Bloglines.com

I'll try to be a little more consistant. No promises. If you are interested in this little blog or others like it but don't have time to visit them daily to check for new posts...you should check out bloglines.com where you can pretty much make your very own newspaper by subscribing to various feeds. Or, just click on the 'subblog' button on the right and it will take you there.

Airport Express

Something every music loving 20-something must have is the Airport Express. I was lucky enough to test drive one before purchasing and man let me tell you it rocks. If you have a wireless network setup in your home, apartment, dorm or whatever just plug it into an outlet and run a RCA A/V jack from it to your radio...whaalaa you can now stream all of your music from your PC to your radio instantly.

Strengths

Are you using your God given strengths to add value to your work? Do you even know what your strengths are? Too often we focus on correcting our weaknesses instead of honing our strengths. This is the premise for a book I read last year, Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton. Once you know which of the 34 strengths you’ve been given, the book will show you how to leverage them. For example, my top 5 are communication, ideation, WOO (winning others over), responsibility and significance.

Communication- I enjoy explaining, describing, speaking in front of people and sometimes even writing.

Ideation- Ideas fascinate me. I’m always looking for how things connect, line up or even how they could be done better.

WOO- I absolutely love meeting new people and getting them to like me. No strangers for me, just friends I’ve yet to meet.

Responsibility- Following through is huge for me. I want people to look to me first when they are assigning new responsibilities because they know it’ll get done. That leads to my final strength…

Significance- I really want to be significant in the eyes of others. I want to be known and appreciated for the unique strengths I’ve been given. (That also leads to pride being a huge issue for me…but that’s another blog.)

I highly encourage all to go out and purchase a copy of this wonderful book. Stop trying to correct what’s wrong and build on what’s right. This will increase your value immensely!!!

"Lovecat"

“It’s not what you do, but how much love you put into it that matters.”
-Mother Teresa

It seems like everything I hear or pick of has something to do with love. In his book, Love is the Killer App, Tim Sanders talks about being a “lovecat”. He says, “Offer your wisdom freely. Give away your address book to everyone who wants it. And always be human.” Be compassionate at home and at work. Spouse not feeling well? Show compassion. Co-worker going through a bad spot? Show some compassion. Show your friends a little compassion. Compassion takes time and time is also necessary in being a lovecat!

To be a lovecat, you must change the mark (or brand) you leave behind. You must add compassion to change your brand into something others want. How are you leaving your brand on everything you touch? What value are you adding? (Next time).

Numero Uno: The Sequel

Who’s your best friend? Wait let’s back up...who are your best friends? No, that’s still not it…who is in your cabinet? The president of the United States has a cabinet, do you?

We all have friends that tell us what we want to hear. But what we need are friends that will counterbalance us.

Psalm 1:3 refers to a tree planted by streams of water. The roots on a tree keep it from falling over as it continues to grow. They branch out underground for nourishment and support. In fact, they counterbalance everything that is aboveground and vulnerable to the wind and other elements. Do you see where I’m trying to go with this whole thing? We need a core group of friends we can rely on in good times and bad. As my pastor said, “We need friends that weep when we weep and rejoice when we rejoice!” We need friends that sharpen us…that spar with us.

Do you have a cabinet? Who’s your Condoleezza? What kind of love do you give them? (more on that next time)

Social Security

Here’s a quick note on Social Security. I mean really, the same people that buy $200 hammers and $500 toilet seats are in charge of peoples’ retirement? Sorry buddy, I don’t see it being there much longer. 20-somethings…when you get your first real job (by real I mean a job with benefits) go ahead and throw 10% into your 401K (or 403b). You can’t miss what you never had!

Let’s back up a second. My wife and I live on the ten, ten, eighty philosophy. 10 percent to God, 10 percent to savings and live on 80 percent. We started doing this as soon as we married and God has definitely been good to us. This is the only time I can think of in scripture when He actually says to test Him. “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse…Test me in this and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” (Malachi 3:10)

There’s a little more insight for you. Go for it! Start saving now! Heck, if you are great at it you may even get to retire early. This is also a great reason to have a core group of friends, more on that next time.

Numero Uno

Here's how this whole blog thing is going to work...Somedays this will be updated and somedays it won't. Somedays there will be something funny and somedays there won't. This blog came into existance one evening when a friend said, "Hey, I made you a blog, now you have to write something." No pressure there, so this goes out to my friend Terrance.

After much thought and consideration I decided that a person's twenties are pretty much the best/most important/worst/big chance to mess things up time in their life. Sure this stuff is out there somewhere but now it's here too.

A little bit about me (chronologically):

• graduated high school 1998
• began working at a hospital since I've always wanted to do the healthcare thing
  
• attended University of North Texas off and on
• got married at the ripe old age of 21 (lucky)
  
• attended nursing school (good at it but hated it)
• started looking for a real job (I have great bowstaff skills)
• started my blog

Here's the point...it's time to get busy. Time to grow up. Time to wise up. Time to acquire some real skills. The first step to getting skills is to read up. How can you share knowledge if you have none to start with? I am putting down the Clancy and picking up "Love is the Killer App."