Ordinary Radical Life

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.

   

Perseverance, Persistence and Determination

Persistence: The act of holding firmly and steadfastly to a purpose, state, goal, or undertaking despite obstacles, warnings, or setbacks.

Determination: The quality of mind which reaches definite conclusions; decision of character; resoluteness.

Perseverance: Persistent determination.

I think this is an important distinction because we can be persistent, but many times we do not persevere when faced with roadblocks. I think to persevere you must continue to fight the battle no matter what. I found this when running my first marathon. You get to a point where your body is sore and you feel like walking, but by focusing one mile at a time you break down 26.2 miles into a manageable distance. In life I believe you can persevere by breaking down problems or projects into smaller pieces. It is like the old saying, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Do our actions show our children that we can persevere?

Lessons Learned from "How Starbucks Saved My Life"

This week I had the joy of finding three hours of uninterrupted reading time on a flight from San Francisco to Dallas. This is rare that I find this much time in one day to dedicate towards reading. During this time I was thoroughly engaged in a story about how Starbucks saved this one gentleman's life, Michael Gates Gill. Being a frequent visitor and patron of Starbucks I found the story both interesting and entertaining. Michael Gill takes the reader into the daily operations of a Starbucks store located on Broadway in N.Y.C.. As I was reading I thought about the message that I wanted to share with my daughter from what I learned in this book and two lessons became evidently clear in my head.

First, the choices you make today have an impact on the where you end up tomorrow. You see Michael made some poor choices which he shares in the book. These choices lead to the destruction of his family unit and had a profound impact on his relationship with his children. The key point here is that you must always stop and think before you act. Consider the long term consequences in your decision making. This applies to so many things in life including drugs, alcohol, sex, and school and every other aspect of life.

Second, never give up and find work you are passionate about. Michael found Starbucks and not only a job, but a place where he was able to make friends and a job that he certainly enjoyed. I have had positions where I found it difficult to work because I did not have the passion and therefore I did not find the joy in life. Work is important and if you don't enjoy it, your life can be miserable.

Can you apply business concepts to becoming a better parent?

Is it possible to take concepts from business books and apply them to becoming a better parent? In many cases I believe so. Just look at how some of the best and most successful business books such as The 7 Habits of Highy Effective People which have been re-written with the focus on teens. My goal with this blog is to explore these concepts found in some of the top business books and see if I can find how I can apply these concepts towards becoming a better parent and teen coach. So hold on for the ride as we begin to dig into business and life.