The Pursuit of Happiness--Entry 11

With this week being Thanksgiving, then a day full of madness in greed of shoppers, I found this article, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, the best thing to read this week.  I have been having a hard time during the holiday season these past couple of years because our family is in Utah and we are in Illinois.  Travelling standby (since my husband is an airline pilot--it's a good perk) is getting harder through the company every month in the past few months, we are for sure not going to Utah for Christmas this year.  We can never go for Thanksgiving because we wouldn't make it out, and if we did, we wouldn't make it home.  We have traveled for Christmas three out of the five years living in Illinois, and this year, we just can't do it.  Our main support system lives in Utah.  Our friends we have known for years, and our family all lives there.  Trying to even Skype or contact our families through a phone call is impossible lately with them all gathered together and us sitting in our living room checking for their updates on Facebook--just to feel like we are a part of them still.  In this article, it talks a lot about our support system and being grateful.  These were two things that stood out to me.  

"Deep loving relationships, with a capacity for gratitude, forgiveness, and sharing are far more important than accomplishments." (pg 5)  

"We live in relationship with others and we need to belong.  We need others to complete us." (pg 11)

To have deep, fulfilling relationships with family, friends, our spouse, our children, and our grandchildren throughout our life is something that I see as fulfilling our life.  It reminds me of The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickins where Scrooge sees his future.  He sees that there was a man that died and nobody cared that he died.  They just wanted his things, and they were so happy to be free of the miser.  Scrooge couldn't believe it could be him because he thought he had relationships with the people in the future.  He thought they respected him.  But as he came to realize that it was his own death that made the people happy, it turned him around.  It made him realize that money isn't what makes people happy and grateful.  It is the people in their lives, the relationships they have with each other that make people the happiest and most satisfied.  There are other examples of stories like this.  The Grinch is one.  He thought taking away Christmas would rip the Who's apart.  It didn't because they had each other and the Spirit of Christmas lived through them and their love for each other.

If we want to be happy in our lives, we need to focus on those people who are in our lives at this time and be thankful for them.  Be happy and thankful for what they help us to be.  The people in our lives truly shape us into who we will be in the future days, months, and years.  I'm sure that the people I look up to and admire, look up to me for certain things about me that I bring to our relationship.  I am thankful that I will be with my children for Christmas, and I am thankful for friends that act like our family here in Illinois and welcome us into their homes for the holidays.  I am also thankful for a wonderful, supportive husband who wants my dreams to come true and pushes me to move forward in them.

I hope to always remember how thankful I am for the people in my life.  Even if I can't always be with my extended family, there are those around me that will welcome me in.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness Acton Guide

The Dip--Entry 10

These past few weeks, I've been reading the book, The Dip, by Seth Godin.  This book made me laugh with his witty one-liners, although I knew he was serious about what he was writing.  It also made me wonder and think about my current situation, and what I want to do with my future.  There are things that I keep talking about: writing, going back into dance, starting up a movie theater business, etc.  And as I wondered if these things were worth sticking through the Dip or quitting before getting stuck in a dead end, or failing miserably, I realized that it is a very difficult task to start many different project all around the same time, because then I would fail.  At all of them.

I was able to go back through my thoughts, and I realized that I would only pick two to work on, but only one at a time so I don't get stressed out or overwhelmed (which I easily am).

1.  Write, write, write.  I am horrible with getting my writing schedule down!  But I am going to do it!  I am going to stick through this Dip I am in and buckle down and do it.  It is something I am passionate about, and I am not going to be all talk anymore.  I am going to write!

2. I'm going to keep learning how to run a business, build a business, start a business, etc.  This way I will be more ready when I am ready to start my movie theater business.  I love movies, I love going to the movies, and I'm going to do it one day.  Just not yet.  I'm going to focus on something that will definitely help me stay at home more often and this isn't it just yet.

I'm glad I had the opportunity to read The Dip.  It has enlightened me and my way of thinking for my future endeavours.  Especially this quote from the book, "Quit or be exceptional.  Average is for losers."  I want to be exceptional in what I do.  I know it may take time, but I'm willing to work through it.

The Dip by Seth Godin

Being a Baker--Entry 9

Guy Kawasaki has an amazing video where he talks about baking and eating.  Not the actual baking and eating, but metaphorically.  He says that bakers are the people who see "the world as an opportunity to make more and bigger pies."  Eaters "need to get as much of the pie as possible."  There are moments in my life where I feel like a baker and other moments where I feel like an eater.  However, as Guy Kawasaki points out, "Trustworthy people are bakers, not eaters."  I feel like I'm a pretty trustworthy person so does that make me a baker?  Not necessarily.  I view owning a business as an opportunity to make it so that I can a) do something I love and want to share with the world, but also b) as something that can make me money without having me do a lot of the work.  I know that the latter won't happen unless I turn my business into some kind of conglomerate or franchise, or even the business makes the money I'm looking for to let me retire early.  Maybe this is why I should be an author since they are sort of entrepreneurs themselves.  Especially the self-publishing authors because they are entering the publishing world on their own, having to do their own marketing and sales, but if they do their work properly, they can be a baker.  The ones who make the money are the authors that just want to share the story with the world hoping to change someone internally.  To get them to connect with the author in some way through page after page of words that are captivating.

I have been a person that has been reserved in myself for a long time.  I have had hard times trusting people with things at certain times in my life.  Listening to Guy Kawasaki speak about trusting first, being a baker, and learning to think in terms of "How can I help that person?" really speaks to me that this is something I should work on.  I see myself as a baker because of how I'm always looking for opportunities to teach my children bigger and better things about life and living it.  I know I talk a lot about my kids and my family, but they are my biggest support and they are my life right now.  They are the ones that I am technically trying out all these new ideas of entrepreneurship on through different aspects of play, doing chores, etc.  I am learning to run a business through my life at home.  I think this may translate really well into the actual business world because I will see my business as my family and it will mean all the more to me then.

Video: Aspects of Building Trust by Guy Kawasaki

"Just Keep Swimming..."--Entry 8

"Just keep swimming," as Dory from Finding Nemo puts it so nicely.  This is my mantra whenever I'm stuck on something and don't know where to go next.  Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave a magnificent talk on trucking through the hard times to get to the better times.  He quotes Winston Churchill a lot which reminded me of my soccer team in high school.  "Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be," Winston Churchill.  I didn't even know this was a quote from this amazing man.  On my high school soccer team, our mantra was exactly this quote with more on the end of it.  "Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be.  For without victory, there is no survival."  When our team would look spent, we would chant this as the cheerleaders waiting to get on the field to help our team perk back up.  It always worked.  It rallied us together as a team.  People and other teams thought it was weird we had such a quote, but it certainly brought us together as sisters in soccer.

As I look into what I want to be, a published author, I see that this or even a screen-play writer is something to really pursue because of the lifestyle it allows me to have within the home.  I can work from home, I won't need to be gone from home all the time, and I can do most of my correspondence online through emails and phone calls.  However, when I look at the victory I can have as a published author, I see that light and I'm scared to go to it.  To go further past the initial first draft is scary.  I have tried having friends I trust read my very first novel and get feedback that doesn't help me at all.  I think they are trying to be nice when it came to helping me see what needed to be rewritten.  Then when I go back through and reread their notes, I realize, I am frightened to move forward.  I am excited to try again and write another full novel, edit it, then try and publish it.  I need to follow what Sister Holland said, "The only limitations you have are those you set on yourself."  This is so true when I see where the road to becoming a published author can lead me.  I am the one holding myself back.  My husband keeps asking me how the writing is going.  All I keep saying is, "The ideas are there, but I'm having a hard time implementing them."  Some of this is truth, and most of it is fear.  I am limiting myself to the thoughts of "I can't get published", "I only have good ideas", "Just do something else with your life that can guarantee payment".  I have to stop these thoughts.  I have to go at it with a mind ready for victory.

Elder Holland quotes Churchill here as well, "...unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall."  I will have victory this year for National Novel Writing Month, and I will conquer this fear of moving forward after writing my initial first draft.

I WILL HAVE VICTORY!  I WILL CONQUER!

I think I will go put this all over my house now.  It will be my new mantra, and it will be something to help me move forward through all my entrepreneurial goals.

However Long and Hard the Road by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Homeostasis--Entry 7

Wow, I can't believe how late I am on this journal entry!  I despise being late on work and things I need and even would like to do.  However, this past week couldn't have been helped.  I needed this past week to help me realize how to prioritize the things that are important to me in my life.

These past couple weeks I have been studying (pretty closely) the book, Mastery, by George Leonard.  This book is a lifesaver for me at this time.  I have so many goals, so many things I wish I could master, but I think I have taken on too much all at once and it has set me back into what he does state is homeostasis.  "Homeostasis works to keep things as they are even if they aren't very good." (page 110)  This right here reaffirms why things have happened to me that I would like to get done, but just fall backwards when I get into a rhythm and it dies.  I'm also lazy, and a procrastinator, but the procrastination is something I have considered that I have mastered (unless illness comes into play).  This chapter in his book about resolutions and how to keep them really has opened my eyes up to better prioritizing the things I need to do in my life.

Yes, I have goals.  I have lots of goals.

• I want to run a business of my own one day.
• I want to become a published author.
• I want to be able to play concert piano pieces with perfection and ease.
• I want to improve on my ballet skills.
• I want to learn to play the cello and violin.
• I want my kids to grow up happy, and to remember all the happier times of love and laughter in our home.
• I want to be financially independent.
• I want to tour Europe.

Some of these things seem like a bucket list of sorts, but that's how I see goals.  They are a bucket list.  They are my things I want to do and to master in my own way.  Guy Kawasaki said, "If you do what you love and you change the world, then you will be rich, but you shouldn't want to do it because you want to be rich."  I know a few of these things are things I do love doing.  I love ballet.  I love playing and practicing the piano.  I love to write.  I know I seem like I am all talk and do nothing.  I normally am that way.  However, I am constantly trying to figure out what I need to do to do these things with my husband's work schedule and with me being a mother and wife first.  I love everything that I accomplish, and I love having the support of my family through it all.

Mastery by George Leonard (link to Amazon)

Passion vs. Money by Guy Kawasaki video