Lesson From the Biggest Loser About Saying No

March 29, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Shawna and I like to watch the Biggest Loser.  It has something to do with life change and we all somewhere inside want to be healthier people no matter what our weight.  I heard an interesting comment on the show the other week that caught my attention.

One of the contestants said something like “Saying no to junk food is saying yes to myself” and they were referring to the positive health benefit.  It struck me as a very strong statement.  Think about that for a minute and consider all the things we could put in that sentence in the place of junk food.

  • Saying no to the brand new car, or house, or boat, or whatever THING is saying yes to my future financial position.
  • Saying no to watching 4 hours of TV per night is saying yes to more quality family time.
  • Saying no to porn or facebook is saying yes to relationship with spouse.
  • Saying no to “me time” is saying yes to having time for God.

Anything you put in the place of the no and yes position is ultimately a benefit to you.  It is a discipline issue.

What other ways can you think of to make a no a yes for our own good?

Filed Under: Faith, Family, Health, Money, Personal Growth, Relationships

What People Think About You

March 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Have you ever heard the advice “you can’t worry about what other people think”?  Have you ever known someone who actually SHOULD think at least a little bit about what other people think?  I think the advice to “not worry about what other people think” has been taken way out of context by too many people. 

Some people are so oblivious to flaws in their personality and behavior that they need to be told the exact opposite of “don’t worry about what others think”.  Some people need to be asked “do you have any idea what people think about you when you —- ?” (insert obnoxious trait in the blank).

The people who really kill me are the ones who talk so much about others flaws and yet are completely oblivious to their own.  It is especially astounding when such an individual talks about a ‘problem’ someone else has when they happen to have THE SAME EXACT PROBLEM!

Now that I’ve said all this about ‘those’ people I guess I’ll have to spend some time thinking about how my actions and behavior are perceived by others too.  Don’t judge me for saying all this – instead take a moment to consider what people think about you.

It is good to evaluate and improve ourselves based on what others think.  It is not good to be so consumed with worry about what others think that we become fearful of being who we’re called to be.  Knowing the difference is a valuable skill.

Filed Under: Personal Growth, Relationships

Friends – Don’t Hurt Each Other…At Least Not On Purpose

August 24, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Yesterday I think I nearly broke my friends ribs.  We were playing basketball at the end of our workout (something we do all the time).  As we both went for a loose ball I somehow went under his arm from behind and drilled him in the rib cage with my shoulder.  


He went down immediately – moaning and groaning about his ribs and he think they cracked.  He was feeling it the rest of the day but kept acting like he was fine.  I feel horrible about it.  He is planning on running a 10k next week and that accident will probably cause him more pain during the race than he would have had otherwise.  


I didn’t mean to do it.  It was an accident.  But I can’t take it back.  The damage is done.  In this case it physical damage.  But isn’t it true that sometimes we hurt our friends emotionally or they hurt us emotionally?  I’ve hurt friends feelings before just by having other friends.  That was totally unintentional.  I’ve also hurt friends’ feelings by backing out on commitments I made to do something with them.  That is the emotional equivalent of walking up to my friend and physically punching him in the face while we were playing basketball.  


We all make mistakes though – right?  The important thing is to learn from them and change the behavior moving forward.  The strongest friendships survive the mistakes along the way. 

Filed Under: Health, Relationships

King of the Hill Appreciation

July 8, 2010 by Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago Perry preached about men being the leader for their family and used an analogy of how it is like playing king of the hill as a kid.  No matter how many times you get knocked down you’ve gotta fight to be the king of the hill.  Your family is depending on you to fight to be the king of the hill, the leader of the family.

The message really spoke to me and helps me keep a good perspective on what it is like succeeding and failing as a husband and father.  Here is an observation I’ve made as I pay closer attention to this in my life.  It’s nice when I succeed but I often feel under-appreciated because it is what is expected of me. The other side of my observation is it really sucks when I screw up because it gets a lot of negative attention.  I end up feeling like I get more negative attention than positive attention because I either screw up way too much or my bad outweighs my good or something.  Or maybe it is just that appreciation thing.  Maybe I’d like to be shown as much appreciation for when I’m getting it right as I am shown negative when I get things wrong (even though getting it right is what is expected of me). 

So I challenge myself – how much appreciation do I show to my family (or everyone for that matter) when they do what I expect of them?  Why should I expect others to appreciate me when I probably need to do a better job showing appreciation too?

Filed Under: Family, Relationships

Time Budgeting

November 12, 2008 by Leave a Comment

I don’t normally care much about the interviews Tony Morgan has on his site, but this one is applicable to everyone. I’ve written a lot about budgeting money, the Joe Sangl ministry, and living within means. But I haven’t put enough thought or effort in to budgeting TIME. The last sentence of the interview ends with ‘live within the budget’. I’ve learned to do that with money but I need to learn to do that with time. 
Filed Under: Family, Money, Personal Growth, Relationships

More on Finances & Relationships

November 7, 2008 by Leave a Comment

I track a few blogs, scim them mostly, but read the ones that grab my attention. Check out the following in this order – good stuff:

Marriage & Money – Can Love Overcome Financial Incompatibility
The answer is NO by the way – they’re not compatible – it’s obvious. They’ll have to CHOOSE to become compatible or they will split – guarantee it. Love is a CHOICE – in all areas of the relationship. They’re gonna have to get together and be realistic.

Marriage & Money – Allowances for Adults
I like this one because Shawna and I need to do this. We usually do a pretty good job agreeing on what discretionary spending we’re gonna do, but it might be better to make it an official allowance, or ‘blow money’ as Joe Sangl calls it. We don’t normally do ‘blow money’ on the budget because the way we’ve been doing it is to reward being under budget by using some of the left over for pleasure.

This blog was linked in one of the posts linked above and it caught my interest. I’m going to add it to my feeds at least long enough to see if I like it. 

Filed Under: Family, Money, Relationships

Vacation!!!

August 15, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Last week was vacation (8/2 – 8/10). Yeah baby! A week of mostly no phone calls, mostly no emails, and mostly no stress (we did still have the kids with us so there was still just a little bit of stress). It was very fun and relaxing. Here’s the highlights from the week:

Sunday – drove to Montgomery, AL (which is halfway to our destination) to stay the night before proceeding to Gulf Shores, AL. While there we went to Circuit City because we had noticed the Wii was on sale for $249 (which is the best I’ve seen it). We’ve been talking about getting one for our family for Christmas, and I had already put the money aside for it, so we did it (yes – we’re already shopping for Christmas, but the Wii probably won’t wait til Christmas befor we use it).

Monday – drove the rest of the way to Gulf Shores (more precisely Orange Beach, AL – just down the road from Gulf Shores). You might be asking why did we go there. The answer is we know some people who own a condo there and Shawna’s mom had been given a free week to stay there, so she let us take advantage of the free week with her – thanks GG (Grandma Grace). After we got there I took the kids straight to the ocean and after about 10 minutes they wanted to go straight to the pool, so we did.

Tuesday – slept in. Went to the pool and ocean again (ocean a bit longer this time and more than once, but still spent more time at the pool). Lost my sunglasses in the ocean. Bought some new ones for an outrageous $10 at ‘Surf Style’ (that was $5 too high for my taste because I can get sunglasses any weekend at the Jockey Lot for $5). Relaxation deluxe – all day long. Ate good. Had TCBY ice cream.

Wednesday – got up at 6am and walked the beach. I knew the tide would be low and wanted to find some sea shells for the kids because they hadbeen looking for them since we got there. I happened to find 3 pairs of sunglasses washing up with the seashells. One pair is Oakley and the other two aren’t bad either. They’re a little scratched but not too bad. Took the kids to the pool and ocean again. This time we stayed at the ocean for quite a while because I bought them some sand toys to play with. I built a sand castle and Devin immediately tore it down with the shovel I got him. Went to Lambart’s (http://www.throwedrolls.com/). What an experience. They literally throw the rolls to you. Excellent food.

Thursday – took Devin to the National Naval Aviation Museum. Another wonderful experience. There are so many planes on display. Devin loved getting in the cockpits of several different types of planes. We also saw a pretty cool Imax movie. Hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to go do that again when Devin is older so he can learn more about the planes and their history.

Friday – The girls went shopping which left Devin and I without transportation and with little interest in going to the pool or the beach by ourselves. So we made an adventure out of it and walked down the beach about a mile to the nearest souvenir shop where I bought Devin a snorkel and goggles. Then we walked back. That was as close as I got to a workout all week so I’ll have to pick up the slack now that we’re home.

Saturday – Pretty much all day was spent at the beach. Someone in our building pulled the fire alarm so the fire trucks came. That was interesting. But we spent most of the day playing in the sand and enjoying the ocean that we rarely get to see. It was nice and relaxing but at the same time I was already starting to dread the packing up and driving home.

Sunday – We drove all the way back home in one day. We stopped probably 5 times in the first 5 hours (3 hours of it was actual driving time) to get souvenirs, get snacks, pee, etc etc, then stopped to eat at Cracker Barrel. Then after we ate we drove 5 hours straight without stopping. Home sweet home.

What a wonderful vacation. We really enjoyed the gulf coast of Alabama. It’s really quite nice for family vacationing and we’ll most likely do it again. I’m sure there are so many details I’m not thinking of at the moment but I don’t want to delay posting something about our vacation any longer. When I think of more stuff I’ll write about it.

I’ll upload a bunch of pics for the next post. 

Filed Under: Family, Misc, Relationships

Latest Reading – I Was Broke Now I’m Not

August 8, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Just read Joe Sangl’s book. I have a note from Joe in my copy along with his autograph, so that makes it valuable – but I’m not selling it. It’s priceless to me because of the information in it.

I’ve heard Joe teach pretty much everything he has written in the book either in his FLE or in one on one counseling with him. But it was reinvigorating to read it all in the book and make notes of some things I need to re-focus on regarding our finances. In the year and a half that we’ve been following Joe’s methods we have made huge progress toward improving our finances. It is very exciting.

In case you haven’t read Joe’s book – I HIGHLY recommend it. It is the most simple material to read AND apply that I have ever come across (it took me about 3 hours to read it and I stopped to jot some personal notes in several places). I also highly recommend scheduling one on one counseling with Joe so he can share his insight in to your finances. He is not bossy or judgemental (in fact he’s the exact opposite) but he is inspiring and challenging in sharing his experience and knowledge and using it to offer suggestions that will help your unique situation.

Now that I’m going on and on about it I’ll go so far as to say that if you haven’t read Joe’s book you are really missing out. And if you think you don’t need to read Joe’s book you are a freakin idiot. There is something for everybody to learn in Joe’s book. I don’t care if you’re wiping with $100 bills – there is still something for you to learn from Joe’s book (like you might get some better ideas of something good you could be doing with your money besides wiping with it).

Shawna and I just love Joe and Jenn – both as friends and as financial mentors. I can’t say much else about it. 

Filed Under: Money, Reading, Relationships

Bikes

April 28, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Everyone in our family has a bike and it’s so exciting. I’ve been wanting to get bikes for Shawna and me for a few years but it just hasn’t been a priority in the finances until recently. I got one for me, then Shawna, and I even got a little one that might make it til Kylee is big enough.

The reason I got the little one is because Devin & Skyler went straight from big-wheels to 16″ bikes. They should have gotten 12″ bikes first so their legs could reach the ground. We’ve been trying for months to get Devin to ride without training wheels but he just wouldn’t do it. Some of our friends kids learned how at younger ages on smaller bikes, so we thought maybe Devin would succeed if we back up and get a smaller bike for him to try. It worked!!

We only had the small bike out for about 2 hours and he had already gotten it pretty much down-pat. He rode that little bike a couple of more days before it got ran over in the driveway (it was left behind the van – another lesson Devin learned – not to leave the bike behind the van). I think I salvaged it for Skyler to learn on (she doesn’t want to try yet), but we’ll see – it was broken pretty bad.

It was so exciting seeing Devin take off without training wheels. After the little bike was run over it gave me a good reason to be tough dad and make him try his big bike without the training wheels. It was no problem. He took off like a champ and is getting better every day. We ride through our little neighborhood together all the time. We have one of those little caboose things that a friend gave us and I haul Skyler in it behind my bike when she doesn’t want to ride her own. It’s a new fun family activity we can do – and I love it. 

Filed Under: Family, Relationships

Snow Skiing

February 6, 2008 by Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago Perry (pastor at NewSpring) told about his terrible experience the first time he went skiing. Shawna could almost tell that story exactly the same. I took her skiing for her first time (my second time) about 8 years ago this month. She made some of the same mistakes Perry did.
She fell getting off the lift, but she managed to knock me down too so it was ugly and the lift had to be stopped. The last thing I said was “keep your poles close beside you so we don’t get tangled up”. Where did the pole closest to me go as we got off the lift? Between my legs – and we both tumbled.

Later that day we went down a hill that had some moguls. I went down first and with my superior athletic ability (and a little previous experience) I bounced back and forth down the moguls with some level of control – the way you’re supposed to do it. Then I look back and Shawna is coming straight down the moguls getting higher and higher air with each bump. When she finally fell down so she could stop I was terrified at how close she was to a small tree that was oddly right in the middle of the slope. She was laughing hysterically.

Those were great times. The best part about it was we were skiing in Colorado, not North Carolina. The difference is an intermediate slope in Colorado (no such thing as a bunny slope in Colorado) is about the equivalent of a black diamond in North Carolina – from what I hear anyway – I’ve never been mudsliding in North Carolina.

Shawna did much better the rest of that week – it just took some time and practice. I can’t wait to go skiing again one day. We loved it!
Filed Under: Faith, Relationships
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