What’s the Hurry?

For some purely fabricated reason,  possibly by false urgency created by society and technology, I get in terrible rushes. This mostly happens when I am queuing up my social media posts.

I will be looking through Feedly and finding really neat articles that I relate to and want to repost.  Somewhere after an article or two I suddenly feel pressed for time. I frantically look at the blog title and scan the article. Then I end up just racing to the bolded text and hurry and queue them up…with my heart racing that I did this is a few minutes.

Later if someone likes the article and wants to talk about it…I only have superficial knowledge if any knowledge on the article…which is embarrassing.

After a recent episode like this I stopped and thought to myself, “What’s the point of doing this if I only rush and nothing good comes of it?” Also, “Why am I in such a hurry?”

Will I be a failure if I don’t hurry and repost a bunch of stuff? Why not spend more time on my own blog?

The Web already has a plethora of ‘stuff’. So I have concluded that if I want any publicity I should make my own content and worry about that, and make that content of good quality that I and others would care to read it.

Are you caught in the hamster wheel of reposting content?

Ender’s Game Audio Book Review

I read “Enders Game” when I was in Elementary school…and I can easily say that I did not absorb a single word of it.  Though I did remember the little surprise near the end of the book.  It was really interesting to listen to the book and the company that did the recording did a masterful job even with the impersonations of different characters voices.  I has to listen to the book in 5 minute intervals to and from work in the morning, coming home for lunch and leaving work for the day.  I was fortunate to have a few times where I delivered an oil pump that I could listen for a 2 hour stretch.

Enders Game has an incredible way of showing how a bully to a young child can be torture and also how it can make you stronger if it does not break you.  I also really enjoyed how the characters were so young and yet doing amazing things.  I wonder how far from fiction this would be if children could be given the opportunity or even the pressure to excel.

I have some quotes that I really liked that were just mind blowing when you stop to think about them for a few minutes:

“Perhaps it’s impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

I have found this to be true, the meanest example that I will admit to is when I was really young and was making fun of a kid for stuttering…after a little bit of that it took me a little while to stop stuttering, either way I got my just deserts.

“Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

This quote rang loud and clear over and over again in my mind.  It adds to my theory on how no one cares and it does not make them evil…they just don’t.  When you make interactions with people, they need you to work, or to do something or to even listen to them and help them through their problems.  But they are not, initially, asking you to be happy, just to be brilliant on their behalf.

“No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

Pretty self-explanatory…a book cannot combat a bias.  I on somewhat on the fence about this…if you are really looking for the truth or for understanding a book can whittle away at you.  If you are dead set to not be persuaded you will likely not read the book or get very far in it.

“The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

Probably my favourite words in the book.  So many times I have been terrified in training, when this should have been my mantra.

Websites, Video Blog, a Good Book

Holy cow I have not been blogging or getting any of the usually stuff done.  This last two or so weeks have been intense for me building for my future.  I got the book “Platform” by Michael Hyatt, and read that all the way through, then I had this feeling that I should start a video blog, I got a little excited and then let it die cause it would be a lot of work.  But the feeling persisted almost to dread if I did not do it, I kept thinking that I just could not do it or that it would be no good.  I finally just made myself do it, and here it is for you to view in this blog!

Hope you enjoyed it, I only made it like a week ago but with all I have been trying to do I just never blogged about it.

THEN I decided to get serious about my website, my previous one http://www.hartwired.com was pretty lackluster, and now that domain points to the same place as the new URL http://www.hartsoffice.com.  The great thing about this site is that it markets me, what I do for the company I work for, my teaching and coaching in software that I do for a school here in Drumheller, and what I do on my own.  The exciting thing that this brand that I am building can come with me where ever I go.  So when I do move back to Utah, or move to Germany…that all my work will not be for nought in that new location.

I love the adage that Dave Ramsey so often uses in saying, “Leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home!”  I can fight mediocrity and so can you!

What are you doing to find, kill and drag something home? (Note: of course you know this is a metaphor for finding success, no actual killing is needed unless you work at a meat processing plant of some kind…)

It’s My Birthday, I Wanna Win!

Today I am turning 28 years old.  It is funny how birthdays do not have that same magic they did when you are a kid or even a teenager.  I would like to thanks all those who have texted, facebooked, tweeted, or otherwise contacted me and wished me a happy birthday. (Oddly enough no one has called yet, but that is typical with the technology we now have)

My wife has asked me what kind of cake I want, and earlier in the week gave me (allowed me to download from Amazon) the book “Platform” by Michael Hyatt.  After devouring his book I can’t think of anything more that I would like for my birthday than to see some traction with my blog, and Android app sales, and life goals.  I want to start winning, now this is mostly up to me, but I want to be involved with other people and their winning, I believe that to be the primer to my own success.

It is nice that my birthday is so close to the middle of the year cause it gives me a chance to reassess how my year is going and where I am at with my goals…sadly I have not moved the needle much, but as I have read on Dan Millers Blog:

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I recently saw Ted Turner being interviewed on CNN.  The interviewer asked Ted how he kept going when his sailing team lost year after year and his baseball team was in last place for four years before going on to win the World Series.  Without any hesitation Ted said, “I wasn’t losing, I was learning how to win.” 

http://www.48days.com/2011/12/29/losing%E2%80%A6%E2%80%A6/

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So since it is my birthday, I will not be as tactful in asking that I want people to follow and subscribe to my blog, I want you to follow me on twitter and facebook, and it may be because of Hyatts book, but I really want to build my platform.  Yes I will admit for all the selfish reasons that one would want to do such a thing, but I also truly want to connect with people, I want to give you my free content on how to use a vast variety of software and grow with you as I read all these inspiring books, get out of debt, and be anything else other than mediocre!

What would you really want for your birthday?  How would you like to win?  What can I do for or with you to help you win?

It takes Courage to Blog!

I just purchased and have been furiously reading Michael Hyatts book “Platform”, it has an overwhelming amount of great information about blogging and social media, but something really struck me and has been resonating in me the last few days:

“If we are going to create wow experiences, we must become courageous. This is a personal, psychological bridge we need to cross. What we want to create—that wow experience—is on the other side of the ravine. There’s no other way to get there from here.”

Hyatt, Michael (2012-05-22). Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World (Kindle Locations 634-636). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

I thought that was fairly neat as I read, then I continued on and the usually fears cropped up:

* I should be doing something else…
* I should stop reading and look for my lost bluetooth…
* Doing the things in this book will take too long, so why bother…
* Go get a real job and just deal with it…

This is the best way that I can put some of the fears into words, but really it is a dreadful feeling that just wants to deter me from doing ANYTHING.  But this quote has really helped me, it pointed out that there would have to be some courage involved!  That being said, there would be fears to overcome, inaction to defeat, and sacrifices to be made if I want to get to where I want to be.

The worse fear is the future projection of failure, I have at least a good two solid times (that I can still remember clearly) being in a situation of absolute horror, bills were due, no money was coming in, the job I had at the time was shaky or I was unemployed.  The feelings I have had at those times resurface just long enought to say “Don’t go for it, get somewhere safe, keep low, keep quiet, don’t get noticed, they can’t hit what they can’t see…” a terrible mindset and a perfect path to staying mediocre.

I have many ideas that come to my mind and excite my whole being, but I almost never act on them, here is another impressive quote from Hyatts book:

“Listen to your heart. Most of us have spent a lifetime ignoring—or even suppressing—our intuition. I don’t know if this is a product of modern rationalism or American pragmatism. Regardless, I believe intuition is the map to buried treasure. It is not infallible, but neither is our reason. And it can point us in the right direction. We need to pay attention to this inner voice.”

Hyatt, Michael (2012-05-22). Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World (Kindle Locations 682-685). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

The biggest thing is that listen in this sense means to ACT.  To do, if my heart and mind and spirit or whatever is telling me to do a video blog, then I should DO IT.  This has been a tough one for me and I still have not got it started, I just dunno what to say on the camera or how to act.  Courage, I need it really bad!

So I am asking you, how do you build your courage?

Fired Up yet Realistic

I have just purchased Michael Hyatts book “Platform”, and I listened about it on the Entreleadership podcast and then started listening to Michael Hyatts podcast.  There is so much good, uplifting stuff in all of this content!  There is almost too much to read.  Of course I have anaylze how I can do what others have done (very successfully I might add) and I have some concerns.

1.  I can’t afford all the extras that will give me the extra push:

Hyatt suggests a few plugins and they cost on a monthly basis.  Also I should own the domain for my blog, that does not cost much in the grand scheme of things but it still costs.  Also I think I need a life coach to really unlock and drive my potential, and a good one of those would be very costly.  My wife and I budget to the penny and our Dave Ramsey emergency fund has been depleted a few months before the birth of our second daughter.

2.  Burning out:

I have had this blog since October of last year and so far I have been fairly decent at keeping up with it.  But there have been those burn out stages where I did nothing and more often than not I do not comment enough on other people’s blogs.

3.  I censor myself a little bit:

Since I talk about not having satisfaction with my job I do not want employers to see this, and they are on facebook, and they are following me, so I don’t dare connect this to social media site anymore which I am positive really hurts my blog following.  I don’t hate my jobs or my bosses but I am always striving for something more.

4.  Money, it is always about money:

The blog does not make me money so I cannot devote as much time to it as I would like.  Also I never want to become that annoying person that spams all his friends to follow and read.  This could be a full time job and if it made me a living I would be happy to make it my full time job.  The content would be a lot better that is for sure.

What do you think?

Starcraft II will not connect to Battle Net

I really wanted to play some Starcraft II tonight.  But no amount of resetting the router or rebooting my computer will make it happen!  This is a scary thing to realize that I am somewhat addicted to the game and that I am lost if I cannot play when I want to play.  Even if there was something that told me they were updating or changing the servers somehow that would make me feel a little bit better.

So what can I do when there is nothing that I can do to fix the problem.  Blog I suppose,  but I did not gear up my mind to sit and write blog posts, I want to play dang it!

Blizzard please fix this!

Ears Irrigated

I got my ears irrigated today, I am one of the lucky 1 out of 4 that has a genetic disposition to produce the stickiest of ear wax that nothing short of going to the doctor and having them flush it out will do the trick.

That being said I feel a million times greater! My throat still feels spiky and I am still annoyed that this head cold thing has lasted almost two freaking weeks, but now that I am on the mend I am realizing all the great opportunities around me! There is so much work to do that I dunno if I should hunker down at the computer for hours or run around. Programming gigs, consulting gigs, second job, and selling!  Then of course you have to consider being a dad and a husband and the wife would like to sleep in once in a while too and needs a break from the kids from time to time.  So I am going to try and be as active as I can the rest of this week.  I say week cause I might feel overloaded if I think farer ahead than that.

The biggest thing is that I can’t get overwhelmed…just one thing at a time and whatever thing I am working on gets my entire focus. Well here I go!

No One Out There

Usually when I write a blog or two and then go write on a dozen other blogs, there are people awake and chatting with me via blogs.  Not tonight!  Where is everyone?  I thought I was getting the hang of this blogging thing, I mean I have been at it since October!  I guess maybe a Monday night is not the night for doing this kind of thing.

Goodnight everyone, I am gonna go play some Starcraft II!

I’m not Afraid I’m Not Afraid…

I was washing dishes tonight at my second job thinking about how scary it is that I am not doing well at sales in my first job.  I am absolutely sick about it, and I really don’t want to have to face the boss.  It is not that he is gonna do anything terrible to me, I just have this weird mental deficiency that I think the world is going to end if something unpleasant happens.  I was washing dishes and I had to trick my freak out gland (not really a gland but some sort of parasite and has attached itself to my heart), that there was nothing to freak out about, I keep telling myself, “I’m not afraid, what’s the worse that can happen?  I’m not afraid.”  Then I realize that I really am terrified!

Why am I so fearful?  What is it that I am afraid of?  How is it that I can think that everything hinges on a single job?  When I am calmed down I can ask myself these questions, but if I let myself continue to ask more and more along these lines the freakout gland gets a rush of ‘freakosine’, swells up and makes my heart work ten times harder!

I am actually doing pretty well, I got a bunch more classes on computer programs to teach (a little stressful that I have to make the curriculum and then teach in front of a small group…), I have the money to get the MS Office suite that I need, and we are all caught up on bills for this month.  I am open and honest with my wife about what is going on and she (I am fairly sure) is open and honest with me about how she feels and what we can feasibly do with what we have.

I am assuming that a part of it is because I am sick and my throat has been in a lot of pain the last week, and now my ears are clogged with my genetic ‘stickier than most’ ear wax and everything seems like I am watching a boring movie that I have to pro actively participate in.  I was fairly excited about a marketing idea that I thought might turn the tables, but the boss is not for it at all, so that is a little stressful as well.

This is one of the reasons that I am so adamant about getting out of debt, so that the parasite on my heart may be removed once and for all!  Then I can say with confidence that “I am not afraid!”   I think I will try and find some scriptures on this matter, I am sure there are some good ones!