot through your sneaker soles.

Day three:  Keep a wet rag in your back pocket to take care of the drips when they happen; scraping old paint is hard work.

The best advice was on day four:

Every now and then climb down the ladder and step back about 10 paces and admire your work.  You'll see any skips and take pride in your progress.

Sometimes working and running a business is like painting a house.  Your nose is right in your work all day and you forget to step back and see where you are going, fix the skips and take pride in your work. There is just too much painting to do.

The view of your business from a distance is much more clear than the view from your office doorway. But, many business owners and leaders restrict themselves to the view from their offices and the trenches, where the action is. They defend their reluctance to pause for a moment to view their work and progress because they are too busy, there is not enough staff to do all there is to be done and consequently, they have no luxury of time to slow down production and evaluate the work process and product.

If you are on the ladder all day with your nose in the paint of your business, do what Dad suggested. Climb down the ladder, step back, find and fix the skips and admire your work for a few minutes; you will enjoy the break and benefit from analyzing your progress.

Stepping back to admire your work can be part of building a three year vision, one of my 8 simple strategies for success. Want to learn more? click here

"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -- Elbert Hubbard

"It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it." -- Stephen Wright

”No one has a greater asset for his business than a man's pride in his work." -- Hosea Ballou

Dad had another favorite expression about painting. "Paint hides a thousand sins.”

As a 13 year old, I asked what that meant.

“You’ll see”, he answered.

As a 16 year old I began to build things with wood. My end cuts weren’t always square, my sanding jobs were incomplete and my 45 degree mitre joints were excellent examples of the art of wood butchery. When I applied a generous coat of paint to these projects, the defects and blemishes of my unhandy work magically disappeared.

Oh, that must be what he meant about paint hiding a thousand sins.

As a 19 year old college student, I saw a girl that I had admired at a party the night before without make up the next day.

It was then that I saw what he meant when he’d said “you’ll see.”

Doug

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