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My 2012 Finish List

December 22nd, 2011 · Learning, Purpose, Uncategorized, focus, life

I revaluate my progression in the following categories every 2 or 3 months:
spiritual/career/financial/social/family/physical/personal development

I take this opportunity to evaluate needed changes in my current direction. I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions cause I think people use them as an opportunity to fail. They plan in the middle of the year to start changing on January 1. Or they create too many resolutions that they can’t even accomplish one. Jon Acuff has challenged his blog readers to complete a finish list for 2012. It’s called a #FinishYear. 5 things you will finish next year. They can be small or big and range from any of the categories listed above. Here are mine:

1) Finish the Ignite Guitar Curriculum (dvd/audio/books) and have them ready for purchase.
2) Read the Bible from front to back
3) Learn to be a competent web design through finishing my curriculum website (front end and back end)
4) Go whitewater rafting in Ocoee River in Tennessee
5) Read 8 books this year (2 a quarter)

Think about your five and join with me! We can keep each other accountable!

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Remembering the Joy of Work

October 21st, 2011 · Work, difficulty

Have you forgotten what it was like to work well? God calls work good in Exodus 20:8-10. How are you doing with that? I struggle with Ephesians 6:5-8, the passage where God calls us to be slaves to our earthly masters and to have a sincere heart. And not to be a people pleaser but a servant of Christ. Do it unto the Lord. He continually references our heart in this passage as if the means of what we’re doing is more important than the act itself.

Are you in a place where you can work to the best of your ability? And when you’re hands are tied behind your back where your productivity is being hindered are you able to carry on and encouraged with critical analysis and improvement? And if you aren’t given an answer when you think you deserve it are you willing to submit to your bosses judgment and do your best work in that circumstance? These are all situations that we struggle with and hopefully are able to do the best we can do toward working in a way that God might be pleased with our efforts. One thing is true that we learn from the parable of the dishonest manager in Luke 16, how can you be faithful in much responsibility when you aren’t faithful in the little?

I was taking a path that I could call my own. I wanted to climb the ladder and God continued to break my spirit. I put too much in the accomplishments that I thought I was supposed to accumulate. When I worked to be content it was as if God continually upped the challenge and the stakes. I continued to press into Him and he continued to confuse my own desire for a career path. I kept asking myself, I know what my desires and passions are but where is the mark of being responsible and the mark of trust. Do I depend on my health benefits or do I depend on God? Am I able to work to the best of my ability in this situation? My answers continually said no.

So, I decided to start over, or should I say I decided to depend more, to trust more, otherwise it seemed I would continue this cycle.  I want to remember what it means to work hard but trust God in the results of the work. And with this, God is providing for my needs. He’s provided a part-time Starbucks job as I’ve worked to reinvent the way I think about work. Work hard and serve people. I now work just as many hours if not more than I did when I worked an 8-5 job, but it’s not the same. I have a cheerful heart. Are you content being poor (both in spirit and monetarily)? If you aren’t you surely won’t be content being rich in spirit or in responsibility.

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Rebel or Warrior: Lebron

June 9th, 2011 · Learning, Purpose, thinking

Lebron: Rebel or Warrior
The Lebron signing was a big attention getter when it happened last year. Three friends, phenomenal basketball players joining together on the same team. Groups on both sides of the isle seem to be remarking on the situation. Truth: there is not an easy conclusion to this mystery. Why is it such a bad thing for Lebron to put a team together of his friends who he thinks can win an NBA championship? Does this disturb the integrity of the game? Those people are just old-school, legalistic thinkers aren’t they? I don’t care, I just want to watch basketball. These are thoughts you probably have had tempting you to believe that Lebron’s move isn’t that big of a deal. Blame goes in all directions, the NBA for allowing it, the Heat management for going along with it. Or, you could say “in your face” to “the man” kind of like a Robin Hood story or Office Space “I hate rulers who only care about money and me being their slave” idea. The players won this time. Go Lebron! Ok, so here’s my thoughts…

1) The Heat Management: They were smart. They took an opportunity to bring on two great players for very little money. This will improve the arena’s ticket sales and the likelihood of a championship. Why not? I agree…next one.

2) NBA basketball and David Stern: The organization had no direct involvement with the trade and rightly so. But, I DO think this trade is a reflection of the quality of the NBA. Employees actions contribute to and are a big part of the product or service of it’s company. The NBA’s client is it’s audience. So they shouldn’t make rules other than paying attention to salary caps. We don’t want WWF actors, we want something real. Any involvement in a player’s choices would be something less than that.

3) Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh: If I was them I would ask my friends to join on my team also. Why not? Who doesn’t want to play basketball with friends?

4) Lebron James: He wanted to play basketball with friends. No problem. He wanted an NBA championship. He didn’t care about the money. There was a nationally televised primetime ESPN interview of Lebron where he did nothing but explain his decision to go to Miami. Nothing looks wrong about this. And Americans love real-life drama and ESPN and Lebron gave it to them. End of story…or not?

The problem is more of solving a mystery of small, seemingly insignificant details rather than just proclaiming “guilt” or “guiltless”. Unfortunately in the age of information overload, everything isn’t just an obvious issue of right and wrong. Look at Enron, politics, 9/11 or most other important issues. It is a confusing and messy deal. You could be led to believe either case because on the outside everything looks fine until the wall hits and everything falls apart. But on the inside, there were lots of small pieces that influenced this bigger scheme of things. So, were these small pieces handled sloppily or with the highest integrity? Were details missed in a sea of data? In modern day cases who does it seem all we really understand is the result? Weren’t there principles we lived by to influence these results? Sure, there is some chance in life but most have to do with our outlook in situations and how we handle them. Without them what we have is: “Yes, wow, what a team! Miami’s in the finals!” Does this mean there is no such thing as right and wrong or that it is subjective? Not at all. Lots of points along the way determine the integrity of the situation. Here are the small things that I observe:

1) It was a nationally televised response. He’s leaving Cleveland after being there since his first year, one that is sure to make the fans jealous and other that further communicates, “I don’t care about you and the years we’ve had”. He could have left Cleveland in a way that was less of an “in your face” insult.

2) This kid is young. He’s not in his last year of basketball and his potential still hasn’t been tapped…or shouldn’t have already been exhausted. How is this different than other great players who have been traded? How about Charles Barkley’s trade to the Rockets in an attempt to win the championship? Without a doubt it is different. Charles had already won an Olympic gold and had been to the finals multiple times but had fallen short. He had already played with 3+ teams before landing on the Rockets. And, Charles didn’t leave loudly. He was old and washed up. He had run his course. He wasn’t considered in the running for “the greatest player in the game”. These details matter. We can’t make an interpretation about the integrity or lack of without the details of the situation and analyzation using some sort of principles to guide us. What other people suggest about Lebron’s greatness is not his fault right? One principle that does not change: There is always more expectation based on the level of your success. How well did he pay attention to the integrity of the situation? That’s what I’d like to ask Lebron. In light of these facts could he have handled it better? People are comparing him to Michael Jordan, so is the level of expectation possibly too high? That was a question, ha.

3) Cleveland isn’t good enough. This is what James proclaimed without words. He left Cleveland on national television. Left for a significant drop in money so that he could be surrounded by great players and win a championship. Cleveland fans, fellow teammates, it’s not about my team or about your enjoyment of the climb to win a championship. It’s about me. You guys aren’t good enough. I don’t know of one person in the running for greatest player of all time that ever left his team, much less in the way Lebron did.

The facts of Lebron’s actions don’t tell the full story. The details do. What I do know is that Lebron’s attitude, demeanor, and integrity does matter. Can an organization regulate that? Nope. Lebron has to live it. Is Lebron acting in a way of integrity? There are small pieces that don’t support his cause. And if you don’t care, well, you’ll care when all we have is street ball, one-on-one, all about me, I don’t care about my team or the fans basketball…or worse, an organization that tries to stop it or influence it for good by creating rules that make the game something much different than what we know as basketball. A cheap imitation.

Morals of the story:

1) Do sweat the small stuff - the details are important and our principles in life influence how we handle these details.

2) Be the ball – Work to be responsible. You can’t change the world but you can change the world you live in.

3) Look internally – What principles do you live by? And are these negatively affecting your ability to act in integrity?

4) Last but not least - GO MAVS! :)

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What Am I Doing?

May 30th, 2011 · Uncategorized

If you don’t know this already, I quit my advertising job about 4 months ago. With every job, it seems that God teaches me more about myself as he did this one. But, outside of “that kind of marketing wasn’t my thing” I have been trying to come to an understanding with myself about a couple things. First, a few dreams that I had doubts about pursuing (and now am) and second, working through my own heart issue of understanding the difference between faith and responsibility.

As much as I try to plan out my life, I struggle to know what I am doing. I also don’t want my decisions to be based on other people’s interpretation of what I “should be doing”. It needs to be my decision and one based on a steady, growing relationship with God. Feedback from wise people and those that know you well is good too. But if you haven’t already figured it out a lot of people don’t give you honest advice. Why? Because our culture is accustomed to saying “you should do whatever you want” which is similar to the statement “God wants to make you happy”. This is an epidemic regardless of whether you’re in a church or not. We may not say those words but we disguise the same statement as different ones and put Jesus behind it to make it sound better. But, both are flat wrong. Then there are those that are so close to you that they just worry about you if you aren’t “safe”. And that’s not the kind of advice I want to live by, although I will take it into consideration. And then there is God’s will and our misunderstanding with how that works. What does God want? I am beginning to formulate a simple interpretation. From my study of the Scripture it seems God’s will is centered around us obeying Him, not around the specific details of our personality. For instance, Jesus spoke very clearly to his disciples about following Him. But, I don’t recall Jesus ever talking to any of the disciples specifically about their day jobs or who they should marry, etc. This doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care or isn’t in control. Because Scripture supports this idea too. But, in the same way God doesn’t tell you where to go to college or which service project we should get involved in. He uses our obedience to Him to guide and direct based on our own passions He has placed in our hearts. The main thing is, are we being obedient? As he converts our hearts and minds, God gives way for a passion that can be fulfilled that transends culture and community and people and time. That’s one of the great things about the gospel of Christ. God wants us to obey and will use us regardless of what color, creed, place, or time that He has us.

Because of this fact that God uses people based on their own personalities, situations, or needs, faith and responsibility is something that we cannot regulate. We cannot “coin” how the two are to work in perfect harmony for every individual. At the same time, we must be diligent to not let Christ be an “excuse”. Outside of our commitment and obedience to Christ through His word and growing in this relationship with Him, we should be careful the Christianese we use to justify our actions or what God’s will is for your life and mine.

So, I have in a sense started over in the way I want to work and how that should look. Here are a few thoughts:
1) I don’t want to fake it. I don’t want to convince people that I care about a company or job when I really don’t. My apathy is too hard to disguise and it affects me and everyone around me.
2) I don’t want to live for the weekend. I don’t want to live my life “outside of work”. I think it’s absurd that anyone actually believes that they can. I want to be responsible and obedient in every part of my life because I know this flows over to every aspect of my life.
3) I am understanding more about how I try to push or plan to a point where I put false hope in those plans. This continually leads to disappointment. I must be able to keep things in perspective where it has the opportunity to take its natural course. I want to focus but not have tunnel vision.
4) I realize that God wants the opportunity to take credit and to keep me humble. I can’t treat my job or my relationships as a rule book to be followed. It is instead something that has its own personality and is groomed by my efforts and in time my affections.
5) I want to be a bond-servant of Christ. This is possibly the greatest revelation. Think about this aspect of serving in your job as a slave as it’s suggested in Colossians 3:22-24. After reading it, don’t add any “well this means”, just read it. It says you are a slave. Regardless of whether the act of slavery is fair or not, do it. My response-but I don’t want to! So what! You’re not working for them, you’re working for God. If you love God, you will obey. I want to work in a way that I can be satisfied with doing the job the best I can, whatever they ask. I can work to fulfill my passions with the other time. It seems having this attitude would require me to be more intentional if you think this way. Why? Because I am a slave by my own choosing. There is no if’s and’s or buts.

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What is a “Christian” song?

February 1st, 2011 · Christianity, God, church

When I was little I heard many Christians claim that we should only listen to Christian music. What they meant was only explicitly Christian in its reference to Jesus or God. But, I think we limit our understanding of music, worship, and who God is when we do this. For example, when we view the earth, we don’t hear the words Jesus, but it’s definitely pointing to the fact of a creator. Even war, when in the right context, (and definitely a more mature topic) can point to our need for a redeemer. Ultimately, regardless of whether a song is “Christian”, we need to consider music an art form, and the good music is what propels a person to worship God. This is why different people are drawn to different kinds of music, based on their experiences and relationships. It is the same way with a drawing. A drawing can promote an idea of chaos and confusion. It can also stir up feelings of order and beauty in an appropriate fashion. In the same way, music or another form of art doesn’t have to be a song that says Jesus to point us to Him. It can be a song about character, or appropriate justice, or no words at all and still fit into this category. All it has to do is point a person to embracing the truth of who they are and who God should be. And with this as the definition and this understanding, it opens up the possibilities to who God is to more than our black and white, cookie cutter idea of Christianity and how He shows himself to us. And it also doesn’t allow us to control something and call it Christian that God never intended.

Thinking out loud…anything you might add or disagree with?

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The E-Reader is a Spawn of Satan

January 22nd, 2011 · Book Review, Challenges, Learning, education, focus

But why Scott? You like to read and it’s practically free!

I know that’s what your thinking. Well, thanks for asking.

Having an E-Reader seems economical and a sound investment for a reader. Even the statistics show that more people are “reading” as a result of the E-Reader. But, lets dig a little deeper.

Made to Stick, a book I’m reading that I highly recommend by the way, did a study on students. If you want the details, then buy the book, you won’t regret it. But the results suggest “that giving students two good alternatives to studying, rather than one, makes them less likely to choose either. The behavior isn’t ‘rational’ but it is human.” Now to put it into more practical terms, if I have the option to read Warren Buffett’s Security Analysis or a biography about George Washington…or the Bible, three things that I believe would be really valuable to my learning but I have the option of 2,000 different books at my fingertips, right in front of me, I know I won’t read anything. If I do, it will be “Cat in the Hat”. So I guess you need to address why you read before you buy. If you read to waste time, then by all means, buy an E-reader. Or, if you think buying an E-reader will magically make you want to read more, stop fooling yourself. But if you read because you want to enrich your life, to engage your mind, and to learn, pick up a book…and the wireless reader will be a spawn of Satan as it is mine. :)

Do you agree or disagree?
Made to Stick Book

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To Ship or Not to Ship…

December 30th, 2010 · Challenges, Learning, life

These past couple of years I’ve been working on making ideas become a reality. I hadn’t really been able to figure out what and how until recently. About that same time I read Seth Godin’s book, Linchpin, which coined this idea, made things simple for my over-analyzing brain and gave practical ideas of how to “ship”. Allow your ideas that have been thought through to be shipped. It means, press the publish button on your blog. It means print Linchpin by Seth Godinthe book that you’ve written. Make the sales. Record the cd and put it on ITunes. Nothing is going to be perfect and usually if you wait until it is, you will be too late. The important thing is to ship, to start…and finish what you start. My tendency is to rummage around in the dream/idea stage/analyze/preparatory stage and then talk myself out of doing. The doing takes patience, perseverance, and often resources of time and money that I am timid to give away because of the possibility of other “better” opportunities that I might miss out on later. But, we could wait our whole life. These past few months have been different for me in that I’ve been able to narrow things down and have figured out what has lasted for me in regard to what I really want. I like a lot of things…and it’s often hard to focus for me because there is SO much. For some unexplainable reasons and a few pressures, I’ve felt the need to put up or shut up and that’s exactly what I’m working to do.

As this year comes to a close and we move into a new year, it’s a good time to address what did ship this year and what will ship next year. For me it’s not what, it’s how, and being content enough with “everything else” or cutting it out. When I am steady, staying the course I don’t feel a need to conjur up some emotional frenzy, to “rally the troops” so to say just to keep the motivation. My last few months have been purging what is not helping me fulfill objectives. I found that a lot of seemingly harmless things were in the way, things that you would think are pointless in regard to making things happen. But these things – like saying no to small things in order to say yes to others and cutting back on relationships that weren’t for my best interest – often become excuses that distract us, usually good things, just not the best things. I have found these have been the hardest changes. The big changes aren’t as difficult for me because they are obvious. I attribute this newfound understanding to my consistent study of God’s word, not religion, not church, not burying myself in serving, but relationship and working to know God. I’ve also benefitted from training for a half marathon, learning to take one step at a time and it’s been a time of meditation for me. This next year is going to be more of the same as I will be focused on shipping what I’ve already started. No new resolutions, just continuing the work.

In conclusion, I’d like to share the lyrics of a new favorite song of mine by Andrew Ripp, an artist I stumbled upon a couple of months at a Dave Barnes concert. Enjoy and Happy New Year!

LYRICS TO RIDER BY ANDREW RIPP

I’ve played in the dust and our love turned to rust in our hands
I’ve counted the years with this fear as my only friend
I built me a fence so that I could make sense of it all
I’m caught in between hell and a dream and a song

Oh, Rider, go on and ride!

Been loading my gun since the first cry of dawn filled the air
I’m speakin’ these words, I never heard in a prayerAndrew Ripp
I don’t need to lie, I did all my time seeking gold
This line that I’ve drawn is long and it’s taking its toll

Rider, oh, Rider, go on and ride!

You will have wings, when you fall on your knees
It’s a meaningless waste when you give just to take ’til it’s gone
Been looking for freedom, freedom’s been here all along

Rider, oh, Rider, go on and ride!

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Forget Reading and Education

December 12th, 2010 · Book Review, God, Learning, budgeting, education, marketing, money, thankful

I used to not be a book reader except for trying to force myself to enjoy reading like most other people did, fictional reading for pleasure. Finding joy from this was always hard for me whenever I really didn’t ever have a hard time day-dreaming and didn’t need a book to do that. I just wanted to play my guitar and play sports. And then there were those “other books”, aka, textbooks. I only enjoyed reading a very few books for fun, C.S. Lewis, J.R. Tolkien, and Sherlock Holmes being among the few.

Done With Reading Forever…I Thought
After finishing 25 years of school and completing my MBA I was ready for a break from reading, never to pick up a book again if I didn’t want to. After 3 or 4 months of no reading I realized that I hadn’t learned one practical thing from my accounting or finance classes. It came to me this far out because during my schooling I thought that just maybe some of the stuff I learned would make sense when I joined the real world that didn’t while I was taking the classes. But, it still hadn’t helped me. I have an MBA which is supposed to be an “advanced” degree. Does this tell you anything? That’s another story for another time. Anyway, I decided that it would be awesome if I could learn SOMETHING beneficial about investing principles that would be helpful now that money was important. So, who better than Warren Buffett? Why not go to the top, right? I mean, if anyone could teach me something it had to be someone who had experience and was known to have success.

Self-Help Book Syndrome…
I have to admit my initial feeling toward self-help books was that it is a sign of weakness, stupidity or something else derogatory for me wanting to read those books. But, my frustration with accounting and finance and the lack of understanding despite my supposed education/training in these fields as well as my curiosity to find SOMETHING useful to grasp on to in applying to my investing/budgeting/money management future spurred me on.

How I Came to Meet My Mentors…Warren Buffett, Donald Trump, Seth Godin, and the list goes on…
Warren Buffett it is. Then I had to figure out how to get as accurate a picture of Buffett as possible. I didn’t want to read a book by someone else about what they thought about Warren Buffett. I wanted to read a biography. Just straight facts about his life. I sat through 25 years of other people making crappy applications for me, some good, most bad and often didn’t make sense to me anyway. I didn’t want any “blind” obedience anymore. If I didn’t understand it, I would put the book down and not pick it up again, possibly never to pick up ANY book again, haha. So, despite my “going against my inner self” telling me that I don’t need to read about that hocus pocus crap, I read it. I found this first book extremely beneficial to me in understanding a successful roadmap to investments, a non-subjective approach, and how to handle myself in the economy in a similar fashion to Buffett. In a sense, I felt I had a private, truthful investment lesson from Buffett, no sales pitch, no strings attached. And it was quite refreshing. I went on to read Intelligent Investor to understand more of what Buffett learned to make him the investor he became..a book I would have thrown up on if a professor had told me to read it, but since it was Buffett, I read it. From here, I thought maybe I could learn some from other leaders in different areas of expertise. Two or three books later and I’ve had personal tutors from the likes of Donald Trump, Warren Buffett, and Seth Godin. Forget my ridiculous, over-educated, under-experienced accounting and finance graduate professors. Now, when I face a situation I look at it from the perspectives of people who knocked it out of the park…how would my mentors handle this? It has provided great value to me.

The Greatest Mentor of All and How I Missed Him??
One thing that this also opened my eyes to is a new appreciation for the Scripture. Why would I study scholars like Martin Luther and D.L. Moody and Matt Chandler who are providing a certain perspective on the Scriptures when I can go to the source. In regard to God and knowledge of him there is an additional and more weighty reason to take this more seriously…because there is a relationship at stake, a relationship with the God of the universe. So it’s more than just me going to a third-party for information when I can go speak to the first person. It is like me having a girlfriend and trying to be in relationship with her by going and asking her best friend what she thought. Is this not ridiculous? And yet we do this day in and day out in our schools and in our religious organizations. We don’t go to the source to problem solve appropriate solutions and live in relationship with the person. And we choose counterfeit indoctrination of principles and procedures that may or may not be right. We set ourselves up for success in a Henry Ford production line system (America up until 1990) when the situation may call for something more involved.

My Gift to You…
This blog was supposed to be about my joy of reading. And it really is, I can’t begin to express how grateful I am for what I’ve learned after graduate school. I am just so passionate about cutting the crap now because I was fed it for so long. I’ve tried looking at so many different angles and yet still coming up dry. I’m about to give you a list of the books that have helped me counteract the problems I’ve just addressed. I want to make a small disclaimer though. You can still read these books and not come up with the correct application if your foundation and philosophy of life is built upon anything other than exposing the truth. What we want is to suppress the greed, bitterness, rage, brawling, slander, malice, or other motives in our own heart that cause destruction. Setting up false idols, false hope, is not better. It’s actually worse, because when your empire falls, you have no hope but the success and money you were living for in the beginning.

Book Suggestions and Thank You’s…
So, thank you God, thank you Dana Barfield and brothers in the men’s bible study who fight onward to lead accurately and appropriately according to the Scriptures. And thank you to my tutors in the following books that have allowed me to put my own work under critical analysis from successful and willing mentors who provide the gift of their expertise. This list is by category as best I could and I hope to provide a course for you to follow. Some of these books overlap but I tried to get the main focus for each book under the appropriate title. I’ve included only the ones that have helped me the most and that anyone can benefit from. Shoot me a comment if you have a question about any of them:

Foundation and Principles for Life and Relationships:
 1) “Bible”, God

Financial Wisdom and “How to Spend Money Education” That We Didn’t Get in School:
 1) “Bible”, God (there are 2,350 verses that deal with money)
2) (A Crowne Financial Class is a good source of training-biblical study)
3) “The Total Money Makeover”, Dave Ramsey
4) “Buffett: The Making of An American Capitalist”, Robert Lowenstein (biography of Warren Buffett)
5) “Intelligent Investor”, Benjamin Graham (Buffett’s mentor)
6) “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, Robert T. Kiyosaki

Ideas for Entrepreneurs, Charting Your Own Course, and Finding a Career/Vocation:
 1) “Linchpin”, Seth Godin
2) “The 4-Hour Work-week”, Timothy Ferriss
2) “The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working”, Tony Schwartz
3) “48 Days to the Work You Love”, Dan Miller
4) “No More Mondays”, Dan Miller
5) “A Better Way to Make a Living and a Life”, Peter Bourke
6) “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind”, T. Harv Eker
7) “Multiple Streams of Income”, Robert Allen

Appropriate Marketing in the New Economy:
 1) “All Marketers are Liars”, Seth Godin
2) “Unleashing the Idea Virus”, Seth Godin
3) “Permission Marketing”, Seth Godin
6) “Professional Services Marketing”, Mike Schultz and John E. Doerr
4) “Trade-off”, Kevin Maney
5) “Free”, Chris Anderson

Business Excellence:
 1) “Good to Great”, Jim Collins

Revealing Your Bias and Getting Out From Behind Your Own Perspective and Stereotypes:
 1) “Blink”, Malcolm Gladwell

Networking/Engaging Others:
 1) “Never Eat Alone”, Keith Ferrazzi

Finding a Traditional Job the Traditional Way (And the Most Effective Way):
 1) “Knock Em Dead”, Yate (job searching help book and the only one you need)

Productivity:
 1) “The Success Principles”, Jack Canfield
2) “The Time Trap”, MacKenzie
3) “Getting Things Done”, David Allen

Others:
 1) “Now, Discover Your Strengths”, Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton
2) “ProBlogger”, Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

Conclusion:
Thank you God for directing me and saving me from a life of following third-party, ill-equipped sources removed from reality. And I will pray that you will also be saved from the same.

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Is it Okay to be Thankful and Angry?

November 24th, 2010 · Uncategorized, thankful

Year after year, around thanksgiving time, I am reminded of all the wonderful blessings that I have been given. I also wish for these blessings to be bestowed on all individuals as they have been given to me. 

This time of thankful reflection typically is taken inward to analyze my own shortcomings, goals, and any changes that need to be made in me personally. Then, as a result of looking inward and reflecting, I take a small observation of what circumstances and opportunities are presented to me in order that I might be able to put these new desires into reality and remove the obstacles or barriers that are in my way. And this can be anything from work, personal, or spiritual pursuits. Once I come around to the external and practical steps of how to put this into play I typically am reminded of the trouble or the “new” things going on in our economy that cause for different or unique and possibly additional (and often unnecessary) obstacles.

I personally believe that you and I have a lot to be thankful for regardless of your or my circumstances. And for sure, God doesn’t make circumstances an excuse because he is not a “respector of persons” and gives us just the right amount of grace to take on what he has asked us to face. But, you can’t know the full extent of what you truly have to be thankful for until you observe internally and externally the situations that God has placed you in. And God has placed specific desires in your and my heart but we are only able to live in fullness of this when we are able to put our full energies and efforts toward this outcome. I do not denounce the concept that God will do what he wants, but he also expects us to be responsibly proactive toward His causes, doing what is in the best interest of everyone involved.

The unfortunate part about this is…year after year I am finding that there are more and more things people should get good and angry about or at least moved enough to take action against the wrong. Most people will misunderstand this and blow this out of proportion because our response is the most critical part of this disturbance. If we act irrationally or don’t have the appropriate level of gentleness, repentance, and confession in our own hearts, then it will be out of our own desire to control the situation rather than speak to the best interest of the situation.

I implore you, that as we all have lots to be thankful for, that there is a lot to fight for and all the more reason to be a studier of His word and what it means. God is slowly taking the lifestyle that we have all known and loved out from under our feet because of our disobedience to Him. Example, according to the recent yahoo article, 4 out of 10 people say that marriage is becoming obsolete. As social and moral issues are becoming blurred the only result is that this number will increase. Secondly, kids will either be aborted or will be created out of sexual promiscuity. Third, these will be from two “adults” who have no reason to be committed to each other, no interest in the well-being of their sexual partner but only for their own “happiness” in the moment, and therefore are left with no level of love that is secure and truly fulfilling. And finally, children are being born with no understanding of what having a loving father and mother look like. These realities will and are affecting you and the gospel of Christ’s message. This will affect a greater desire of desperation to have whatever level of control we can get in an attempt to “define” some sort of security meanwhile being blinded to our own irresponsibilities.

As I see these and many other issues being consumed by Americans in the church and outside of the church, I am more thankful this year than I was last year for the things that are most important. I am thankful for God providing for my needs, for a family who sticks together and fights for God to be ultimate in our lives despite the good or bad circumstances that we find ourselves in. I am thankful for the little things, for friends, and those that care about me enough to keep me accountable to God and to each other…specifically the men’s bible study on Monday nights. Also, the opportunity to be a follower and an ambassador of Christ in the state of desperation that our nation lives in. I am thankful that the opportunity to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors is still available to us, so that we can pursue what God has called us to do with more ease than if these were unavailable. I am thankful for work this year (and possibly for the first time), not as an obligation, but as an opportunity to become a better individual and to challenge myself to improve with people and with myself.

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“4 Hour Work Week” Book Review

November 20th, 2010 · Book Review

4 Hour Work Week

This book is all about taking your life in your own hands and challenging your self-imposed rules so that you can produce less wasteful and more meaningful opportunities for yourself and others.

Several quotes from the book that have resonated with me and some of my own experiences:

1. “Resolve to grab the reins-the rest of your life depends on it.”

2. “Different is better when more effective or more fun.”

3. “Retirement planning as a goal or final redemption is flawed. It’s nothing more than a hedge against the absolute worst-case scenario.”

4. “For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks.”

5. “For years, I set goals, made resolutions to change direction, and nothing came of either. I was just as insecure and scared as the rest of the world.”

6. “This is how most people work until death: “I’ll just work until I have X dollars and then do what I want.”

7. “Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of laziness-lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”

8. “For the entrepreneur, the wasteful use of time is a matter of bad habit and imitation.”

I’ve always been a work smarter not harder kind of person and Timothy Ferriss seems to be an expert. Working smarter isn’t in order to negate responsibility, but instead it is testing everything by the Pareto Law. This concept suggests 20% of what you do is really important and 80% is unnecessary. He provides practical tips and applications that are usable right now in moving into the 20% a reality. He also addresses how to limit the negative and wasteful intake in this information crazed age so that you can maximize your time and your output.

His concepts on limiting your intake have a lot to do with how capable you are at self-control and giving over control…allowing others to take the reins for you. He suggests that those that will be living in the middle class in the future are those who resort to doing everything themselves and therefore have no time for what they really need to be doing or want to be doing. Instead, they spend the majority of their time taking care of concerns that can work themselves out on their own if they would only let them.

This book has allowed me to see how I can put this into play in my own life right now. How controlling everything and not allowing others to take on responsibility (and often forcing them too regardless of whether they want to or not) is truly in your best interest AND in their best interest resulting in motivation and challenge. Tim states, “It’s amazing how someone’s IQ seems to double as soon as you give them responsibility and indicate that you trust them.”

So, get this book if you’re interested in challenging yourself and seeing practical tips to increase productivity, limit wasteful and unimportant processes, coming up with new entrepreneurial ideas, and living life now (without ignoring responsibility) rather than presuming upon retirement to provide “the good life” in some distant fairytale.

4 Hour Work Week

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