Moving to the City

I've decided to make some shifts in my life. The major one I'm working on is moving to the city.

Packing is always an interesting experience. Only by physically going through all your stuff and attempting to figure out how to transport it from location to location do you realize its real value. Some things you gladly find ways to transport. Others you realize are just slow accumulations of things you don't want to invest the time into dealing with.

While moving can be stressful and require a large amount of invested time and effort, I feel like it would be in people's best interest to move every two years. If you have a house and mortgage, maybe you shouldn't actually move but instead still pack up and then unpack all of your stuff.

This sounds absurd I'm sure. It takes a lot of time to move all the stuff around and when you unpacked it the first time you put mental energy into determining where and how you wanted it. The thing though, is over time it is easy to get stuck in a rut. If everything is always done the same, how can you really expect anything to change in your life?

Maybe you're happy with your life and don't want it to change. That's fine. But if you aren't happy, breaking up the routine and changing things around can potentially give you that boost to making life better.

Change can be difficult and often reverts back to old ways. Sometimes though, you can trigger a difference that makes all the effort worth it.

Life Area Effects

I've been noticing lately the combined effects of areas of my life. Say you break an individual down into the following areas:
Physical Health, Employment (Work / Job / Contribution), Financial, Relationships
Each of these elements contributes to some degree to their overall happiness level. Having a strong foundation and support structure in one area will help make up for deficiencies in others. As things change, it could topple over existing structures.

I wish I had a better grasp of this concept. Right now my work life has gone up and down, sometimes adding positive support, other times dropping the floor out from under me. My living situation is in flux as I prepare for a big move, so that has caused some stress. I've developed some good relationships that are adding to my life and providing some solid support.

It's hard to quantify and qualify all these influences and come up with any kind of model for actually objectifying how they impact my life. In order to do that I would need to spend some time clarifying the parameters and logging enough information to start creating definitions and logging real conclusions.

My current goal is to put together a program around this kind of foundation. I'm going to take my business coaching company and turn it into a life coaching company. I'll work with individuals to lay out specific life improvement goals and then design steps they take towards them as well as ways to measure them and record the results.

This is all in a very soft, formative stage at this point, but my interest has been in this kind of thing for a while. I feel like I have a clearer idea of what I want to accomplish with this approach than I had with the business coaching, so making this switch will be a step in the right direction. It's going to take a lot of time and focus though, so I've got a lot of things to take care of first.

I'll try to continue to update the process.

My Life is a Mess

I had dinner with a friend last night and left with one primary feeling over everything else. My life is a mess.

I'm not sure when or how it happened, but I know at this point I've lost focus on all my goals and objectives for my life. So much so at this point that I don't even know where to begin to find out where I left off.

To be fair, I'm currently suffering from a Respiratory infection. The effects of this have been extreme fatigue and lack of memory along with a deep cough. As you can tell from my writing, I'm also having an increasingly hard time organizing and collecting my thoughts. I'm all over the place with pretty much everything that I do.

I had thought that I was doing well. I have a job that makes me a good amount of money, a place to live, a car. I have good friends and a large family. Most people would probably trade with me at any point. Knowing that doesn't help much since I feel so confused and lost.

I've gotten to the point know where there are just so many things to know and consider about every aspect of life that I've completely lost the ability to discern what is right or wrong. I feel like I have preferences for some things over others, but most of the time I am not conscious of my decision making process or cognoscente of the factors I'm using in making choices.

I feel very lost and purposeless.

How to find the right Career for you

There are a lot of how to guides for finding the right career for you. Many people have written long books explaining detailed processes for narrowing it down and figuring it all out. Usually this involves some kind of paper and pen list. You write down everything you like in the world, and as you do it you slowly get a better idea for what you like more than than other things. Then eventually your favorite activity is suppose to bubble up to the surface of your brain and you're happy and know exactly what you want.

In my experience, this has never worked. I have a lot of interests and they are often changing or are unrelated to each other. Also, part of what would make a great job for me would be that it changes frequently since I get bored with doing the same thing and often go through periods where I feel more or less inclined to work independently.

Another large factor in determining what I want to do is the pay. No, life is not all about money. I do have financial goals as well as bills to pay though, so as much as I'd like to pretend I don't need to think about money at all, that would be a lie.

So taking all of this into account, I present you with a new strategy. It's as simple as possible and involves no pencil and paper. Here goes...

Envision all of your hobbies that you are an active participant in doing the work beyond just being a member. For example, if you write on a forum all day, this does not count. If you have signed up to be an administer for that forum, then that would count. If you just attend meetings, that does not count. If you are on an executive committee or are helping out on projects, that counts.

Now that you know what you care enough about to actually put extra work into, merge those activities with your current job. Think about what position would use all of those skills or would combine those interests. It doesn't have to be exact, but should be related.

In order to offer more clarity, I will use myself as a demonstration.

Right now I volunteer as a coach for a basketball team, I am the Treasurer of the Toastmasters club that I belong to, I am a Lector at my church and I organize my own group for the MS walk. Since I play active roles in coaching, Toastmasters and the MS walk but am just a participant as a Lector, I will remove that from consideration. My day job is doing software development work.

So taking all this together, I should do a job involving coaching/teaching how to use or develop software and includes gathering and coordinating a group of people for a good cause.

Now, that's not a final result but without needing paper and a pen, I have a solid idea that I can use as a starting point and continue to refine. With the right direction in mind, I can either work to shape my current job into something that fits that, or try to jump to another position that is inline with my idea.

How to Deal with Uncertainty

A little background information first. Recently I've been feeling good and thinking a lot clearer. I'm not sure the exact cause of this, my current theory is that by switching to sleeping on my stomach instead of my back is preventing me from rolling around in my sleep, so I actually get more REM sleep and my body is actually healing and recovering.

So, having this new found energy, I've been putting a lot of thought into my life and how to improve my current situation. For the past year or so, I've been thrashing around between ideas, not really knowing what direction I want to take or what I really want to do. This is partially because even though I have an idea of where I want to go, I have no idea what steps to take to actually get there. I keep trying things, but not with any consistency or effort to actually get anywhere.

Along this line, a recent post on Steve Pavlina's blog talks about the 'Abuse of Power' and how a person can end up in a self-defeating cycle that imprisons them rather than enabling them (http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2009/05/abuse-of-power/). This is precisely what I had been doing by constantly answering the question, "What do I want to do with my life?" with "I don't know". The reality is that I do know. I want to work in a situation like Toastmasters, where there is a structured program for growth with clear steps and milestones of achievement. I want to take what I learn and then mentor others who want to learn those skills. I want to become a leader and take on larger challenges.

At my current job, I have begun to do this in some ways. I'm doing business analysis work on a health care system in CNMI. I'm running the QA and Testing effort for the DJS. I created a new structure for how documentation should be stored and used internally so that it can be shared and used as an asset. Unfortunately, I have no interest in electronic health records or Mental Health and Substance Abuse treatment. Therefore, I'm currently focusing my efforts on finding quality companies that work in sectors that I am interested in, such as Green Technology and Military Defense.

What this all comes back to is goals. It is easy to start drifting through life when you have too much uncertainty about what you want. The problem with this is that no one is going to come into your life and tell you what you want. The only way to figure it out is to cut down the options to a manageable number and then make the effort to start trying them. Pick one thing, put your best effort out to making it happen. If you don't like it, you cross it off the list and move onto the next thing.

Trust me, I know I make it sound easy but is actually really hard to do. No one likes failing, no one likes rejection. As much as they hurt, they are less painful than the feeling of regret of seeing time go by and having nothing to show for it. Nothing is as disheartening as the feeling of drifting, uncertain what to do.

One of the member of my Toastmasters club just won the International Speech Competition at the District level. His speech centered around one key point that is important for everyone. To be a leader, to accomplish your goals, to be respected and create value, you need to start with three words.

I am responsible.

Specialization

I've finally made this realization. Interestingly enough, I've been told this many times in the past but for some reason it never really clicked until now. Life demands specialists.

What am I talking about?

Well, think of your own experiences. When you do searches online. When you talk to your friends. Whenever you do anything. What are you looking for? An expert.

Say you're hungry and you want Chinese food. What is the thought process? I imagine it goes something like this:
- What Chinese places do I know?
- Am I happy with my recent experience at favorite of places that I know?
- Do I want to try something new?
- Who do I know that likes Chinese?
- Where do they think I should eat?

Let's say you're going to cook dinner. Do you ask someone who doesn't know how to cook what you should do? No, you ask someone with relative experience greater than yours. If you do a search online, you are looking for a specific piece of knowledge or a detailed guide, not information about the theory behind cooking or a story someone wrote about an experience they had cooking.

The world demands specialists. That's where keywords comes in. That's where clients come from. People's nature to seek out someone who knows better than them in one specific topic.

So the question is, what to specialize in? What to be an expert on?

Normally, I have a tendency to learn something quickly and then move on to something new. Instead of doing that, I need to pick a specific process, do it, get to an expert level at it and then write up descriptions for how to do it that others will want to benefit from.

I do this naturally in a lot of scenarios. I analyze situations and anything that I repeatedly do, I create algorithms for how to do it in an optimal fashion. Now I need to start transcribing them and then publishing them.

Strange Twist

So after acting like I don't exist for a few weeks, my employer has thrown a strange twist at me. They want me to fly out to Idaho to do some training. But before I get into that, there is a reason this is so odd.

On Monday I went for a run so I could think about my future and what I want now that I know I'm not going to Austin. I ran through some scenarios in my head and there was only one that really felt like it resonated. I need to quit my job.

After a little more thought, I realized that it all lines up just right. I can quit on May 29th, which is the two year anniversary of when I started working here. That gives me a month to make arrangements and make sure I'm not jumping into a big pile of nothing or some fleeting hopes and dreams of magic success.

My idea is to switch to doing consulting work on a case by case basis. That way instead of having my employer be my only customer, I can start to diversify and build a bigger base of skills and contacts. If I build my income back up to the current level in that model, there is still a growing potential for more income sources and areas to test out. Also, there is more risk but more control since the more time and effort I put into it, the more I should get back out.

Following this line of thought, I'd have to give my two week notice on May 15. Interestingly enough, now they want me to fly out on May 19-21.

So I'm a little torn. At this point this is all still a work in progress. Most of the advice I've gotten since I came up with the idea has been to not jump into something unless I have a plan. I have two weeks to put something together, so I'm going to see what I can do. The Toastmasters conference is this weekend so I figure that and Craig's List will be my best bets for starting to build up a network of clients.

So, here goes nothing.

Plan B

I've spent the last 3 months working on an application to a business school in Austin, Texas. As I've mentioned in the past, my goal is start my own business, and I've attempted this several times now. This school is built around accelerating students through the learning curve so that they have all the tools they need to do just that. Unfortunately, I was rejected.

So the question is, now what?

Before I answer that, what really bothers me about this is something that happened that made me apply to the school. I was reading their website after hearing about it from my brother and I got this feeling. It was more than a gut feeling, it felt like it came right from my bones. Like everything that makes me who I am was pulling me toward this school. It just felt so absolutely right. So to get that feeling, put all the work in to apply to the school and then get rejected is soul crushing.

So now what? Now I figure out what Plan B is and do that. The nice thing about this process is that it has helped me identify the areas in my life that must change and the strong areas that I don't want to change. So I have to start cutting out the bad and building on the good. Even though I won't be doing what I so desperately wanted to, at least I know what needs to be done. I think it's false to pretend like rejection is really something good, I mostly think people are just lying to themselves when they say that. I am going to try and get at least something from it to help soften the impact of the blow.

Cage

I've built a cage around myself. From the outside it looks like a comfortable place, nice place to live, quiet workplace, weekly routine of things to do. Still a cage.

There is this idea that I and I'm sure many others subscribe to in our everyday lives. You commit to a routine, convincing yourself that you're progressing. Each day earns some more money and you're building to this day when you can finally be free. You can turn in your 9-5 for that peaceful, happy retirement that you've earned through sacrifice of all the best years of your life. There are just enough small victories along the way to keep a person appeased into continuing to live quietly.

I feel it's all an illusion. The society we've built up around ourselves along with the ideas that keep it going are really just a house of cards keeping the truth out. There are many people on the other side, shouting to us to come outside, but its so hard. Once you get into the routine, you've set a standard. How can you not work to keep it? Why would you want to lose now for the hope of an uncertain future regardless of the potential benefits?

Why? Because it's the truth. Outside of our cages is the lifestyle people were suppose to live. Maybe it doesn't include as much modern luxury but it does include what we desire at our core. Meaning.

We all desire to matter. To be something great. To make a difference.

I know for myself that I am not making that difference in my cage. I'm the hamster running on the wheel. I desire to do something that matters but that is not what is asked of me in the cage. Just keep spinning, don't disrupt the flow. That is what is asked of me.

But there is no reprieve. All that exists is wrestling with the fear that keeps you where you are until, hopefully, one day you break through. I just hope I have what it takes to make it to that point.

Perspective

I think I'm starting to get a better understanding of how people see me. This is mainly because of the people who are doing to me what I must do to other people.

Let me take a second to explain. When people send me emails, I respond usually within the hour if not immediately. When people call me, even if they don't leave a message, I call them back, usually right when I see the missed call.

Recently I've met some people who respond constantly with no delay to any message they are sent. It's nice at first, but then after a while you start running out of stuff to say back. They're all about results, results, results. I don't have any results for some of the stuff I'm working on. It's because I'm afraid and don't put the effort into it that I should. I know this, I hate this, but it's extremely hard to force yourself to act on something, even when you don't have anything else to do.

So clearly I do this same thing to other people. They're doing what they want and moving at their own pace and enjoying it and I keep making demands of them to do more or do what I think they should. That must be really annoying.

Knowing this, I'm not sure what is a good solution. Most people seem to be able to generate stuff to do when they are bored. Maybe my lack of focus on detail is what saves me time but then kills me later because of the lack of recall. Also, my jumping from thing to thing leads to a large amount of projects left uncompleted or pending. I never seem to make the time to accomplish big things.

Ironically enough, the big things that I have accomplished and taken the time to do right are the ones I usually end up happy about. An example is my car. I took a long time searching around to determine all the criteria that mattered to me. Then I tried out a lot of cars and finally had put together all the info I needed to make a decision. To this day I'm extremely happy with and excited about my car.

I think the reason I have a problem at work is because of my location. Being in the middle of an open cubicle room, I feel like people can always see what I'm doing. This makes me think I have to always have the appearance that I'm working or busy, even when I'm not. Even when I am working, I feel like any distraction pulls my focus away even when wearing headphones. So I have a situation where I'm setting myself up for failure.

Having these thoughts is always a dual edged sword. It's like now you know what the problem is, but most of the time the solution seems out of my control. So you end up just stewing in the problem.

Insight

I belong to Toastmasters and am working my way through the original manual to get the ten speeches finished in order to get my Competent Communicator award. Last night I gave my ninth speech. Normally, I'd post the speech here but I did a presentation with slides, so it wouldn't make a lot of sense without all the elements.

I learned something interesting in giving the speech. For each speech I've spent a lot of time crafting an informative and interesting mixture of content. I figured this approach would keep the audience's attention while giving them valuable advice they can start to apply. I've found that the reaction is never what I would expect.

Here is an example. Last night I started my speech by saying "You're fired!". The idea was to grab attention because people are worried because there is constant talk about how bad the economy is right now. I then talked about steps that people can take to remove that fear by diversifying their income sources.

At the end, the feedback I got was pretty standard. "Great speech". "Very informative". The one that stood out was that I could have said "You're fired" like Trump does in his Celebrity Apprentice show.

So what I've learned from this is that people really don't care about the content of your speech. You could give them the advice of jumping off a bridge or hiding their money under the mattress. It's all about entertainment. Relatable entertainment. Which means pop culture references, word play, unexpected shifts and anything for a laugh.

I'm not sure why this is. I have a feeling that when you present something that seems academic in nature, you're challenging people to think. After a long day at work most people are tired of thinking. They want to shut down and be entertained. This is why athletes, musicians and entertainers get paid so much money.

I have a feeling this is part of the reason my blog is not popular. I could post random photoshoped images and probably get orders of magnitude more hits than I do currently.

So the question is what to do with this knowledge. I write this blog mainly for myself to help organize my thoughts and capture knowledge gained, so I don't anticipate changing that any time soon. I also write these speeches because I have a message I want to get out. I will have to change my approach in that area though, because people don't care about your message if you don't wrap it right. Maybe I'll write the tenth speech the way I normally would, and then from there forward I'll just play to the crowd as much as possible.

I'm still left a little unsettled by this. I don't want to judge, people work hard and deserve to live their lives the way they want to. I seem to have a personal obsession with growth and progress, and it usually makes me unhappy because I'm always pushing to do more. So if others have found a way to be happy and that's what it takes, then I wish them the best. This life is short with fleeting rewards for hard effort. Finding any kind of happiness and holding onto it as long as possible is sometimes all we really have. I'm not ready to give up my quest and abandon my ways, but at least now I hope I can go forward with a clearer understanding.

Personality Theory

I've posted some before about Personality Theory. I even went through my period of denial about being an ENFP and claiming that I'm an INFP. Recently I invested more time into learning about some additional complexities that I hadn't though of before, which is how I determined my real type. I'll share the additional layers and how they work.

The first layer of the theory are the 16 different types themselves. They revolve around the four main categories that govern how an individual operates, mainly the I/E, N/S, F/T and J/P distinction. Rather than discussing each type, you can take the test or read about the different possibilities here.

The second layer is the interaction between the types. The same site I just mentioned includes a handy chart for determining the interaction between the types and how they work here. I was able to determine my type by taking various relationships I have and figuring out which relationships between myself and the other individuals fit correctly in the chart. Once I had solidified my type, I made a key insight.

Usually when you try to determine someone else's personality, you think of specific examples or general behavioral trends the person follows and map it to the right type. The problem with this is that there is a large bias based on the side of the person that you see. So you may be really introverted and then think someone else is just because you only see and interact with them in environments that accent those qualities in the targeted individual. Either that or your like/dislike of that person could influence you to project qualities onto them. So the only way to remove the bias is to look at the patterns of your relationship. Then you can map the actual pattern of your relationship back to the chart to determine what type they must be.

The third layer is the type of relationship you have with the person. The interaction may be a negative one, but if the person holds the right role in your life relative to you, then it could be just right for what you would want. An example would be a Mother having a supervision relationship with a child or a significant other being your duality type. I believe that when we line up the right interaction in the right role is where the idea of 'soul mate' relationships comes from. It's not that there is some uniqueness to the person that you were destined for each other, it's that you matched up all the components just right.

Clearly it is no simple task to engineer your whole social sphere. The nice thing about this knowledge is that you can spot problems early or open yourself up to possibilities that you would not have recognized otherwise. Maybe you know someone who is your duality type, but because you didn't hit off a great relationship right away you never invested the time to develop it further. You could be missing out on something truly exceptional, but with this knowledge you'll know it's worth putting in the extra effort for the potential of a rewarding long term relationship.

This is as deep as I have taken this at this point. There are a lot of other variables like background, interests, education, intelligence, environment, etc which play a role in the development of relationships. Those effects, like the effects of personality interactions, play a lesser role to the individuals desire to make a relationship work. Having the information provides a tool though for collecting information and using it to make more accurate decisions.

Qualified

I had written a post a while back about what it takes to be able to charge someone for services. In other words, how much knowledge and experience does it take to justify billing someone. The answer is surprising.

If you are like me, you grew up going to a school till you graduate and then moving up to the next school. You may have stopped at high school, college, post graduate studies, or maybe you are still going. The idea though, is that by completing all the school programs you are gaining a specific knowledge that makes you qualified to be payed. After growing up with this, you are conditioned to the idea, thinking that is the only way things work. The reality is different.

We see alternatives all the time. The guy selling flowers on the side of the road doesn't have a degree or certification in biology or horticulture. He just has flowers. You have a need for flowers, so it is worth it to you to exchange for them. All he had to do was get the flowers and position himself in a place where the price he is set is less than the value of the flowers to the people passing by.

So there you have the answer to qualifications. What qualifies you is your ability to secure a resource, set a price, and get a level of exposure. Nothing else is required.

This can be misleading though, because it brushes over the hardest part. That is, actually doing it.

The main reason the average person has one job as their sole source of income is because it is easy. You gained the qualifications, you got through the interview, now your reward is to just show up everyday and then receive a paycheck for your efforts. You have earned the right to put in your eight hours and then go home and watch TV, with two days out of the week left free for you.

So now the question is no longer are you qualified but rather, are you willing to do the work.

Formula for Success

It turns out that there is a very simple formula for success. It takes some understanding of a few basic theories, but once you accept then as truth and start applying them, it's just a matter of time and effort. I'll give you a brief overview.

First, you have to understand that everything in life is built on a few basic principles. As a society of human beings, we are all 99% the same with 1% difference, usually mainly projected in our physical appearance. We all need food, shelter, love and attention. We all have problems, experience a range of emotions, and have the ultimate goal of being a success at our specific interest. We are all members of different groups where we have roles and value placed on the opinions of the other members based on their roles.

Knowing this, the interplay between us is dictated by economic theory. We are managing different resources that we control, exchanging them with others for ones that they possess that we desire. The value we put on what we have versus what others have is determined by our own happiness as well as the value we place on the opinions and needs of our core group.

With these basic rules established, how do we become a success?

The initial step is to produce value. You can do this on your own on a small scale. If you leverage technology, nature or even other people, you can create consistent value on a larger scale. Once you start consistently producing value, then you just need to find individuals or groups that require what you are producing and are willing to exchange more value in return for it than it took you to produce it.

That is the formula for success in its most basic, elementary form. Specifics are not included, but once you can successfully execute every step in the process from production to delivery, then you cannot fail. It becomes a matter of improving the process to require less to produce more as well as either finding better target groups that have a greater need for the value you produced or increasing the value you are providing so you can get more value in return in the exchange.

It really is that simple.

Social Dynamics

I had this idea that after everyone graduated from middle and high school, and even perhaps college, that there would be this shift away from clique and pack dynamics. I thought that when you "become an adult", there is this transition process where each person can act as a fully functioning unit. I was wrong.

It turns out that this almost instinctive, even animal-like desire to be part of a group, and the pecking order that goes along with it, does not leave us as we get older. All that changes is how it is expressed, mainly in the shift to the work place or in your family life.

Each group has a leader, the alpha male (or female depending on the situation) that decides the direction the pack takes. Below are different classes, usually specialists in different tasks that are needed to supply the pack with various resources required for survival. Finally at the bottom are the sick and/or weak members that are supported by the strength of the rest of the group.

Now that I understand this, my goal has been to become the alpha male in every group that I am in. What's interesting about this is that it is entirely possible, and everyone can do it by adopting certain habits. For example, your posture when with others is critical. Do you slump your shoulders? Do you pull arms and legs tight around you? These things project a lack of openness as well as weakness. Standing tall with legs shoulder width apart and arms by your side is more open and inviting while still being strong and assertive. In situations that require leadership, like planning or preparation, do you hesitate and wait for direction or permission from others, or do you jump in and start running the show? If you want to be a leader, you can not wait for permission to become one, because if you're waiting for permission then you aren't the leader.

I do offer this warning though. If you are not a leader and do not know what you are doing, then stop. Take the time to learn first, then once you have reached a level of comfort in various fields, then start directing others. Do not take control of situations that you are not ready for or your weakness will eventually come out and you will lose your status, or worse. Being an alpha means that there is always others beneath you trying to rise up that you have to guard yourself from. It's not an easy path to be on top, but it reaps the best rewards.

If you want to learn more about this, let me know and I'll expand on it.

Thoughts

So, I'm in trouble. Bad trouble. But I think it's the same kind of trouble as everyone else.

I'm addicted to challenge. I'm addicted to being told no, or you can't.

I constantly desire to do things I haven't done before. To reach new levels of success. To master new concepts and ideas.

But the walls are all coming down. Nothing is truly like I had imagined it was. All the barriers were internal. Everything stopping me was made up. With enough desire, time, and effort, I can accomplish anything I want.

But as soon as I reach the goal, I don't find happiness. I just find the void again. The same desire to find a new goal to reach.

Is there any satisfaction? Does anything last? Does anything actually contain real value?

I think I'm starting to understand where the theology comes in.

When you succeed and you make success part of the fabric of your being, everything starts to become easy, and you develop this understanding of the formula for getting anything you want. But then without the challenge, everything loses its value because it becomes expendable. Then nothing really matters anymore because it is so accessible. So, you need something unattainable in order to still have value in your life.

So then by acknowledging God, a perfect being, and creating a separation between you and God, only in that you cannot be a perfect being, value can be attributed to anything in the pursuit of perfection. Which gives back reason to work for success and be the best you that you can be.

Long Journey

So, after a long year, I think I'm finally back to about where I was a year ago. What I mean really, is that I'm ready to start my own business again. But I'm going to do it a little differently this time.

Last time, my idea was to do the Rich Dad approach, which basically says that it doesn't matter what business you start, just go do it. The only problem though, is if you start a business and you don't care about it, then you're not going to get very far. So that line of thinking had me deliberating for about a year about what kind of business I actually want to start. What is something that I actually care about and want to do.

I finally figured it out. I'm going to start a business doing business consulting. What this essentially means is that I'm going to find small businesses that are already operational and go in and help them to become more profitable or grow. I'm building my own model for how to do this based off of a mixture of the plethora of sources I've read that suggest different ideas. I'm going to add in my knowledge of the new technology that is available and help these small shops in this dark economic time.

Finally I feel like I have all the tools I need, the initiative and the plan as well as the confidence. There are a lot of other little tricks and details that I'm not going to elaborate on because they are my clever innovations that I don't want people to take and run with. The point though is that finally I have a solid goal again, something I can break into steps and start working towards.

It's been way too long :)

Context Change

So I'm out in Idaho for work this week training various groups of providers on how to use our software. Just being out in the West is completely different from the normal East Coast atmosphere. The wide open spaces and clean mountain air really gives you a different feel about life. You actually see the land in the phrase "Land of opportunity" and there is this sense that you could just grab 50 acres and do whatever you inclined to, just make it happen.

On top of that, I've been traveling with this remarkable man. I don't even know where to begin in describing his life story. He started working for his dad at age 8, washing the trucks for his dad's crews and restocking them every morning at 4:30 before school. He had more money and was at a more mature stage in his life at the age of 14 than I'm probably at even now at 24. From there he went on to being a professional skier, then when couldn't compete anymore he taught ski lessons on one the most challenging resorts in the country. From there he did IT consulting for various banks, then when he wanted to retire a company that had contracted to his forced him to come work with them since they had invested so much into him. He revolutionized the way they built fire engines, allowing the customer to pick and choose the options on the cabs by selecting different radio buttons in a list and showing them in real time a CAD drawing of what their engine would look like. After enough time there, he ended up doing some work for the state of Wyoming counciling mental health and substance abuse youth. He came up with some ideas for how they could run their system better, but they told him he didn't have the credentials to tell them what to do. So from there he headed off to Oxford to get a couple of masters degrees and some PhDs. After teaching there for some time after graduation, he went back to the state and started implementing some of his programs.

That's really only the tip of the iceberg. Each story is more phenomenal than the previous one, and the guy is just a constant inspiration for the "Yes I can" spirit. I feel like he's changed my life, and honestly I want to emulate him as much as I can. There is only one problem. I know already that what is most likely to happen is that after working with him, he'll move on to the next thing and I'll move back to my normal surroundings and that inspiration will seep out, leaving me right back where I was.

It's almost like a natural animal instinct. I play a certain role in my family and at my job, and everyone else has their roles. I'll come back wanting to change my role, to shift everything and have it different. They won't like that so they'll resist and since there is more of them trying to put me back in place and my inspiration for leaving places will be gone, it'll just be a constant effort to try and make change until one side wins, most likely the other side.

So the question is, what do I do? I know what's going to happen in advance. I still want the change. What is it going to take for it to actually happen, for the elements and relational dynamics of my life to actually change?

Recently, there has been some change in my life that has led me to where I am. But it's been slow and it's been hard and I've even had to change my appearance by growing a goatti just to have a physical and real reminder everyday that I'm not some kid anymore and that I should have some power and respect in my community. What does it take to break through the dynamic keeping me in place?

I'm hoping that writing this will at least help. That way when I look back at it later I can think about what I'm feeling now and at least try to remember that rather than having it disappear completely. Maybe while I'm out here I can start taking some steps. A friend called me about the possibility of doing some contracting work, so that's one avenue I can get in motion. I can finally put together the website I've been thinking about doing. Also, a friend at work keeps trying to motivate me, so maybe with his support there is a greater chance that I'll be able to change dynamics.

The sad thing is that it's really my family and some of my friends that are holding me in place. They have very small world views and have adopted the mindset that they have to be employees and that they have to just move up the ladder at someone else's pace because there is some invisible barrier in their minds between where they are and where they would want to be and they are unable to break through it. I've actually known this for about two years now, ever since I did the Rich Dad Training. I also knew that if I wanted to change I had to change who I surround myself with, but I've been very hesitant to do it because I don't want to give them up. But what are you giving up really when you let go of people who want to hold you back and keep you in place? It's sad because they are trying to help, but they are trying to help from their context.

I know eventually everything has to change. I think when I moved back home from college, it was such a dramatic setback that it's taken me years to recover from. The momentum has been building up though, and there has been an increasing change, so maybe this time it will be enough to break free. And if it is not, at least I have this record to look back on and reawaken these ideas in the future. I may lose the battle, but the hope I have is that I can still win the war.

Question

So I have this philosophical questions about how the world works. When you find something that you are good at, and you start doing it, is that when you actually start getting what you want?

I'm a good writer, speaker, trainer and manager. Now I'm finally actually starting to do these things in a professional capacity. Does that mean that my company should actually start paying me a higher amount since I'm producing more value?

I figure, I can wait it out for a while, see what happens. In the mean time I'm going to follow my sister's advice in continuing to build my network inside and outside the company. I guess I'll see what opportunities comes from that.

Eventually I think I'm going to start trying to find ways to give public speeches for a fees and such, and then try to continue to grow the audience. I'm not quite to the level where I'm comfortable with thinking that I should charge people to hear me talk, but with more practice I feel like I'll get there.

Philosophizing

So everything is going very well. My job is picking up and changing into new areas that I'm more interested in pursuing. There always seems to be some social event to go to and I feel comfortable with just calling people up and seeing what they are up to (before I always thought I would be interrupting something or bothering them). My extracurricular activities are teaching me new skills and opening up some new opportunities (running, speaking, coaching).

The only thing is that I feel like I'm missing a guiding direction. Like some true passion or calling that should keep me directed in the right direction, doing the right things to accomplish some great big goal for what I want out of life. I'm still not sure what that is or what kind of thing it even should be. It's like I'm playing an open world videogame, and I've been doing all the side quests, but now I want to keep going with the main quest but I don't know what it is.

My only current theory goes along with what I was saying to the kids on my team at our first basketball practice last night. We started with the basics, just shooting, passing, defense. And once you have a good feel for the basics, then you start building on them, give-and-go, back door, trapping, different elements that are more complex, but have greater results. That's my only theory right now as to what to aim for next. Now that I have all the basics, now it's time to build on them. You've got to keep the basics fresh and strong, otherwise the new layers will collapse the whole thing, but that is the best idea for the next direction that I've had as of yet.

What I've been mainly trying to add is a dip into the dating scene. I'm trying to get more comfortable with just meeting new people and talking to them. Forget trying to put together dates, forget deciding if this person is marriage material, I just want to meet someone new and talk to them. I did that on Friday night and it was a good time. I didn't feel like there was anyone new that I should really start trying to see again, but I had fun just chatting with new people. Previously I had a lot of inhibition about doing this because everyone else drank and I didn't and I'd go out by myself and feel like a lonely loser. But I've recently discovered the miracle that is beer and it's made everything a lot more fun with a lot less stress.

Next week I'm flying out to Maine and then I'm flying out to IL for Halloween with my brother. He's a social guy and can have a good time without me feeling like I have to babysit him like some of the people I've been hanging out with. Really, he completes this element I'm missing, which is just having someone else who knows how to have fun to go out and do stuff with. It's funny because he's always kinda been the Ying to my Yang in a sense, so I should have really thought about this before, but he's been out in IL so that's been the limiting factor. It should be a great time so I'm really looking forward to it.