Who Do You Love?

Think about the person you love most in the world.  Even if it is you, think of this person.  Now put this person in the form of a 12 month old child.  A child who has needs, but can't really meet those needs for themselves.  They need food and water.  They need loving companionship.  They need education/learning.  They need nearly total physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental support, and they need if from you.

What would you be willing to do to support this child.  Would you work two full time jobs?  Would you do whatever you could to insure they had the best education possible?  Would you do what it took to make sure they had healthcare?  What if they were starving, how far would you go to make sure they had food?  What if they were alone in the cold with no shelter?  In the middle of a war zone?  

Wouldn't it be nice, if everyone on the planet treated everyone else on the planet that way?  

Why don't we start treating everyone that way today?

Hurdles

While working on the requirements of my Ten Tigers Program, I am making all sorts of discoveries.  I have discovered that with a little practice, it is easy to do 100 pushups and situps in a day.  It is easy to do an act of kindness in a day.  It is even easy to find time to do 20 to 30 minutes of forms training in a day.  It is easy to make a blog entry once a week.  There are, however, hurdles to meeting these goals.

There are hurdles, such as, caring for a toddler, doing the necessary marketing to grow my business, going to work each day, yardwork, family schedules, insomnia, and the list could go on and on and on.  There are lots of hurdles, on some days more than others.  With all of these real hurdles to overcome it becomes very important to avoid the fake ones.

There are fake hurdles that get in the way too.  "I'm tired", "I don't feel like it today", "I'd rather play a video game, watch a movie, watch TV", the list could go on and on and on.  Imagine an athlete about to compete in the 400 meter hurdles.  In that race, the first hurdle is 45 meters from the starting line, then each hurdle is 35 meters apart.  Now imagine that this athlete has for some reason decided that there is another hurdle halfway between each of the actual hurdles.  For every hurdle his competitors jump, he will be jumping two.  What are his odds of winning, what are his odds of even placing when he adds these imaginary hurdles into his race?  

Why do we insist on adding these artificial hurdles?  Why are there days when "Good Morning America" takes precedence over my workout?  Why are there days that I put off the things that are good for my martial arts skill, my health, my mind, and my spirit until there is barely time left and energy left to do them?  Why do I insist on adding hurdles that aren't really there.  

Let's all make a commitment to start recognizing the artificial hurdles.  When you have a task to do, that you want to skip becuase you "don't have time", do it with a stop watch running.  Figure out how long it actually takes you, then remind yourself the next time you hear yourself say you don't have time.  When you tell yourself you are too tired, do one more pushup, or situp, or front kick, or wash one more dish or whatever it is that you need to do.  Then do one more.  Take note of how much time you spend aimlessly wandering the internet or watching TV shows that you could skip.  Let's make commitments to ourselves to use our time and energy more wisely.

We have enough hurdles in our lives.  Don't add any imagined ones.

Value

Try this out.  Find a martial artist who has been training for at least three years.  Ask them how many years of experience they have in the martial arts.  Then ask them if they would take $100,000 in exchange for all the knowledge, experience, skill, and fitness they gained from the martial arts.  If they say, "no", up the offer.  Offer $500,000, then $1,000,000.  When you find a price high enough that they take you up on your offer divide that total by the number of years of experience, then divide by 12.  You now have a dollar amount that shows what their martial arts training was worth to them.  

Personally I wouldn't take $10,000,000 for mine.

At that rate, classes would cost $33,333.33 per month.

You guys are getting a great deal!

The Car of My Dreams

East West Motor Company has released details on the new fully automatic Soma. The Soma is the most intelligently designed vehicle ever created. The most impressive feature of the Soma is it's Self Adjusting Somatic Technology. The SAST enables the Soma to improve its performance based on the demands made by the driver. If you drive this vehicle regularly at a high performance level without redlining the engine. The engine becomes faster, more powerful, and more efficient.

The more it is driven the "smarter" it becomes. It has the ability to "learn" from its experiences. The more varied driving conditions you expose it to the more it adapts to those conditions. Even more amazing is that as it adapts to different driving conditions, its ability to adapt to conditions it has never seen is improved.

There are two major drawbacks to the Soma. If you do not drive it, it's SAST adapts to not being driven and loses power and efficiency. Also, although it can run on the fuel found at any gas station, the more convenient fueling stations don't carry the fuel that is best for the Soma. If you choose to run it on the more convenient fuels often, you risk clogging the fuel lines and decreasing the performance and lifespan of your Soma.

A video worth watching

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA&eurl=http://timrosanelli.blogspot.com/

It's Hard

Being a stay at home dad, and running a small business at the same time is hard.  It seems as though I'm either caring for my 15 month old, or caring for my business.  As for time for myself on weekdays, at about 8:00 or 9:00 I get home, fix supper, or eat supper, then go to bed.  It is a challenge and right now I am feeling very much overwhelmed by it.  In an odd stroke of luck, the baby and the dog are both asleep, so I'm taking a moment to communicate with the outside world.  

What I'm doing is hard, but there are those who have it much harder.  I am struggling to pay bills, but there are others who don't even have the means to struggle.  My business is growing slowly, but other businesses are failing.  I have to remind myself that the key is to keep trying, keep struggling, keep pushing to find a way to accomplish the things I feel called to accomplish.  One day at a time, one obstacle at a time, one challenge at a time.

It is the same as my ten tigers program.  It is hard, but getting through it will be rewarding.  I keep pushing through my program, one pushup at a time, one situp at a time, one act of kindness at a time.  The struggle is half the fun.

And besides, my business did better than GM last year!