The Simple Things Again

This seem to be something that I am always coming back to as a theme. How the simple things in life are the things we over look can cost us in the long run. I have regained a appreciation for walking. I have always known that daily walking could be beneficial. No I am not walking because of the high gas prices though it could come to that. I am walking now for my health. If you have been following this blog then you already know that I am a marshal artist who practices Tai Chi and Wo Shu. These activities have health as well as practical benefits. But walking in and of it self has many benefits we often over look. When we walk we fine tune the body. As we walk our bodies speak to us and tells us what is wrong or right.  Some days as you walk you will notice that you have more pep in your step. This can be from a good nights sleep or the food we ate the day before (fuel). It is a good habit to walk everyday .I suggest at least a mile a day, it will take this long for the body to tune up and begin to speak to you if you are in fairly good shape. It will talk to you much sooner if you are in poor shape:). But that’s O.k because where ever you start you can always improve by going a little further each day. You will be up to a mile in no time. The point is the further you can go and the longer you can walk the better shape you are in.

Walking is a very good metaphor for life ( our daily walk). You have heard the expression before what is you walk in life. What is your destination? How long will it take you to get there? How far are you going? And what kind of shape are you in.  I wrote this article after I found myself spending to much time at the computer and not enough time using my body. Walking is a simple way to find balance again. For those who don’t have any other fitness program.

Another benefit of walking is thinking. A natural bi-product of walking is self dialog. Listen to the thought as they come to you when you walk. I have many good ideas that have come from a long walk. Also walking is a great way to deal with anger andfrustration. The first benefit of walking is that it removes you from the situation giving you time to reflect and not respond, in Tai Chi we would call this transferring energy. Walking allow us to deflect an attack it also allows time to respond properly and in a way that does not cause us more problems. You would be surprised at what a simple walk can do.

Empty Words

How many times to you find yourself saying the same old thing over and over again. or having the same conversation you had with someone all over again. Many times this happens with family, friends and in the work place where we see people daily. When certain topics come up. The end result is the same and no one has changed. The only thing that happens is the clock on the wall says you have lost some minutes or even hours accomplishing nothing.

This habit comes from  not knowing when a conversation or idea is dead. Knowing when it’s time to move on is very important. These kind of conversations are one  of our biggest time wasters. Somewhere in the back of our mind we get the idea that we can change other peoples opinion or point of view. This seldom happens, when a person has a strong opinion no matter how wrong they may be usually the only person that can change that opinion is them self.

This is very true form a business perspective. Either a person agrees or they don’t, they see the point or they don’t. The simple truth is we are not going to agree on everything and we need to know when to let a dead horse go. Have you ever heard the term ride it into the ground. I look at the same idea  from a different perspective, riding a horse in a different direction away from your task and goals. The next time you find  yourself exchanging empty words, stop and ask yourself have we had this conversation before? If the answer is yes don’t waste your time.

The Economy and Business/ When Times are Bad ,times are good(for some people)

I was watching news cast recently that got my attention. Did you know there are certain businesses that prosper during hard economic times. A story I was watching recently was about a modern day wildcatter. The interesting thing about this interview was that near the end of the interview the wildcatter said that his business would get better as oil prices went up, I think he said he would profit when it reached a hundred dollars a barrel. Last report it was $138 a barrel.

The reason for this profit is that when oil prices are low it cost him to much to drill for oil and he can’t make a profit. This story started me to thinking about how many more businesses there are like this. Mechanic.s only make money when someone’s car breaks down ,Funeral Homes only make money when someone dies. There thousands of businesses like this. And you want to know what was the funniest thing my research found? Yes more people start businesses when the economy is down. Many if not most because they lost there job or the job is not paying enough.

I am like everyone else I feel the pressure of high gas prices and food prices. And when I see stories like the wildcatter I get a little upset,but then I think ,what would I do if I were in his shoes, if I were in his business , how would I feel? Some of the high minded among us would say I wouldn’t be in his shoes or business. Easy to say now,but what if it where different.

Another news story a major city near me (Ft Worth Tx) recently signed a big contract with a major oil company for the right to drill beneath the city. People are being hired, schools and social services are benefiting. Some people have even paid off there homes. All this while other parts of the country are suffering. The moral of the story is this, someone will always be making money while others aren’t. The key is what you give back.

A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart and set out to accomplish it. He should make this purpose the centralizing point of his thoughts. It may take the form of a spiritual ideal, or it may be a worldly object, according to his nature at the time being; but whichever it is, he should steadily FOCUS his thought forces upon the object which he has set before him.  He should make this purpose his surpreme duty; and should devote himself to its attainment,not allowing his thoughts to wander away into ephermeral fancies, longings.and imaginations> his is the royal road to self control and true concentration of thought.

even if he fail again and again to accomplish his purpose (as he necessarily must until weakness is overcome) the strength of character gained will be the measure of his true success, and this will form a new starting point for future power and triumph.

James Allen

As A man thinketh

Back To Basics

I haven’t posted in this blog recently because I have gotten caught in the web of my own mind. What exactly do I mean by that? I mean that my thoughts are getting in my way and preventing action. Yes there is a war that takes place in your mind daily , the struggle for your attention. Combine this with the many distractions of the day and it is a wonder anyone dose anything. I discovered that once I ventured out as a entrepreneur that this war for the attention of the mind would be difficult. My thought was the problem would be securing money, but the real challenge became managing time so that I could do the things I need to do to get the money. This brings me back to my favorite subject balance. This seem to be a theme with me and I believe it is a theme with most of us. And the question is how to obtain this balance in a world that is constantly pushing you off balance. Here is my latest discovery, in order to be balanced you must be centered ( duh) I know that sounds obvious, but it’s not. Remember when I spoke of the thoughts fighting against themselves in my head, well that is exactly what they are struggling to do, be the center of our attention. The truth is they trade places depending on what needs to be done next. This is often called the things come up category, but it is much more than that because many of these things are equally important and many demand that you drop everything else to do them. Now it seems we are right back where we started, juggling all these things and never getting anything done.

The problem is not really in the things we do, but in the things we don’t do. I know most of us think this way and I must admit I think this way often myself. Why do I say that the problem is not in what we do, but in what we do not do? It is because every action is preceeded with a thought and we end up doing things we don’t want to because we don think about them first.

Today I would like to ask that you to do one thing, I know it’s hard to do one thing in a multi task world. But just for a couple of minutes give yourself permission to have one thought. And that thought is (where am I centered, what is the most important thing in life to me right now) this can be anything health , life , family, breath, money, family, religion, anything as long as it is one thing. What one thing is most important to you, it could even be happiness. What do you want to have most.Truth is most of us have never thought about it.

Another thing I discovered in doing this is that the center for me changes. what was my center yesterday is not my center today. This maybe also the case for you as well.  It is impossible to have balance if you are not centered.

No one has the right to choose what your center should be, that is a personal choice. But in order for you to be balanced you must have a center (center of gravity if you will). this brings me to another thought about being grounded , but I will write about that later (  a good subject” Is where you are grounded grounding you?”)

I have tried not to be to complicated in this article, but I will have to use at least one psychological term here ( frame of referrence) or as we use to say on the street ” where you are coming from”. This is the place you will always want to return to when ever you feel you are losing your balance, it is your center. Here is a intererting note, when ever you let anything or anyone become the center, that person or thing will control your balance. A good place to begin to find and maintain your daily balance is by medatating on what you are centered on. If you maintain your center you will regain your balance and you will get back to running your business, building your famly or website,or simply writing another blog post. Life moves in one direction forward.

A Great Conversation and Some Good Advice From A Friend

I believe that God has a reason for bring people together. I know many people don’t believe this but it has been my experience in life that this happens often. And many times we don’t realizes it until after the fact what impact the person or contact  has on us.  I recently lost a good friend William Ray (RIP) a fellow photographer. William and I had become closer in the last few years. Because we where both only children,we were both somewhat private people and because of this we were not as close as we could have been. But if we had been closer then the losing him as a friend would have been harder.

I appreciate having William as a friend, I say having because I believe true friends even in death remain friends. A strange truth, death does not destroy relationships, many times it makes them stronger. Fond memories can bring back feeling that you didn’t you had until you miss them. I will miss my friend , his weekly conversations and most of all his good advice and confident smile.

About three years ago I had attended a womens conference with my wife and was flying back to Dallas from Long Beach California. I was reading a book ( Hand Book for the soul). The person across from me( Jason Womack) comment on the book , saying he had read it and it a very good book.  Because we were both internet connected  me being the C.E. O of Inputplus    and Jason at the being a consultant for David Allen’s GTD program and having his on blog and website Jason Womack we exchanged information and became Internet friends.  As a matter of fact Jason posted a blog about our conversation that same evening and emailed me about it.

Three years later I find out Jason is in Dallas and the following interview takes place. Notice how much remember about the plane conversation in the interview. I and my business have grown since that meeting and as a result I  have become a very savvy Internet business strategist thanks to Jason’s friendship. Click here to see the interview

Today has been filled with inspiration the rain does that to me. I see rain and sunshine as life giving sources. I am a plant lover( I put my indoor plants out today to gather rain water) I have always been fascinated by there growth. The earliest memory of this is when I was about three or four years old playing in the yard and in my fathers garden( my father always had a garden). My parents where country folks who lived in the city. I did not realize until much later in life that the only reason they lived in the city was for survival. My father the son of a share cropper owning no land he came to the city for work. My mother who cared for her father until his death came to the city at the urging of a sister and not being able to farm her fathers land alone. Growing up I often heard them speak fondly of the country,nature and the land.

The rural parts of Texas had brought them racial discrimination and hardship, but they always spoke with admiration about the land and all things living. I remember in third grade science learning about photosynthesis, even at the age of ten I was spellbound by the process of plant life. I remember it like it was yesterday, when the science teacher showed us the picture of a leaf and how it turn green by processing water and sunlight , how it created Chlorophyll turned green and gave us oxygen. I am still amazed by this as I watch the rain. I think about how my father would welcome the rain always commenting about how good it would be for his garden. Or how much he respected it when we were told we had to evacuate because our house was in the flood plain ( our house never flooded though, came close but never flooded).

Many years before Katrina, I attend a community meeting in Dallas with the army core of engineers who were meeting with community leaders about plans to correct this problem after one big flood in 1989 did finally flood the entire community leaving hundreds homeless. This was long after my father had passed and my mother had moved to a senior citizen home. In this meeting the army core of engineers explained why my childhood neighborhood had been flooded for so many years. It was because of the opening of flood gates and the by passing of wealthy homes. The really bad thing was in this meeting it was disclosed that they had knowledge of this two to three week before the water would be released. When asked why they only told the people the night before they had no answer.

When I saw the victims Of Katrina, I remember watching all the people from my old neighborhood as they stood above the flood plain and watch the water cover there roof tops in 1989 ( I was working at my old High School at the time and went to see some of the students who I worked with who hadn’t come to school that day).

I remember that day because as the people stood around watching homes submerged by the flood with only roof tops showing. Suddenly helicopters flew over and sirens blasted, Dan Quayle the then vice president was in town and came to see the flooded area. He made a statement that he would look into th the problem and he did, or helped the process. After some meetings with the Army core of engineers and city official they finally built a levee and the community has not flooded since. I think now about man and nature, men can be friends or enemies. As friends we are our greatest resource and we can do many great things, but as enemies we destroy ourselves.

Though nature can be unkind in most cases it is our friend, so I welcome the rain. And I remember the lessons the rain has thought me

A Great New Resource

Foundations Magazine presents ideas to build your life on. This magazine lays down the basic building blocks of a successful person. It is based on the understanding that there are universal laws that govern us and our environments. Learning to live within this context is the key to all success.

 Click here to read an excellent article on wisdom

Balance

I practice Tai Chi, the art of Tai Chi  is all about balance. When the form is practiced at it’s highest level there is perfect balance. But one of the first things you learn is that there is rarely perfect balance ( but we keep trying and as a result we get better at it). I started this practice over twenty years ago and would be much better at it if I did it daily , but I don’t, sometimes not practicing it for months only to go back to it again. What I have found for me is, so goes Tai Chi Ch’uan, so goes life. Even though  on T.V you see large numbers of people in China in the park doing Tai Chi ( most Tai Chi practice is done alone). I have said in the past that we do what we love to do and we find time for the things we love. I love Tai Chi but  I don’t always find the time to do it, I love to eat healthy and right but I don’t always do that either.

What I am finding is that I am not always doing the things I love. Most of the time I find myself doing something totally not related to what I really want to do. To get back to the point I find that this all has to do with balance. In life sometimes we loose our balance and fall off (sometimes we are pushed in Tai Chi we have a practice called push hands), but the important thing is that we get back up and  gain our balance again. One of the practices in Tai Chi to strengthen balance is walking on a log at various speeds fast slow,forward backwards. This practice increases agility and teaches you how to remain balanced throughout the form, At one time I had been relatively good at it. But when I attempted it the other day I couldn’t stay on the log even standing still, ha ha. Why you ask? because I hadn’t practiced in years and rarely do my forms anymore (which starting today I will get back to again as I have over and over).

I thought that after so many years of doing this that I could just hop back on the log and begin where I left off. No it just dose nott happen that way. And neither does life, when we fall off and get back on,it takes some time to regain our balance, but with time and focus we will regain our balance.

Lessons Learned:

Know what you love and do it.
Your priorities and time should be set around what you love
GIve those things your time daily
Remember work is only part of what you do
Pay attention (time can fool you)
What is important to you,  marriage , family,relegion and spirituality,work
Rank these things and give each your time accordingly
Take time out daily for yourself

Inspiring 101 and still running

I really like this person not just because of his age and the fact he can run. But in a interview he gave the reason for his being able to run as simply ” I am not like other people”. Sometimes it’s good to be different.

101-year-old Buster Martin is training to become the world’s oldest marathon runner when he runs in the London marathon next month. He ran the half marathon last weekend, completing it in just over five hours. (Pimlico Plumbers)