Upward

I have recently had the privilege of coaching in an Upward Basketball camp at Trinity Baptist. I have to admit that I am by no means a basketball player. However, I have had a great time coaching my daughter's team. These young ladies, ages 6-12, have listened and taught me more than I have ever taught them, I'm sure.

I just wanted to take the opportunity to praise the Lord for the opportunities that He continues to give me. I have been through a lot in the past year and am simply amazed that He continues to bless me and my family in the midst of such turmoil.

Have you thanked God today for your blessings?

Is making money on the Internet really possible?

In the Internet arena, a new business is starting to emerge. Affiliate marketing is not a new concept, but the Internet makes it more readily accessible to those who are interested in thinking outside the box of a typical nine to five job. So what is this affiliate marketing all about, and why do I feel like I never get the whole picture when I spend $49.95 of my own money to get an ebook stating “Internet Secrets Revealed”?

Internet marketing is a great home business for those who are interested in working for a living. I do not mean, back breaking, laborious jobs like those held by the hard working men and women on the construction sites of this great country. I mean those who want to spend a few hours a day in front of their computers doing things like writing articles, researching topics, and posting classified ads.

It is true that you can make a great living via the Internet, but there still has to be some tangible good or service that you provide. Remember the dot com bust; they forgot rule number one in business, start with a product. I will give you a brief step by step process here, but you must be willing to do something, because remember nothing is really free.

Get a product. Find an affiliate program that you can trust and get behind. If you are trying to sell software and know nothing about software, how will you convince your potential customers that you are reputable?

Get a web site. There are plenty of ways to do this, and there are plenty of companies out there that can help you technically challenged people. You have to have a place of business. Just like a brick and mortar store, your web site is the place where people will peruse your products.

Get used to writing. If you are not good at writing, you will need to brush up on your skills. The Internet is media rich, but the written word, information in most cases, is the crux of what your potential customers are looking for. Even if you deliver non-informational products such as furniture, your customers are still looking for information. The Internet has given the consumer some mad research tools. So if you want to keep them on your site, give them some of that research so they don’t go elsewhere to get it.

Get to marketing. Another business 101 secret that most newbies forget is to market their product. Simply putting a web site out there in cyber-space means nothing. A site can sit untouched for years unless people know about it. Writing articles, posting classified ads, using traditional marketing outlets such as newspaper and magazine print ads, bum marketing, are all ways of getting the word out about your offerings.

Making money on the Internet is not the easiest thing to do, but for those who are driven to success, it is possible. Do your homework, make a plan, and execute. If you fail the first time, don’t give up, try again until you succeed. Persistence has always been one of the keys to success.

To learn more on how to leverage the Internet to create an extra income, vistit http://exactideals.com/edu/.

Five Budget Busters

First of all, be sure of this one thing. I truly believe in the philosophy of Dave Ramsey. Bottom line principle, get out of debt and stay out of debt. NEVER borrow other people’s money. If you have done it in the past or doing it now…STOP! From my experience, there are only two exceptions, a home or an education. Both will increase your personal net worth almost every time.

1.One hour commute one way. I live 65 miles from where I work. Gas prices are killing me. Not sure how to fix this, my Kia already gets 34 miles per gallon.

2.Eating out for lunch. Not having a set lunch time due to meeting schedules and the way I work, I have to eat out a lot. I used to eat the fast food combos, but since you can’t get a combo anymore for less than $6, I am now a proud dollar menunaire and a $.99 nugget man these days. Easily stay under $4 by taking your drink and ordering from the value menus.

3.Groceries are outrageous. My sole example is that milk costs more per gallon than gas. Huh, which one do you think is more important?

4.Clothes for kids. Oh my! I cannot understand how people pay mall prices for clothes that kids wear for a season, literally three to four months. I don’t pay mall prices, do quote my wife, “We look for Clarence’s rack !!” I still wear shirts I bought 6 years ago.

5.Entrepreneurial endeavors. Don’t fool yourself, any additional income you try to generate costs something even if it is your time. Opportunities do not always come along, so most of the time, the ones that are truly worthy of investigation can cost you something.

This is actually a good exercise to go through. Sit down with your spouse or a friend for you singles and discuss this. The knowledge you gain from your own introspection sometimes is more valuable than gold or silver. You will never be able to express yourself until you really know who you are.

Thanks for the idea, Donna (http://peanutwalker.com) and Angie (http://www.thriftyfloridamama.net).

Dope on a Rope

I thoroughly enjoy being be married. My wife and I are truly best friends. We have a great open line of communication. We do not always agree, but we have come to a point in our marriage that we understand compromise, yet we have not lost our individuality either. Our relationship is great, but we have not always acted in intelligently. So to borrow a line from Jeff Foxworthy, “You must be a redneck if…”

For example, we had been married for a few years. My brother-in-law lived down the road from us about a quarter of a mile. His lawn mower was not working, so when I finished mowing our yard, I was supposed to take our riding mower to him. Well, I had no ramps, etc, to load it into my Mazda truck. So my bright idea was to tow it down there by tying a rope to the back of my truck, a rope to the front of the mower, and have my wife SLOWLY pull me down there. It was only a quarter mile!

Understand that I had a very bad motorcycle accident in 1992 that severely damaged my left arm and hand. So before we even get to the end of the drive way, she is already in third gear. I am hanging on for dear life with my right hand and waving as best as I can for her to slow down with my left hand to no avail. She barely slowed down to turn onto the road out of our driveway.

I knew I was really in trouble when I heard her shift into fourth gear. As we neared her brother’s house, I was screaming at her to slow down. Well, she finally heard me, she not only slowed down; she stopped abruptly. In case you didn’t know, the clutch/brake on a riding mower is more clutch than brake.

The truck stops, I don’t. As I am nearing the rear of the truck, all I can think of is the letters M-A-Z-D-A, being stamped into my forehead as I slam into the tailgate. Fortunately, I found that I am a crack derby drive as I navigated to the left of the truck and missed the truck all together. Wow, what a stunt, I am awesome, oh shoot, the rope was only so long.

Unfortunately, the rope ran out and the mower got jerked completely out from underneath me. The mower stops, I kept going for about ten to fifteen feet in the air and land in the middle of our dirt road. I rolled about five times, stood to my feet and charged the truck with a fury that no bull could ever match. My wife is sitting in the truck with a look of deep fear on her face as she is feverishly rolling up the window and locking the door. I am standing at the driver’s door, yelling at my wife, “Open this door.” She is vehemently shaking her head as to say, “NO WAY!”

As I look toward my brother-in-law’s house, I can see three little faces in the windows, my nephews, with an “Oh no” look on their faces. The curtains close quickly and they retreat. I’m not sure what happened next, it is all a blur, but I do know that every time I have told this story, I laugh so hard. Even now as I am typing this up, I am laughing out loud.

So, I hope you have enjoyed some laughter at my expense, but if you can’t laugh at yourself then you need to lighten up. Until next time…

Why am I here?

So I am in my second year of this doctorate program and I am sure I have at least two more to go. I have studied philosophy, critically examined my own motives and goals, and even survived an 8000 level statistics class. So why am I trying to acquire a PhD you might ask. I have asked that question a number of times; however I have this internal drive that is screaming at me to do this.

My focus at this point is to understand the arena of cognitive development. I have begun to look at the theories of Skinner, Piaget, and Gardner. The theory set forth by each is sort of like an evolution of the science. Skinner is about operant conditioning. Piaget is about stages of life, and Gardner brings a perspective of cognition based on a more focused approach to understanding the uniqueness of the individual. I am very interested in pursuing further research on Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligence, so stay tuned for that. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to offer them up.

With that said, I am working on a 120 page paper that will flesh all this out. My goal is to be completed with this paper and have the basis for the next one by May 29. The next paper will evaluate servant leadership and how it can be applied in educational and healthcare settings. If you have some suggestions on this topic as well, I am all ears.

Lead or follow…

So here we have it, it now comes out on a national level that there are men standing in pulpits all over the country that are using their sacred desks for their own personal agendas. Is this a surprise to anyone? The fact that people have used position as a means to gain more power and control is nothing new. It has been going on for thousands of years.

Make a decision today to stand on your individual convictions. If they do not align with mine, then that is fine; but do not let others sway your thinking simply because he or she is in a position of authority or leadership.

My question is this: who holds these people responsible? Do we simply sit by and watch them destroy people, families, and in some cases entire communities with their doctrines of fear and control? Do we just turn away and hope that they go away? The time has come to no longer be the silent majority. True virtue and morality still exists today, however the men and women willing to carry the torch has diminished greatly.

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. ~Albert Einstein

Leader?

Wow, what a day. I had one of the most interesting days I have had in a while. As a graduate student of leadership, I often look for ways to measure leadership tangibly. My job is with a major non-profit company. I am blessed to part of such a great organization that has such a great mission. I see leadership at its best and at times at its worst. Today, I saw leadership at its best as a manager was willing to admit that he had misunderstood the situation a day earlier and took the necessary steps to learn from his situation and move forward without carrying any emotional baggage.

Then I hear of a so called community leader that is basically power out of control, lashing out for no reason. When I hear of such things, I want to address it immediately. My wife keeps me rooted but I fortunately have a great mentor who often also keeps me grounded. It is kind of like I am running as fast as I can toward the end of a pier, and he simply slows me down enough that when I get to end of the pier, I actually have the choice as to go in or not and am not simply moved by the momentum of the situation.

Leadership in general is about meekness, power under control as I have heard some define it. As a leader, simply try to live each day with an attitude of gratitude, and be as nice to people as you know how to be. Keep your cool, analyze the situation, and ask yourself, “Really, in the scope of things, is it worth my time attention.” Because our time and our attention are the most valuable commodities we have. Until next time…