Recently I’ve been rethinking how I feel about work and jobs. As you may or may not know, I help business owners solve technology and marketing problems, which gives me some freedom to choose who I work with and when. I don’t have fixed hours and if I work more, I can get paid more, but it’s not all roses and cherry blossoms.

When you run your own business, while you may earn more, much of your work is doubled or even tripled. Not only do you have to do the work, but you have to go earn it, and then process all the finances, documentation, and taxes on the back end. In a traditional job environment the work is handed to you and you just do it. When it’s done, someone else processes it. Your work is finite and so is your pay.

A Paradigm Shifts Again

For ten years I worked full time jobs in banking and technology, and I always would told myself I’d be happier running my own business until one day I did. I started off running it on the side in 2007 and in 2011 I finally went full time. I do web design with HTML, CSS, and WordPress, email support with web hosts and Google Apps, and computer and network support for Microsoft products like Windows and Server 2003/2008.

While I have been successful at running my own business, there are two reasons why I’ve recently began applying for jobs in the Indianapolis market. The first reason is because I realized that the ideas I had about working hard now in order to do much less later were not realistic. I didn’t even realize I had this mentality until after a couple of months had gone by and I discovered that there will never be a time when I’m doing ‘nothing’. I’ll always be doing something, so why not just spend some time figuring out what I want to do, not just what I can find a job doing.

The second reason I began looking for jobs in the Indianapolis area was because I realized that it didn’t matter who I was doing the work for, as long as I was enjoying what I was doing. Even as a business owner, I have a boss. I have clients, my wife, and my Lord to report to. It’s not just willy nilly around here. I have to meet or exceed all of their expectations just as I would have to in a traditional job scenario – only more so because while the rewards are higher, so are the risks. There are no written warnings with clients, just lost opportunities in the future.

You Are a Startup

A friend of mine, Jason Cobb, recently coined a term, “You are a startup,” meaning that whatever you’re doing, do it like a startup. But what is a startup? A startup is traditionally a software company that is rapidly trying to create a product that is useful and monetizeable as fast as they can. It normally involves a small team consisting of a leader, a technical co-founder, and a marketer. These roles could all be one person, or it could be five people, but the point is that it’s a small team pushing out useful iterations of a product with the hopes of expanding very fast once a market can’t live without it.

So how does a startup mentality apply to you? Whether you are working for a client or for a company as an employee, you must be producing stuff that matters, you must be a leader, and you must be marketing yourself. This means listening to your customers and getting feedback, getting to know your fellow employees, and continuing your education (via meetups, books, or traditional training).

As I wrote about in 13 More Books for Every Entrepreneur, Reid Hoffman, (co-founder of LinkedIn) together with Ben Casnocha (entrepreneur and author) have written a book about managing your career as if it were a start-up business: a living, breathing, growing start-up of you. The thesis is that the same skills startup entrepreneurs use, professionals need to get ahead today.

Now that I’ve experienced running my own business, I no longer look down on the traditional 9-to-5 job because I know that I can have impact either way and still accomplish my goals of learning, growing, and taking care of my family.

12 Month Goals (and Roadmap)

I recently subscribed to a blog I’ve been reading since 2008 called I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. Today he sent out a link to a PDF with a 12 Month Goals Roadmap worksheet, very similar to Michael Hyatt’s Life Plan. I’d like to share my answers here.

1. What will you be doing for work? – Editing HTML, CSS, and PHP; Converting static HTML web pages into dynamic CMS blogs; converting clients from POP email access to Google Apps; training users on how to use WordPress; Affiliate Marketing; Computer Network Troubleshooting and Repair

2. What’s your boss (or the person to whom you’ll be accountable) like? – Gives me feedback; Challenges me; Considers me an expert in what I do; Trusts my decisions; Considers my feedback

3. Where will you be working? – The Greater Indianapolis area, preferably along US 31, Keystone Ave, or 465; In an office with time allocated to work in blocks without interruption,  the ability to get up and walk around or go outside for a walk; And good Mexican, Chinese, and Thai food nearby.

4. How much time do you spend working? – 10 hours a day, 70 hours a week.

5. What does your Monday look like? – Reading and sharing emails until noon, viewing reports, and responding to client requests.

If anyone is interested in using my services or would just like to get together for coffee, please don’t hesitate to email me or follow me on Twitter.

This is one of those personal blog posts, if you’re interested in reading more about me specifically, try this one next or not, it’s your life.

Managing Actions, February 2009

We have gone through several changes in the last year including a major facelift, a name change, an identity crisis, and now a new way forward.  It’s time we stop managing our thoughts and start to manage our actions.

From now on you can expect to find fresh content daily on subjects ranging from self-development to happiness, from management to marketing, and from pop-culture to programming.  Where else can you find out how to delete a Digg submission and how to live a purpose-filled life in the same blog?

Zac and I are passionate about life and we want to help you become more of a success than you already are.  If you’re reading this article right now you have already chosen the first step in learning more about yourself, your purpose, and your life.

We want to inspire you, motivate you, and lift you up so that you can go do whatever it is that makes you feel strong.  Be better tomorrow than you were today.  Move up in the world.  Get exited about life.  Find your spirit and develop it.

Thank you for reading Managing Actions.  We are glad that you are a part of our life and look forward to bringing you great content for a long time.  Cheers.

How to Identify Strengths and Revenue Streams

I need to make $8,000 to $10,000 (depending on what measurements, more on that later) in 2-4 weeks. This is how much I need in order to get back on my feet, financially. I have a day-job as a business analyst, but it doesn’t bring in enough to pay for my daily expenses, let alone the other events like car insurance, BMV taxes, speeding tickets, hospital visits, and car wrecks that happen along life’s path. This also leaves out any fun, gift giving, or getaways that a normal person might want to do. I decided to do something impactful on the bottom line. I needed to stop the cycle of overdrafts, late fees, and the risk of losing my cars, home, and other assets. I needed a plan.

Triage

The first thing I did was to get organized.  Personally, this is how I solve every problem.  I continue to organize it until there are no more problems within the problem.  In essence, I create a system.  The system then solves the problem.  This may not be the most effective way to solve a problem, but it is how my mind works and it is one of my strengths.  I feel strong whenever I am categorizing things, especially when I have to name or rename things in order to categorize them.  As a side note, I encourage you to ask yourself what makes you feel strong, then to write that down.  In the same way, notice what makes you feel weak (this is a weakness) and write that down too.  Then, start to do more of what makes you feel strong (your strengths) and less of what makes you feel weak.

Getting back to the problem at hand, I began by simply listing out all of my daily expenses in a Google Spreadsheet (by the way, if you ever need help setting up Google Apps or using Google Docs, I am your man, just leave a comment and I’ll be able to contact you from there).  Amazingly, I had not been doing this, but instead, paying bills as they came.  I had no idea how much money was coming in or how much money was going out.  If I wanted to know how much money I had, I logged into online banking and whatever the balance was, that was how much money I had.  I’m astounded about how many people manage their finances this way, or maybe it was just the people I was hanging around (more on that later).

Analysis

Once I had all of the bills, debts, and income listed out on a spreadsheet, I could start to do my analysis.  It wasn’t pretty.  I was getting snapped by late fees, overdue fees, and loads of interest charges.  I could save a boatload of money just by getting my bills caught up and paid on time.  And if I could get debt free, I could save even more on minimum payments, not to mention the interest.  In general, the faster you pay something off, the less interest you pay.  I had listened to enough Dave Ramsey to know that I needed to have a budget, start an emergency fund, and begin the debt snowball.  The question I had was how to do all of this when your budget is already negative?  One idea is to rotate the late payments so no one payment gets so late that you are either sued, leaned, garnished, or repossessed from.  I noted this as a possible solution, but saw it as more feeble than just trying to increase revenue, while keeping expenses low.  And that is exactly what I decided to do.

Start

I did not wait to do anything.  I knew that time was of the essence to as soon as I identified the next step, the next step was taken as soon as I was able to take it.  This sounds easy, but it is highly contingent on your motivation, your energy, and your measurements.  You might know what you need to do, but not want to do it.  This is a motivation issue.  Or you might want to do something you know you need to, but you don’t have the energy because there is only so much time in a day.  Then there is measurement, which shows what you value.  You can’t manage what you’re not measuring and whatever you are measuring will grow, so picking the right metrics and the right measurements is crucial to managing and growing your personal finances.

Motivation

I am using a variety of sources to help motivate me towards my goal of achieving $8,000 to $10,000 in 2 to 4 weeks.  One resource is TED Talks.  TED is a website of inspiring videos of entrepreneurs, teachers, futurists, and writers.  When I am feeling less motivated, I simply browse to ted.com and watch a video or two until I am sufficiently motivated to be more like that person, whom I view as successful.  In the same way, Karl Moore videos also inspire me to take action.  I discovered Karl Moore while doing the Thirty Day Challenge where he does “Mindset with Karl.”  The motivational videos mention the Thirty Day Challenge, but can stand alone on their own merit as truly helpful videos.  Karl Moore also writes books on happiness and self-development like The 18 Rules of Happiness and The Secret Art of Self-Development.

My children, or more specifically, my children’s desires are another source of motivation.  As I wrote in 4 Steps from Wanting to Receiving, having to decide what I can and can’t buy my children at the gas station is not a good feeling for me.  I would like to be able to choose what candy to buy them for health reasons rather than financial ones.  For some reason, this exercise motivates me more than any late fee ever will.

Energy

We all get the same amount of time each day, but because of our body’s limitations, energy is finite.  This means that energy must be spent in the most useful way as much as possible.  At my day job we would call this “utilization”.  While production is the sheer amount produced, utilization is production mapped against time, in other words it is how much was produced (how productive were you) in a given amount of time.  That is your utilization rate, which energy (and motivation) can play a large part in.  Managers wanting to more fully utilize their employees might want to invoke actions that either increase energy levels (by say rearranging a department based on strengths, not just needs) or increasing incentives (positive or negative). I have written a post on Ways to Stay Alert and Focused, but there is an entire site called Stay Alert, which has ways to stay alert and keep you energized.

After approximately 10 hours of working and drive times, I had approximately 3 hours of energy left to do work at home or somewhere else each day.  In order to be successful, I am going to use motivation in order to spend an additional hour each day in order to achieve this goal in 2 to 4 weeks.  To do this, after reading Stay Alert, I am going to be eating more fruits in the morning, more whole grains at night, and less or no meat for supper in order to stay energetic as I can throughout the day.

Measurement

The Law of Focus states that whatever you are focusing on (measuring) will grow.  In Management, Measurement, and Value I note that there is a clear link between value and measurement in that what you measure you also value.  You could say that a measurement of your values is in what you are measuring.  If you, as a manager, are only tracking stats on whether or not your staff shows up on time or not, then your staff will probably show up on time daily.  It shows that you only care (value) about whether or not they are there, but past that point, you are out of the loop.  Contrast that with the manager who tracks personal performance daily to get the utilization rate of each individual staff member, which he can do after implementing the staffing model I developed for his department.  Each staff member is now performing highly and if they come in late, it doesn’t matter, so long as they maintain their personal productivity numbers.

So what did I decide to measure? Remembering that what you measure will grow, I decided not to measure how much debt I owed.  Instead, I measured net worth, income (revenue), profit, and savings.  I also made another Google Spreadsheet which listed all of my assets, all revenue streams, the profit of each revenue stream, and savings from reducing a debt.  Every day, I would log into the various websites which contained information about my metrics and update the spreadsheet with new values.  Because my mind was focused on net worth, revenue, profit, and savings, I consciously and subconsciously began taking actions to increase those numbers.  In the same way that a manager sees improvement in whatever he or she measures in their  department, I would see improvement in my net worth, revenue, profit, and savings simply by measuring them.

Actions

Now that I have identified the problem ($8,000 to $10,000 in 2 to 4 weeks), identified the tools I have available (time, motivation, and energy),  and identified what metrics we are going to use to measure success, the first phase of this goal is complete.  You might call the first phase of research and discovery, “Analysis,” and this next phase, “Execution.”  In the same way that an idea is first created in the mind of man, then written down, and finally designed; it does not take shape until it is developed, manufactured, or implemented.  This second phase is what most people would consider the meat, the actions, the specifics.  It is where you actually do what you say you are going to do.  It’s the “fire” part of “ready, aim, fire.”

I began by doing a cost-benefit analysis of what activities would net the most gain in the metrics I had chosen.  I identified the resources I had available (the tools), which were my day job, a business that does business consulting in Indiana, an Indianapolis web design company, an Indianapolis coworking group, a DVD conversion blog and an Indiana VHS to DVD business, a blog about query string parameters, doing Indianapolis computer repair, helping my wife with her custom hand-knit wool clothes business or her blog about breastfeeding and Motivated Moms, helping Zac with his cognitive psychology training and discussion on what it means to be human, promoting the Erich Stauffer figurines web site, getting another side job, or having a garage sale.  My wife or children could also get a job or create more revenue for the family.  All options would be considered in order to achieve the goal.  This was a brainstorming exercise, which I’ll discuss with you later on to help you decide what activities you could do in order to achieve your goals, but first I’ll discuss how I did my cost-benefit analysis.

Costs and Benefits

It is easiest sometimes to decide what you are not going to do so I first struck the last choices having to do with my children and wife working.  My wife is a stay-at-home mom, but she also home-schools our three children, is a member of La Leche League, and the president of her local Alpha Chi Omega chapter – in addition to knitting for her Cloth Beginnings business.  I also decided not to help other people with their businesses because they don’t care about my goal as much as I do.  This strikes out my day job, computer repair, Zac’s business, and my wife’s business.  While one may want to support a business that is already doing well (defined as profitable – having more revenue than expenses) in the same way that you have the greatest chance at developing a strength you already have than by fixing a weakness, knowing the following information helped me with my decision.  While my day job is a profitable business, it just gave me a raise in July for the year and so is not likely to give me another one and it is not currently allowing any overtime.  Therefore, this opportunity is maxed out.  If I find an opportunity that reaps more revenue than this avenue in my cost-benefit analysis, I may scrap this job altogether.  The other businesses are either not profitable or are sole proprietor shops where the owner wields much influence.  The time it would take to both motivate the owner and get decisions made is longer than the time I have allotted for my goal (if ever).

After striking those choices, I could then analyze what was left over much easier.  This is the same technique used in the TLC show, Clean Sweep, where the first step in the organizational process is figuring out what you don’t need.  In Clean Sweep, the first step was dividing everything in their house into two piles: trash or keep.  This was the first sort.  The next sort moved everything from the keep pile onto a keep pile or a sell pile.  Only the things left in the keep pile went back into the house.  Even if items did not sell, if it went to the sell pile, it didn’t come back in the house.  Troubleshooting can work the same way.  Let’s say you are troubleshooting a broken computer.  One “pile” would be hardware problems, the other “pile” would be software problems.  Once you decide the problem is hardware and not software related, you then do a fine sort to find out whether the problem is with the hard drive or RAM (memory), for example.  In this case, the following choices remain, which must be analyzed using the fine sort method:

1. Watershawl, Inc. – business consulting, computer (technology) consulting, Internet marketing, graphic design, web development, web design, hosting, SEO, and online advertising.
2. Nook Share – a website about Nook covers.

I created two units of criteria in order to decide which pile the above revenue streams would be placed in.  Remembering the goal to make $8,000 to $10,000 in 2 to 4 weeks, I made the following rules: 1) it must be currently making revenue and 2) it must have the potential to make more revenue than it is currently making.  Again, we strike those activities which don’t meet the criteria.  Watershawl, Inc. and Nook Share both failed the first criteria and Erich Stauffer doesn’t have enough global search traffic in order to make more revenue than it is already making so that left Watershawl, DVD Conversion, Turn Film, and Query String Parameters.  The next criteria is time.  What is the sales cycle on revenue? Will the money be able to come within the next 2-4 weeks? Watershawl’s sale cycle is on average, 2 months, whereas DVD Conversion, Turn Film, and Query String Parameters are all Internet marketing businesses, which rely on affiliate marketing or pay-per-click advertising for revenue.  As soon as ad account levels reach certain levels ($100 on average) they pay out within 2 weeks.  I had just exited the business consulting, computer repair, and web design business for the Internet marketing business.

Identifying Strengths and Streams

I realize that since you are not in the same situation as me that the above-mentioned example may not be of good use so I wanted to explain to you how you can brainstorm to find your “strengths and streams.” “Strengths” are the opposite of weaknesses.  Weaknesses make you feel weak, whereas strengths make you feel strong.  “Streams” refers to revenue streams, which is any and all the ways in which you can or have made money in the past.  Brainstorming is the act of recording as many different ideas as possible in a short time without criticizing them as you go.  Save the criticizing (analysis) for after the brainstorming session.  Sometimes bad ideas can help you think of good ideas, so write down any idea that comes to you during this time.  Ready? Here we go. Answer the following questions in order to help you identify your “strengths and streams”:

What makes you feel strong? What makes you feel weak?

What activities are you not just good at, but also feel good doing?

What revenue streams do you have, no matter how large or small?

What are some ways you have made money in the past, which you no longer do?

What are some areas or ideas of things you have thought of doing, but for one reason or another never got around to doing?

Have you noticed any changes in technology lately that would make something easier for someone to do something?

Have you noticed a change in the demographics around where you live that might open a possibility for a new product or service?

Have you noticed any “cuckoos in the nest” where something that wasn’t supposed to happen did, or something was an unexpected success?

Have you noticed any examples of something that was supposed to succeed, but didn’t? What could you do to adapt to this new reality?

When I was young I used to collect aluminum cans to recycle for money.  As I got older I collected antiques to resell.  Later on I bought books to resell online or through local book dealers.  These were all retail activities which involved both labor and a product.  Eventually I started trading labor for revenue, which is called service.  I began doing computer repair and web design.  Eventually people began paying me for my advice and I became a business analyst.  Internet marketing is a mix of product and service because you are using your labor to help sell a product that you yourself do not deliver.  The service is in the promotion, marketing, and advertising of the product.  Anyone can do this using the free tools like the Thirty Day Challenge and other websites like Managing Actions which teach you how to be more effective by first changing how you think, in order to change how you act.

Limiting Factors

In order to be successful, you’ll need to overcome obstacles.  The first obstacle you’ll face is your own limiting thoughts so you’ll need to know how to deal with those right away.  An example of a negative thought is, “I can’t raise $8,000 to $10,000 in 2 to 4 weeks.  That’s impossible.” The first step is to realize that you are having a limiting thought, acknowledge it, then let it go.  Just because your brain creates a thought, doesn’t make it true.  Learn to manage your thoughts in order to manage your actions.

The second factor is the people you associate with.  In the same way that you have a greater chance of smoking if you live or hang around smokers or that you have a greater chance of gaining weight if the person or people you live with or work around are already overweight, if the people you hang around or not successful, are not following their dreams, or do not have multiple streams of income, then they are a limiting factor.  If you want to change, then you’ll need to spend less time with these people.

Next Steps

Every meeting should have two things: minutes and action items.  We have just had a meeting here.  This article is our minutes.  The action items are as follows:

Erich: use all available tools and resources to build and promote the identified websites in order to profit from Internet Marketing.

You: take some time to define the problems you are having, where you want to go, and what you want to accomplish, this will become your goal.

Erich: measure the success or failure of the Internet Marketing campaign, determined by the metric, revenue per man-hour.

You: brainstorm to identify your “strengths and streams” – find what makes you strong and what makes you weak, then write down all forms of income past and present.

Erich: update the personal finance measurements with increased net worth, revenue, profit, and savings from the Internet Marketing campaign.

You: manage your thoughts in order to better manage your actions. Notice when you are having a limiting thought, acknowledge it, then let it go.

Summary

This is not a get rich quick scheme.  This is about how to set a goal, make a plan, and execute (ready, aim, fire).  There is no “thing” that can make you rich, if that is your goal.  There is only you.  Mitch Hedberg said it best when he joked, “I bought a jump rope — but man, that thing’s just a rope. You have to do the jump part yourself.” [Thanks, Johnny] No blog, no self-help book, and no business can help you succeed more than a determination and drive within yourself.  If that is missing, everything else is just a rope.

Not all avoidance is bad. Sometimes it can be good so long as the timing and time spent allows us to evaluate our circumstances, brainstorm, and/or review technological changes like we wrote about in Determining Your Purpose in Life or Process.

Sometimes creative avoidances can not only be justified, but altogether useful.  For example, avoiding an assignment by taking a walk can be good for your health. And doing chores that need done anyway before doing the the thing in which you are trying to avoid can be good as long as the chores actually needed to get done and you don’t spend your entire allotted time doing them.

Usually, creative avoidance involves choosing one activity over another that might be deemed worthy by an outside party, such as joining the military, but inside you know that the real reason you joined was because you had just broken up with someone and you wanted to get away.  You will still benefit from the military, regardless of the motive.

But, sometimes creative avoidance involves a guilty pleasure in the act of choosing. For example, Jake goes out dancing to avoid doing his homework, and then is unable to complete his homework the next day because he is hungover. We might question if that avoidance choice was creative or dysfunctional, in other words, what was the intent or motive?

How to Know the Difference Between Creative and Dysfunctional Avoidance

To help determine if you or someone else is using avoidance creatively or dysfunctionally, ask the following questions:

1. Is the activity freeing or binding? Does this activity allow you to avoid something you don’t like?

2. Is the activity beneficial or empowering? Does this activity produce anything that will help you or anyone else?

Answering the question restates the avoidance, which helps us be aware of what motivates our actions.  In this way we can better manage our actions. An en example of a restatement is:

I’m choosing to do this instead of that right now, so that I can return to that when I’m ready with clarity, courage, and a fresh set of eyes.

It is possible to change our thought process in order to change our actions. We can stop dysfunctional avoidance completely if we pay attention to what is real and less of our intuition. If it helps you, start a journal recording when you begin to think of something to do instead of what you’re “supposed” to be doing – and your motivations for doing so or reasons why you didn’t give in.

Creative avoidance can be an adventure, but it can also cost you valuable time and energy. Learning to manage our thoughts and actions helps us see the patterns we can develop in our lives, which gives us the tools and ability to change.

People at the top of every profession share one quality — they get things done. This ability supercedes intelligence, talent, and connections in determining the size of your salary and the speed of your advancement.

Despite the simplicity of this concept there is a perpetual shortage of people who excel at getting results. The action habit — the habit of putting ideas into action now — is essential to getting things done. Here are 7 ways you can grow the action habit:

1. Don’t wait until conditions are perfect – If you’re waiting to start until conditions are perfect, you probably never will. There will always be something that isn’t quite right. Either the timing is off, the market is down, or there’s too much competition. In the real world there is no perfect time to start. You have to take action and deal with problems as they arise. The best time to start was last year. The second best time is right now.

2. Be a doer - Practice doing things rather than thinking about them. Do you want to start exercising? Do you have a great idea to pitch your boss? Do it today. The longer an idea sits in your head without being acted on, the weaker it becomes. After a few days the details gets hazy. After a week it’s forgotten completely. By becoming a doer you’ll get more done and stimulate new ideas in the process.

3. Remember that ideas alone don’t bring success – Ideas are important, but they’re only valuable after they’ve been implemented. One average idea that’s been put into action is more valuable than a dozen brilliant ideas that you’re saving for “some other day” or the “right opportunity”. If you have an idea the you really believe in, do something about it. Unless you take action it will never go anywhere.

4. Use action to cure fear – Have you ever noticed that the most difficult part of public speaking is waiting for your turn to speak? Even professional speakers and actors experience pre-performance anxiety. Once they get started the fear disappears. Action is the best cure for fear. The most difficult time to take action is the very first time. After the ball is rolling, you’ll build confidence and things will keep getting easier. Kill fear by taking action and build on that confidence.

5. Start your creative engine mechanically – One of the biggest misconceptions about creative work is that it can only be done when inspiration strikes. If you wait for inspiration to slap you in the face, your work sessions will be few and far between. Instead of waiting, start your creative motor mechanically. If you need to write something, force yourself to sit down and write. Put pen to paper. Brainstorm. Doodle. By moving your hands you’ll stimulate the flow of ideas and inspire yourself.

6. Think in terms of now - Focus on what you can do in the present moment. Don’t worry about what you should have done last week or what you might be able to do tomorrow. The only time you can affect is the present. If you speculate too much about the past or the future you won’t get anything done. Tomorrow or next week frequently turns into never. As Ben Franklin said, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”

7. Get down to business immediately – It’s common practice for people to socialize and make small talk at the beginning of meetings. The same is true for individual workers. How often do you check email or RSS feeds before doing any real work? These distractions will cost you serious time if you don’t bypass them and get down to business immediately. By becoming someone who gets to the point you’ll be more productive and people will look to you as a leader.

It takes courage to take action without instructions from the person in charge. Perhaps that’s why initiative is a rare quality that’s coveted by managers and executives everywhere. Seize the initiative. Be a crusader. When you have a good idea, start implementing it without being told. Once people see you’re serious about getting things done they’ll want to join in. The people at the top don’t have anyone telling them what to do. If you want to join them, you should get used to acting independently.

I’m in Kokomo, IN this week, at a branch just off of US 31. I drove by this branch on the way to Niles, MI back in 1999 on the way to Michiana Christian Service Camp. The camp cook often visited a past family member at the graveyard just down the street from my home at the time in Franklin, IN. The son of the camp director left at the end of the summer to attend Milligan College in Tennessee. The next year, I’d leave Kentucky Christian College for Milligan College with my friend, Ben. By then, the camp director’s son had left.

While at Milligan College, I visited friends from Kentucky Christian College now attending Ball State University in Muncie, IN, Jason and Derek. The next semester I moved to Muncie and roomed with Jason and Derek in Jason’s home. I tried applying for a job at First Merchants Bank, but they were closed on Martin Luther King Day. I opened a free checking account at Old National Bank. Two months later Jason got a job there and married Krista. Derek and I had to move out into our own apartment. In June of 2001 I drove through Tipton, IN on my way to meet my brother in Lafayette, IN. He worked for Purdue University. That same month Derek began working for Old National too. The next month, I met my future wife in Tipton and also began working for Old National.

That August I began school at Ball State. By mid-semester, Derek met his future wife, Shannon. In December Jason, Derek, and I were given the choice to be laid off or transferred to Indianapolis. Our plant was closing down in Muncie. Jason left Old National for First Merchants Bank. Derek stayed in Muncie and got laid off. I stayed with Old National and moved to Indianapolis, transferring to IUPUI. There I worked with my roommate from Milligan, Ben. I also met Jake, who left to attend Purdue. I visited Jake a year later in Lafayette. He had just met a girl the night before, who he later married.

Ben left Old National in 2004 after a lawn mower accident cut off part of one of his fingers. Derek later moved to Indianapolis with his wife, Shannon, and began teaching. He works part-time for Old National in the evenings. In June of 2007 I left Old National Bank and in June of 2008 I began working for First Merchants Bank with Jason, which brings me back to why I’m sitting in a branch in Kokomo on the edge of US 31, where I passed 9 years prior, on my way to Michigan.

How do you feel right now? Are you tired? Maybe a little hungry? Do you need to use the restroom? Are you reading this because you are bored? These are all reasons I have used to get out of working or doing whatever it is I was supposed to be doing at the time. In school I would wait or arrange for conditions to be perfect before ever starting on a homework assignment, which meant that I hardly ever did them (or at least did them well).

How comfortable do you think your muscles get when you work out lifting weights or when you run or jog? How comfortable does your mind get when it is forced to think new thoughts, create new solutions, or solve problems? Before your muscles can grow, they have to expand and rip. And when your mind learns a new thought, it creates a little ripple in your brain. It has to ripple because its expanding, just like your skin gets rippled when it soaks up water in the tub or the pool.

In the same way, getting out of your comfort zone will help you expand and grow your self as a person. You may have heard preachers or motivational speakers talk of going out on a limb, having faith, trusting in yourself, or pushing the envelope. T. Harv Eker says that if you are not growing, you are dying. This may be an extreme example, but it helps set the tone of what I am trying to convey to you.

If you never try anything new, how can anything new happen to you? If you don’t like where you are now, then get moving and do something else. You are probably not being forced to do something or live somewhere. It may be your current situation, but it does not have to be your future situation. T. Harv Eker talks about the “corridor,” which is the area just inside the field in which you would like to enter. Even if you don’t get exactly where you want to go, it begins by getting your foot in the door, or simply put, taking that first step.

Sometimes the first step is the hardest. This is when your mind is filling your spirit with lead by pouring out it’s unlimited supply of limiting thoughts. Learn the mechanisms to recognize and let go of limiting thoughts. Your thoughts are your own and can be manipulated how you see fit. Nothing has meaning unless you assign it meaning. Just because you have a thought does not make it real or valid or worth keeping. Learn to let it go and start to cultivate the thoughts that support the position you want to be in. Get out of your comfort zone.

Try Something New

Tomorrow, take a different path to school, to work, or to the public library. Make it a point to talk to one person you’ve never met and ask them at least three questions about themselves. Pay attention to your thoughts. Only allow thoughts that support whatever your goals are. Thoughts that work against you, realize that they are not true, then let them go. If you do these things you are on a path towards a life that is closer to your new reality and your goals. You have taken the first step.

Converse to magnetism, in life, like objects tend to attract like objects. Good attracts good that the same way bad can attract bad. Trips to the doctor beget trips to the hospital and so on. Have you ever heard the expression that the more money you have, the more money you’ll make? That’s because money also attracts more money.

Pay attention to the thoughts you have right now. Are they good thoughts or bad thoughts? Are they thoughts of growth and improvement or limiting thoughts or thoughts of despair. How do we know what thoughts in our head are true and which ones we just placed there? Just because you have a thought in your head, doesn’t mean it’s true.

If you follow this thought out a little further you can see that if your thoughts are not true, then you can place thoughts there that are more fitting to your desired outcome. Some self-help books call this “self talk”. Some people view this as lying to yourself. I am proposing that your mind is always lying to yourself, so why not use the thoughts that it is telling you for good instead of detriment?

Let’s take a moment to go back to the thought about like attracting like and view some specific examples in science, nature, and in social settings.  If you grab a glass of water, then drop some oil in it, watch as the oil at first dissipates, then collects back together as the molecules are more attracted to each other than to the water.  Now, go outside, find a lake or pond and watch as the fish congregate together or how the “birds of a feather flock together”.  And lastly, visit a high school cafeteria and see how the children naturally segregate into various groups among the tables.

It’s the same way with adults and in life.  Rich people are more comfortable hanging around rich people. Poor people are more comfortable hanging around poor people.  It’s not that they can’t or don’t mix, but there is a level of uncomfortableness with this mixing.  I’ll be discussing comfortableness in a following post, but for right now I just want you to see how like objects are naturally attracted to like objects.

Now that you can see how it is naturally occurring, can you see how money naturally attracts more money?  Let me give you some practical examples by starting with nothing.  A man goes out and offers his services in return for pay.  This person is now considered experienced at what he does and can advertise this fact in either a resume or in an advertisement.  The man is now able to offer his service for a higher pay or in higher volume, thereby making more money.  This is active income, but if he manages his money well, the money will begin accruing passive income through savings and investments.  This man has now gone from having nothing to having something by doing one thing well and attracting more of it.

You may have heard of Dave Ramsey’s debt snowball.  Well the snowball is an example of like attracting like.  Paying down debt begets paying down more debt.  And once the debt is gone, the snowball can then turn into a snowball that instead of “beating debt” begins to “build wealth,” as Dave would say.  I highly encourage you to check out Dave Ramsey’s books.  They have helped many people create a plan for how to get control of your personal finances.  Dave likes to say that if you don’t manage your money, your money will leave you.  This is akin to the idea of what you don’t manage, you don’t value, which is what I recently blogged about in The Law of Focus.

The Law of Focus is much about like attracting like. Because you are focusing on something, measuring it, and valuing it, when you come across more of it, you will collect it or because you are so fond of it, others will bring it to you. This could be in the form of more work or just word of mouth (free advertising). For example, just like in the story of the man who had nothing and began offering up services, once you start down a path, people around you notice your path, and start to help make it straight for you. This is only natural. For those who don’t know which path to go down, that is the subject of a future blog post.

Cheers!

I always looked up to Zac at college.  He was cool and people liked him.  I can only remember talking to him once my freshman year.  He and I were both standing in line to make our own omelets.  I was wearing a Plank Eye shirt at the time and somehow we started talking about the band.  I was amazed to find out that he was best friends with the drummer, who had quit the band to go to college.  I had seen the band for the first time, sans-drummer, in Chicago with The Prayer Chain during a reunion tour.  That is where I got the t-shirt.   I don’t remember ever talking to him again, but I do remember his role in John Mann’s play our sophomore year.  It started with Zac tilting his head all the way back in class as if he was asleep or bored.  Mann had the play start in a freeze-frame.  I later went on to study film with Mann at Milligan, but that is another story.  This one is about the Gristmill at Spring Mill State Park.

In June of 2008, our friend Brian Reid, was killed in an automobile accident along with his wife, Jenna.  I and some friends had posted some video of Brian Reid on Youtube, which is actually how we found out he died.  People who went to church with Brian started writing comments about how much they would miss him and how they were glad “they went together.”  One of those to comment was Zac and I ended up striking up a conversation with Zac really for the first time.  Zac was actually in one of the Brian Reid videos, entitled Never Let You Go (which audio has been removed from for copyright infringement).  I don’t know if I ever told Zac this, but I was really upset to find out that Brian had been living less than an hour from my house and I didn’t even know it.  Brian and I had lost contact over the years.  The last time we spoke was in 2001.  It had been seven years.

The Mirror Matter Moon theory is one of the most prominent theories on LOST to explain what the island is and why it might behave like it does.  Essentially, the island is a moon made of mirror matter.  There are two types of matter, the matter we know and love, and the opposite.  We can exist in either habitat, but one can not see the other.  This is why the island can not be seen until you cross into area around the island – into the mirror matter moon.  This website does a much more extensive job explaining it, but I wanted to use it and LOST as an allegory for my relationships with both Zac and Brian.  At college, Brian and I were best friends, and then I left to go to Milligan.  Zac and Brian stayed and graduated at Kentucky.  8 years later, Brian dies and Zac and I become friends when we had never really been friends before.   Brian’s car wreck – the “plane crash” – separated the world in which Zac and I lived in before the crash and the one we lived in afterward.  Prior to the crash, I couldn’t see Zac, nor did I know he existed, but after the crash, we were in a mirror world where Zac and I could both see each other and that’s when things started getting weird.

The day I found out about Brian’s death I was contemplating running away.  I was going to drive to a farm house in rural Missouri, leaving my house, my job, and my lifestyle behind.  I was furiously hoeing my garden when my wife came out to talk to me.  She calmed me down and I went inside.  Upon checking my email, I saw the message from my friend about the comments.  By the end of the month I would have hernia surgery and a new job working as a business analyst.  I would be working with my best friend from that same college in Kentucky.  I would also begin communicating with Zac who was going through his own set of changes.  A set of changes that would eventually lead him back to someone he too met while at college in Kentucky.  What was it about this “island” in Kentucky that would not let us go?  Was Third Eye Blind speaking from Brian to Jenna in the video, from us to Brian, or from the college to us?

The bigger story is how we all descended upon Kentucky in the first place.  Each person has their own unique story about what drew them to that place.  Just as in LOST, the characters both had a series of events that lead them together and a string of influence.  In me and Zac’s case, it was Eric Barnes.  Barnes made an impression on not just Zac and I, but on my friends who also attended Kentucky.  I remember Zac speaking to the entire campus during chapel saying how Eric impressed him so much by flying out to Arizona to meet him.  My friends and I would actually drive down to Kentucky on weekends during our senior year in high school just to hang out with Eric and eat in the cafeteria with Brad Green for free.  Eric was a critical “cog” to the systematic recruitment of students to the college, but the biggest factor was probably their summer program, which brought droves of high school students to the college each summer.  It was so influential that the dean of student life made it a point to tell us on day 1 that student life there was nothing like summer camp.  This should have been my first clue.  There are good cogs like Barnes and there are bad cogs like this dean.  And there were many bad cogs at this college, which is part of why I left, but this post is about the Gristmill at Spring Mill State Park.

The Gristmill at Spring Mill State Park stands among several houses and other log buildings in a cleared plain in the middle of a large wooded area.  The terrain is crossed by a babbling brook (which cleared up within a couple of days after the rain turned the water a chocolaty brown).  This brook powers the mill, given the lever is pushed to allow it – and the cog is in place to accept it.  A lot of things have to come together for the whole system to work.  And one day, one of those things stopped working.  Why is it that this mill and these buildings are still in the same fashion they were in the early 1800′s?  Because the village was a failure.  The reason? The person who ran the mill died – taking with him the knowledge of how to run it.  Without food or a way to process their crops, the villagers left, leaving the log buildings as they were.  If the village had continued, the log houses would have been torn down and replaced in the name of progress long ago.  The park partly exists, and is named after a failed startup, but we wouldn’t have had the park unless the startup failed.  If it were successful it may have looked something like Gatlinburg, which has less log cabins, but more “cogs”.

Vacation; The Art of Disengaging

For the last few nights, when I go to sleep at night, I have been dreaming about my day job.  I’ve been helping out with business continuity planning for the last couple of weeks and it’s taken up more time outside of normal business hours than I realized.  It wasn’t until I looked back over the last two weeks to see where the time had gone that I saw how the business continuity planning and events had affected my life.

During the day I am a business analyst.  This means I review, recommend, and maintain various systems.  At night I work as a business consultant providing business solutions to various customers.  When the two jobs start to occupy the same time, two things happen.  One, my stress level goes up and two, a lot less normal activity gets done e.g. mowing the yard, folding laundry, putting away the dishes.

A while back my wife asked if I would accompany her on a business trip to Spring Mill State Park where she would be attending a training seminar.  I was to help her take care of our youngest child of three, who is still breast feeding. What this would mean for me would be watching him at night while she goes and studies in the lobby with her classmates and again during the test on the last day.  The rest of the time would be up to me.

I asked my best friend, who happens to also be my boss, if I could get those three days off.  He said I could, but because of Federal laws I’d actually have to take five days off instead.  I agreed and so starting yesterday, I was officially on vacation.

At first it was hard to disconnect.  I kept thinking about things I had to do at work as a business analyst.  For example, I realized I forgot to set my email and voicemail away messages.  And there were people I had talked to at the business continuity event that I said I would email, but did not have the chance to.  I decided to actively change my thoughts and chose to think about other things, thereby beginning the disengagement from work.

Gaining Control of My Thoughts

It wasn’t until we started driving down to Spring Mill State Park this morning that I started analyzing my thought patterns, only to find that I was focusing on what I didn’t want instead of what I did.  I was creating scenarios in my mind whereby people didn’t like what I was trying to do, did not approve of it, and were actively working against it.  I was looking for ways to spend less time and hide more from those I thought were my enemies only to realize that they were only enemies in my mind – and if I could change my mind, I could change my reality.

In addition, my wife and I decided the night before that I would use the time alone walking the trails to be a one-on-one prayer time with God.  We want prosperity for ourselves, our families, our friends, and our neighbors.  We want to see others succeed.  We wanted to be thankful for all that we had been given: the children, the love we had for each other, the roof over our heads, and the incomes we are blessed to recieve.  We realize that wealth is part of prosperity and actively ask for God to overflow us with the abundance he has created.

This morning, after arriving at the park, I set off on trail 3, which goes by three caves in a loop to and from the Spring Mill Inn.  I would love to be in better shape than what I currently am, but as it is, I was huffing and puffing from step 1 of the trail.  My body learned to adjust and I would say things to myself like, “I am healthy and I am strong,” in order to keep going.  The biting flies were out and so Erich Stauffer, Fly Killa, was brought out of retirement.  Then I remembered what my wife and I had spoke about the night before and I began to pray.

I didn’t close my eyes.  I just walked and talked with God.  When I focused on Him, the flies weren’t around, but when I thought about the flies, the flies came back.  I had an incentive in this regard to keep my eyes on Jesus during my walk.  There was one point early on, about a quarter of the way through when I felt God say to me, “Run! Run as fast as you can!” I ran for about 20 feet then went back to walking and although it was later in the morning, the sky was not brighter.

At the half-way point I was near exhaustion, but there was no turning back now.  I had to go on.  I began singing praise songs, just making something up or singing “Hallelujah” over and over. I was still having trouble controlling my thoughts.  It seemed I could not even take attendance of them as they were jumbling into a ball as dust gathers under a bed.  I could not tell if it was my physical condition causing my lack of thought control or my lack of thought control causing my physical condition.  I decided there was only one that I could change, so I began working on changing my thoughts.

About 3/4ths of the way through I decided to ‘clear the mechanism’ and focus on one thing.  I decided I wanted to see a deer.  I figured this was a reasonable goal/request since it was early morning, I was in the woods, and with one clear thought, it should be easy to attract.  The woods were now getting darker, not lighter.  I remember saying, “Isn’t the morning supposed to get lighter, not darker?”

I continued to walk, looking down at my path, making sure to not trip or misplace my step – and that’s when I had my aha moment.  How could I see a deer when I am not looking for one? I can’t ask to see something, then not look for it, can I? No rational person asks for help, then keeps no lookout for help, do they?  I am reminded, just now, of the story of the man in sinking boat who asks God to save him.  A boat comes by and a sailor asks the man if he needs help, which the man replies, “No, I am waiting on God to save me. This happens two more times until the man finally drowns.  In heaven the man asks God why he didn’t save him and God replies, “I sent three boats!”

So I began to keep my head up, actively looking for the deer I had asked to see, noticing only how dark the forest now seemed. And that’s when I saw it – and heard it – and began to run.

It was a wall of white mist moving through the forest like a smoke monster, but instead of sounding like a New York City cab receipt printer, it was a mix of snapping limbs, heavy rain, and thunder.  I ran as far as I thought I could and finding myself at the top of a ridge with no foliage cover, I ran until I reached cover again, but it was no use.  Even under the trees, the rain was too much and I was drenched.  I began to walk.  Limbs were falling all around me and I remembered what God had told me earlier.  I didn’t run and now I was stuck in a storm.

How I Met Your Mother

By the time I made it to the parking garage, I was soaked.  In two and a half hours Zac would be there.  I felt defeated.  I sat, dripping, in the back of my Vibe with the hatch back open. I wasn’t sure exactly what to do, but over the course of the next 45 minutes I ended up telling the rain to stop, completely changing my clothes, and walked in to eat an all you can eat buffet.  Like Jim Gaffigan says, the bacon tray was at the end and I said to myself, “If I knew you were down here, I would have waited!”

I did wait on my wife – or at least intended to.  After breakfast I was zonked, but we were not yet able to check into the hotel so I went out to the car to sleep.  My wife ended up knocking on the window about a half hour later.  I couldn’t sleep after that so I went to visit the Gus Grissom museum until Zac was to arrive.  I have this thing where I know when to move in order to arrive on time or to meet someone so when I got the feeling, I acted on it.  I was to meet Zac in front of the Spring Mill Inn.  On my way back, I decided to guess what vehicle Zac drove.  I decided it was silver and probably a Jeep.

I parked my car, walked to the front of the Inn, sat down in a rocking chair, and watched as a silver Rendevue pulled into the parking lot and Zac got out (at least I got the color right).  At the same time, my wife stepped out the front door with the keys to our room and together we met Zac by the flag pole.

[NOTE: There is little to no cell phone reception at Spring Mill park, except in one location, around the flag pole.  They call it "flag-pole reception".  I wondered why so I began to think about why this was.  I looked around and as you can see in this overhead photo, the entrance to the inn is like a parabola with the flag pole being the focus, thereby magnifying any signals enough to talk around the flag pole.]

Zac, my wife, and I sat down for lunch.  One of the things we talked about was how I met my wife.  Last week, a coworker at my day job asked if I watched, “How I Met Your Mother.” I said I never had and he highly recommended it.  This afternoon, Zac also recommended the show.  I feel that this was a show I should be watching so I will be recording it to do DVR when I get home and might even catch up online if possible.

We hiked almost every trail in the park, including the one I had already walked that morning with God.  We talked about thoughts, love, and joy.  By the time we got back to the inn, we were both thirsty.  I had a Mountain Dew and Zac had Cherry Coke.  We watched Amazing Kreskin videos on Youtube until my wife got out of her class.  She handed me the baby and I handed Zac four quarters to play a pinball game.  With the extra lives he was able to play one pinball game for over 15 minutes.  Once my wife got back we went back up to the room and watched more Youtube videos and talked until Zac took off.

It was a good way to spend my birthday.  I now realize that one of my love languages is time spent with people.  That is why I cherish time playing Settlers of Catan or eating a meal with friends or family.  I hope that even if those reading this are in a normal scenario this week that you can still look for God in everyday life.  Be careful what you think and ask for what you want.

[6:45:06 PM] Zac: no pink elephants
[6:45:30 PM] Erich: I would define greatness as character (being the same at home and work for ex.) and legacy (leaving the world better than you found it)
[6:45:52 PM] Zac: that’s largely as i see it as well.
[6:46:05 PM] Zac: my spirituality is shifting like crazy
[6:46:13 PM] Erich: Knowledge, Mind, and the Given
[6:46:31 PM] Zac: Where is that from?
[6:46:42 PM] Erich: http://books.google.com/books?id=PpI9qRXf57UC&pg=PA164&lpg=PA164&dq=%22no+pink+elephants%22&source=bl&ots=GQL5RcGgDu&sig=1W8KxPlvm6ysO68yzqZ7usp4yv8&hl=en&ei=omQDSse7K52ctgPpgsXjAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPP1,M1
[6:46:56 PM] Erich: I did a google search for “no pink elephants” its the first hit or so
[6:47:09 PM] Zac: holy crap!
[6:47:17 PM] Zac: where do you think of this stuff?
[6:47:29 PM] Zac: it’s the whole book
[6:50:40 PM] Zac: the whole concept of good and evil challenges me
[6:51:00 PM] Zac: like darkness is not the opposite of light, but the absence of it
[6:51:15 PM] Zac: is evil the absence of goodness?
[6:51:25 PM] Zac: is “satan” the absence of God?
[6:51:48 PM] Zac: maybe we should blog about this
[6:52:02 PM] Erich: yeah, and after watching LOST with the whole time travel thing, it makes me think about the sunday school teachers who used to tell me, every new sin you commit hurts Jesus more in the past when he had to take on all of your sin at the cross – by reducing sin NOW you can reduce His sin THEN – like time travel backwards
[6:52:34 PM] Zac: LOST was so crazy good last night
[6:52:38 PM] Erich: like there is no such thing as cold, just absence of heat
[6:52:39 PM] Zac: i love Jack’s evolution
[6:52:44 PM] Zac: exactly
[6:53:04 PM] Zac: how can their be providence from God and providence from Satan?
[6:53:21 PM] Zac: or is satan’s work just a lack of providence running its course?
[6:53:46 PM] Erich: I’ve started to not like Jack this season, but last night was the first night he seemed to be an actual player this season – second from the last show no less – well I take that back – in the beginning when he was getting people to come, that was okay, I just didn’t like him on the island at the beginning – he had a bad attitude
[6:54:18 PM] Erich: I think Satan wanted to do his own thing, so he does things, they are just not Godly
[6:54:20 PM] Zac: yeah, he was resigned to fate, and didn’t “manage his actions”
[6:54:25 PM] Erich: haha, yeah
[6:54:32 PM] Zac: i feel a post coming on
[6:55:01 PM] Erich: satan is like the guy who didn’t want to work for the boss any more and wanted to go off on his own, but there was no non-compete agreement signed, just banishment
[6:55:30 PM] Zac: how should we go about it?
[6:55:49 PM] Erich: defining a post?
[6:56:21 PM] Zac: no, the mission statment
[6:56:23 PM] Zac: or vision
[6:56:31 PM] Zac: what do we value
[6:56:33 PM] Zac: ?
[6:56:37 PM] Zac: changing lives?
[6:56:46 PM] Zac: being a source of information?
[6:56:54 PM] Erich: oh, well…
[6:57:07 PM] Zac: creating dialoge?
[6:57:12 PM] Erich: what I do at work when I have to define mission statements is I do a kind of keyword query
[6:57:34 PM] Erich: then I form sentences or a sentence from the keywords
[6:58:09 PM] Erich: so if we had one of those keyword maps or word counters on our blog, what would it say, or more importantly, what would we want it to say
[6:58:28 PM] Zac: right
[6:58:49 PM] Zac: growth
[6:59:03 PM] Erich: life
[6:59:07 PM] Erich: managing
[6:59:10 PM] Erich: actions
[6:59:11 PM] Zac: self awareness
[6:59:46 PM] Erich: purpose
[6:59:58 PM] Erich: faith
[6:59:59 PM] Erich: love
[7:00:15 PM] Zac: should we mention how movies, literature, and music affect us?
[7:00:18 PM] Zac: culture?
[7:00:19 PM] Erich: tired sleep sleepy awake
[7:00:22 PM] Zac: pop culture?
[7:00:34 PM] Erich: thought subconcious concious
[7:00:43 PM] Zac: love that
[7:01:07 PM] Erich: yes, we we are influenced heavily by Goonies, LOST, the Matrix
[7:01:22 PM] Erich: timing is a big one too
[7:01:34 PM] Erich: but not sure how that fits in with our mission
[7:01:50 PM] Erich: time
[7:01:57 PM] Erich: legacy
[7:02:06 PM] Erich: desire
[7:02:23 PM] Erich: growth
[7:02:25 PM] Erich: roi
[7:02:36 PM] Zac: we exist to discuss the relationship between our thoughts and actions, and how by managing them we can enjoy lives filled with purpose, growth, love, and legacy.
[7:02:42 PM] Erich: attitude
[7:02:56 PM] Zac: tweak away
[7:03:07 PM] Erich: okay, I’m going to hack on the verbs first
[7:03:19 PM] Zac: please do
[7:03:41 PM] Erich: I like to drop off the first three words at the begining too while planning.  they are always just filler.
[7:03:54 PM] Zac: ok
[7:04:16 PM] Zac: what do you think about “discuss”?
[7:04:33 PM] Erich: that’s what I’m hacking off , sorry
[7:04:43 PM] Erich: I’m thinking of replacing it with “making”
[7:04:58 PM] Erich: or finding
[7:04:59 PM] Zac: ok, keep going
[7:05:04 PM] Zac: seeking?
[7:05:07 PM] Erich: yes
[7:05:17 PM] Erich: seeking sounds more philosophical so lets use that for now
[7:05:23 PM] Zac: like it
[7:06:43 PM] Erich: …seeking to define the relationship between our thoughts and our actions to learn and share how managing this relationship can allow us to live a great life.
[7:07:05 PM] Zac: oddly, my only beef would be with “great life”
[7:07:14 PM] Erich: yeah, that was my filler line
[7:07:18 PM] Erich: I didn’t know how to close it
[7:07:29 PM] Zac: can we find a similar word for relationship the second time around?
[7:07:36 PM] Erich: yeah, you’re righ
[7:07:44 PM] Erich: hmm…connection?
[7:07:49 PM] Zac: amalgamation sounds so pretentious
[7:07:52 PM] Erich: partnership?
[7:08:04 PM] Erich: don’t know what that word amalgamous is
[7:08:19 PM] Zac: exactly, neither do i really
[7:08:28 PM] Zac: it’s just to make myself feel good
[7:09:06 PM] Erich: I think it means a random allotment of stuff thats placed in a lot together, but that is what google is for, our exteriour brain
[7:09:14 PM] Zac: yeah, partnership seems like it should apply to people more than….
[7:09:37 PM] Erich: …seeking to define the relationship between our thoughts and our actions to learn and share how managing this relationship can allow us to live a great life.
[7:09:41 PM] Zac: are you looking up synonms?
[7:09:59 PM] Erich: no, but try the visual synonm generator
[7:10:16 PM] Erich: http://www.visualthesaurus.com/
[7:10:51 PM] Zac: alliance?
[7:10:54 PM] Erich: state
[7:11:16 PM] Erich: connectedness
[7:11:26 PM] Zac: like that
[7:11:29 PM] Zac: link?
[7:11:38 PM] Erich: to what
[7:11:43 PM] Zac: a zelda reference
[7:11:47 PM] Zac: and encino man
[7:11:57 PM] Erich: oh
[7:12:01 PM] Zac: …seeking to define the relationship between our thoughts and our actions to learn and share how managing this link can allow us to live a great life.
[7:12:02 PM] Erich: legend of zelda link
[7:12:11 PM] Erich: I see, sory, forgot what we were talking about
[7:12:17 PM] Erich: yeah, duh, link, good one.
[7:12:30 PM] Zac: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gokttuXJME&feature=channel_page
[7:13:00 PM] Zac: they are great.
[7:13:06 PM] Zac: 2 and ahalf minutes
[7:13:11 PM] Erich: I guess we do then
[7:13:12 PM] Zac: have you seen that one?
[7:13:22 PM] Erich: no, not this one, but that satan guy is hilarious!
[7:13:27 PM] Zac: he really is
[7:13:31 PM] Zac: i want him as a friend
[7:13:47 PM] Erich: he does seem like he’d be a good friend, you’re right
[7:14:26 PM] Zac: ok, i’m liking our statement so far
[7:14:30 PM] Erich: “definitely for it” its hilarious that he thanks God for it
[7:14:57 PM] Zac: let me find another one
[7:15:03 PM] Erich: okay
[7:16:06 PM] Zac: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDqRheBu2cg
[7:17:40 PM] Erich: so, what is it now, …seeking to define the relationship between our thoughts and our actions to learn and share how managing this link can allow us to live a great life.
[7:17:58 PM] Zac: how about “fulfilling life”?
[7:18:20 PM] Erich: hmm, how about some of those adjectives we used before instead
[7:18:34 PM] Erich: how we defined life – character, legacy
[7:18:53 PM] Zac: life of character?
[7:19:05 PM] Zac: life worthy of a legacy
[7:19:10 PM] Erich: …allow us to live a life of character.
[7:19:19 PM] Zac: yep
[7:19:19 PM] Erich: it seems like we can’t use both though.
[7:19:37 PM] Zac: now, the begninning
[7:19:58 PM] Erich: …allow us to leave a legacy by living a life of character.
[7:20:20 PM] Zac: now, that’s some poetry erich!
[7:21:35 PM] Erich: thanks, but its almost too powerful – it overwhelms the initial purpose of the mission statement in the begining – but maybe not
[7:22:02 PM] Erich: unless you view it like the five w’s, who what when where why how
[7:22:14 PM] Zac: put it all together
[7:22:17 PM] Erich: who: we are…
[7:22:19 PM] Zac: what have we got?
[7:22:34 PM] Erich: what: seeking to define the relationship between our thoughs and our actions
[7:23:10 PM] Erich: why: to learn and share how
[7:23:35 PM] Erich: how: managing this link
[7:23:58 PM] Erich: where: in our lives.
[7:24:40 PM] Zac: i’m pretty happy with that, although it doesn’t necessarily touch on God or providence
[7:24:42 PM] Erich: …seeking to define the relationship between our thoughts and our actions to learn and share how managing this link can allow us to live a great life allow us to live a life of character.
[7:24:59 PM] Zac: do we want that?
[7:25:13 PM] Erich: …seeking to define the relationship between our thoughts and our actions to learn and share how managing this link can allow us to live a life of character.
[7:25:15 PM] Zac: …seeking to define the relationship between our thoughts and our actions to learn and share how managing this link can allow us to live a life of character.
[7:25:20 PM] Zac: jinx
[7:25:21 PM] Erich: sorry, messedup the first time
[7:25:25 PM] Erich: haha
[7:25:33 PM] Erich: chat jinx, not sure if that counts
[7:25:39 PM] Erich: all though its got to count for something
[7:25:45 PM] Zac: what do you think about providence?
[7:25:49 PM] Zac: or God?
[7:25:55 PM] Zac: or the unexplainable?
[7:25:55 PM] Erich: pre determination
[7:26:03 PM] Erich: I think God exists because he does stuff
[7:26:18 PM] Zac: i mean, in our statement
[7:26:39 PM] Erich: when you believe he does stuff, but I guess a disbeliever would say, “you’re attributing things to God when you have previously asked God for these things”
[7:26:45 PM] Erich: oh
[7:27:02 PM] Zac: would a post about jack’s transformation be about his response to destiny “proving” itself?
[7:27:08 PM] Erich: I’m not sure how providence would fit in the mission statement
[7:27:18 PM] Zac: or would it just be about his thoughts and his new behaviours that have sprung from that?
[7:27:27 PM] Zac: i think i may have just answered my own question
[7:27:40 PM] Zac: if it affects our thoughts and/or actions, it is relevent
[7:27:44 PM] Zac: we are pretty golden there
[7:27:51 PM] Zac: like bea arthur
[7:27:54 PM] Zac: rip
[7:28:13 PM] Erich: well from the beginning the show has been a mirror, 180 days on the island, halway through the season, light, dark, ying yang, jack on one side, locke on the other
[7:28:35 PM] Erich: jack is more like locke now and locke is more like jack now in the second half
[7:29:01 PM] Zac: i know.  lock is the “leader” and jack is the “believer”
[7:29:09 PM] Zac: it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing
[7:29:24 PM] Zac: i am so impressed that a show of this quality exists
[7:29:33 PM] Zac: that could be a weekly feature for the next season
[7:29:39 PM] Erich: huh, I didn’t notice that, you’re right though.  I wonder who Jacob is.  Jacob might be a kind of metaphor for God in this conversation
[7:29:44 PM] Zac: you and i remarking on our thoughts of an episode
[7:29:57 PM] Zac: he is either God or the pope
[7:29:59 PM] Zac: i think
[7:30:12 PM] Erich: the scientist wants to kill “God” the one who unanswered things get thought by
[7:31:48 PM] Zac: looking forward seems to be the best medicine, but wisdom comes frorm not making the same mistakes twice
[7:32:00 PM] Zac: i think that i’m going to tweet that
[7:32:20 PM] Erich: yeah, you done good with that tweet, son
[7:36:03 PM] Zac: i’m so very much like john locke (first few seasons).  signs of the right path.  the island talking to him
[7:36:45 PM] Erich: Who or what is “the island” to you? <–sounds like a blog post title
[7:37:16 PM] Erich: and Locke has crazy woman troubles, not sure how that relates
[7:37:18 PM] Zac: providence/God
[7:37:28 PM] Zac: very true
[7:37:34 PM] Zac: jack as well
[7:37:37 PM] Zac: and sawyer
[7:37:46 PM] Zac: and charlie
[7:37:47 PM] Erich: that’s true too, they all have woman troubles and daddy issues
[7:38:01 PM] Zac: i vascilate between jack and locke a lot
[7:38:05 PM] Zac: also desmond and charlie
[7:38:14 PM] Zac: who do you relate to?
[7:38:28 PM] Erich: hurley’s dad, the chinese dude’s dad, jack’s dad, locke’s dad, kate’s dad
[7:38:50 PM] Erich: who do I relate too? hurley kind of – laid back
[7:39:21 PM] Zac: hurley is like the everyman
[7:39:21 PM] Erich: I wish I was as cool as sawyer – Jack’s kind of a nerd – he wasn’t in season 1, but he is kind of now to me – not sure why
[7:39:25 PM] Zac: like the audience
[7:39:32 PM] Erich: yeah, you’re exactly right
[7:39:50 PM] Zac: jack just got thrown out of wack and is trying to find something to hold onto
[7:40:01 PM] Erich: that was hilarious last night when he said, “Okay, we’re from the future” since he didn’t know the president. I was cracking up, dude.
[7:40:15 PM] Zac: man, we need to have a lost post fest
[7:40:47 PM] Zac: ok, is our mission statement 99% done?
[7:40:48 PM] Erich: yeah, Jack likes to fix things – for a while, the providence made fixing impossible…but now…providence has lead him to be ABLE to fix something
[7:41:01 PM] Zac: that is a great thought!
[7:41:13 PM] Zac: I would love to read more of your thoughts on this.
[7:41:16 PM] Erich: yeah, that one was for free
[7:41:53 PM] Erich: hahaha, I figured you’re going to write at least one post on Jack and the role of providence in his life, how it affects his actions.
[7:42:27 PM] Erich: Or we could just copy this thread and post it.  It’s our blog, we can do what we want with it.
[7:42:27 PM] Zac: i think that sounds perfect.  it can be a recurring theme in our blog
[7:42:37 PM] Zac: hmmm
[7:43:21 PM] Zac: yeah, do you want to edit it down and we can put it up now, with a tease for more lost related thoughts to come?
[7:44:06 PM] Erich: Definitely a theme though.  Our primary keyword is “actions”.  How does roadblocks affect our actions – what do we do when things get in the way of our goals. How does providence affect our actions – if everything is predetermined, then why does anything matter? just two examples there.
[7:44:19 PM] Erich: Yeah, I can post it sure.

[Edit: I wrote this post before I heard about Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life. Shortly afterward I found out about it and so I wanted to share a link to his book here. I've been listening to it on CD in the car. It's a great book and it may change your life. 09/13/2009]

1. Don’t Assume

I wasn’t being very purposeful when I went to open a door that didn’t budge and ran right into it or when I went to push a shovel down into the ground and hurt my foot when it hit a rock. In both cases I was assuming the door and the shovel would act as they always had. The door would open with little effort and the shovel would slide neatly into the earth. It made me wonder, “What else am I assuming about my life?” This leads us to number 2.

2. Ask Why

Ask yourself why you’re doing the things you are doing. Why do you live where you live and work where you work? Why are you friends with your friends? There may be good reason, but there may also not be. If you haven’t asked yourself “Why,” before, start asking and start living a purpose-filled life. There should be a reason for everything you do. This leads us to number 3.

3. Give Reasons

What is the reason you are doing what you are doing? This is different then asking yourself, “Why.” For example, if you answered the question above about why you live where you live, the answer may have been, “Because it’s near where I work, there are good schools here, and it’s where I’ve always lived.” Those are all reasons, which then need analyzed, kind of like playing the 5 Why’s Game. If you’ve never played it, its simply the act of asking yourself, “Why,” four more times after the initial first, “Why.” In this way, you can find out the reason you are doing things. Lets use the response to the question as the first answer in the 5 Why’s Game.

1. Why do you live where you live? Because it’s near where I work, there are good schools here, and it’s where I’ve always lived.
2. Why? I don’t like a long commute, I have kids, and my family is here.
3. Why? I have never had to drive very far to work, because I wanted them, because that is where they moved to.
4. Why? I have never looked for jobs farther away, because my parents had them, because they found a better job here.
5. Why? Because I’m comfortable with the job I have, because their parents had them, because this place used to be growing.

The game doesn’t have to have three threads in it like this one did, but it gives us a glimpse into how you might then ask yourself a new question, “My relatives left their relatives and came here when this place was growing. Is there any value in staying or should I keep looking outside of where I am comfortable for my children’s sake?” This is the kind of dialogue that knowing the reasons behind something can generate.

4. Take Ownership

Have someone or something to tie you to this earth. This is a reason for your being. For some it is a job. For others it is their children or partner. It could be all of these things, but if you don’t have anything to build, fix, keep, protect, or improve, then you will find yourself drifting far from living a purpose-filled life. Have you ever left a job or wanted to leave your job because you felt like you weren’t needed or because you had no stake in the outcome of the business? Either you didn’t take ownership or you were not allowed to take ownership and so you withered or are withering.

5. Exact Standards

Set thresholds to avoid slippery slopes and compromises that you might make along the way. If you decide that you want to live a certain way, and you start to slip away from that life, what are the consequences of that? Draw a line in the sand and declare in writing what you stand for. Create a mission statement if you have to. This can guide your life just as it guides businesses everyday.

6. Create Procedures

A purposeful life is predictable, but has the ability to change. You may expect one thing, but if it doesn’t happen, you implement the contingency plan. You know the procedure because you created it. You are prepared. This is the difference between assuming and predicting. Predictions contain contingencies whereas assuming does not. If I go to open a door by pushing on it and assume it will open, but it doesn’t – I may hurt myself when I run into it. If I go to open a door expecting it to open, but with the contingency that it might not, I will be prepared for it not opening and be able to protect myself.

7. Have Faith

Believe in something greater than yourself. The universe is too big, never mind the relative enormity of the Earth, for our brains to live purposefully if we truly believe that there is no more to this life than what we can see and feel with our own eyes and ears. Your spirit, whether you believe you have one or not, will be crushed over time.

8. Love Some

Love someone or something. Be passionate. This is like ownership, but you can’t own another human being or the acts like gardening, playing in a band, or eating chocolate. Nothing drives the human spirit like the power of love. It is cliché to say, but true nonetheless.

9. Leave Behind

Live your life so as to leave something behind. In 100 years will anyone know you had ever existed? Some people write books. Some people’s legacy is their children. This is a matter of faith and procedure as you will not know what lies ahead after you are gone, but you are preparing for it. Pass on knowledge, help the downtrodden, pay it forward. These are the things that lead to a purpose-filled life.

10. Be Purposeful

Be intentional, exacting, reasonable, or whatever words you can think of that relate to being purposeful. If you want your life to have a purpose, if you want to leave a legacy, if you want to love more, learn more, and live more, be purposeful in all that you do. Live a purpose-filled life.

A method by which desire can be transmuted into reality in seven steps.
1. Fix in your mind the exactly what you desire. It is not sufficient merely to say in general what you want. Be definite and specific.
2. Determine exactly what you intend to give in return for what you desire. (There is no such reality as “something for nothing.”)
3. Establish a definite date when you intend to have what you desire.
4. Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire. Write out your steps, the smaller the better.
5. Write out a clear, concise statement of exactly what you want (Step 1), what you intend to give in return (Step 2), a time limit for its acquisition (Step 3), and describe
clearly the plan through which you intend to accumulate it (Step 4). SEE below.
6. Read your written statement aloud, twice daily, once just before retiring at night, and once after arising in the morning. As you read—see and feel and believe yourself already
in possession of what you desire.
7. Begin at once, whether you are ready or not, to put these steps into action. Otherwise, you never will be “ready”.
It is important that you follow the instructions described in these seven steps. It is especially important that you observe, and follow the instructions in step six. You may complain that it is impossible for you to, “see yourself in possession of what you desire,” before you actually have it. Here is where a burning desire will come to your aid. If you truly desire something so keenly that your desire is an obsession, you will have no difficulty in convincing yourself and others that you will acquire it. The object is to want it, and to become so determined to have it that you convince yourself you will have it.
I desire _________________________________________________________________ and am willing to give ____________________________________________________ in order to get it. I will have it by _______________________ using the following plan:

How to have a happy new year:

1. Tell yourself you are going to have a good year.  Give up on the thinking that for every good thing that happens there will be something bad.  It doesn’t have to work that way, but will if you want it to.  Say you are going to have a good year and that it doesn’t have to be offset by bad.  Then write it down and speak it out loud.

2. Ask yourself what you want.  Be specific.  Narrow it down by using actions and places.  What do you want to accomplish at home? What do you want to accomplish in your business life? What things would you like to own? Where might you want to go to see or show someone?  Write down your answers, then speak them out loud.

3. Take inventory of your assets and liabilities.  Surround yourself with family and team member who share your positive outlook on life and eliminate or narrow your exposure to those who are constantly negative.  Cut out things in your life that are busy work or that are uncessary.  Ask yourself why you are doing something.  If you don’t know the answer, stop.

4. Take a step towards one of your goals each day.  Action cures fear.  A goal like debt reduction or quitting your job can be scary and seem insurmountable.  It is probably impossible to do in one step so don’t.  Figure out the next action, then write it down.  Speak the action out loud and set a deadline of accomplishing this action within the next 8 hours.

5. Develop a system to manage your thoughts or ideas.  If you’ve followed these steps you have been writing things down.  They may be on the back of an envelope, on a receipt in your car, or in an email or text message.  USe whatever you feel comfortable with to collect these musings into one cohesive place.  Only use a calendar for hard and fast dates, not for action items.  Try to avoid using email as your method of choice if possible.

6. Relax. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Take time to smell the roses and the aftershave.  Unplug.  Check your email less often. Read the news less.  Take more walks.  Lay down outside.  Feel the ground. Decompress.  Take a deep breath at least once a day.  Laugh. Forgive. Love. Visit your mother wherever she is.  Don’t make lists, take actions. Conquer fear.

How to Avoid the Afternoon Loss of Energy

If you’re like me, you get tired in the afternoon just after lunch and just want to lay down.  Most employers discourage this (although some encourage it) and for those who want to fight off this feeling and get more done, here are five things I have found to help me keep going longer.

Change what you eat.

Drink more water, which fights fatigue and helps keep you fuller, longer.  When you do eat, choose foods high in protein, which slows the absorption of carbohydrates which can cause fatigue when they wear off, but in all things moderation.  Foods high in protein are usually also high in tryptophan which can cause sleepiness.  One way to combat this seeming contradiction is to eat a high protein breakfast when you are most rested, then eat less protein at each meal throughout the day, eating the least amount at supper.

Learn your circadian rhythm.

Every living creature has its own circadian rhythm, but each person also has their own intricacies which can be learned and used to your advantage.  Start by going to bed at the same time each day and waking up at the same time each day for a week.  If you’re not getting enough rest, move one of the times so that you get more sleep.  If you’re waking up too early, move the going-to-sleep time back until you find your optimal sleep time.  But here’s the key – when you find your optimal sleep time, its only effective if you stick to it.  Your body will know that it can run full steam all day long if it “knows” its going to bed at a certain time no matter what.  Otherwise, its just protecting itself from your erratic behavior.

Cut back on caffeine.

This sounds counter intuitive, I know, but caffeine only speeds up your heart temporarily, leaving you more tired afterward.  I sometimes even drink coffee at night timing the crash for when I want to fall asleep.  If you use a lot of sugar in your coffee or drink sugared colas, the crash is double as your heart slows down and your body crashes from the sugar drop.  If you can’t give up caffeine completely, try switching to a green tea, which has less caffeine or saving your caffeinated drink as a “secret weapon” for when you need it the most.  It takes about a half hour to kick in so if you have to, drink it at your desk a half hour after lunch to propel you through the afternoon.

Change up your environment.

Sometimes its nothing to do with the chemicals inside your body, sometimes its your surroundings that are lulling you to sleep.  Take a break to get some perspective on life.  Step outside and take a deep breath.  If you can’t get outside, find a window.  If you don’t have a window, close your eyes, lean your head back and take a deep breath.  Force yourself to smile.  The muscle movement will elect a feeling on your body forcefully.  If you’re a scrooge, you might not like this feeling so use with caution.  Also, if music is allowed where you work, it can both pump you up and take you to another place, giving you perspective on your current activities.

Rest when you can.

On the seventh day, God rested.  This was a good example for us humans, but we seldom do it.  If you can find the time during a weekend to rest, take a nap.  Yes, you are allowed.  If you work seven days a week, a power nap can work wonders, just don’t fall into too deep of a sleep or you will feel worse after waking up.  Limit yourself to less than twenty minutes.  This ensures you won’t fall into REM sleep, but your body will still feel rested.  If you can get out to your car, go and set an alarm or find a coworker you trust to wake you up.  I have found that I can put a “request ticket” out to my subconscious that asks to be woken up when slipping between stage 1 and 2 of sleep.  Not everyone can do this though.

Give yourself something to look forward to.

In life and everything else, we all need incentives.  Its how the world works.  You’re probably not working for someone else for free and you shouldn’t have to.  We just need to harness that same mentality to help us get through the day.  Create mini-goals and rewards throughout the day.  Everyone is working for the weekend, but that happens once a week and starts on Friday.  What do we do on Monday to stay motivated?  This might be the hardest task of all, but if you can master it, you’re well on your way to being more productive and alert during the afternoon – and time may just fly by a little faster.

Summary

Above all, use common sense.  If you’re too tired to stay awake during the day, you probably need more sleep at night.  Before taking any advice you read here or anywhere else, see your doctor to make sure these things are right for you.  I’d love to hear how you stay alert during the day in the comments below. Need more advice? Here is a complete website on how to stay alert.