Saturday, March 29, 2014

Comparison/Values



I am beginning to research topics that I am going to be talking about in the class I am teaching this summer and the fall, one of the big topics I am going to hit on is "COMPARING".  

How we all compare ourselves to others so much, but what truly matters is what WE VALUE.

Hopefully in my class I will be able to get the point across that you will always have less than someone and you will always have more than someone, but the key is to focus on what you are doing with what you have been given/blessed with, and not what others are doing with what they have been given. (it is the reminder that I need everyday and definitely one when I started college so hopefully I can get the point across with my students)  

So in doing so I came across a story that hit home so much that I thought it would be perfect to share on my blog. (the author is unknown)  So I am going to tell it in my own words the best I can...

There is a man who is a fisherman in a small coastal village in the Gulf of Mexico.
  
One morning when returning to the port he notices an American tourist standing there watching his boat come in as he has several large fin tuna in his boat.

The American complimented the fisherman on his catch of the day and asked him how long it took to catch them.

The fisherman replied "Only a little while"

The American then asked "Why didn't you stay out longer and catch more fish" 

The fisherman replied "with this catch I have more than enough to support all of my families needs"

The American then asked "What do you do with the rest of your time"

The fisherman replied "I usually sleep as late as I want, fish a little, I play with my kids, take a siesta with my wife in the afternoon, then we stroll into the village in the evening to sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos, I live a very full life"

The American then scoffed at this, "I have a Harvard MBA and could really help you!  You should spend way more time fishing, with the proceeds of your catches you can buy a bigger boat, with the proceeds of the bigger boat you will be able to buy several boats.  Eventually you can grow and have an entire fleet of fishing boats and instead of selling your catch everyday to a middle man you can sell it straight to the processor.  Eventually even opening your own cannery.  You would get to control the product, processing, and distribution.  You would then need to leave this small coastal village and move to Mexico City, then L.A., then NYC where you will run your ever expanding enterprise."

The fisherman then looked at the American rather excited and said "how long will all this take"?

To which the American replied "15 to 20 years"

"OK, but what will happen after I have accomplished that?" The fisherman replied.

The American laughed "That is the best part!  When the time is right you will announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and you would become very rich, we are talking millions!"

"Millions... then what?" The fisherman replied.

The American said... "Then you would get to retire, you can move back to a small coastal village, where you can sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, stroll into town at night for some wine and play guitar with your amigos"

With that said...
What a great time to ask yourself...
What do you value most?


Time to start being DRIVEN by what you have been GIVEN!  (not comparing yourself to others)

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Laughter during Frustration (A Story)

I love the times when you are frustrated and then a week, a month, sometime later you realize how "dumb" it was to be frustrated in that moment and you just have to laugh about it.

Well, on Saturday I had one of those moments.. the difference was the laughter didn't come a week later, or a month.  During the frustration Morgann (my wife) is laughing at me while I am frustrated.  Did it help?

The situation:

Morgann and I have been researching to buy her a new car for well, ultimately you could say this research started a year and half ago when we decided instead of buying a car and making payments, lets just save up so we won't have to make payments when we buy one.

Well, Saturday was the day.  We found the car we both wanted and the perfect fit for Morgann.  The car with the best deal just so happen to be in the middle of nowhere in Georgia.  A 5 1/2 hour drive from our home.  So we are 5 hours in and on a random back road when the road we are on gets detoured, come to find out gets detoured in the complete opposite direction we need to go.  (40 miles in the wrong direction)

So my words at the peak of frustration:

(Also would like to add to this situation so you can picture it - Morgann is driving since I have had a headache for the past 2 hours of the trip so I am trying to sleep it off.  Not happening.)

So I say... (in a non Library type of voice is the best way to put it)

"There are three things that are really really upsetting me right now..." (this is where I really begin to heat up)

"Number one. (I really did say the numbers) We are on a back road in the middle of nowhere with no signal and now on curvier roads than they have in Virginia"

"Number two.  I feel like there is someone sitting in my forehead doing a french braid with the back of my eye socket"

"and Number three.  I feel like I am about to throw up" (As you can imagine, with each number my voice began to get louder)

Morgann has allowed me to get through all numbers without saying a word.  When I finish I look over at her hoping she will be in complete agreement with me...well instead I find her looking out the window away from me trying to hold in laughter.  I can tell on her face she wants to laugh so bad.  So I just cover my face with a pillow and go back to dealing with the person doing braids to rear part of my eye socket.

At dinner that night, on our way home I got to laugh all about what I had actually said in the heat of the moment.  But made me realize how awesome it is to have a wife that would be willing to just laugh at me in that moment!  So thank you Morgann for your laughter, patience, and lesson to me in this situation!

LAUGHTER REALLY IS AWESOME EVEN IN THE MIDDLE OF A FRUSTRATING TIME!


Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Setting the Tone





This morning it hit me, well I lie, I have been thinking this over the past several weeks.  Every morning of every day I set the tone for that day!  I wake up, and... SET THE TONE!

What ever attitude that is, it usually stays with me through the day!

All throughout high school I always had coaches that would say before we began a game... "set the tone"

I left off something important from that... it always ended with "early" SET THE TONE EARLY

Setting the tone, by definition to me:  Going out and trying to show the other opponent or ourselves that we are here and ready, prepared, and are planning on dominating, it is our way or the highway type of mentality.

Why don't we live with a "set the tone" mentality? Wanting to dominate the day that we have been blessed with?

So now more than ever I think it is so important in our everyday lives to wake up and "set the tone"!
I think everyone can look back to the days that we are pretty groggy all day, where you feel like you were just going through the motions?  No doubt the tone we started with that morning of that day was not as positive as other early morning starts we have had.

So this post is more so of a challenge - tomorrow when you wake up and every morning after that 
SET THE TONE FOR THE DAY!  DOMINATE THE DAY!

With that said I will end this with a writing from Charles Swindoll that is awesome to wake up to - to help you "set the tone early" everyday!

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.  Attitude to me, is more important than facts.  It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstance, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.  It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.  It will make or break a company...a home...or ruin (one's) spirituality.  

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace that day.  We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act a certain way.  We cannot change the inevitable.  The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...

I am conviced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.  And so it is with you...we are in charge of Attitudes!"  - Charles Swindoll








Tuesday, March 4, 2014

February 2014 Book Review

February 2014 Book Review

Some good books this month, but it may have been more quantity over quality?  See which ones I actually recommend...

The Circle Maker - Mark Batterson

This one highly recommended by several people.  The book starts out strong, with great insights into prayer life!  With my monthly challenge this month to be praying on my knees I don't think I could have started with a better book.  The best thought from the book for me was that "God starts with IMPOSSIBLE".  As I left church listening to Christine Caine speak (Seacoast Church - Christine Caine) on this same subject it was awesome to open this book on that Sunday afternoon and see Mark speaking on the same topic.  As the book went on I felt it became a little redundant but have rated it 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.com.




David and Goliath - Malcolm Gladwell

If you have ever read any Malcolm Gladwell books in the past you will find this one just as enjoyable.  Just like his books in the past some of the chapters I would say are Awesome, and some the topic just didn't interest me.  But overall if you enjoy the psychological aspect of things you would love this.  My favorite topics in the book are when he talks about using a full court press in little league basketball, classroom size, and admissions into college.  Once again I love reading Malcolm and rated this book 4 of 5 stars on Goodreads.com.  Would recommend this book!  (also tells the story of David and Goliath in the Bible in a way I have never heard so that was AWESOME)


The Advantage - Patrick Lencioni


This is the second book I have read of his.  (the first being The Five Dysfunctions of a Team)  I would put this book in the same category as that one, many items I can relate it to my life and job but if I were in a business leader position I would find it even more beneficial.  I actually enjoyed this one more than the first book I read of his and found it to be very insightful on building a GREAT leadership team.  At this time I am not building a great leadership team, but will definitely use the notes from this book if I am ever in that position.  Rated this 3 of 5 stars on Goodreads.com and would highly recommend this to any business leader, church/youth pastor, or entrepreneur.




The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, Minnesota Vikings - Steve Silverman

This book was given to me by a friend Tommy Rapier when I worked at Virginia Tech.  I had skimmed it before and never really set down to read it.  Well, very glad I did, as a long time Vikings fan it was definitely time for me to really sit down and read the history of "my team".  Definitely learned things of the past I wasn't aware of so a great read of the super bowl less Minnesota Vikings and would recommend to any Vikings fan.  Rated it 3 of 5 stars on Goodreads.com.






Should We Fire God? - Jim Pace

This book intrigued me for three different reasons, the title, I use to attend the writers church in Blacksburg, VA while in college, and he wrote this based off of the events of the April 16th shootings at Virginia Tech.  First I would say there are some good insights in the book, but at the same time I find Jim all over the place, sorta jumping around.  I would enjoy one section and the next I would be asking myself what is he talking about right now.  All in all I probably wouldn't recommend this book but a book to read if you are intrigued by the three things I listed that intrigued me.  Rated it 2 of 5 stars on Goodreads.com.

To check out my Goodreads.com page please go to - Chris King's Goodreads Homepage  (Sign up for your own account, it is awesome!)



Monday, March 3, 2014

2014 Monthly Challenge - February Complete

2014 Monthly Challenge

As you all know I am doing a monthly challenge for every month throughout the year!  January was flossing everyday, you can read about that post here - January Challenge - Flossing!

Did flossing continue into February, or shall I ask does the rule of habit actually work in the scenario?  (habits are created after 21 days of consecutively doing an activity?)  I flossed every day in the month of January, in February I flossed once.  I was so tired of it after January I wore myself out of it.  So at this point I would say the "habit" theory didn't work for me.  But the monthly challenge isn't to continue doing the challenge so really no foul done!

February's challenge was to begin praying on my knees.  As I stated last month, I really hadn't done this at all since I was a kid beside my bed.

So how did the month go?  Awesome!!!  Sometimes my heart was in it and sometimes I felt like I was just doing it to complete the task of the month and I really could tell in my conversation through prayer which one was which!  So yes, I would highly recommend to do this challenge to everyone, it is a true growing experience that I will continue to do when my heart is open for it at the time!

On to the challenge of March...

100 hundred push-ups every day!

So let me say this, I started this challenge on Saturday, so three days in now.  After doing it for two days I am actually upping the challenge to 200 push-ups a day.  The reason, well, doing 100 just seemed like I could just bust it out and be done with it to easily every day during the month... and well, that really isn't  a "challenge" in my book.  So I am upping it to 200 every day!  Maybe by the end of the month I will have upped even more, I don't know, but we will see!

(Morgann wanted me to add stretching every day to this month, but I might have to wait on that if I am upping the push-up count?)