Day 48 (Test Week 8)

Push ups: 50 (Personal best)

Crunches: 66 (PB)

Pull ups: 7

3 Mile Run: 29:29 (PB). Yay, finally broke the 30 min. mark.

Gotta work on improving my pull ups.

No Excuses, No Options

Nike has "Just Do it."

TSC guy says "Crush it."

Px90 says, "Bring it."

Former Navy Seals guy has, "Not Dead, Can't Quit."

I need to invent my own catch phrase, motto or saying.

So far, I've got, "No excuses, no options."

No options means no other choice but to continue on the path in front of me, no other choices like quitting, just keep going, no option but the present one.

I don't know, seems a little negative, need to put a positive spin, positive language somehow.

Ready for Facebook IPO

They always talk about if you invested 10k in, something like Berkshire or Walmart or Apple or Microsoft back in the day and held it til the present you'd be a rich, rich guy. And everyone says, you have to have that spare 10k lying around and you have to know to pull the trigger.

Two conditions:
1. Have the 10k.
2. Know to pull the trigger.

Case Histories.

• Berkshire. Before my time.
• Walmart. Before my time. 
• Apple. Bought too early. Prob. 3 or 4k worth of stocks. Market tanked, along with Apple. Panicked and sold at bottom. Two years later, Steve Jobs comes back, and the stock as shot straight upward ever since. 
• Netflix. Had funds. Too late. 
• Starbucks. Missed boat. 
• Krispy Kreme. Missed boat. 
• Google. Had funds. Scared off by the naysayers.
• Chipolte. Had funds. Missed the IPO. 
• Amazon. Had funds. Missed the boat. Didn't even think about it til too late. 
• Microsoft. Missed the boat. Didn't think about it til too late. 

Which brings us to Facebook and its IPO. The two conditions are met.

I have the funds and I am ready to pull the trigger. We'll see how it turns out.

Day 42

BJJ: 1.5 hrs.

Day 41: Test Day (Week 7)

Push ups: 35.

Crunches: 55.

Pull ups: 7.

3 Mile Run: 31:39. (thought the new shoes (New Balance) would help. nope.

Crunches are improving. Pull ups and push ups, not so much.

Day 40

Push ups: 15

Crunches: 20

Pull ups: 3

Day 39

BJJ: 1.5 hrs.

Push ups: 20

Crunches: 20

Pull ups: 3

Day 38

Push ups: 15 (slow)

Crunches: 30.

Pull ups: 3

Bought new running shoes (New Balance 990). Sweet. Will see if I run faster this Friday.

Day 37

BJJ: 1.5 hrs.

Day 36: Test Day (Week 6)

Push ups: 31

Crunches: 35.

Pull ups: 4

3 Mile Run: 31:38.

Day 35

Push ups: 25-10.

Crunches: 50

Push ups: 20

Crunches: 30

Trading Fiasco

Day 2: was up $36.

Day: 3 -- lost all of it, including my initial $200 start up.

Should listen to my instincts. No easy money. Kinda reminded me of my poker days. Tilt. Tilt.

Day 34

Push ups: 25 (slowly).

Crunches: 25.

Push ups: 25

Crunches: 25

Day 33

Push ups: 25

Crunches: 25

Push ups: 25.

Push ups: 15

Wipers: 50

Pull ups: 5

Box jumps: 50

Not timed.

E. Reading Update

She has read:

• Protector of the Small (entire series), 
• Flowers for Algernon 
• abridged Don Quixote. 

Day 32

Push ups: 50

Wipers: 50

Pull ups: 7

No Box Jumps (sore knee).

Time: 5:42

Grand Option Trading Adventure

So after 1.5 hours and three trades later, I lost a grand total of .50 US cents. That's right. Since as a U.S. citizen I couldn't trade currencies or commodities or indices, I had only stocks left.

I registered with Optionbit and sweated out my three measly trades. Get rich it's NOT.

Linchpin notes, Part IV

by Seth Godin.

• We have everything we need, so we're not buying commodities. We're buying relationships and stories and magic. 
• Corporations tried to depersonalize all of those so they could lie to us, so they could package commodities, so they could scale without involving humans. 
• Only path available to you is to change me, connect with me, or make a difference in my life. 
• Wal-Mart wins because it's cheap and close. Everyone else who wins must do it by being generous. 
• Linchpins do two things for organizations: they exert emotional labor and they make a map.
• Creativity is personal, original, unexpected, and useful. Unique creativity requires domain knowledge, a position of trust, and the generosity to actually contribute.
• Delivering Unique Creativity -- hardest of all, because not only do you have to have insight, but you also need to be passionate enough to risk the rejection that delivering a solution can bring. You must ship.
• Understanding that your job is to make something happen changes what you do all day.
• Become a mapmaker.
• When you meet someone, you need to have a superpower. If you don't, you're just another handshake. Make the introduction meaningful.
• If you want to be a linchpin, the power you bring to the table has to be very difficult to replace. 
• Humility is our antidote to what's inevitably not going to go according to plan. Humility permits us to approach a problem  with kindness and not arrogance. Be a generous artist. 
• What do you do when you art doesn't work? Make more art. Give more gifts. Learn from what you did and then do more. 
• Live life without regret. 
• All these interactions are art. It's anything that changes someone for the better, any nonanonymous interaction that leads to a human (not simply a commercial) conclusion. 
• Art can't be bought or sold. It must contain an element that's a gift, something that brings the artist closer to the viewer, not something that insulates one from the other.
• You can't fake it, though, because humans are too talented at sensing when a gift is not a gift, when we're being played or manipulated. And sometimes our art isn't enough. It's not enough to get the sale or even a living. But we persist because making art is what we do. 

Linchpin notes Part III

from the book, Linchpin by Seth Godin.

• So, what's left is to make -- to give -- art.
• If there is no sale, look for the fear.
• Fear self-fulfills. Confidence self-fulfills as well.
• MIT is now free online. [response to excuse you don't have access to first class education or college]
• Your work is to ship. Ship things that make change.
• Whichever way the wind of resistance is coming from, that's the way to head -- directly into the resistance.
• Embrace the itch [anxiety] from the start, but don't scratch it. You sat with the anxiety; you didn't run from it or bargain with it. You stayed. 
• Idea of building a platform before you have your next idea, to view the platform building as a separate project from spreading your art. 
• Technique Seth uses to make stuff: 1. Write down the due date. Post it on the wall. Ship on this date, done or not.
• 2. Write down every single notion, plan, idea, sketch, and contact. Invite many people. This is where the thrashing and dreaming begin. 
• 3. Put all the notes/cards into a database. Thrashing playground. This is the very last chance they have to make the project better. 
• 4. One person (that would be you) goes through the database and builds a complete description of the project. Outline or model, etc. The blueprint. 
• 5. Take Blueprint to a few select people. They can approve it, cancel it or suggest a few improvements. 
• 6. Say, "If i deliver what you approved, on budget and on time, will you ship it?
• 7. Don't proceed until you get a yes.
• When you haven't set up a judge and jury for your work, you get to do art that doesn't alert the resistance. 
• Power of unreciprocated gifts. The very fact that gift giving without recompense feels uncomfortable is reason enough to take a moment to find out why.
• We can't repay him is precisely why his gift is so valuable. Linchpin thinking is about delivering gifts that can never be adequately paid for. 
• You best give a gift without knowing or being concerned with whether it will be repaid. The magic of gift system is that the gift is voluntary, not part of a contract. 
• 150 people in a tribe max. 
• You couldn't charge interest on a loan to anyone in your tribe. Strangers paid interest.
• Real gifts don't demand reciprocation and the best kinds of gifts are gifts of art.
• Gifts bring the two closer together, creating a tribe. 
• First circle - close friends; second circle - acquaintances/business people; third circle - fans, don't know them personally... we profit most when we make first and third circles as big as we can.
• Transactions distance parties from each other. Gift-giving does opposite. Lack of a transaction created a bond between giver and recipient, and perhaps surprisingly, the giver comes out even further ahead. 
• A key element for the artist is the act of giving the art to someone in the tribe.
• If I give you a piece of art, you shouldn't be required to work hard to reciprocate, because reciprocation is an act of keeping score, which involves monetizing the art, not appreciating it.
• If I touch you in any way, you then have two obligations: to make us closer, and to pass it on, to give a gift to another member of the tribe. 
• Artists are indispensable linchpins. Art is scarce; scarcity creates value. Gifts make tribes stronger. 
• Most successful people in the world are those who don't do it for the money.
• Three ways to think about gifts: 1. Give me a gift!; 2. Here's a gift; now you owe me, big time; 3. Here's a gift, I love you. #1 and #2 capitalist misunderstandings of what it means to give or receive a gift. The third is the only valid alternative.
• For some artists, the benefits are all internal. Creating art is an intrinsic good, something they enjoy. They don't want anything, don't seek anything, and if they're particularly resolute, won't get anything. 
• Artists don't give gifts for money. They do it for respect and connection and to cause change. So the best recipients are the ones who can reciprocate in kind. With honest gratitude. With clear reports about change that was created. With gifts that actually cost us, not tiny gratuity or faux appreciation. 
• As soon as you draw the map and mechanize and monetize emotional labor, you ruin it.
• As big business has realized that people crave connection, not stuff, they've tried to institutionalize it, measure it, and reward it. And they fail every time.
• If you appreciate a gift, consider saying, "thank you and ..." and how i used it, how it changed me, small detail about gift and its effect. 
• Money is a poor substitute for respect and thanks. Respect is the gift you can offer in return.
• How do I know what art to make? How do i know what gifts to give? The answer is the secret to your success. You must make a map. 
• You must become indispensable to thrive in the new economy. The best ways to do that are to be remarkable, insightful, an artist, someone bearing gifts. To lead. The worst way is to conform and become a cog in a giant system. 
• If you accept that human beings are difficult to change, and embrace (rather than curse) the uniqueness that everyone brings to the table, you'll navigate the world with more bliss and effectiveness. 
• Our inclination is to give fire a pass, because it's not human. But human beings are similar, in that they are not going to change any time soon either. 
• Ability to see the world as it is to begins with an understanding that perhaps it's not your job to change what can't be changed. 
• Attachment sign #1. use telekinesis and mind control to remotely affect other people; #2 - how you handle bad news. Learn what you can learn; then move on. It's not a personal attack. It Just Is.
• quadrant of the Linchpin -- right effort in the right place can change the outcome, and she reserves her effort for doing just that. 
• When a vendor or a customer must choose between an organization working hard to defend the status quo and one that's open to big growth in the future, the choice is pretty simple.
• Record biz -- blinded by their attachment to the present and their fear of the future. 
• That's why outsiders and insurgents so often invent the next big thing -- they don't start with a tangled past. 
• Art is the act of navigating without a map.
• She started doing her old job in a new way.
• If your agenda is set by someone else and it doesn't lead you where you want to go, why is it your agenda?
• In the old-school factory, the twin taskmasters are the manual and the assembly line. The manual tells you what to do, and the assembly line keeps the work coming. It's not your job to decide.
• Our work changed, but our psyches didn't.
• The alternative is to draw a map and lead.
• You can either fit in or stand out. Not both.
• The gift represents effort. Achieve goal by giving selfless gifts, and those benefit everyone.
• Restaurants and concerts -- not merely about the music or the food. It's about joy and connection and excitement. 
• only way to make it as a trapeze artist is to leap. Linchpin who leads change is able to do just that: leap.
• Transferring your passion to your job is far easier than finding a job that happens to match your passion. 
• No one is pushing you to stand out.
• "If only" is a great way to eliminate your excuse du jour. 
• You've calmed yourself in the face of anxiety, or done something for no compensation, or solved a problem with an insight. If you've done it once, you can do it again. Every day.
• Most of what people do all day is roach stomping. The little tasks that distract us from the art of the work, that slow us down and wear us out. 
• Nothing about becoming indispensable is easy. If it's easy, it's already been done and it's no longer valuable. 
• What will make someone a linchpin is not a shortcut. It's the understanding of which work is worth doing. The only thing that separates great artists from mediocre ones is their ability to push through the dip. Some people decide that their art is important enough that they ought to overcome the resistance they face in doing their work. Those people become linchpins.
• Dignity is more important than wealth. Respect matters. Gift of connection, of art, of love -- of dignity. 
• When your boss gives you a script to read, or when you crib something from a how-to book, it almost never works. That's because you're not telling the truth, you're not being human, and you're not being transparent.
• When the interactions are genuine and transparent, they usually work. When they are artificial or manipulative, they fail.
• We can sense it when you read the script because we're so good at finding the honest signals.
• Only successful way to live in a world of honest signals is to give the genuine gift. Genuine gifts, given with the right intent and a respectful posture ... we believe. When we believe, a different relationship can occur. One about "us," not just "you." But only if you cease to manipulate me and stop doing your job. Do your art instead.

Day 31

BJJ: 1.5 hrs.

Linchpin notes Part II

by Seth Godin.

• Two ways a linchpin can use "no." 1. Never use it (manage to find a way to do it. It's done. YES.); 2. No because we have the strength to disappoint you now in order to delight you later (when used with good intent, this negative linchpin is also priceless.)
• Like in nordic skiing, the person who leans forward the most wins the race.
• The cog is standing by, waiting for instructions.
• The physical (and mental) posture of someone creating art both changes and causes change. Art changes posture and posture changes innocent bystanders. 
• of 38 factors that motivated them to do their best at work -- the top 10: 1. challenge and responsibility; 2. flexibility; 3. stable work environment; 4. money; 5. professional development; 6. peer recognition; 7. stimulating colleagues and bosses; 8. exciting job content; 9. organizational culture; 10. location and community.
• only one is clearly extrinsic motivator (#4 money): interesting thing about money is that there's no easy way for an employee to make it increase, at least not in the short run. Most of the other elements, though, can go through the roof as a result of our behavior, contributions, attitude, and gifts. 
• And yet, cynical management acts like a factory, figuring that the only motivators are cash and freedom from scolding. 
• If you need to conceal your true nature to get in the door, understand you'll probably have to conceal your true nature to keep that job. 
• Emotional labor is the task of doing important work, even when it isn't easy.
• Volunteer to do emotional labor -- even when we don't feel like it.
• "The gift is to the giver, and comes back to him..." - walt whitman.
• When you do emotional labor, you benefit. The act of the gift is in itself a reward. Also, you benefit from the response of those around you.
• The essence of any gift, including the gift of emotional labor, is that you don't do it for a tangible, guaranteed reward. 
• "Most artists can't draw." -- Roy Simmons. "But all artists can see." - seth godin.
• Art is anything that's creative, passionate, and personal. And great art resonates with the viewer, not only with the creative. 
• An artist is someone who uses bravery, insight, creativity, and boldness to challenge the status quo. And an artist takes it personally. 
• Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient. The medium doesn't matter. The intent does.
• Art is a personal act of courage, something one human does that creates change in another. If there is no change, there is no art. If no one experiences it, there can be no change. 
• Art is the product of emotional labor. If it's easy and risk free, it's unlikely that it's art. 
• Art is unique, new, and challenging to the status quo. It's not decoration, it's something that causes change. It involves labor, emotional labor of doing something difficult, taking a risk and extending yourself.
• Passion is a desire, insistence, and willingness to give a gift. An insistence on doing important work. This relentless passion leads to persistence and resilience in the face of people not accepting your gift. 
• "Wait! Are you saying that I have to stop following instructions and start being an Artist? Someone who dreams up new ideas and makes them real? Someone who finds new ways to interact, new pathways to deliver emotion, new ways to connect? Someone who acts like a human, not a cog? Me?
• Yes.
• Poverty Mentality: If I give you something, it costs what I gave you. The more you have, the less I have. The more I share, the more I lose. 
• When you give something away, you benefit more than the recipient does. The act of being generous makes you rich beyond measure, and as the goods or services spread through the community, everyone benefits.
• Art is the ability to change people with your work, to see things as they are and then create stories, images, and interactions that change the marketplace.
• Perhaps i don't need a new job or project or boss. Perhaps i need to get in touch with what it means to feel passionate. People with passion look for ways to make things happen. The combination of passion and art is what makes someone a linchpin.
• Gifts allow you to make art.
• In everything you do, it's possible to be an artist, at least a little bit. If you're willing to suspend your selfish impulses, you can give a gift to your customer or boss or coworker or a passerby. And the gift is as much for you as it is for the recipient.
• Vital to know whom you are working for. Understanding your audience allows you to target your work and get feedback that will improve your work. Also, it tells you whom to ignore. Art for everyone is mediocre, bland, and ineffective.
• Moment you treat that person like a boss, like someone in charge of your movements and your output, you are a cog, not an artist. 
• Nobody cares how hard you worked: It's not an effort contest, it's an art contest. Emotional labor changes the recipient, and we care about that.
• Future of your organization depends on motivated human beings selflessly contributing unasked-for gifts of emotional labor. 
• Easier it is to quantify, the less it's worth.
• Job is what you do when you are told what to do. Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people. Process of doing your art "the work."
• The job is not the work. The job is not the work; what you do with your heart and soul is the work.
• Artists have the chance to make things better. 
• Passion is caring enough about your art that you will do almost anything to give it away, to make it a gift, to change people. Part of the passion is having the persistence and resilience to change both your art and the way you deliver it.
• Passion for your art also means having a passion for spreading your art.
• If ideas don't spread, if no gift is received, then there is no art, only effort. 
• Art, at least art as i define it, is the intentional act of using your humanity to create a change in another person. 
• Thrashing is the apparently productive brainstorming and tweaking we do for a project as it develops. 
• Thrash late and you won't ship.
• Missed deadlines: creators didn't have the discipline to force all the thrashing to the beginning.
• Coordinating teams of people become exponentially more difficult as the group gets larger. So projects stall as they thrash.
• Relentlessly limit the number of people allowed to thrash. Formal procedures for excluding people. Need secrecy. Appoint one person (a linchpin) to run it. 
• Lizard brain is the source of the resistance.
• Going out of your way to find uncomfortable situations isn't natural, but it's essential. Road to comfort is crowded and it rarely gets you there. Discomfort brings engagement and change. 
• One way to become creative is to discipline yourself to generate bad ideas. Worse the better. Do it a lot and magically you'll discover that some good ones slip through. 
• "Well-paying employment requires that workers possess unique skills, abilities, and knowledge. It also requires that the labor be non-commoditized. Unfortunately, journalistic labor has become commoditized." -- media economist Robert Picard.

Day 30: Test Day (Week 5)

Push ups: 43

Sit ups (2:00): 38

Pull ups: 7

3 Mile Run: 30:57

Yay. Broke 31 min. mark.

Linchpin notes

By Seth Godin.

Wow. I mean wow. I've marked almost the entire book. And it's a library book, too. Well, it's in pencil.

• If you're not indispensable (yet) it's because you haven't made that choice.
• We have gone from two teams (management and labor) to a third team, the linchpins. 
• No map: If you have a job where someone tells you what to do next, you've just given up the chance to create value. 
• Stop asking what's in it for you and start giving gifts that change people.
• Learn the new rules.
• You weren't born to be a cog in the giant industrial machine. You were trained to become a cog.
• Artists are people with a genius for finding a new answer, a new connection, or a new way of getting things done. 
• There are no longer any great jobs where someone else tells you precisely what to do. 
• Here's the law: Any project, if broken down into sufficiently small, predictable parts, can be accomplished for awfully close to free. 
• First you have interchangeable parts, then you have interchangeable workers. [actually workers are parts/cogs]
• If we can measure it, we can do it faster. If we can put it in a manual, we can outsource it. If we can outsource it, we can get it cheaper. 
• What we need are gifts and connections and humanity -- and the artists who create them.
• Leaders don't get a map or a set of rules. 
• If factories are our minds -- if the thing the market values is insight or creativity or engagement .. 
• The linchpins leverage something internal, not external, to create a position of power and value.
• End of ABC: Attendance-based compensation. There are fewer and fewer good jobs where you can get paid merely for showing up. 
• The only way to get what you're worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen as indispensable,and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about. 
• Consumers say that all they want are cheap commodities. Given the choice, though, most of us, most of the time, seek out art.
• the competitive advantage the marketplace demands is someone more human, connected, and mature. Someone with passion and energy.
• All of these attributes are choices, not talents, and all of them are available to you. 
• "Not my job" -- three words can kill an entire organization. 
• If you're a linchpin, doing a job that's not getting done is essential.
• just maybe, would you be more successful if you were more artistic, motivated, aware and genuine?
• When customers have the choice between faceless options, they pick the cheapest, fastest, more direct option. You can't out-Amazon Amazon.
• Because everyone is a person, and people crave connection and respect.
• Letting people in the organization use their best judgement turns out to be cheaper and faster -- only if you hire the right people and reward them for having the right attitude. Which is the attitude of a linchpin.
• Mediocre obedience: we've been taught to be a replaceable cog in a giant machine. We've been taught to consume as a shortcut to happiness. We've been taught to not care about our jobs or our customers. And we've been taught to fit in. 
• we've been taught to embrace the system, to spend for pleasure, and to separate ourselves from our work. 
• Almost impossible to imagine a school with a sign like: "We teach people to take initiative and become remarkable artists, to question the status quo, and to interact with transparency. And our graduates understand that consumption is not the answer to social problems."
• the distinction between cogs and linchpins is largely one of attitude, not learning.
• Fear at School: things learned in frightening circumstances are sticky. Schools have figured this out.   Fear is the greatest shortcut on the way to teaching compliance. Classrooms become fear-based, test-based battlefields. 
• Schools teaching the wrong stuff: Fit in. Follow instructions. Use #2 pencils. Take good notes. Show up every day. Cram for tests and don't miss deadlines. Have good handwriting. Punctuate. Buy the things the other kids are buying. Don't ask questions. Don't challenge authority. Do the minimum amount required so you'll have time to work on another subject. Get into college. Have a good resume. Don't fail. Don't say anything that might embarrass you. Be passably good at sports, or perhaps extremely at being a quarterback.
• Participate in a large number of extracurricular activities. Be a generalist. Try not to have other kids talk about you. Once you learn a topic, move on.
• Key questions: Which of these attributes are keys to being indispensable? Are we building the sort of people our society needs?
• Being good at school is a fine skill if you intend to do school forever. 
• What they should teach at school: only two things -- 1. Solve interesting problems; 2. Lead.
• Leading is a skill, not a gift. 
• The linchpin is the essential element, the person who holds part of the operation together. 
• Depth of knowledge combined with good judgement is worth a lot. 
• Your job is also a platform for generosity, for expresson, for art.
• She didn't get assigned either of those jobs. She just did them. If you could write Marissa's duties into a manual, you wouldn't need her. But the minute you wrote it down, it wouldn't be accurate anyway. That's the key. She solves problems that people haven't predicted, sees things people haven't seen, and connects people who need to be connected. 
• challenge structure and expectation and status quo.
• Troubleshooting is never part of a job description. Troubleshooting is an art and a gift.
• Krulaks law -- the closer you get to the front, the more power you have over the brand. 
• If all you can do is the task and you're not in a league of your own at doing the task, you're not indispensable. 
• Emotional labor is available to all of us, but is rarely exploited as a competitive advantage.
• It's called work because it's difficult, and emotional labor is the work most of us are best suited to do. It may be exhausting, but it's valuable. 
• Scarcity creates value.
• Fearless doesn't mean without fear. It's being unafraid of things that one shouldn't be afraid.
• Reckless -- foolish. Feckless -- ineffective, indifferent, and lazy. 
• Key to success was dealing with fatigue. When you got tired, you didn't quit. Where to put the fear?? Linchpin feels the fear, acknowledges it, then proceeds. 
• Seek out achievements where there is no limit. 
• Showstopper. Opposite of being a cog is being able to stop the show, at will. 
• Art is never defect-free. 
• If it wasn't a mystery, it would be easy. If it were easy, it wouldn't be worth much. 
• The problem with meeting expectations is that it's not remarkable. 
• Want someone exceptional. Seek something that is neither good nor perfect. Want something remarkable, nonlinear, game-changing, and artistic. 
• Work is a chance to do art. 
• He saw an opportunity to give gifts. He had emotional labor to contribute, and his compensation was the blessings he got from customers.
• Bring your genius self to work. 
• A resume gives the employer everything she needs to reject you. 
• To get a job: show, not tell. Projects are the new resumes. Find a company that hires people, not paper. You are not your resume. Your are your work. 

Day 29

BJJ: 1.5 hrs.

This I Believe...

On the way to BJJ, at the freeway exit, there was a homeless guy begging with a sign that said, "Veteran. Hungry.

I needed my coins so I gave him a dollar bill, and I saw in my mirror that the car behind me gave him a some leftover salad in a clear plastic box,

A few minutes later, driving along, and thinking about this, I felt the presence of Something, call it Higher Being or Infinite Intelligence, it was a small feeling but pervasive and for the first time I believed in the EXISTENCE of what people call God.

Beliefs, faith and god exist in actions and deeds, this I believe. If I was searching for god, I need only to look for opportunities to act, to serve and to do good.

I'm not a religious person in the normal sense and I'm the last person to try to convert anyone. I'm only writing down my experiences, my thoughts.

G. update

G. (4 yrs. 3 months).

Slowly progessing through Phonics program. I need to be more consistent, but hard to find the time.

She likes Ballet and music. We need to look into Piano lessons for her. Need to start researching Kindergarten options. I'm leaning towards Montessori because she loves to help -- cleaning and setting up, etc.

E's Squishy Nose and other notes

E. (8 yrs, 2 months); in 3rd Grade.

She's missing a little cartilage on the bridge of her nose and it makes it extra squishy, and kinda soft to the touch. When we commented on it, she said her squishy nose was "a positive anomaly in a sea of ubiquity."

Fencing: She started taking fencing lessons a couple months before she turned 8. It's once a week. It was her idea, and I think she got it after watching The Princess Bride DVD.

Day 28

BJJ: 1.5 Hours.

Master-Key to Riches notes, Part II

by Napoleon Hill.

• then reluctantly, I retraced my footsteps back to the city, there to mingle once again with those who are driven, like galley slaves, to the inexorable rules of civilization, in a mad scramble to gather up material things they do not need. 
• suggest that the Infinite Intelligence reveals itself through silence more readily than through the boisterousness of people's struggles, in their mad rush to accumulate material things.
• Applied Faith: when the mind has been cleared of a negative mental attitude, the power of Faith moves in and begins to take possession. 
• Faith fraternizes only with the mind that is positive!
• Faith is the outward demonstration of Definiteness of Purpose!
• How to Demonstrate the Power of Faith: a. know what you want and determine what you have to give in return for it; possession of anything first takes place mentally; accept defeat as an inspiration to greater effort and carry on with belief that you will succeed; Let not a single day pass, without making at least one definite move toward the attainment of your Definite Major Purpose -- "Faith without works is dead."
• indomitable will backed by an abiding faith.
• dominating thoughts into reality.
• They all met with failure -- they didn't call it by that name; they called it "temporary defeat."
• Law of Cosmic Habitforce -- Nature's method of giving fixation to all habits so they carry on automatically. 
• Living habits, these we may fix by patterns of our thoughts.
• Cosmic Habitforce causes this. Any thought held in the mind through repetition begins immediately to translate itself into its physical equivalent. 
• If you desire sound health, give orders to your subconscious mind to create it and Cosmic Habitforce will carry out the order. First comes the "consciousness" of that which you desire, then follows the physical or mental manifestation of your desires. The "consciousness" is your responsibility. 
• the 17 principles: 1) Habit of Going Extra Mile; 2) Definiteness of Purpose; 3) Master Mind; 4) Applied Faith; 5) Pleasing Personality; 6) Habit of Learning from Defeat; 7) Creative Vision; 8) Personal Initiative [starts action and keeps it moving toward definite ends]; 9) Accurate Thinking; 10) Self-Discipline [product of carefully established and carefully maintained habits; solely a product of the will; this principle, when mastered and applied, gives one complete control over one's greatest enemy, oneself!]
• 11) Concentration of Endeavor; 12) Cooperation; 13) Enthusiasm; 14) Habit of Health; 15) Budgeting Time and Money; 16) Golden Rule Applied; 17) Cosmic Habitforce [principle by which all habits are fixed and made permanent in varying degrees; consists of a negative and positive potentiality, as do all forms of energy.]
• Habit. Repetition - means by which any habit is begun. 
• We are where we are and what we are because of our fixed habits. 
• Two ways of relating oneself to life. One is playing horse while life rides. Other is becoming the rider while life plays horse. Choice: Be the horse or rider. Life either rides or is ridden. 
• Ego. When self-suggestion attains the status of Faith, the ego becomes limitless in its power. It must be fed with Definiteness of Purpose. No one can become the master of anything or anyone until becoming the master of the ego. 
• Deeds not words. 
• People relate themselves because of motives. 
• Thomas Edison, Luther Burbank, John Burroughs, Harvey Fireston. 
• All riches begin within their own minds.Set off by strict self-discipline. 
• Faith without action is useless. 
• Ted Roosevelt -- a will which refused to accept defeat as anything more than an urge to greater effort. 
• Carnegie: "our only limitations are those which we set up in our own minds."
• Master-Key to Riches: power of thought! Nothing more nor less than the self-discipline necessary to help you take full and complete possession of your own mind! 
• Only thing over which you have complete control is your own mental attitude!

Master-Key to Riches notes

by Napoleon Hill.

By riches, he doesn't mean just money.

• Read this book twice, line by line, and think as you read! [can't. it's from the library and it's overdue already.]
• We have never yet found a truly happy person who was not engaged in some form of service by which others benefited.
• #1 of the 12 Riches of Life: Positive Mental Attitude
• #10: Self-Discipline -- the highest form of self-discipline ... expression of humility of the heart when one has attained great riches or had been overtaken by success.
• #12: Economic Security: not attained by possession of money alone. It is attained by the service one renders -- for useful service may be converted into all forms of human needs, with or without use of money. 
• Must proceed with outstretched hands, to give and to receive aid. To get one must first give!
• 9 Practices for Receiving Life's Rewards: #1 Gratitude.
• Power of thought is the only power over which one has complete control; no limitations to the power of thought save only those in one's own mind.
• Remember enduring riches must be shared with others; that there is a price one must pay for everything acquired. 
• Definite Major Purpose. Temporary defeat is but a testing ground which may prove a blessing in disguise if it is not accepted as final. 
• Carnegie's two tests: 1 - willing to Go Extra Mile; 2 - mind fixed on Definite Goal.
• Philosophy of individual achievement.
• 60 sec to answer Carnegie's question/test: proved definiteness of purpose.
• that the more successful people in all walks of life were, those have always been ones following the habit of rendering more service than which they were paid for. 
• Self-suggestion: link between conscious and subconscious mind.
• You can transfer thought from conscious to subconscious section of the mind more quickly by "stepping up" through faith, fear or any other highly intensified emotion. 
• Thoughts backed by faith have precedence over all others in definiteness and speed with which handed over to subconscious. 
• Successful people become successful only because they acquire the habit of thinking in terms of success. 
• Surest way to solve one's personal problems is to find someone with a greater problem and help that person solve it, through some method of application of the habit of Going the Extra Mile. 
• Habit of Extra Mile - one of 17 principles. It's doing more than one is paid for. 
• Greatest benefit from the habit - to those who render the service, in the form of a changed 'mental attitude;" more influence with others, more vision, more enthusiasm, greater initiative, more definiteness of purpose. 
• Success story consists of a series of little tasks well performed, in the right mental attitude. 
• Pity more have this spirit of assuming greater responsibilities.
• No one has ever been known to achieve permanent success without doing more than he was paid for. 
• Those who render more service and better service than they are paid for become indispensable and thereby insure themselves against unemployment. [Seth Godin, Linchpin touches on this point.]
• For the time being he ceased to think about  the amount of life insurance he might sell, and began to look around for opportunities to be of service to others who were burdened with problems they could not solve. 
• No one ever attains a high degree of enduring success without the friendly cooperation of others, nor does anyone ever attain enduring success without helping others. 
• Love: no one may ever become truly rich without it.
• Habit of Going Extra Mile leads to attainment of spirit of love; no greater expression of love than love which is demonstrated through service that is rendered unselfishly for the benefit of others. 
• First 3 Principles of philosophy: 1. Habit of Going Extra Mile; 2. Definiteness of Purpose; 3. Master Mind. 
• no Master Mind alliance can endure unless it benefits all whom it affects; applied to ends that benefit all who are affected by it.
• Master Mind -- greatest source of personal power. Right use. Harmonious alliance. Forming relationships that are mutually beneficial.
• Always remain a student: 9 basic motives which move people to voluntary action. 
• No one's education is ever finished. Learn from every possible source. 
• Everything that is worth having has a definite price. Patriotism has a price consisting of obligation to exercise it. 
• Master Mind principle -- individual may supplement power of his mind with knowledge, experience and mental attitude of other minds. 
• No form of human relationship is as profitable as the exchange of useful thoughts. 
• Contact with others. Harmonious relationships. A committed relationship. Love heads list of nine basic motives of life, which inspire all voluntary action. 
• Nagging, jealously, faultfinding, and indifference do not feed the emotion of love. They kill it.
• Every meal hour should be a period of friendly intercourse between a couple. Not a inquisition and faultfinding, but family worship, good cheer and discussion of pleasant subjects of mutual interest. 
• Love thrives best  where a couple feeds it through singleness of purpose. 

Day 27: 160

50 Push ups
50 Wipers
10 Pull ups
50 Box Jumps

To Time: 7:57.

Day 26 - Test Day (Week 4)

Push ups: 40

Pull ups: 9

3 Mile Run - 31:17.

Day 25

BJJ: 1 hour.

Managed to get some training in.

Day 24

Week away (Toronto) is wrecking my fitness program.

Push ups: 35-15.