My daughter came running up to me all smiles and big eyes, wanting to show me what she’d done to clean up her room.
© svitlana10 – Fotolia.com
This is an unusual thing in our house. My kids would rather live in chemical dumps than in pristine spaces, but we recently informed her that to earn back some privileges, she needed to show us she was mature enough to handle them. We assigned her the task of keeping her room neat, clean and tidy.
I walked in, looked around and was impressed.
I received a letter yesterday.
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Dear Bret Wortman,
My name is xxx xxxxx, and I’m the Vice President and General Manager for xxxx. I know you have a choice when it comes to wireless service, and I’d like to take a moment to say thank you for choosing xxxx.
A couple days ago I caught myself checking through Facebook status updates that were days old just because I was bored. What I saw in myself at that moment was the social media equivalent of channel-surfing when nothing good is on, but I’m unwilling to turn the TV off and do something productive.
So I’m going on a social media fast through the end of the year. It may go longer. I don’t know.
I’ve deleted the Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone and since I don’t use a desktop much except at work, I’m avoiding their web sites as well.
It’s not that I don’t like social media, or that I don’t love the friends I’ve made in cyberspace but whom I’ve never met in the real world. But I know only about 30 of my twitter followers — the rest are probably good people plus a bunch of others trying to get followbacks to build up their follower counts.
Likewise, I enjoy keeping up with my old (and new) friends on Facebook, but let’s be honest, how much of a conversation really goes on over there on an ongoing basis?
Nope, for the month of December I’m going to hang with the people closest to me, the ones most deserving of my undivided attention, and whatever pictures I take, whatever cute things my kids do, they’re going to be for my wife and I alone.
I’ll see you in January!
This past weekend was the Boy Scouts’ Scouting For Food weekend project. The boys spent the prior weekend distributing bags to homes in our area requesting canned good donations. This weekend, we went back and picked them up again.
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Spending so much time studying good Entreleadership principles, must be having some effect on me, because midway through our walking tour of a nearby subdivision, I had a Eureka Moment™.
What if next year, we got a batch of doorknob hangers and had them printed with a “Thank you” message? Even had some of the younger kids sign them in a barely legible scrawl to increase the “awwww” factor?
In Genesis 22, Abraham takes his son Isaac to be sacrificed. At the last moment, God stays his hand. In return for this selfless act of faith, God blesses Abraham, telling him in Genesis 22:17, “I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore” (NIV).
Image CC BY 2.0 Mike McCune
Rabbi Daniel Lapin asks, why stars and sand? Did you ever stop to think about just how different they are? Sure, they’re both incredibly numerous, but their natures are quite distinct.
Grains of sand, taken by themselves, aren’t really good for much, are they? A grain of sand can’t do much but annoy the heck out of you if it gets in your sandal.
Today I’m honored to be the guest author at ChrisLocurto.com, where Chris hosts a lively discussion about all matters pertaining to leadership and starting and running your own business. Chris is the host of the wildly successful EntreLeadership podcast as well, and a VP in Dave Ramsey’s Lampo group. To say I’m honored to be guesting in his “home” is the understatement of the year.
So without further ado, please join me for Be Careful Which Way You Lean and see what The Lorax has to teach us about being intentional about your support structures.
I’m a sax player. And like most sax players, I love looking at new equipment when it comes out. Reeds, mouthpieces, necks, pads, microphone systems, you name it, I’ve probably looked at it lovingly, thinking that just buying that thing would take my playing to the next level.
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I caught myself this morning looking longingly at the new Theo Wanne Mantra tenor sax range and wondering if I should consider selling my beloved P. Mauriat in favor of a Mantra. Mind you, I’ve only had my current horn for about two years.
And I’m not alone. Most professional players are almost legendary in their pursuit of the ultimate sound. Legend has it that Michael Brecker, probably the greatest tenor player of our age, collected hundreds of mouthpieces in his search for excellence. He also purchased and later resold hundreds of saxophones, always returning to his original instrument.
In most circles, this is known as GAS, short for Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
My family is recovering from Sandy. We missed the worst of it, so I’ll be back soon!
I want to share with you an experience I had yesterday as a conversation starter. I’d really like to know how you might have handled this. I may vent a little as we go along, so this is likely also therapy for me. I’ll try to keep it PG.
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I had recently applied for health insurance as an individual (not as a member of a group) for my family. My company’s plans are pretty pricey and I wanted to see if there was a cheaper alternative, since I pay 100% of the premium myself anyway.
So I contacted Zander Insurance like a good little Ramsey acolyte, who sent me over to ehealthinsurance.com since they don’t write coverage in my state. I filled out an application for a policy with Aetna and sat back to wait.
When I was young, I prayed for lots of things. I prayed for a new bicycle. For a new car. For new parents, once or twice. For a new saxophone, a new computer, better grades, more friends, better looks, some awesomely cute girl to like me. Or notice me.
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And more times than not, these prayers felt unanswered. I didn’t get the things I asked for.
I’m no theologian, but I think it’s because these were incredibly selfish prayers.
Bret lives in Virginia with his wife, two wonderful children, and two cats who allow him to come home each evening. When not developing software to make the world a better place or writing about entrepreneurship, leadership and service, he plays the sax and sometimes turns wood into sawdust. He is an unabashed fan of the Iowa State Cyclones.
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