Dave Nelson | SecretPenguin Blog

My Dad spoke at Mutual a few months ago to a select few, and I was honored enough to be able to attend. I’ve always admired my Dad and the way he handles business, but I think more importantly the way he handles life in general.

Here are some basic notes I took, and always try to incorporate into my business/life…

• Make doing business with you easy and fun.
• Don’t look at your weaknesses, focus on your strengths.
• Choose your priorities wisely.
• Learn to say no.
• Dismiss the people who don’t appreciate you… so you have time for those who do.
• Half-efforts don’t produce half-results, they don’t produce anything. Especially anything you would want to be known for.
• If you can’t put all your effort into it, don’t do it.
• When you go to work, REALLY go to work.
• You’re just one day away from getting your life on track.
• Balance your activity.
• Bring clarity to the chaos.
• Being successful is hard work, so work hard.
• Life isn’t fair, get over it.
• Don’t look at someone that is successful and wish you were them. You have no idea the struggles they went through to get to where they are today. Focus on your own struggles and be proud of who you are.

It’s been incredibly busy lately. Here’s a few things we’ve done…

BBB LTD and REZO’s artist series release party was July 19th. I designed the seal that goes on the tail for the artists to sign and number. Check out more photos from the event.

The same night as the release for the artist series boards, was the Munny show put on by Trocadero at the Bemis Underground. Unfortunately, I had to bounce back and forth between places, but still had a great time. I was honored to be in this show. Thanks Alice!

My friends from Siren Skateboards and Reliance Skateboards were passing through, so they stayed at our house. We stopped by our studio on the way to get Ted and Wally’s Ice Cream and played Paddle Battle… we’ll post the battle soon.

August 15-17 was BarCamp Omaha (BarCamp is an ad-hoc technology gathering for people to share and learn in an open environment). SecretPenguin helped sponsor the event.
Check out more photos here.

August 17th was the Peace Center USA Benefit Concert with a ton of great bands. I just made it at the end for a little bit of Bear Country, Orenda Fink and Baby Walrus. Peace Center is an initiative that will provide fast, easy, and free access to confidential treatment for veterans and their loved ones who suffer from PTSD and related issues. We helped with the website, PeaceCenterUSA.org

This past Friday, we hosted the Omaha Craft Mafia’s Trunk Show. They are all soo sooo talented. You have to check them out and support them!

And on Saturday night, we went to The Faint show at Sokol. They put on an amazing show.
I just found some old photos from when we met up with them in Lawrence, KS at a house show when I was on a tour with Joe Hammeke, Dennis Busenitz and Old Dirty Al for a Kansas article in Thrasher Skateboard Mag a loooong time ago. There were about 10-20 people there and they had red garden lights. Quite a bit different than their shows now!

Here’s a photo of my cat from yesterday. I thought he looked cute.
See ya!