Articles

BE THE SUOIVBO (OBVIOUS) CHOICE

My grammar school playground was a very honest place. Brutally honest is more like it. The playground is the place where even sitting at the popular table for lunch every day may not be enough to determine your destiny. The playground is the place where teams are picked. The captains are always the obvious choice. If the two best people were on the same team the outcome of the game would assuredly be decided before it even began. You know how it goes, first picks, second picks, third picks, and then heads start to hang low until the last person is picked.

We carry the brutal honesty of the playground with us the rest of our life. This is easily observed in the way we spend our resources of time and money. Don Miller of buildingastorybrand.com says that websites must be able to pass the “grunt test” in order to succeed at getting our attention. The grunt test is the first five seconds of looking at a website. Within those five seconds it must be clear what the website offers, how you will benefit and how you can get it. If these questions aren’t answered in the first five seconds of looking at a page we grunt and move on. Now that is brutal selectivity indeed.

How can we use this reality to our advantage in the workplace and social realms? We must be the obvious choice. I cannot overestimate the advantage of being the obvious choice. Imagine being the obvious choice when- the choice is getting made for a Saturday night date, the text message is being composed choosing who to invite out for lunch, the job applications are being reviewed for second round interviews, a customer is choosing between three bids, it is layoff time and the boss is deciding who is critical. Being the obvious choice can make a huge difference.

When I was an apprentice elevator technician, I realized that the technicians who took service calls at night and on the weekends had a major pain point that I could solve. On a regular basis a technician would encounter a problem that required a second person to complete the repair. The technician would then have to page an apprentice from a pay phone and wait for the return call and if the person didn’t call or said they couldn’t work the process would repeat. Choose person from phone list, put coins in phone, page person with number of pay phone, wait for response. I let it be known that if I was paged, I would always come in to work. For me always meant just that. If it was a holiday, or the middle of the night or if I was out with friends, I answered my page and went into work. Once I was at work I had to perform up to or beyond expectations also. I was the obvious choice. The pay rate for coming in after-hours was always double time. I made a lot of money by being the obvious choice.

Being the obvious choice requires that you must be different. You must also be different in a way that meets a perceived need.

Is it safer to play is safe and fit in or is it safer to be risky and be different? To be different means to differentiate yourself. In order to differentiate yourself you must become bold enough to act on the idea you have about being different. You will never do this unless you realize that being the same as everyone else is a dead-end road. Being different means, you are doing things worth talking about. You are doing things worth noticing. When my son was young, I explained the definition of being obnoxious. Obnoxious is when you are the only one having fun. I am not talking about being different in an obnoxious way. This is not about snubbing our nose at social norms to prove that we aren’t conformist. This is about being the obvious choice. Different doesn’t have to be weird.

How to be the obvious choice

1. Decide who you want to choose you and what you want them to choose you for.
2. Figure out what those people need.
3. Become the person who fills that need. Don’t wait. Begin giving. Show the love.
4. Make it obvious that you fill the perceived needs.
5. Be available to meet the needs.

Step 1 says to determine what you will do and why you will be chosen. As an example, you choose that fun is the thing that will make your personal or product brand different. Everything you do or provide must be consistent with this differentiation. You must provide fun in all that you do. Think about Apple. What do they provide? Do they provide phones, computers, ear phones and watches? Yes, they do. What do they provide along with these things that makes them the obvious choice? They provide simple, they provide elegant, they provide status and they provide reliability. These put together are what make them different. My money says that no other company provides all of these things at once other than Apple. For me Apple is the obvious choice.

This can really be quite simple. I know a lady who won the heart of her husband by being the most joyful person in the room. She provided a relationship with joy. I have chosen to do business with people because I sensed that they were more likely to look out for my interest than their competitors. In other words, they were less selfish and greedy. People’s needs are quite simple. We need reliable, competent, interesting and trustworthy people, products and services. You can do this. You can be the obvious choice.

In the playground it didn’t seem like we had much control over being the team captain or first picked but those days are over. We now have control over being the obvious choice in a much more important game. This is the game of your life.

Do you need clarity on determining the way you will be different to make yourself the obvious choice? Check out my article on How To Have Unstoppable Clarity

Financial freedom- what is freedom? Is it not allowing anyone to control you? Is it refusing to comply with social norms? Is it being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it? Is someone whose heart is filled with selfishness free? How about an angry person who can do what they want when they want? Is the angry person free?

Freedom is choosing to do the thing that allows you to love in the greatest manner. This is emotional freedom, physical freedom and the thing we are learning about today, it is financial freedom.

What is a budget? Deciding how you will spend your money and keeping track of how you spend your money are two different things. A system to keep track of how you spend your money is not the same as a system to limit your spending and keep you on budget. These are three different things. I am going to show you the simplest way to do all three.

Budgeting money is similar to time management. If I don’t decide in advance how the hours of my day will be spent and determine what I expect to get done with those hours I find time flies by with my attention consumed by tasks that seem very interesting or urgent but, in the end, don’t amount to much. Time management works when we decide in advance what must be done and when we will do it. The process requires us to ruthlessly say no to constant distractions. You have important things to do and you need a process that puts an end to being slowed down by issues related to money. Here is the process that has worked for me for many years and has been the foundation of stress-free financial success.

Write one to three things which are very important to you but are not currently possible due to spending that is out of control. These are things that you can realistically do with your present income but which your current expenses do not allow. If you have a spouse it is very important that you each have a very important reason to do this. It is best if you both have the same reason. It is critical that you both have at least one reason.

1. __________________________________________________________________

• __________________________________________________________________

• __________________________________________________________________

Dream time- What will life be like for you in ten years if these three things become reality?

Write down your monthly income and expenses.

Income                    __________ (the total of all of your take home pay and bonuses)

Charity                     __________ (giving to church and other organizations)

Savings                     __________ (10% of your net income)

Housing                   __________ (all housing costs including taxes, utilities, insurance, & repairs)

Transportation       __________ (all transportation costs including loans, insurance, fuel, & repairs)

Food                         __________ (groceries, toiletries, paper goods, laundry and vitamins)

Health care               __________

Clothing                    __________ (include everyone in the family)

Fun money               __________ (eating out, movies, concerts, vacations, etc)

Personal money      __________ (spending money, hair cuts, makeup, etc)

Home furnishings    __________ (kitchen, laundry & yard equipment, bedding, furniture etc)

Pet care                     __________

Gifts                           __________

Children’s activities __________

Telephone                __________

Internet & media    __________

Debt                          __________

Other                        __________

TOTAL EXPENSES   __________

GRAND TOTAL         __________ (subtract your total expenses from your income.)

If your grand total is not a positive number reduce expenses until it is. Do not reduce your savings. I have created a spreadsheet to do the math for you. Click here to get it.

We often overspend or buy unnecessary things for emotional reasons. We think we need something to be satisfied or that we deserve something because we have worked hard or had a stressful day. Perhaps your spouse bought something and now you get to do the same to even the score. There is also peer pressure. Keeping your focus on the big things that super important to you is necessary to overcome these tendencies. If it was easy everyone would do it and Starbucks would be out of business. The lines at Starbucks are quite long but you don’t need to be one of them. I have many friends that found themselves spending more than $1500 a year on coffee. I’ll let you decide how rational that is.

Do you have one week’s take home pay in your savings account? If yes, good. This is now your emergency account. Don’t touch it except for emergencies. If not use your savings to build up an account. Eliminate all unnecessary expenses until you have your emergency account funded with one week’s pay.

Once you have your emergency fund begin paying off your debts. Use your savings fund on your budget and every bit of money you can get your hands on to make extra payments on your debts. Focus on one of your debts that you know you can get rid of. Pay it off and then focus on the next one. Do you have debt on a car? Can you sell it and buy a cheaper car with cash? Do it. Someday you will be able to afford a very nice car and you will be able to pay cash for it. Don’t cry over past mistakes. Eliminate those mistakes by selling them or paying them off.

Saving and paying off debt results in you having less exposure to financial risk. There are catastrophic events which can ruin you. Consider what a major health issue, death or a law suit could do to you. Cover these risks with insurance.

Once you have paid off your debts, except for your home mortgage if you have one, it is time to increase your emergency fund. Save three months total take home pay. Do you have a job where it is likely that you could be laid off for the winter or is your job not secure? Increase your emergency fund to six months of total take home pay.

Now that you have paid off your debts and you have a huge emergency fund, create a new category, automobile replacement. Someday you are going to need a new car. Now that you are out of debt, stay out of debt. Save the money in advance. When you need a car use the money you have saved. Do not spend more than you have saved.

The same principle holds true for vacations and entertainment. Save the money first and then choose how you will spend it. Do not put your expenses on credit cards and wait to have the money to pay off the card.

Now it is time to invest. Use your savings and all of the money you used to spend on debts to invest. It is time to put your money to work and earn something it gives back to you.

Let’s get back to the budget. How do you actually use a budget? Expenses fit into two categories

Expenses you can control and Expenses you cannot control

Expenses that you cannot control are typically ones that get paid out of your checking account. These are things such as rent or mortgage payments, utilities, loan payments, telephone, and internet.

Expenses you can control are things such as fun money, clothing, personal spending money, etc.

Get a bunch of envelopes. 

Write the name of an expense category that you can control on each one. Write how much money you get each month in that category on the envelope. Now write the amount of money you will put into that envelope each pay period on the envelope. If you get paid weekly multiply your monthly expense for the category times 12 and then divide it by 52. If you get paid by-weekly multiply by 12 and divide by 26. If you get paid twice a month multiply by 12 and divide by 24. This is the amount of cash that you will put into this envelope every time you get paid. Do this for each envelope. You and your spouse should each have your own spending money envelope. You should now have an envelope for each category with two numbers on each envelope. Take another piece of paper and write the numbers $20, $10, $5, and $1. Look at each envelope and what currency denominations you want to put into the envelope each pay period. If an envelope gets $40 each pay period you can get 4 $10s or 2 $20s, etc. Make a mark next to the $20, $10, $5, or $1 for each currency bill needed for each envelope. Now add up the marks and when you go to the bank withdraw that amount of each denomination. Go home and fill your envelopes. Now you are free to spend what is in the envelope and when there is no money left in the envelope, stop spending. If they are truly controllable expenses you may move money from one envelope to another. 

Each month check to see if your non-controllable expenses are the same as what you have budgeted. If they are more, adjust your budget and reduce controllable expenses if necessary.

The budget is a tool to accomplish what you have decided to accomplish. You are the master. You are the one choosing what to do. You are not in control when you are buried in debt or spending all of your money on things that don’t amount to anything. Take control of your finances.

I have found that the great majority of my expenses are the uncontrollable type. This leaves very little to cut in the process of trying to make my budget work. The term squeezing blood out of a turnip often seems to apply. The reality is that is can be easier to make more money than it is to cut expenses once you eliminate the low hanging fruit like coffee shops, food as entertainment and expensive vehicles. Take for example that you take home $3,000 a month and that you have no control over $2,100 of your expenses each month. That leaves you with $900 of discretionary (controllable) income. If you were to increase your take home income by 10% you will have $300 more each month in discretionary income for a total of $1,200. That is a 33% increase in discretionary income for just a 10% increase in total income. That $300 is able to take a lot of penny pinching out of your life giving you ample room to breathe. 

I have one more piece of advice. Celebrate every success along the way.

Here are the main principles-

• Decide how you will spend your money in advance with a budget
• Manage your budget every pay period
• Do not put expenses on credit cards
• Save up a small emergency fund
• Pay off debts
• Purchase insurance
• Eliminate emotional spending
• Save up a larger emergency fund
• Add large expense categories to your budget
• Invest
• Increase your income

You can find the budget template here

Perhaps money and plenty of other things have you stress. If so Stomp on Stress with this stress free plan.

Fixing things is one of my superpowers. I like to joke that I can fix anything with duct tape and a big hammer. Rudy is a German engineer that I used to work with. Rudy believed he could judge a mechanic by the quality of his tools. There is something to that. Knowing the right tool to use in every circumstance and having the right tool is critical to a quality outcome. To a hammer the world is a nail. An engineer is keenly aware of the people who are fixing the things that they designed. They know the purpose of their design and they know the way in which it works best. They know how to keep it working best.

The thing we are going to fix is lack of clarity. Clarity is thinking. It is clear thinking. A lack of clarity means we have to think differently. Not just differently, but correctly. Clear thinking is correct thinking. 

I hope that the reason you are on this page is because you clicked the link at the end of the instructions on using the balanced life assessment. If you haven’t taken the assessment please enter your email on the front page of my website jim-harmon.com and I will email you the assessment for free. The assessment has a link to access the instructions which set up a lot of the thinking in this article.

We are so surrounded by toxic behaviors and selfish motivations. Our lives get caught up in what is well known as the rat race. A never-ending loop of busyness. Ask just about anyone how they are doing and they will respond. Doing great. Super busy though. This is not how we were created to live. Something is broken. The designer knows this. The designer is God. God created us for a purpose.

I come to you today with more than duct tape and a big hammer. I have the blueprint. I have the design drawings. The Bible tells us that as a man (human) thinks, so is he. If we want to fix what is broken. If we want to change who we are, we must change how we think. The Bible also tells us that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. This means that as you are, you will do. We want to change what we do. We will accomplish this by changing what we think, which will change our hearts, which will change what we do.

Where you focus is where you will go. This is the case for steering your car when it is out of control or hitting a ball, among many other things. If you look at the ditch you will wind up in the ditch. We are not going to focus on the ditch. We are not going to focus on wrong thinking. We are going to focus on correct thinking and that is how we are going to achieve clarity, even unstoppable clarity.

This is a four-step plan. There are four things that we will focus on. Each of these leads to the other. I want to explain the power of this statement, “each of these leads to the other”. In his book, Turning the Flywheel, author Jim Collins presents a principle he learned by studying great companies and trying to figure out how they accomplished their greatness. He wanted to be able to reproduce greatness in other companies. He figured it out and he calls it the flywheel principle. He used Amazon.com as an example. There are five items and each item lead to the next. It is like a dog chasing their tail. Once it gets going, it’s going fast and you can’t stop it. In the Amazon example the first step is “Lower Prices on More Offerings” this leads to “Increase Customer Visits” which leads to “Attract Third Party Sellers” which leads to “Expand the Store, Extend Distribution” which leads to “Grow Revenues per Fixed Costs” which leads back to the beginning, “Lower Prices on More Offerings. This is the flywheel effect. We were created to experience this same flywheel effect. The flywheel is unstoppable unless one of the steps gets corrupted. You will be unstoppable once you put this flywheel process into motion in your life.

This four-step plan is worth changing your entire life in order to experience its power.

Step 1

We were all made for one purpose and that purpose is to love and receive love from God and His creation. It doesn’t matter whether someone believes in God or what religion they are. God made everything for this purpose. The thing that was made does not have a choice in the purpose that it was made for. They may deny it but as Dr. Phil would famously say, “How’s that working for you?”. We are here to fix what is broken and the thing that is broken starts with a wrong idea of what the purpose of life is. I want to do what I want to do. You want to do what you want to do. This way of thinking has to stop. 

Step 2

Make it your one goal in life to fulfill the purpose for which you were made.

How many goals do you have? Now you have one. That mantra about I want to do what I want to do, it no longer fits with your one goal. Jesus was honest in what He said to us in the Bible and so I will be honest with you also. He said in the book of John chapter 12 verse 24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Your old way of thinking must die. Your old goals to achieve riches, or comfort, or power, or popularity or security must die. Think about every time you are worried about something. I venture to guess that the worry is about protecting your riches or comfort or power or popularity, etc. When you give these things up you get a life where you don’t have to worry about them. I’ll continue with the thought about the grain of wheat needing to die to produce fruit. If the seed does die a new seed can come to life and it will bear much fruit. It is not easy to give up your own desires. It is not easy to not have your own self-serving agenda. This will be something that you will have to work at while having successes and failures. That is ok. Don’t give up on this. You can receive an amazing life by giving up the one you have. Another life has already been prepared for you. This step is so critical because it requires you to say to God that your own way has been wrong and you are sorry for living a self-centered life. You must give ascent that God’s way is the right way. I am going to go all out Jesus on you here for a moment. There is a problem with you having lived your life to serve yourself for all of these years. There is a price to pay for this insubordination. Unfortunately, it is a price that we are unable to pay which would be a big problem. You cannot move on to step 3 unless this problem is taken care of. Don’t worry. You know where I am going with this. Jesus stepped in and paid the price so that your failure would not result in you and Him being eternally separated. He died for you as payment for your selfishness because you and nobody other than Jesus could pay the price. Accept that payment by making it your one goal to fulfill the purpose for which you were made.

Step 3

When you accept Jesus’ gift of forgiveness a few things happen. You not only get forgiveness but you also get reconciliation. Have you ever had someone continually act toward you in a toxic manner and then ask for your forgiveness? Forgiveness is giving up the right to punish somebody. You may offer your forgiveness but if you are smart, there will still be some boundaries in the relationship until they have proved to you that they are not toxic. Once you believe that you can trust them, you let them into your life in a process called reconciliation. With Jesus you not only get forgiveness but you get the relationship as a result of reconciliation. This relationship means you have access to God through your prayers, in the guidance of your thoughts and the promptings of your heart. This is an amazing thing but it doesn’t stop there. Something else happens which is like being adopted into a family. You become a member of the family. You become a daughter or son of God. An example that is given is that of a grape branch being grafted into the main vine of another Grape vine. The branch now becomes part of that vine and it gets its life from that vine. Your spirit is now fed from God. God actually puts His Spirit inside of you. It is like you are a new person. This is what the Bible says about it in John 7:38 ““Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit,”. What are these rivers of living water? The book of Philippians says in chapter 5, verses 22 and 23 “but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Your core is now filled with love and you give it with joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. In another part of the Bible it says you give it with boldness too. This is the new you. I think the people in your life are going to like this version of you.

Step 4

Just as Step 2 is a natural result of Step 1, Step 3 is a natural result of Step 2, and this Step 4 is a natural result of Step 3. In Step 2, you decided to make it your one goal in life to fulfill the purpose for which you were made. In Step 3, you are given the Spirit of God to empower you to do this difficult task of being selfless. This results in single-mindedness. Single-mindedness is the definition of clarity. The Bible tells us that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. A single-minded man is just the opposite. When you are single minded you are stable, in everything. The result of this process is that you will be unshakeable, powerful, and unstoppable. Unshakeable because you are standing on the firm rock of the purpose you were made for. Powerful because you have the Spirit of God inside you. Unstoppable because you are putting your solid foundation with the power of God behind using the most powerful thing in the world, Love. Just like a star is fueled by Hydrogen, you are fueled by love. You are a Superstar.

You now know how to have unstoppable clarity. It starts with having one purpose and then making decisions consistent with that purpose. Your life is not made of the dreams that you dream but of the choices that you make. Make the choice. Say yes to God’s purpose for you.

Check this out for some clarity on How To Make A Budget That Actually Works

5-second version

Trouble is the crossroad of joy and misery. There is a practical process to choose to stay on the road called joy.

5-minute version

Getting the Best of Stress or Stress Getting the Best of You

The choice is between having a knot in your gut or being confident.

Here are the steps to get the best of stress and be confident.

First accept that stress is created from having a lack of options. Cold without the option of warming up. In danger without the option of safety. Hungry without food. Regret without the ability to make things right. Disappointed without hope. Stress is created from having a lack of options.

Understand that God- knows what you are going through, cares about it, and is powerful enough to do something about it. It makes sense then to talk to God about what is going on and be willing to accept whatever comes of the situation.

Next investigate your options. Do not spend time gathering more information than is absolutely necessary for the next step which is-

Decide which option is best. This is where you take control of the situation. Even if you do not like the option there is comfort in knowing you are doing what is best.

Act on your decision.

Create options to eliminate future stress.

The principle is that a lack of choices leads to stress.

The process is pray, investigate, decide, act and create.

Here is an example-

Greg’s car breaks and he does not have an emergency fund. The apparent lack of options leads Greg to stress. He responds by investigating. This is difficult and stressful because Greg doesn’t know what is wrong with the car and doesn’t even have the money for it to be towed into a shop to receive an estimate.

Greg knows the solution is beyond himself so he asks God to give him some ideas and provide a solution.

Greg investigates by writing down his options-

• Public transportation to work
• Ask friends and family for rides to work
• Ask on social media for a mechanic to help
• Borrow money
• Begin an emergency fund to pay for this repair and any future surprises

Greg decides that he will immediately reach out on social media to find a mechanic and will also contact his coworkers to get a ride into work the next morning. He also realizes that not having an emergency fund is too stressful so he resolves to save twenty dollars a week with the goal of having a thousand dollars in a fund that will only be used for emergencies. It turns out that a friend from work is willing to give Greg a ride and has a neighbor, Sally, who does auto repair work out of her garage. Greg calls Sally who then comes over to look at the car and notices Greg’s guitars. Sally would like her daughter to receive guitar lessons and Sally and Greg strike a deal which allows Greg to have his car fixed and receive extra income to build his emergency fund. A stressful situation turned into a source of joy.

There is always an option to choose from. Some options can be very different from the ones in Greg’s story. For example the choice to-

Be concerned for someone instead of being indifferent.

To pursue relationships with givers instead of takers.

To focus attention on things that can be influenced instead of things that cannot.

To be thankful instead of being fearful.

To be industrious instead of being a victim of circumstances.

To forgive instead of identifying as a victim.

Since we are talking about stomping on stress, check out my series on not getting blindsided. Part 1 is called I Should Have Seen It Coming

Blind-sided Series part 2

If you haven’t read part 1 on being blind-sided check out I Should Have Seen It Coming

5-second version

The specific principles that help us to not be blind-sided by health issues are proper nutrition, exercise and sleep. Easy stuff that in the end proves whether we are willing to love others over choosing to live selfishly.

5-minute version

Life is for those with the energy to live it. Without your health it can be very difficult to grow the effectiveness of every other area of life. The problem is that most of us tend to live in the moment. We know that there are people who live their lives- going to constant doctor appointments, in chronic pain, being exhausted and weak, but we think these things won’t happen to us. In 2017 the percentage of overweight adults was 65%. Obesity is a contributing factor to the diseases that kill like heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, etc. People who get these diseases may feel like they have been blindsided. Loss of health can happen randomly but if you follow the statistics, the odds can swing heavily in your favor with a a few changes in your habits. For instance, if you choose to smoke your risk of these diseases increases- coronary heart disease 2 to 4 times, Stroke 2 to 4 times, men developing lung cancer 25 times, COPD (a lung disease) 12 to 13 times, diabetes 30-40% higher. If you smoke and get one of these diseases can you really say you were blindsided? Let’s make choices to live in such a way so that the odds of remaining healthy are in our favor. I’m not a doctor and I not giving out medical advice. Here is a list of things that I believe enough to actually do in order to achieve my goal of being lean, fit and flexible. I do these things because I believe they can help me to avoid or minimize health issues.

• Exercise for an hour a day at an elevated heart rate. I walk, use a Peloton bike, and climb stairs for cardio benefits and use a kettle bell for strength building.
• Proper eating. I have found two sources that have risen as cream and I use them to determine how I eat. The Longevity Diet by Dr Walter Longo and Eat to Beat Disease by Dr William Li.
• Long term fasting. Dr Longo discusses the benefits in his book. I follow the protocol which yielded results in his medical studies. Fast for five days in a month, three months in a row. I then fast for five days twice a year. Using his method, I have found a 5-day fast to be relatively easy.
• Sufficient sleep- for me this is 6.5 hours a day
• Vitamins- I take a vitamin D supplement, a Krill oil capsule, along with a multi-vitamin.
• Regular dental and general doctor check-ups.

Living a life full of love takes mental and physical energy. You are capable of living this type of life. The effects of poor choices can make you incapable of doing so much that being fit would allow for. What are your answers to these questions-

The things I need to BEGIN DOING to avoid being blindsided by health issues are:

The things I need to STOP DOING which can lead to being blindsided by health issues are:

In two months I will weigh ______  , I will begin sleeping _____ hours a night, My exercise program will consist of 

______________________________________________________________________________

These are the things I will do this week to begin living a healthy life: These are easy principles to understand but we know they are not easy to implement. Living a healthy life will take up your time and our culture is set to undermine us. You have to want this. Living an unhealthy life is not a decision made without having an effect on others. Your health is a resource. The purpose of every resource is to love others with it and receive love through it. The opposite of love is selfishness. The truth is many people display their selfishness through the way in which they take care of their health. I know this personally. I deal with food addiction. Your bag of BBQ potato chips is not safe to be left alone with me and there is a long list of other foods to go along with those chips. If I indulge myself and am low on energy, unable to jump in and help, die an early death, or worse suffer a debilitating disease…..If I do this, I am not showing love to those I care for. This is a must win battle. Rise up and fight this battle.

Part 3 is coming soon. Which area of life would you like to be about?

Is saying thank you a little thing? Click to find out.

Blind-sided Series part 1

5-second version-

Sometimes we get blindsided by something, meaning something happened that we didn’t see coming. We are not usually the innocent victim we would like to believe we are.

5-minute version-

I’ve been blindsided many times in my life. By blindsided I mean I have been unaware of something about to impact my life. One impactful incident occurred as I was cresting a hill in traffic on a four lane semi-divided road at 50mph after dark, when the car in front of me lunged into the right lane beside me and I found myself forty feet from a car parked in the left lane with its lights off. This was a very impactful incident that I didn’t see coming until a second before my head broke both the front and side windows. Another memorable blindside occurred when I followed the advice of a marriage book I was reading and asked my wife to complete an assessment of various aspects of our marriage. The shock I received from what she wrote sent me reeling. There have been many more- like the day my daughter was born with Down Syndrome, when my boss gave my job to his son because he couldn’t figure out what else to do with him, or the day decades of hard work and investing were wiped away in one decision by a judge. I’m sure you have many stories to tell also. The reality is, more blindsided impacts are coming to both you and me so what are we, what can we, do about it? There are things we can do to avoid being blindsided and also things we can do to lessen the impact they have on our lives.

Do not start by reacting to the ways you are vulnerable because doing so will get in the way of having a growth mindset. Here are some examples of conclusions not to make- I am not going to let people get too close to me so that they won’t be able to betray or hurt me. I won’t fly in an airplane so that it’s impossible for me to die in a crash. I won’t take risks so that my chances of failure will be low. I’m making a hard turn here so stay with me. This is where I get into the meaty substance of this article. I have two points to make. The first is in this article and the second will be in another nine articles to follow. Instead, start by first applying general growth principles that will eliminate many threats and limit the effects of blindsiding incidents. Secondly, consider specific growth principles that apply to each area of your life that growth in those areas is dependent upon. 

Here is a list of the general growth principles–

• The goal of life is to love and receive love from God and His creation in every area of life.
• Having options eliminates much stress.
• The more pillars of support each area of life has the more robust it is. For instance, if your finances are fully dependent on your work and you get sick or hurt the single pillar holding up your financial life, you, is eliminated and your metaphorical financial house will come crashing down. Having many supporting pillars like your work, an emergency fund, life insurance, disability insurance, and investments means that even if one or two supports are knocked out, your financial house can remain standing.
• Relationships are the most important thing in every area of life.
• Eliminate addictions.
• Minimize personality disorders by having concern for others.
• Develop character by growing in your practice of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control. 
• Take every thought captive and do not make allowances for selfish indulgences.
• Be the same person in private as in public.
• Make choices consistent with your goals.
• Be diligent in maintaining margin in every area of your life so that you have the capacity to give and invest when opportunity arises or events require. For instance, spend less than you earn, leave unscheduled time in your day, get sufficient sleep, deposit more into your relationships than you withdraw, and educate yourself beyond your immediate needs.

Next we will look at the specific growth principles that apply to the areas of life and discover how they protect us.

To read about how not to get blindsided in the area of your Health check out part 2 of this series- Your Health Depends On Love