This morning I felt lead to post this simple statement I was thinking about on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter:

If you are under stress, heartache, or successive failure – it’s probably due to trying to do too much, too fast.

Later in the day I was listening to a great show, where the host was enthusiastically telling of a new group he is starting, with a monthly membership fee of $97 per month, if you join in a short period of time. This group would help me & might be a good model for something I might do in the future too, for a different audience.

I stressed over it, I would need to join before the February 1st, but could not get past the one year commitment & $97 price tag.

Then someone liked my statement on Facebook. I went and looked at it again and the stress went away.

In the future the price will probably be more than $97 per month and I am ok with that for a few more things will be in place:

• my wife will no longer be pregnant
• my businesses will have more success
• I will have more free time, or margin in my life

At this point the phrase Too Much, Too Fast is helping me to not row my boat, but sail as I should. I want to cross the ocean, but have this natural tendency to do it all under my own power which is impossible for me.

For other people, those who naturally will just drift, this phrase is dangerous. If you are comfortable with where you are, with no vision you are fighting for, or if you do not naturally find projects to do … don’t take this on. Instead ask the question “what can I do?”

That has never been me, or my wife. We gain a vision & fight to make it so.

There should be three questions in your mind now:

• Do I tend to row, drift, or sail my boat?
• What vision am I working for now?
• Do I need to think more about “too much, too fast” or “what can I do?”

That’s all it took, they went off, climbed the stairs, and then gave me the sign that they wanted their milk. It was wonderful. I have longed for the ability to communicate with them since before they were born & granted this was not the first time, but this week it seems they understand and convey more.

Today is a day that many websites, including Google and Wikapedia, are protesting two bills currently in Congress – SOPA & PIPA.

These two bills do many things, but one of the big concerns is that without any judicial review the bills allow people to end communications by a person, group or business. It reminds me of what the Communists in Cuba use to do with TV and Radio signals from free countries – they would jam the signal so that their citizens would not be able to watch that American TV & see a world beyond what the, the Cuban Government,  wanted to seen.

The US Government Officials supporting these bills claim SOPA & PIPA are about stopping online piracy. This is either a lie or out of ignorance.

What they would do is give more power to the US Government, probably some bureaucrat, to take websites down. In a world where if you are not online you do not exist, this is like executing the person, group, or business, but the people & groups that this is intended to stop would simply set up a new website in moments. The people really hurt are the individuals & groups who are unjustly accused.

Let’s say that  you are a parent or maybe you can remember a time when you were a child. Something happened and a child was punished, then later it was revealed that the child did no wrong.

The punishment cannot be undone.

You cannot give that child back the time he spent in timeout, or remove the pain of a spanking … but the parent feels extremely bad.

The thing with SOPA & PIPA is just that … allowing someone to eliminate from the internet a person, group, or brand when that individual decides to. Without this additional power the US Government can still prosecute pirates, even bringing down their site, but are closer to a concept the USA was founded on:

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Tell your Congressmen that the censorship, additional power to the US Government, and breaking the internet are bad ideas — Stop SOPA & PIPA in all forms.

Just happened to check the weather … it’s been a couple days since my last training session due to a blister & this makes me think I should try hard get out for a hike.

Off to pack my bag.

We started with a recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies, but changed it a couple of ways. First we have sess brown sugar in ours simply because the brown sugar we had was too hard. Second, instead of peanut butter chips, we used milk chocolate chips.

In the end, I am very happy with the results, the chocolate chips really help make it great.

Here is basically the end recipe we used:

Ingredients

1 cup Amish Friendship Bread Starter
1 cup butter, soft
1 cup shortening
2 1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
5 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup of milk chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350° F (176° C).
2. Cream butter, shortening, peanut butter, eggs and sugars.
3. Stir in rest of ingredients.
4. Drop tablespoon size dough onto ungreased baking sheet.
5. Sprinkle sugar on top of each cookie.
6. Bake 13-15 minutes.

Tonight was one of those times with the initial topic of “What does it take to have a better society?”. Your thoughts?

Picture a day

take at least one picture each day
Variant: post a picture a day

Read 5 hours per week

Spend an average of 1 hour each weekday, this should cause you to knock out a number of books, no matter if they are audiobooks, physical, or electronic

Cook Something New Each Week

Find some recipe that looks interesting to you. Cook it.
Bonus idea: take pix, post about it

Try a New Hobby & share it

Start something new for you, record your progress & share what you have learned online.
Start with whatever network you already have (Google +, Facebook, a simple website) and improve your sharing over time.

Interview Someone Each Week

Share what you learned from that person with both the masses & send it to someone specific that you believe will gain from meeting this person.

Change Your Life?

Each of these ideas take very little additional work to be accomplished, but the fact is that you have to be intentional & consistent to achieve them. There is also options for you to expand and do more, but a key is to start.

What will you do different in 2012, anything from this list?

Today I managed to do something I’ve not been able to do in a while.

I sat down & listened to some great audio, taking notes & sharing some thoughts.

This time it was based around the top downloaded episodes of StartingCube in November. This time last year I was planning on doing a podcast that was based on sharing great media that I found. Thoughts, quotations, clips, audio, video, and even text. It’s one thing to seek out keys to success, life, and achieving your dreams, but a more important step is sharing the greatness with others.

All people, at some level, want to impact or shape the world in a way that they desire. Finding, sharing and promoting stuff that I believe should be is part of how I do just that.

November was in interesting month for StartingCube Downloads. There were two driving forces:
- Stay At Home CEO
- Searches

With Stay At Home CEO, a project just starting & focused on helping Stay At Home Dads & Stay At Home Moms build businesses, I started it much the same way as StartingCube – an idea & a date. On the designated date I released stuff to the world. It’s interesting that Cube 61 was one of the top downloaded since that is one of the ideas presented there.

I wrote a lot in that post & just listening to those five episodes really helped with how life is going right now. I really should re-listen to episodes on a more regular basis.

With there being over 62 episodes, you could listen to one episode per day and not repeat an episode in over 2 months.

Another thing is I plan on start releasing new episodes in January 2012. There should be a post on my mindset involving that soon.

Already this month we have traveled over 1,000 miles. One 8 hour of drive time turned into 12 hours door to door … in the driving rain. The other direction was 10.25 hours door to door.

Of the next few weeks of December we have more traveling & family coming in to stay with us. It’s all a wonderful time of the year, but many things are fighting for my money, energy, time, and attention.

I’m trying to be careful with it & in turn think about what others around me. They probably have just as many things fighting for their attention, time, energy, money, and other resources.

I’m pretty happy with how this post turned out & the artwork I managed to put together with it. Thanks for your attention & if you want to go a step farther comment or share this post with someone else who is trying to do too much.

Reflect

The first step is to look back on the past year, or longer, and see where you have come from. What all has happened?

Having twin one year olds this Thanksgiving, I can say that the year went by fast. We both have much to be thankful for, especially the growth in our babies and each other — both as individuals, as a couple, and family.

Thank

This part is simple, but important – be thankful & speak to people what you are thankful for. As a general practice I am trying to be encouraging more in the day to day, but there are still some specific people who have had an impact that I try to go out of my way to thank.

Dream

This moves from the past & present side to the future. Dreaming what the next year or longer should be. Currently I am thinking about a model based on relationships for viewing your world, so:
- Yourself – physical, mental, spiritual, capabilities
- Family – the special relationships around you
- Business – if you are an employee – you are a business hiring out your services to your employer. If you own or desire to one one, then you have a slightly different relationship
- Society – other people who are not in your business, or family.

So, what are the dreams for those four big areas? What about the subparts? Can you paint a picture that you are aiming for?

Plan

The practical steps you intend to take to make your dreams reality. Before you fully make plans you need to make goals. Goals are important because they are the measuring stick of how well your plans do, but doing the important work to write out the steps you are going to take to make the dream a reality is also vital.

My family is in the middle. We talked about reflecting and thanks recently. This week my wife and I will talk about our dreams for the next year – thinking in those four big fields. If you can have one dream for each & work on just four things over the course of a year – it will be amazing, as long as you take the steps of really making a good goal and then a plan.

I enjoyed the time I was in the St Louis Arch and a client called asking about a change to a website. I told him I would get to it when I could & after getting off the call I realized I could from my phone. In moments, from the top of the St Louis Arch I had the site adjusted & an email off to him.

Now that I am a Stay At Home Dad, the ability to work where I am is even more important, but to do so you have to go through some steps.

This post on Stay At Home CEO titled Location Independence goes into three parts: Plans, Tools, Ability

They are not complex steps, but vital if you want to have more freedom and liberty in your life.

I went and looked up a couple of pancake mix & decided less eggs, no oil & more water.

When we discovered a lack of eggs, I just went mix & water. Roughly as much wet ingredients as the directions said went in as water.

The results were great.

I mixed the batter, my wife cooked them & said that the key was a low heat and good amount of time.

It first started over a year ago when I realized that with twins & a wife who would be out of the house for 24+ hours at a time in a great job … I really needed to reduce my commitments. Then a few months ago, especially when work started back for my wife, I realized I needed to reduce my commitments.

About two weeks ago I saw a post about how to do an eBook in 30 days. I decided to do it, but screwed up the plan it outlined. I have this tendency to want to mess with systems, that is a major reason I don’t plan on purchasing a franchise ever. At first I brainstormed some ideas, and thought about some things people had mentioned before, but before day 1 I just started sitting down at about 10pm each evening with a blank sheet of paper (or a google doc, in a way where all I see is the page I am typing on) and I wrote.

Most nights I would clock in right at 1,000 words, some a little shy, a few around 1,500.

A few days into it an outline came to mind. So I started having a topic each night. It was a combination of my recent events, my history, and my desires. Sorta a present, past, and future.

It was good.

I was going to bed about the same time, I was getting things onto the page. I had some routine. Granted, my mornings are mostly routine:

7ish – wake up & start prepping stuff for babies
7:40 – babies wake up, diapers in their room, then bottle time in one of the two areas of our house with toys
8ish – breakfast
after that is play until they crash for a morning nap

But, the thing with that is there is no way I would train myself to wake up earlier just to do stuff like writing, reading, study, etc … I do better at that at night, so my new night routine is nice.

Moving Forward

On November 1st, after writing 10,000 words, over a little more than 10 days, I hit on a topic I labeled Moving Forward. It was the shortest, a little more than 250 words, but it put into some clear statements of both where I want to end up & things I need to focus on today – how can I:

• finding small companies & developing relationships with owners
• help improve profit per unit, either though higher revenue or lower costs
• increase the market, or client base of companies/products
• gain more equity in both public & private companies

What was rolling around in my head when the next morning I see in my RSS Reader a post titled Want To Be A VC? Start A Company.

Well, crap, how does that element of starting a company fit in with taking care of twins & those other things I was thinking I needed to be focusing on now in my productive & investing time?

Today, November 3rd, I had a lunch with a friend & mentor. I shared all that has been going on – more, but most of what is above – and he suggested a Stay-At-Home-Dad site/company.

And idea hit me later in the day that I typed up & sent to my wife. Once she gives me feedback I will decided to either kill it or share it with some more friends & advisers.

The Next Phase

I’m not sure what is next but I know I am getting closer to a better mix of taking care of babies, taking care of wife, taking care of me, and doing something to impact the world around me outside my house.

I know my natural tendency is to run hard at the world, with whatever I have raised high ready to break through walls, defeat enemies, or traverse wide distances. I am trying to be a good sailor where I do the little things to be ready for the wind. To take care of the boat. To prepare my skills, and to have the ship stocked – so that when the wind comes, I will be ready to race as far and as fast as I and my ship can go.

The wind is starting to pick up.
I have been doing good things, I know I can be better, but good has happened.

Bring on the wind & if the wind does not come, I will keep sharpening all that I can, especially since it had been so long & so much-needed work.

Sleep really good last night. I think getting some routine of writing starting at 10pm every night has helped. Over 5,000 words now. Three topics seem to be emerging:

• How I view the world & business
• infertility – dealing with that
• the path I’ve traveled & what I’ve learned

Still not sure if it’ll become a public thing or not.

Before the twins were born I reduced the number of projects & clients we helped. Recently the focus has been to start with zero projects and only add the most important.

I also listened to Dave Ramsey’s EntreLeadership, nearly finished now.
Lastly, I continued a trend of taking from roughly 10pm – 11pm to just write some. It might turn into a eBook, or it might end up just being something for me & select others. I intended to follow this guide to an eBook in 30 days, but messed up & sorta just started writing. At this point I have 4,749 words written according to google docs. If I had followed the guide I should be at 3,000+.

[See post to listen to audio]
[download MP3 - 2:15]

The biggest issue with “best practices” is the specificity problem. When the situation does not fit a specific criteria.

Best Practices do not make you better at solving problems, it makes you better at copy & paste, or using the same solution to every issue.

Good use of Best Practices:
Consider them at the start, don’t use them as the end point.
Consider them within the context of the situation, not the end all be all way to act.

Best Practices are not the only viable solution.

[ #BCN11 series ]

Thoughts from earlier:

The path perspective clients take is differant from the past

If you allow or force differant forms of communications (text in addition to live) you will get differant people to participate.

EuroGames

Something about EuroGames – they are designed to be harder for the person winning to just crush the others.

Examples of EuroGames
- Settelers of Catan
- Ticker to Ride
- Lost Cities (2 player game)
- Galaxy Trucker – has a timmed element to it & spacial manipulation
- Carcassonne – they have played with 4 year olds
- Dominion

Not too much skill or too much random chance.

Tennessee Game Days March 9-11, 2012

WordPress Q&A with Mitch Canter

Why WordPress vs other CMS?
1. User base – a huge percent of people use WordPress – leading to huge number of developers

2. It’s an easy platform to develop for.

3. From a user perspective – it’s easy as email

ClickHeat – a plugin for a live heatmap

General limitations of WordPress?
Yes, social networks – buddypress for large networks is not there.
Sites with APIs are still limited.

For small, to large WordPress is great, for enterprise there are some issues. If you get too big you can get get out the data.

[ #BCN11 series ]

It’s interesting how the lunch has changed over the years & *Camps.

This year they had a break in sessions for lunch & a box lunch. In the past it’s been buffes & there has and has not been a break in speaking sessions.

[ #BCN11 series ]

This is the first session I really expect to jump between multiple sessions.

Code Wants To Be Stoopid #bcn11stoopidcode by Jim Siegienski
This guy has/does work on the Dave Ramsey webteam.

A goal is to take complex random looking stuff and break it down and make it easier for individuals to understand & do stuff.

Perfecting your Pitch: From startup to new start – Brad McCarty #bcn11pitch

You need three pitches
- 15 second
- 2 minutes
- 6 minutes

What should a pitch do?
- Point out the problem
- state the solution
- make it memorable

I’m not hiring people for what they do, but why they are doing it.

People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

By Erik Deckers – ProBlogService – @edeckers

1. a word is worth a thousand pictures

If I say baby, car, tree … you have an image in your mind.

When you say words pictues can be created.

2. Paint Pictures with Your Words

Metefores = commitment with more punch (use “are” ad opposed to “like”)

3. Know the Rules, Then Break Them

3a. A Lot of then Rules You Learned Are Wrong Anyway.

Some came from the structue of the Latin tradition … “What did you step in?”

4. Words Have Power Use Them Wisely

If you have to use a sware word, make sure you mean it.

5. Write the Hell Out of EVERYTHING
Make sure everything you write can be the best it can be, including tweets, titles, emails & posts.

“Focus” when writing (that word came up again)

6. “Write Drunk, Edit Sober” – Hemmingway
Be silly enough that you can let your guard down & write. Don’t edit yourself as you are writing a first draft. Then edit & don’t take out all the good goofy stuff.

Your writing will pop more.

You will start to write better.

7. Write Intentionally

Writing as you speak is better & people tend to like it.

There is something about

Questions?
Get better at using less words, but don’t loose meaning?
Read newspapers, see how they put most of the info up front. Inverted funnel.

Hemmengway – iceberg theory of writing, you dee the tip of the iceberg above the water … assume your readers are intellegent & will figure out stuff.

Most important advice to those who don’t consider themselves a writer & is starting & getting traction?
Make sure you love what you are writing about.
Keep doing it, at least 1 time a week, 3 times is better.
Rock it every time (quality over quantity)

[ #BCN11 series ]

When I looked at the schedule there was only one session I automatically knew I wanted to hit & that was before I knew the topic … infact, I am in the session & still don’t know or care what it is – Marcus rocks.

First thing Marcus did was talk about his current project Moontoast, who helps make ecommerce easy.

The company has 18 employees .

In short we make it where you could purchase a sale where you are … no matter where the link is, like facebook, websites, and more.

Their focus is channels, not a facebook page, but in individual posts.

He keeps mentioning a 120 minute halflife of social media posts.
“About 3% of your fans see your posts.”

My guess is this is true for brands, but less true for individuals (would be higher).

The Story
He meet good people & had the courage to drop stuff that was not working.

They looked at what was going on in the world & went towards the oppertunities (facebook in this case).

Has been living in two cities now: Nashville & Boston

Boston for sales & project management.
He feels to get the right people he needed to go to where there is a lot of people with the right skills.

He has pitched lots of VCs & heard lots of “no”.

Dealing with big companies is major work.

He has experianced the issue of an expert in their own town … people who knew you when you are young/starting out have a hard time giving you as much respect as new people.

You have to be single mineded & focused if you are going to build something great.

Q & A
Competators?
When you pursivier, the number of competators reduces because it is so hard for people to stick with it.

How did funding change things?
The mentors have been the most important things. Access to network & experiance has been great

I think we are gonna change commerce in a significant way.

as a founder, you have to be able to scale, learn & grow
It’s all about a team, but Marcus sees himself as the Qb of the team … the team … the team, but the Qb is vital in football.

Whatever you are doing now – own it, be a champion.

Work life balance?
I don’t have it – I do have priorities & you can have work life balance, but for this short period of time we know I am focusing on this.

Our job is to be the brand leader when the market shifts.

[ #BCN11 series ]

I made it to BarCampNashville about 9:10 (after dropping my swag in the car) and did my normal thing:
Look at the schedule, drop by the least interesting sounding on my way to where I expect to spend most of the session.

Then I walked into this session:
So I sent a ballon into Space … #bcn11space

I was shocked to see a stand with a parachute & a slideshow going of images of the ground from the sky.

This is cool.

They really set a baloon off that traveled a good distance.

Another cool thing is this guy is taking visual notes on a dry erase board while the presentation is going on.

My favorite moment was when Nathan Hubbard was showing a video of the baloon failing and calmly said:

It gets kinda crazy really fast

BarCamp – you never know what you are gonna get.

[ #BCN11 series ]

One of the things I tend to do when going to conferences & events is to generate a quick QR code with contact info.

If you have a smartphone (at least Android, Windows 7, or iPhone) you can use a barcode scanner app and scan this.

It’ll then load up my name, email, phone, etc (things I entered) and a memo that I included where I meet you and a couple additional notes.

[ #BCN11 series ]

For years, I’ve been looking at this screen. I’ve had people bewildered how I could stand it. Well, the time has come that I really want something not as deep & better, because I question if it’s starting to strain my eyes.

Things, I’m looking for:

• something that should last
• thinking a 23″ or 24″ but might go 27″ if the right deal
• would like in the $200 to $300 price range, but could go $500ish, don’t want a $1,000 monitor
• less power usage is desired

So, looking for suggestions.

Saw these today … generally I like M&M’s, but this one is too scary for me.

If I saw them at a party I would try, but not purchasing myself.

[See post to listen to audio]

[mp3 - 13:22]

First learned of him while I was in high school & got to know him enough in 2004 that he would recognised me in a crowed in 2005, though not today. I hope his new book, EntraLeadership, is a huge success. Today he is on his book tour, in our home area, broadcasting from outside his office & celebrating being a New York Times Bestseller. At the party is free food, music, book signings, giveaways. The type of thing I enjoy, but things have changed & I could not bring myself to go.

My mother is a wise woman, growing up she focused on training each of her children how each should go by having custom rules based on the tendencies of that child. My natural tendency is to do more & more, thus the rule was that I could not have more then 3 activities (soccer, scouts, band, church, etc) at one time. At least one of my siblings had a minimum, for that child would not do any outside activities. Our parents also had veto power over activities & sometimes forced a particular activity on us.

This helped me learn about myself, or at least helped in the process.

Nearly 11 months ago my world changed.

I once interviewed Andrew Peterson, as a part of Artist Insider. He is a musician who learned enough about business to have his own company. This is something that most artist are not interested in all, so I was fascinated with what would cause him to do so when so many others would not.

The answer Andrew gave was the birth of his children. I did not understand this until recently. For Andrew it was motivation to learn about business, for me it is focusing my resources, especially my time. Looking back, this was a lesson my mother was attempting to teach me for years. It took the birth of my first two children & more to really get me back to it.

In the Last Few Months

This has been building. I would often think back on episodes of StartingCube, from How to Succeed to How To Change, What to do Next & Overcoming Adversity, and many more. I thought about Good To Great & the hegehog concept.

Then two key posts of my own:

• Paint The Picture
• production, investing, consumption & relaxation – A way to look at Life

The first is a process of setting priorities, the second – how I currently think of life in terms of producing & investing, consumption, and relaxation, all things we all need.

The big thing, the big reason why I decided not to head to Financial Peace Plaza today is that it does not fit with the main focus I have right now. I need more production & investing. I need more focused consumption.

Long term I will continue to help people solving public problems with private solutions.

I need to learn more about building businesses, meet more people, and improve my abilities and results as an investor. Today, was a step in self discipline of saying no to a good thing to spend time working towards something great.

If you want more, listen to the mp3, or check out the links. Cube25 [How to Succeed] & Paint The Picture are two great places to start.

Two changes:
1. what is a status

2. syndication

1. what is a status

Been thinking about how I had things set up to update facebook when a post was marked a “status”, well a status is a status, but there are times that I want a non-status to go to facebook (or twitter, or linkedin, or in the future google pluse).

So, that brought me to #2.

2. syndication

Now I have a new type of category set up – send-to. Then sub categories, with each going to different social media networks. The idea is that I can write something up, put it in whatever categories I want & it goes out to the worlds.

Now a post like this morning about the great podcast  I listened to might or might not be a status, but can still go the correct places.

It is really good & I highly recommend it for you, well if you want to survive in the future or want to change your world, no matter if you define world as the whole world or just your life.

There are all kinds of topics I took notes on during the first listen from scarsity, value, influance, and a great explanation of  manafestos.

The cookie gave me a good thought:

The way I’m approaching these two days is very much my style. I have had a message that has hit me over and over the the past few weeks, if not months/years:
- slow down; focus

I’ve been pushing to do more then I really have the power to do & I stress when I don’t achieve what I desire, thus if I am late to this event – that’s ok. If I miss parts, that’s ok.

Packing the Bag
I brought a bag of stuff that includes:
- laptop
- cell phone (like a mini-laptop)
- clipboard
- blank paper
- graph paper
- composition notebook
- sharpies & pens
- snacks

The idea for me is 2 days of getting away, taking in good content, meeting with some people, and creating great art (drawing and such).

I found me a little space off in a corner where I can see, hear, watch, and spread out. One thing I would change is if I could plug my laptop in.

Bill Hybels started off the first session, as a keynote & setting up the stage for the rest of the summit. He focused on three primary things:
- know why you are doing what you are doing
- be able to explain it simply – it’s easy for organizations to loose this ability
- as a leader, part of a job of a leader is to look problems in the eye & call them what they are.

Len Schlesinger spoke after Bill on entrepreneurship.
There was lots of good stuff, and I picked up a copy of his book, but this was the most powerful:

Most successful entrepreneurs don’t start with a big vision, they just get to work & develop skills over time.

He encouraged focusing not on what to achieve in the long term, but what to do next & looking at understanding that failing allows you to get more at bats.

I missed the next speaker.

My best friend was available for lunch & for some money I was able to purchase the a download of all the presentations.
This means that my focus really is the relaxation, drawing, meeting with people in between sessions, and as ideas hit me I can record & expand on them.

With StartingCube, one of the things I think about every so often is how podcast websites, or band websites, or other art like painters, photographers, etc can share their work. It’s all about presenting the data in a way that fills the audience, and moves them closer to being a fan, subscriber, etc.

In the past, I’ve looked at blog style, reverse blog style, artwork, reverse artwork, random number of artwork.

Today, it’s a list.

Since the podcast has a unique, and hopefully interesting, title for each episode (along with an image), sometimes it’s best to just share a list of titles with someone.

Now I have a page template that will allow this, but just a list or index of show names seemed blah … especially when the time is taken to create some unique image for each episode, so when I was getting ready to make it live I decided to take the time to throw in some images.

The images are ever X number of items added, where the author/webmaster/whoever can turn them on or off & set how many posts should be added in between. This was important for spacing and the page template working in different settings.

I would love feedback on the Cube List pages.

Now that I think about it I could also have it where some experts are shown (and some not) or other neat things, but that is enough for tonight. I need to work on an actual StartingCube episode.

For number of weeks Lays Hot & Spicy chips have been missing from store shelves; today I found them again.

Last year I picked up a ASUS UL30Vt-X1 Thin and Light 13.3-Inch Black Laptop & it’s wonderful.

Now I am looking for a bag to carry it in, along with the cords, mouse, etc to both meetings & conferences. In looking at amazon this morning I am not totally sure, but I think either a more traditional briefcase or messenger bag style is what I am leaning towards. The dimensions are 12.9 x 9.3 x 1 inches.

looking for feedback & suggestions – some quick products I am looking at:

Backpack style were looked at, but not sure it’s what I want if I’m going to be out in public with it.

I am really looking for feedback & suggestions.

In the comments, I tried to thank for the thoughts & encourage her down the path she is on, and one thing came to me:

production, investing, consumption & relaxation

That might be a great way to look at life.

production

This is the act of trying to cause something to happen in the short term. You walk out on a stage of a body building contest, you release a post/article/book/podcast to the world, you go to work, you build a desk, you cut the grass.

A life without visible results can cause your heart to be sick … you need some production & results of production in your life.

investing

This is like production in you are attempting to cause something to happen, but the time frame is longer. The easy way is looking at investing in your retirement account, but it can also be putting time into training for your body building competition, learning a new skill, or reading a non-fiction book. Anytime the cause and effect relationship is delayed and unsure it’s more about investing then production.

consumption

Stop eating & you die.
Stop trading with others – produce everything you have, hold and consume & you become poorer. We must take into ourselves both physical goods, but also services of others, including friends and family.

In relationships there are times you are producing – providing for others, or investing – helping with the goal of a long term change, but there must also be consumption – gaining joy, laughter, entertainment or other desirable goods, services or emotions that you consume.

relaxation

Our body needs to recharge.

It’s good to be around stimulus, but it’s also important to unplug from time to time. As a parent of twin babies, I can say – without relaxation, sleep, or rest, it’s hard to do any of the three other areas.

At the same time, it’s hard to relax if you have not consumed the right stuff, produced, or invested for your dreams.

What about Giving?

Well, what about it? I am huge on giving, but understand that from my perspective giving a gift is either production or investing, depending on what the gift is and what the recipient of the gift is. I get something out of giving. I give because I want to, because a desire inside me is to either cause, prevent or stop something from happening.

Giving is good, giving is important, but for me giving is a part of life, not a category or way of looking at life.

Your thoughts?

Failure is not a single cataclysmic event. You don’t fail overnight. Instead, failure is a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.

~ Jim Rohn

On January 11th, 2011 I had a self-imposed deadline. I was going to start a podcast where I would share the great nuggets of gold that I had found and collected over time. For years I have gathered quotations, listened to & shared podcasts, books, and other media.That was the day I determined to be more intentional & open in sharing

As of that morning I did not have a plan in place, I had not even settled on a name, but I wanted the start date to be 2011-01-11 or 01-11-11 or 11-01-11 or 01-11-2011.

An idea came to me of calling the clips, quotations, and ideas cubes, because it was a little more interesting than blocks, and knew that I wanted the episodes to be something you could build upon. The domain name was secured, a site thrown up, and the first episode was made & released.

I knew I needed to just start, I was even thinking about a pattern for designing websites I had written on before & I knew that I had previously made podcast episodes similar to what StartingCube was in the past … but … never really released them.

The Big Two

There have been two episodes that have stuck with me the most, 50 and 25.

StartingCube 50 – How to Change – highlights some core reasons why I do StartingCube:
- promote ideas I desire to be spread around
- promote people, media, and products I want to succeed

Of the people who’s work has been shared on StartingCube, not everything they do I agree with, but they do enough good work that I want to continue.

StartingCube 25 – How to Succeed is not the most downloaded of all time, but considering it was released several months into doing StartingCube, it’s interesting how many people have and continue to download it. That episode talks about the steps a person needs to take to achieve their dreams. With that, I view a regular diet of StartingCube as fitting the bill.

Looking Forward

The second episode released was a recall of a story that Dave Ramsey told about the wise advice a billionaire shared with him. As I move forward with StartingCube, my intention is to keep moving forward & improving a little at a time.

Based on the original “how to find the best website for you” plan, I could work a site redesign, but at this point smaller improvements, like an updated About page, is more important move.

The style of episodes have also shifted a little, with shorter clips we are going to look to include an additional clip or quotation. Build upon a theme in each episode. We try to keep them short so that it just sparks a flame that the audience can take and build upon or let it go out. I don’t want StartingCube to lead people a long way each episode and finding a balance there is important.

The other day I was outside and noticed the moon & clouds. It looked cool. I went inside, grabbed my camera & spent a good bit of time attempting to capture the view I had.

Those pix are not what I was shooting for.

The next day I went and found a couple of youtube videos that explained a process. That night I went and attempted to duplicate the results.

Much improved, but I thought back on the image I had used for Starting Cube 25 – How to Succeed.

Looking at the pix from that night, I think I just got lucky.
A few days later, I was at a Krav Maga Seminar and first tried to just mess with the settings to get good shots in this dark room, with big windows (a strange combination).

Then I did something similar. I started looking at the values when I would almost take a pix in action mode, aperture mode, and a few others. Based on the values it said, I went into Manual mode, set the settings to around the same & played.

I’m pretty happy with the end result.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

[text & image found at Archive.gov]

Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days

For the last hour or two I have watched tv, but keep thinking about this video.

What do I want to try for 30 days?

What do I want to do?

And it just hit me … just in time, about to be day 2.

I’ve been wanting to figure out WordPress Post Formats & find better ways of using them then the crap I see.

The other day I did some searches for advanced Post Formats techniques … nothing. All searches I did, in multiple routs, ended up with either “how to enable” or pretty much the exact same way of doing it.

This month: July 2011 : I am going to spend time every day working with them, learning them, and figuring out some cool ways to use them, so that the end result is that JonathanNation.com will do everything I would normally do on twitter, facebook, or other social media sites.

I’ll still use social media sites simply because I believe in reaching people where they are, but the hub, my personal hub, will be here.

From there, we shall see what happens. Some of the updates will be here, some on AllyNation. All in all, at the end of July I’ll know more & should have a much improved website.