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Showing posts from 2017

Riding in Life's Sweet Spot

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Everest Challenge Cycling Event 2009

Everest Challenge Bike Race Event About six months ago I took up road bicycling to be my exercise of choice. It has been a fun way to get in shape and compete a little bit with myself and eventually in the old man racing scene. I keep pushing and making some progress that is motivating on a daily basis. I get up at 4:30 AM to ride and currently average 150- 200 miles a week. I'm not sure where it’s heading at this point but I do like it. I like looking for ways to keep it interesting. A couple of weeks ago I received an email from the Brumby’s (a local riding group) communication channel that another rider was looking for travel mates for a trip to California to do a bike race and a week of Mountain bike riding in the Sierras. In my wild imaginings I thought why not. Everything would have been fine except that Betty had already planned a trip to Seattle for a quilting convention the following week end and expected me to be home. I had hoped to do a race or two before the

The Five Stages of Decline- JIm Collins

This is Jim Collins’s summary of his 5 stages of decline. These stages can cause both personal and professional decline and must be recognized before its too late. Unfortunately, to paraphrase Socrates, the examined life is extremely rare and most people do not take the time to study the scoreboard of life. Here is your opportunity to study Collin’s list and see which area you can improve. STAGE 1: HUBRIS BORN OF SUCCESS Great enterprises can become insulated by success; accumulated momentum can carry an enterprise forward for a while, even if its leaders make poor decisions or lose discipline. Stage 1 kicks in when people become arrogant, regarding success virtually as an entitlement, and they lose sight of the true underlying factors that created success in the first place. When the rhetoric of success (“We’re successful because we do these specific things”) replaces penetrating understanding and insight (“We’re successful because we understand why we do these specific things

Truth is The Fundamental Existence of All Things

As we chart our course through life how do we keep in mind that truth is the fundamental existence of all things? We as individuals and collective humanity are a part of the truth. Our life becomes a living truth no matter how we act. It has been described in phrases such as "I am that I am" or "I think therefore I am". The fact is that we are actual beings and we are acting out our desires. The elemental unchanging facts of existence rolled into everything that is seen or unseen, temporary or eternal, this is our opportunity to search and learn what we can. In the process of learning the truth, we theorize, but a theory is not the truth. Just because we think does not make our thoughts harmonious with the supremacy of eternal truth. If we choose to become or remain an island in our own opinions, truth from outside sources will elude us. If and when we recognize that even though as individuals we seem to each be a micro-cog, we are in an eternal round of truth.

Becoming Better-The Goal Of Life

March 11, 2015 The other morning my 17 year old son said. ”The new boats came out today”.  He likes to wakeboard and surf with friends and family that have boats.  I loved water skiing when I was his age and for many decades after. I thought that is great, what is the difference between the new boat and the old boat?  We don’t have a boat nor do we plan on getting one.   So I wasn’t sure why he mentioned it. He told me some of the differences and what you could buy for 100K plus.  Out of curiosity I am also reading his psychology class book with him as he begins his senior year.  I am being reminded of what I had learned and forgotten from my earlier years.  The wonder of how neurons are stimulated and electrochemical connections of dumping into the synaptic cleft cause us to move.  If we could only behold the full wonder of our brain and the way it houses our mind. My thoughts went back to my personal experience with new and better things.  My first brand new car was a

Jim Rohn on Success and Failure

From Success http://www.success.com/article/rohn-the-formula-for-success-and-failure Failure is not a single, cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. To put it more simply, failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day. Now why would someone make an error in judgment and then be so foolish as to repeat it every day? The answer is because he or she does not think that it matters. On their own, our daily acts do not seem that important. A minor oversight, a poor decision , or a wasted hour generally doesn't result in an instant and measurable impact. More often than not, we escape from any immediate consequences of our deeds. If we have not bothered to read a single book in the past 90 days, this lack of discipline does not seem to have any immediate impact on our lives. And since nothing drastic happened to us after the first ninety days, we repeat this er

Decisions Determine Destiny-The Power of Vision

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I like having a short "power statement" as a daily trigger to remember and focus my goals and ambitions. Statements like "just do it" and "decisions determine destiny" and others can have a strong impact on us if we allow them to become more than superficial statements. Sometimes it can be the push to get out of bed and do things you may not necessarily feel like doing. Until certain things become habits there will be a struggle to implement them and it is a battle you have to engage every day until you have mastered them. There is a good spread in the ages of my kids.  I chose to take them backpacking at some point in our life before they were ever born. It was 1972 when I decided that I would take my future family on a wilderness adventure.  We did not go until 2004. Sounds crazy, doesn't it. How could I decide 32 years ahead of an event that by appearance sake I would not have much control over? Sometimes I have wondered why I wasn't mor

The Law of the Harvest

Posted by Charlie Brown Not every seed will germinate and not every plant will produce fruit or flower. One of the great principles of this earth, if not of the universe that has always helped me to focus on choices is the "Law of the Harvest". The fact that one little seed holds within itself the prospect of endless other plants and seeds. Every plant can produce multiple additional seeds and each succeeding planting and harvest will expand its seed forever.  What happens when we apply this principle to the opportunity we as human beings have to create life? Look at the scripture in John 12:24. "Truly, truly I say unto you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." Other translations of the Bible say something slightly different in this verse. How does a seed die?  Don't they have a power locked up inside that can remain inert for an indefinite period and when put in the

What is the Reason that Things Happen?

Does Everything Really Happen For a Reason? Experiences from my family and family history have made me think about the veracity of certain ubiquitous cliches used by many to convey their outlook on a circumstance.  Please don't think I am a skeptic because I am not or maybe I am of some things. I am not a real philosopher, theologian or psychologist.  Many have weighed in on this subject.  I am just looking to find correct principles and understand them better, hopefully with an objective critical thought process. We all go through difficulties in life.  Those difficulties can be caused our own decisions or by others.  Will we take responsibility for how we react by disempowering ourselves and defaulting to a notion that has no basis and delude ourselves by saying that all things happening for a reason? The fact is we are all alive until we die and there is a purpose for that unless you are an atheist.  There is a difference between the purpose of life and the reasons