September 8, 2011

Entrepreneurial Crash Course: 6 resources to help you think like an entrepreneur

Over the last 5 years I’ve had many conversations with aspiring entrepreneurs and people looking to break out of the 9 to 5. Here is a list of resources that seem to come up again and again that I think are worth sharing. (All of the titles link to the resource)

1. “Rich Dad Poor Dad” book – by Robert Kiyosaki 

If you can get past the cheezy title and simplistic writing style this book is a good primer to break out of the “think like an employee” mindset. His most valuable concept is in defining “wealth” and explaining how to achieve it in the broadest terms. Wealthy people keep their income higher than their expenses and use the excess to accumulate assets. “Poor” people have increased expenses and accumulate liabilities feeling like it is outside of their control.

Time: 3 hours

Value: 8/10 Continue reading →

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May 18, 2011

Family Meeting

I posted a response to why we have daily family meetings on my Brother-in-law’s blog Paths of Return. You can read it HERE. 

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April 20, 2011

Why I don’t click “Like”

While using facebook I’m fascinated by what keeps me from pressing “like”. Here are some common reasons:

  • I’m perceived as a stalker.
  • They don’t “like”  my stuff
  • “lik(ing)” it looks silly
  • I wish I didn’t like it.
Every time I push that button or make a comment I’m taking a risk that some of the above may happen.  This is no different from how I operate in the rest of my life. In my interactions with people there are times when I don’t express love. Here are some reasons why:
  • I’ll be perceived as to soft or overly interested.
  • I do not feel any love back.
  • I have been hurt and don’t feel any love to give.
  • It will look silly.
Jesus said: “Love one another. As I have loved you”. If I believe that Jesus pours on me a love that is un-restrained and un-conditional it means that the risk of loving others is taken away. It means I have freedom to not give my wife the cold shoulder when she hurts me. It means  I have freedom to click “Like” on facebook.

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March 24, 2011

Done with Racquetball: Looking to the past and future

This last December I quit playing racquetball….for good. This was a tough decision for the following reasons: 

  • I’ve been playing 3 days a week for the last 20+ years.
  • The last 10 years have been with the same group of guys and have developed some good friendships that I value. It is also something that I have been able to do with my dad consistently through childhood and adult life.
  • I love the sport and the consistent exercise & competition.
  • I am extremely competitive within the sport. At the age of 16 I was competing against the #1 player in the world for junior devision titles. In December, when I entered my last competitive tournament my and my doubles partner won a game against the #1 player in WA. I believe that with the level I was at, I was just entering “my prime”.

It is for all of these reasons that the thought never occurred to me NOT to play. But about 3 months ago I started thinking about the future implications. Here are some of those: Continue reading →

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February 7, 2011

How to Post on Craigslist

(Updated 2/10/11)
In the last 5 years I’ve probably sold $10,000 off of Craigslist. The following are some of the procedures and tips that I use.
This is how I deal with pricing. Keep in mind I am not taking into account what is the best policy for your personal ethics or for that of protecting the craigslist “community”. I will leave someone else to write about that. The purpose of this post is to discuss how you can get the most money for you junk.

  1. Price your items high. Don’t be a desperate seller. Post it higher than you think. If you post it and get 10 offers in the first day, your price was too low. Do not reply to anybody and RAISE THE PRICE! If someone notices the same item for a higher price tell them “Sorry, I had the price wrong originally” BECAUSE YOU DID!!!
  2. Do not negotiate on price. Negotiating with an individual is time and energy consuming and limits your ability to sense where the market is at. Write that the “Price is Firm” in the ad. Also, anytime I arrange a meeting with someone I always let them know this to let them know I am serious. Continue reading →

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January 21, 2011

Letter to Dove

About 2 and a half months ago I sat in a meeting where a 55 year old mentor and and friend read a letter that he had wrote to his son 8 years earlier. It was sobering and inspiring hearing how powerful the written word can be and the process of writing and reading things that often go unprocessed and unsaid. After about 2 weeks of procrastinating I wrote my thoughts to my oldest daughter Dove. That same day we went out to Starbucks and I read it to her. I was crying, she was not. It’s hard to know who was more impacted by the process. I do know this though, the older she gets the more I think something like this will mean to her. When we were leaving the coffee shop she asked if I was going to post it online. I asked her if she thought I should. She said that she thought it would be a good thing to share for “other fathers and daughters.” So here it is.

11/1/2010

Dove,
I wanted to take the time to write down some thoughts before I forgot. Sometimes life can go by pretty quickly and before you know it a lot of time has passed. Can you believe that you’re 9 now? That may not seem like a big deal to you but to your mother and I it’s pretty crazy. It didn’t seem like too long ago that your mother had just given birth to you and I was holding you in my arms crying and we decided to name you Dove. To this day, Dove is one of my favorite names.

Well, there’s a few things I wanted to tell you because having kids is kind of strange. Continue reading →

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October 8, 2010

Tattoo #10 – Ship with Stars and Clouds

Location on Body: Chest

 

Mark Treas Inspired Art

 

Shop: Mother’s Tattoo in Covington, KY

Time it Took: 8 hours? Who knows? Can’t remember

Cost: $450…I think

This last year was a strange year for our family. We spent 8 out of 12 months doing (for the most part) unplanned travelling. It started with God telling us to go to Portland (where we were for almost 5 months) and ended with us in Cincinnati for about 2 months.  During that time we noticed some things change about our family.

  • We became more and more detached to our house. We lived out of a suitcase and packed light. The question of where  we “lived” took on a level of complication. Every time we would come home from traveling we would fill garbage cans full of things we once considered essential or beneficial to our lives.
  • We depended more and more on faith. Picking up your family of 6 to head to a city with your job, mortgage, and their education up in the air does not fall in the “common sense” category. The more we traveled in obedience in the direction we felt Jesus was leading us the more and more we found stability in faith and the less secure things like income, houses, and other temporal systems became.
  • We became more of a family. When we first set out for Portland by biggest fear was that we would be compromising the benefits of stability that you hear a family needs.  I was prepared to pull the plug the second I felt like our family goals were being threatened. So of course it came as a surprise when the relationships within our family took on more strength and energy than we had ever seen. Continue reading →

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