3-3

I'm tired. Worn out even. Its late and I want to go to sleep. It seems like it would be a good idea to get into bed and close my eyes, but I think I'm going to put a little bit of thinking in before I pass out. The thing with thinking is that our imaginiations run away a lot of the time. I have that problem. I naturally go toward negative thinking. Most of the time I'm worying about things that don't even come to pass. As a matter of fact I have to say that all of the time I'm thinking about how things can go wrong. Even the most mundane things snowball into utter catastraphes in my mind. This drives a cycle in my life. Negative thoughts lead to negative actions which lead to negative results which fold back into proof for my negative thoughts. It doesn't seem to matter how many times I am successful or how many times I prove my negative thoughts wrong they are always there. I think this is what drives me to quit so many things in my life. I get excited about things and then I quit. I just let them go by the wayside and get dusty and then theres another thing I couldn't stick with. So, I'm working on positive self talk. Actually, the only reason I'm even writing this tonight is because I talked myself into it. There are so many things outside myself that are trying to get in my way of success, so why should I try to stop myself. Why should I believe the lies I tell myself. Starting a positive cycle of Thoughts/Action/Results is the best way to defeat myself. Getting bigger then the obsticles I have in my way. I can the just step over them and run into bigger obstacles. So, upperward and onward, and sleepward.

3-2

So, after my first day at the marina here things are going really well. We were able to get everything installed on all of their machines so tomorrow should be smooth sailing. I also like their merchant services. For the first time every it seems like this marina has a credit card processor who actually cares about them as a customer. I'm amazed. Normally it is worse then pulling teeth to get the cc stuff taken care of but it was so simple today. Then I had chinese food for dinner. Beef Lo-mein or something like that. Best egg roles I have had in a while.
Soooo, do you remember those vin-diagrams from when you were in school as a child. There were two things(ex. Wearing Pants and Being Happy) . Then the teacher would draw them up as circles and they would overlap(except in the example I just gave they don't really overlap). Anyway, This pas weekend I saw a vin-diagram that is part of a paradigm shift for me. In the first circle was Preperation and in the second circle was Opportunity. The part of the diagram where the two circles allign was shaded in and labled Success. The speaker went on to talk about how if the Preperation circle is too small then it doesn't matter how big the Opportunity circle is, they won't overlap to give you success. A revolution is what happens when a group of people are frustrated with the current situation. They are determined to thrash against the status quo to create ripples and tears in the rules others have setup to step out and create something new. It must be know that a revolution is going to be uncomfortable, sometimes down right painful, so get your whinning out first because when the firefight starts there is no time for complaining. You have started to rip free from standard that has been placed on you like a thick blanket. A revolution is not an overnight success. It takes time. It takes failure. It takes getting back up again. I'm reminded of Rocky Balboa. In the movies he failed round after round after round. Getting knocked down and bloodied up. People from the crowd yelled at him and told him to quit. If it was the previous champion, Mr. T, the russian or any other challenger, no one ever seemed to believe Rocky could win in the ring. But Rocky believed. He more then believed, he knew it was his destiny to walk out of that ring a champion, time and time again. He failed so many times during each round, getting knocked to the ground and beat to a pulp, but with all the technical mistakes he made he kept doing one thing right. He kept getting up. Any type of revolution, be personal, political, or economical, will take time to reach victory. The only way for a revolution to fail is for those fighting it to quit. I plan on finishing a marathon sometime this year and from what I hear there is a thing called a runners high. A point where the runners body kicks in and the endorphins take over. The runner begins to enjoy the pain and find it comforting because the body will release massive amounts of pain killers. The same is true of a revolution. As you get the hang of the changes being made you begin to enjoy the journey instead of worry about left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. You being to crave being outside your comfort zone. Those endorphines kick in and you are flying high. As you begin a revolution it is important to know that there will be critics telling you not to rock the boat. Telling you that you can't make the changes, that you can't make the difference. Be prepared for them to say things that cut deep, to your very heart even. Be prepared for critics to show up in the forms of firends and family. Be prepared to see a critic in the mirror looking back at you some mornings. It is not easy to fight a revolution. If the thought of critics turns you off then do nothing. Live the status quo life and don't break lose and soar high. Even though critics are trying to pull you down, don't worry you can still find the positive in them. If the things they are saying are true then check them out and fix what you need to and move on with your revolution. Don't stop running. The only way to lose is to quit. The only way to lose is to quit. The only way to lose is to quit. If the critics are spewing lies then ignore them. Let them fall to the wayside and strive forward toward the crown. As your revolution grabs hold in your everday life continue to learn. Growing your horizons so that your next level will never be enough. Learn to learn because that hunger will drive you to break through. Feel the hunger and grow your knowledge so that you are prepared for the oportunities that are going to show themself to you. You don't know what you don't know. So open your eyes and see the world in a whole new light as you step out and start the good fight.

3-1

This last weekend I went with my wife to St. Louis for three days. I know there are more the a couple people I know living there and I'm sorry that I didn't get an opportunity to see ya'll, but we spent the entire time at the Edward Jones Dome. So, if any of you were downtown this weekend and were suddenly swarmed by a lot of people wearing suits and red ties. Sorry about that. I ended up taking about half a legal pad worth of notes, which is less then usual, but I still think I got a lot of good information that I need to review.
I'm deciding to become a ferocious learner and this is the place where I'm going to try and work out the stuff I'm learning. For instance, this week I'm reading a book called Launching a Leadership Revolution. It sits pretty high on a couple of best seller lists and I have met the guys who wrote it. I read part of it once, but got distracted by other things in my life. So, this week on my business trip to Minneapolis I am going to read it all the way through. I'm also going to try and write about the stuff I'm reading so I can work it out on paper. A lot of the time my mind works things out that don't make sense but once I say them or write them out I realize how wrong the thoughts were.


P.S. The guys who wrote that book Chris Brady & Orrin Woodward have blogs at http://chrisbrady.typepad.com/ and http://orrinwoodward.blogharbor.com/ They have some really amazing stuff about leadership stuff and update their pages almost everyday.

2-4

Obligatory post so that I don't blow my attempt at posting everyday for the new year. Tomorrow is saturday so hopefully I will have some time to jot some things down.

2-3

Another day, another dollar. Or something like that. So, I've been using this website pandora.com and I like it a lot. It lets you select a band or song and based on the music genome project it selects more music for you. You then have the ability to Yes or No the music that is plays and it creates a unique radio station for you based on your preferences. It is pretty cool. So, today I read Matt 7:6-9:30. These are the worst breaks for doing this ever, but as I read along the breaks won't mater as much because I will start re-reading sections and things will start fitting together. Well, these couple of chapters finishes up the sermon on the mount. Normally this section feels really long, but no so much this time. I think the story of the centurion is a favorite of mine. Some where he came across the teachings of Jesus and realized that there was power not only in his spoken word, but also Jesus' actions. This early into Jesus' ministry this roman was able to see that Jesus had some awsome powers. I doubt I would have been as open minded or open eyed as this man. The part that strikes me is that we don't even know his name, he was just another soldier, yet here I am ~2000 years later writing about it in little electric 1's and 0's. Wondering about his family and his job and how he went about day to day. He left an amazing legacy of faith with only a 30 second conversation. 30 seconds. I hope I can live a life that will leave a legatcy of faith, even if it takes more then 30 seconds.

2-2

*ACK* The second day in and I almost didn't make it. That was a close one. Well, now I'm tired and don't feel like writing about anything today. Sooo, today I read Matthew 4:25 - 7:5. Interesting stuff. It includes the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. There are a lot of good teaching in there about a lot of things. I know that there are plenty of people who have done lots of stuff on the beatitudes, so I'm going to skip them this time around. Maybe in three months I'll write about them. What caught me as interesting today was 4:17. Jesus says Don't think I came to destroy the law, I came to fulfill it. That is an odd thing to say. Nothing in the red text up to that point sounds like anything that has anything to do with the law. Then he starts to talk about the permanency of the law. Just sounds like people have already started to talk about him behind his back and spread rumors, even at this early stage. I think there was something that got my gears going, but I can't remember it now. Maybe tomorrow I'll write at the same time I read. maybe.

2 - 1

Wow, that was a crazy year. All sorts of awesome stuff happened and I would sit down and write it all out for you, but that would take me a year. Then it would be 2009 and I would not have very many memories about it except that I had spent a year writing a blog entry about how much fun I had, new people I met, and debt I paid off. So, you may have noticed the title of this entry, 2-1. The 2 represents that this is my second attempt to write every day and the 1 is how many days in a row I have written. I think I'm going to try and keep this up for a while. I'm not big on naming thing, never named anything I wrote for school growing up, but I do like to name pets. Usually odd names that reference things I find fascinating, but am not really as knowledgeable as I like to think I am. So, 2008, what are my 2008 goals. Hmmmm. Well, one is to read the New Testament four times. I know that sounds like a lot, but it only involves about four-and-a-half chapters a day, and that is definitely do-able. I also want to write down my thought for every day and then I can go back and have four versions of my thoughts for any given day. I think that is what I am going to do in this space everyday. A little of blah blah blah, this is my everyday just like everyone else life and a little these are my thoughts. Ok, so I'm going to number these out so I don't write a paragraph for each one.

1. Read my bible everyday - Complete the New Testament every 3 months.
2. Re-distribute my weight.
3. Run a Marathon.
4. Go Shark Fishing in Florida.
5. Go Turbo 12.
6. Stop watching TV.
7. Write everyday. Read a dictionary.
8. Change the way I think.
9. Read books that will change the way I look at the world.
10. Learn to remember people's names.
11. Create a Daily Do List For Success and stick to it. Four items to be reviewed every seven days and two items to be review every day.
12. Modify my eating habits to reflect my desire to be around past the age of 28.

There I think that takes care of that.

So, today I read Matthew 1-4:23 and I had a couple of thoughts. The first thing that got me thinking(and writing the entry to begin with) was when Herod killed everyone two years old and younger. When Jesus and his family come back, is he the only one in his age group that is around once he comes back? I know that they started out in Bethlehem and ended up in Galilee but I don't know how far spread Herod's power was. So, I'm not sure how far the killing of all children new born to two was. The second thought I had was in 3:2 about John the Baptist and he said Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand and then in 4:17 Jesus starts his ministry and says Repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Not knowing Greek I don't know if that is actually the same phrase that is used. Anyone know? I'm looking at you Mark.
Third and finally, who is this prophet they keep referring to? 1:22, 2:5, 2:17, and 3:3 all talk about the prophet and what he said about the birth of Jesus. 4:14 talks about Isaiah the prophet, but I'm not sure the other verses mean Isaiah. Ok, well, I just started looking up the rest of those verses and they do appear to be from Isaiah. Hmm. Well, learn something new everyday.