After many years of playing and teaching, I’ve dreamed of developing a guitar training course that includes the very best ear development and an understanding of the guitar that translates to an understanding of music and all genres. I wanted to get a student to the point that they could not only have a good understanding of chords, but chord structure, transposing songs from one key to another, and using a capo. I wanted to be sure that when they finished they could join a band, write their own music, or focus on their specific genre of interest. Rigorous private training would only come after having a good understanding of music, guitar, and various styles.

I noticed several problems within American music training and development of guitarists and other instrumentalists.
First problem: Why does it often take a student to get to the college level before they learn anything about music structure or theory? In my experience these basic concepts are so critical to development as a musician specifically when collaborating with other artists or creating your own music. The student ideally should learn this as they’re learning the basics if it could be taught in a simple way.

Second problem: In the same way a basketball coach can train athletes to play as a team a guitar teacher is a role model who mentors his students. These concepts are very important in an aspiring musician as there tends to be one of two kinds of musicians: 1) those that are all about the display of themselves, 2) those that are all about the music and sharing it with others.

Third problem: Why aren’t there more people serving in the church and community promoting music that is an accurate reflection of Christ and his people? Music is a form of consumption that we all know has a great effect on our emotions and spirit to the point of altering our actions. In essence, our heart’s emotion has a direct affect on who and what we worship.

I’ve taken a stab at solving each question with the creation of my guitar curriculum. I’ve been teaching this curriculum as I’ve been developing it and have seen overwhelming response and results from new to seasoned guitarists and musicians. If you want to learn, teach, or help coach guitarists and build up the church, there is an opportunity for you to partner with Ignite Guitar!
Please head over to the website for a look.

It’s really easy to play off this idea that we don’t envy him by pointing to social justice or some other worthy cause other than our own personal vendettas. And yet everything we see seems to point to a man who knows how to lead his family well and have faith in something bigger than himself. No doubt he figured something out when he was the head of the company that provided him lots of wealth. Why don’t we consider these principles noteworthy?

If you want money, don’t envy the guy who made it and go vote for the guy who wants to take it.

Yes, people need to give. But, how and who we give to is more important than giving blindly. Are we talking social justice or social “handout”? Give the man a break. Don’t judge people on the wrong principles. It seems that Romney has proven himself that he’s done a few things right and until he proves otherwise we shouldn’t envy him for his income accumulation…we might should consider him a worthy individual for getting us out of a debt cycle that is sure to ruin our economy.

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!

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.

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.

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

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?

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 prayer
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!

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.