Ordinary Radical Life

Inspiration from Henry Ford

1. Success is age independent.
2. Success is not formal education.
3. Success is fueled by failure.
4. Success is problem solving.
5. Success is overcoming competition.
6. Success is doing what you feel in your gut is right, despite public opinion.
7. Success is seeking out those who can help you with your goals.

Who in life do you want to benefit?

Who in life do you want to benefit? What people or groups of people you want to spend your life benefiting? Obviously, my first answer is my family. My family is and will always be my first priority and I want them to be safe, secure, and happy. This is a difficult concept for me though, because I don't think you can "make" others happy. I think they have to find happiness themselves. I think we get caught in that vicious cycle sometimes of measuring our happiness based upon what and how others in our life are. I think if you define success as creating happiness for others then you will never be successful. I think that is why studying success is important.

So when I think about who I want to benefit and those reasons they include.

1. My desire is to spend time with my family so that I can strengthen our family bond.
2. I want to leave a legacy of success and security for my daughter.
3. I want to be the best parent in the world.
4. I would like to be the best spouse I can be

These are lofty goals and ambitions and ones that I often fail at, but hopefully I find more success than failure.

Using Humor

There is no doubt that humor plays a huge role in my life, especially at work. One of the greatest books I have ever read about having fun at work is "Fish". I think the principles embeded in this book are fundamental to having a life full of joy and happiness. I still remember watching the video of the Fish people in Seattle throwing big pieces of fish around in front of the customer. Now how great would that be! This is one area I feel like I have down quite well. You can see it in the emails I send out at work. I think the only challenge is when I don't feel very good about other areas in my life, I tend to not show the humor side of my personality. I sure miss it when it is not there.

Being Grateful for the Gift of Today

I subscribe to Joel Osteen's email. Today he had a wonderful message to remember especially on Thanksgiving Day. I have always noticed that when I feel my heart and mind with gratitude, life just seems better in so many ways. Joel states in his email, "When you learn how to remain grateful every day you are developing a habit of happiness in your life. There is no such thing as an ordinary day. Every one of your days is a gift from God that is unique and irreplaceable. When you train your mind to see the good and discipline yourself to focus on the positive you'll be happier, rise higher, and live the life of victory that God has in store for you." If we can fill our children's mind with gratitude as well rather than jealousy, think how the world would change.

Where do you focus your time?

I read a great story this morning during my Bible study time. It talked about a story that has been told about Socrates holding a young wanna-be's head underwater and later asking him, "When you were under the water, what was the one thing you wanted more than anything else?" I wanted air" said the person. Then Socrates said, "When you want knowledge and understanding as badly as you wanted air, you won't have to ask anyone to give it to you." I need to remember this powerful image. Sometimes I feel like I get a little lazy. Anything good in life takes work and you have to develop a burning passion in order to want to be the best at anything -- especially acquiring knowledge. I need to spend less time watching TV. I need to bury myself in good books and current events, and then share this knowledge with family and friends... and even here on this blog.

Need some P.M.A.

Today I needed to remember to keep a positive mental attitude (PMA). I had one of those days where nothing seemed to work the way I would like it to. It is days like this that I need to remind myself how important it is to keep a PMA. I dug up some ideas that help in this area. Perhaps you might find them useful as well.

• Scrutinize every event in your life that appears negative and look for the positive. I recently experienced this in my own life with getting the Verizon FIOS installed. They had dug up all of my sprinklers while digging the trench to bury the cable. I could have got really upset and discouraged, but I found by viewing this as a learning experience and a chance to fix something I was able to turn a negative situation into a positive one. I think I have to balance this however because sometimes in situations like this it would be easy to be taken advantage of.
  
  Surround yourself with positive people. This is very difficult when there is so much negativity around. I believe you can find those people and develop friendships with them.
  
  Read and listen to positive, motivational and inspirational materials. I was excited to find out today that Pandora is streaming classical music now. I love Pandora and listen to it on a daily basis. I always find classical music soothing and relaxing so now having that available is absolutely wonderful. I am a lover of Pandora and would highly encourage anybody that likes music to check it out.
  
  Avoid morning and evening news before bedtime. No use in filling your head with the problems of the world.

Early to bed, early to rise...

This week is Thanksgiving break. Therefore, no school. Mornings for my daughter are filled with sleeping in and and then playing on the Wii. Since I am typically the only one up in the early morning I started to think about other people that also like to get up early.

Ben Franklin was a person I have always admired and enjoyed reading about. In an autobiography I read last year I remember reading how he focused on improving and keeping track of different areas in his life. It is funny how people have the same ideas today.  One aspect of his life that I did not know about was that he had 17 siblings. I guess I have always subscribed to Franklin's saying as well that early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. I wonder if he slept in the week of Thanksgiving too?

Working from home... a blessing or a curse?

Time magazine has a fascinating article and some statistics around the daily life of the average American. As I was looking at the statistics around daily commute time I couldn't help but think how blessed I am to have a job where I can work from home. When I first started working from home I thought I would have a difficult time, however, after almost two years now I find that I am much more productive. The drawback to working at home however is the fact that some days I don't know when to stop. I lose track of time and just keep on working until my wife tells me it is time for dinner. It will be interesting to see how many people have to commute by the time my daughter enters the business world. With technology and the ability to network in from pretty much any where I imagine that it will be a much different world. Regardless of whether you commute or work at home, take time to tell your kids that you love them when you see them. That perhaps is the best advice anyone can take away from this article.

People as an Asset

Many companies believe that people and employees are their greatest asset. After all, any service organization is only as good as the employees. What applies in business also applies to life and our personal relationships as well. The key question is what do we do on a daily basis to become a better parent or person? I would challenge you to find an area to improve every day. In order to become a professional at anything, it requires practice. My daughter plays the flute. It has been amazing to see her improve and how much quicker she improves with practice. A simple concept but one that I struggle with sometimes being a parent. It is a fact that kids sometimes don't want to practice. However, if we are not willing to put in the effort along the way we can never get to where we want to go. The Dip by Seth Godin reminds me of this fact. If you can work through the valley of practice when things get tough, you can climb to extraordinary heights in whatever you do.

Failure is the Seed to Success

"You always pass failure on the way to success."  - Mickey Rooney

A great quote and one that we should remember. Much of my reading lately seems to have a similar theme. Specifically around the idea that it is the journey that brings you happiness and not the destination. This holds true when considering the idea of failure. We can enjoy the process of learning and growing even if the end result is failure. If we learn from our mistakes we can still enjoy the journey and gain something valuable from it as well.

This is very true when it comes to starting to blog. There are thousands if not millions of blogs out there. Finding something that works and is of value will undoubtedly involve failure along the way. Very few people I would imagine our successful with blogging on their first try. It involves trying different things and discovering what works. The best thing in my opinion is the value of learning and meeting new friends along the way. One of my top five all time favorite bloggers is a gentleman, Dwayne Melancon, who is the brains behind Genuine Curiosity. Luck and fate brought us together last week at a conference in San Francisco. I live in Texas and he lives in Oregon so the chance of us both being in California at the same place and time was pretty cool. The opportunity to spend an hour in conversation with him was certainly one of the highlights of my trip. This part of the journey in blogging will be one I will always remember. I guess it is true that it is more important to enjoy the journey than the destination. I will have to make sure I share that thought with my daughter.