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Archive for the 'Business' Category
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I find it amazing the difference between our lives now compared to life 150 years ago. The stories that I’ve heard time and time again from my grandparents about how simple yet hard working their lives were, always amaze me. They did their work during the day, ate dinner, had family time and had zero distractions other than entertainment with the family and then it was bedtime. Their entertainment generally always involved other, as they occasionally went in to town for some entertainment on the weekend or when they could afford it. Now we have laptop computers, multiple social networks that we just HAVE to check and update BEFORE we play with our kids or even do our chores around the house or kiss our spouse goodnight. It has become not just another plate to juggle, but a way of life.
Now, I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m one of those people that can be easily distracted with too many things going on. I am by all means not pointing a finger, but I believe there is a balance of all the things that you have going on. The first thing we need to do is prioritize. Make sure that you have the right plates in your hand before you start juggling. I strongly believe that technology and social networks are truly a wave of our future in business, and can be highly affective in sparking new relationship and building your business or personal brand, but hopefully not at the expense of your family. That’s where I think we get our priorities out of wack! I never was a guy that brought his work home and I’ve been pretty good at leaving that stuff at the office mostly because it was physical work and not social work. Now I have a facebook account, twitter, blog and am helping multiple people with theirs, it’s much harder to prioritize my time. It makes it even more difficult for me cause I am a about all things relational. Not only that, but I have multiple hobbies, such as hunting, fishing, chores around the house and make sure that my family believes that I am not just physically with them, but that I’m mentally there with them as well. This takes a lot of work, but I just have to know the right plates to juggle and at the right time. I don’t have any profound theology on the right thing to do here, but I’m just wanting to spark this thought and make you stop and determine that your priorities are in the right place.
Are you juggling too many plates right now? If so, are they in the right priority? If not, why not?
That’s right. I’m giving away five copies of The Search For God & Guinness by Stephen Mansfield which is currently out by Thomas Nelson Publishers. I recently wrote a quick overview of the impact this book has had on my life and you can read it HERE. Please check it out!
The Search for God and Guinness is about WAY more than just business, the art of beer making and Irish history, it’s about…
* living your faith in the real world
* caring about your staff even more than your product
* investing in your community and the world around you
* all the good that wealth can do when used to the glory of God
Get A Copy and share your impact with another
Here’s how you can get this book for FREE. I’ll keep it simple.
[ You must leave a BRIEF comment on this blog and tell me what intrigues you the most about the title of the book and why you would like to have this book for yourself..................]
You may ask, why do I feel compelled to give these books away. Well, because I was given this book by a great friend of mine Spence Smith, and I know what an amazing impact it has already been on my life and I want others to share in that. Thomas Nelson has been gracious enough to give me 5 copies of the book so I could blessed others the same way that I was blessed.
I will decide who the winners are on Monday, January 25th morning and notify you by email. Don’t forget to check out my overview HERE, which has an amazing video from the author, before you comment.
Have fun and I really look forward to reading all of your comments!
05
Sep
09
What do you consider success?
“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”
– Sir Winston Churchill
I felt that this quote was so appropriate for what I’ve been feeling for quite some time now regarding my career. That’s the question, what do I consider SUCCESS?
So many men feel that we’re defined by what we do for a living and that we are more defined by the paycheck that we receive. I believe that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I believe that we are defined by how we respond to life’s challenges and what legacy that we leave behind for our family other than a large inheritance. Before we know it we could be twenty years down the road with an amazing retirement plan, dream home, vacation home, multiple cars, college funds and investments out the Wazoo. Yet our kids have absolutely no idea who their Dad is, their wacked out on drugs, having sex with anything that says hi to them and have absolutely no plan to take advantage of those College Funds for anything other than the opportunity to create their amazing social network on their myspace and facebook accounts. Is that what you consider “success?”
We all need to take another gander at the quote by Winston Churchill above and think through the aspects of your career to where it has been all about you and has done nothing but define you. Then think of how you can fulfill the last part of the quote in your life and that’s to “make a life by what YOU give.” Guys, invest time in your family and don’t let your career or material things define your SUCCESS in life. Let that fall in the product of what others see in your family. That’s where true SUCCESS should lie in our lives.
Relationships…what do they mean to you?
Relationships to me are a lifestyle. We can either build a life off of relationships, or build a life on relationships. Now you might be asking what the difference is. What I believe the difference is related to building a life off of relationship is to take advantage thereof, only to serve you and your sphere of influence. To build a life on is to serve the other person by your sphere of influence as well as to receive.
I strive to stay connected to people that have been introduced to me with no agenda other than to merely stay connected and just see what happens. I am a firm believer that life (our creator) takes you down paths for a reason, ie: meeting new people for a purpose. We sometimes don’t know why we’ve met someone and may never. However, I love staying connected if not for the sole purpose of seeing someone’s life grow and mature. However, sometimes the other part of the relationship can tend to serve me in a different way by learning from their successes and/or their failures. I think that’s how we all learn from other people. I also believe that we should be willing to share our our failures just as much, if not more than our successes.
Lately I’ve had something strongly weighing on me regarding relationship though. I know that when you meet someone for the first time, most can immediately snif out what I call “a fake.” A “fake” is someone who generally calls themself a “networker.” People can see right through someone like this. Now I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with networking, as our professional careers sometimes depend on this, but if it is for the sole reason of taking advantage of another person and/or potential relationship I personally don’t believe in that. This is called a one-sided relationship. If one person is always the giver and the other is the reciever, then the relationship will eventually disintegrate. I believe that we meet people for a reason, but not at the expense of a persons feelings or needs in order to advance our own. I will say that this is my own personal conviction, but I try my best to stand by it and honor the people that I know or have met as we never know truly who we have just shaken hands with and how they may affect our lives and how we may affect theirs.
Just keep an open mind and remember, people are people just like you and me. There is nothing more important that should cause you to walk over someone elses needs to attain your own. We need to remember to invest in the relationships around us. Invest, invest, invest. It will pay off way more than your IRA or 401k ever will!
“If you treat every person you meet as if he or she were the most important person in the world, you’ll communicate that he or she is somebody – to you.”
- John C. Maxwell, Relationships 101
