Category: Life

My on-ramp to 50

Published by on October 17, 2024

Around six weeks ago I realized that I was 100 days away from turning 50. As I was reflecting on this I decided that I wanted to use these 100 days as much as possible to prepare me to make this new year a great one.

I decided on a few practices, and one of those was to read through the New Testament.

The Bible has played a big role throughout my entire life. It’s also had a complex role in my life. There have been times when I was in it daily. It has a way of shaping thoughts and attitudes and the overall way that I take on a day. There have been other times when I’ve gone days and weeks without opening it. I’ve seen the harm that man’s interpretation of the Bible has done to our world. I’ve seen how passages have been twisted for the sake of power and control. I’ve had moments in my own life where the words on the pages brought not hope and encouragement but fear and frustration. And there have been times when I’ve wondered if I would continue to go to it.

I have an overall belief that most times in our lives, when we face something challenging, it’s best to run towards it rather than away from it. I think this is true for me right now when it comes to the Bible. So during these 100 days I want to run towards it.

My mind has continued to shift when it comes to the Bible. I recognize today more than any other time in my life how complex it is, and I’m ok with that. But I still find beauty and depth in it. When I read the Bible I come with curiosity and wonder. This isn’t something I’m mastering. It’s something I need to ground me and to help me live my life.

I purchased my copy of The Daily Bible in Chronological Order over 25 years ago. I’ve used it off and on during those 25 years, and a couple of years ago a friend and I read through the entire Bible in a year using it.

The spiritual practice I decided on for this time was to read through the New Testament and write a reflection each day. The New Testament begins tomorrow and ends on December 31.

As is reflected in the title, this Bible attempts to lay out the stories in chronological order. That means we begin with the birth of Jesus. I love this paragraph from tomorrow’s introduction. I’ll end today’s post with it…

Who is this Christ, this Messiah? His name is Jesus. His symbolic name, Immanuel (meaning “God with us”), signifies his deity. He is man, to be sure, but God as well; and he is God – the God of Creation – but man as well. God lowers himself so that man might be elevated. He leaves heaven so that man might enter it. To man, who cannot begin to understand the ways of God, it is clearly a great mystery. But what a marvelous and wonderful mystery it is!

Connect Your Money to Your Vision

Published by on May 15, 2023

In my Mastering Money Workshop we discuss spending, investing and earning money, but before we get to those great topics, we begin with vision. Why is that? Because I’ve learned that everything flows from vision. Everyday each one of us makes financial decisions. They may be small or they may be large. But whether we like it or not, they flow from the vision and values that we have. The problem comes when we haven’t taken time to ensure that our vision and values are actually ours and not those that culture encourages us to have.

I love this quote from Chris Mamula…

We align our money with our values to build the lives we want rather than the ones we’re “supposed” to live. This requires intentionality, doing things differently than the majority who surround you.
Chris Mamula, Choose FI

Culture is always trying to sell us on what will make us happy, but we have to make sure that we are digging deeper to uncover what is truth and what is a lie. As Chris says, it takes intentionality.

The week before my first workshop, I sent out a survey to all those who had signed up. One of the questions that I asked was “What does financial independence mean to you?” Here are some of the responses…

Having well laid out values that drive our financial decisions. Having enough money for everything we need and some of the things we want. Having practical financial behaviors that we use routinely and that can adapt as our life changes.
Freedom from the fear and the lack of time that financial challenges can cause. Freedom to do work that is fulfilling, and to do it on a timeline that brings me joy. Freedom to be generous.
Knowing where and how money is spent, having funds to do things our family enjoys, living within comfortable means, ability to make financial choices in my children’s best interests, and having a comfortable amount of discretionary money.
Feeling more free to travel, and be generous. Using money to celebrate life well.
Relationships not being burdened with money trouble. Being able to afford to have children.
Feeling safe and having a large margin for hospitality, travel, and including/sharing those things with others!
Less worry when I do want to treat myself
Being able to support myself and my family in the present and future without having to compromise too much on expenses.
Not worried every month if we have enough.

As you can see, a question like this gets to the root desires that we have. Financial independence isn’t first and foremost about having a certain amount of money in the bank. It starts with those hopes closest to your heart. Things to buy might be a part of it, but not nearly as much as freedom, relationships and experiences.

Once we take time to clarify the vision for our life, we can then begin to develop the strategies and tactics to get us from here to there.

But it starts with vision.

Life Planning

Published by on January 24, 2022

Last year I wrote a few posts on the topic of Life Design. This is something that I continue to think about, as well as talk to others about. Coming into the new year, I thought about how it could impact goal setting. I picked up the book Living Forward, by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy. It was a book that I had owned for quite some time, but I had never read it. While reading it I came across an idea that has really helped me launch into the new year.

The book encourages you to look at the different life accounts that you have, and to think about them the way you would a bank account. With a bank account, it’s easy to see whether or not it’s healthy. Is there ample money there? Are you getting close to being overdrawn? Our lives are much more tricky.

The book suggests nine life accounts, with three sets of three. There is the Circle of Being, which contains the accounts Spiritual, Intellectual, and Physical. There is the Circle of Relating, which contains the accounts Marital, Parental, and Social. And there is the Circle of Doing, which contains the accounts Vocational, Avocational, and Financial. The authors encourage you to select that accounts that fit your life. These fit me, so I went with them.

I started by going through each account and assessing my current reality. Which accounts were healthy? Which were depleted? I gave each of the nine accounts a number score from 1 (overdrawn) to 10 (healthy). This then showed me where I needed to put in some work, which leads to goal setting. What were tangible action steps that I could take that would cause these scores to rise?

I can’t tell you how helpful this exercise was for me. When thinking about goals, I went back to the 12 Week Year. Instead of thinking about annual goals, I think about the next twelve weeks. That’s my year. I set goals for each of the nine accounts. As of today I’m about a quarter of the way through my first year, and I’m really happy with where I’m at.

Work that System

Published by on July 27, 2021

For the past few weeks I’ve been wearing around the self preservation seven hat, and I continue to learn more and more things about myself. You could say that things have been making more sense lately.

I thought of the phrase “gaming the system” while we were in Boulder a couple of weeks ago. I looked the phrase up, and it unfortunately has negative connotations.

However, the phrase “working the system” has positive connotations, so I went with that. Here’s how it’s fleshed itself out in my life. If I find myself within a system that has loopholes (that are both legal and ethical), there is something within me that wants to take advantage of those loopholes. It’s why I’m so big into travel hacking with credit cards. It’s also one of the reasons I was so excited for Mandy’s new job. It gave us the opportunity to both have a flexible schedule, which is so great for our lifestyle.

I recognized this during a couple of moments from our trip out west as well. A few months ago I opened up a Brex credit card. It was a promotion targeted at small business owners. I ended up with 80,000 points. I would normally use points for travel only, but this time I decided to cash the points out. I redeemed 30,000 points, which gave me $300 on the Brex card. I then used that cash at restaurants on our trip. Towards the end of the trip Mandy figured out what I was doing. She said she had noticed that I was way more laid back than normal when spending money. It was true. Normally I get a little uptight spending money, especially when I don’t think it’s necessarily a good deal. Jackson, WY, was especially pricey. But this way I was offsetting the expensive prices. I was getting free food – I was working the system!

The second moment came a few days into our time in Yellowstone. For those of you who don’t know, Yellowstone in the summer is very crowded. In the weeks leading up to our trip I heard that record crowds were going to be visiting the National Parks this summer. I confess that there was a bit of dread. And those first two days we truly experienced the crowds, and it wasn’t great.

So the third morning I woke up early and was out the door by 6am. I had the park to myself. I drove around Yellowstone Lake, occasionally stopping to watch the sunrise. Then I made my way into Hayden Valley. This was my first time there, and it was breathtaking. There was the sunrise. There was the steam from the many geothermal features. And then there were so many animals. And there were hardly any vehicles.

You know how you can pay extra at a theme park for early bird hours. I think that can be a good deal when you’re traveling at peak times. Well this is what I was doing, except that I didn’t have to pay a cent. I just had to get up early. The next morning Mandy got up with me, and we repeated the journey. It was a highlight of the trip.

These are examples of what it means for me to work the system. I recognize that you might be chuckling while reading this, coming to the conclusion that this is a bit odd. But it’s me. There’s something inside of me that comes alive when I do this. Now I just have a name for it!

Morning Reflections

Published by on July 6, 2021

For the past several days I haven’t slept well. I’ve had trouble going to sleep, and I’ve woken up too early. So this morning I I was able to sleep in a bit, which was very much needed. I ate breakfast and did a bit of reading, and then I went outside to work. I pulled weeds in the front flower beds, then I used my trusty Echo Trimmer in the front and back yards. Finally, I swept and bagged everything, and then used the blower to finish things off. Everything looks very nice.

By the time I had showered and dressed, it was a little after 10:30. Much of my work day is gone. But that’s ok. Here’s why.

As I was working I was also listening to a podcast. The podcast is Dave Barnes’ and Jon McLaughlin’s Dadville, and in the episode they interviewed Jon Tyson. I was reminded that I need to come back to Jon Tyson more frequently than I currently do. I would describe Tyson as a dude who is fully alive and passionate, and I am reminded that I am at my best when I am fully alive and passionate. I’m not talking about putting on a false front that looks fully alive and passionate. I’m talking about doing activities that lead to life and passion as a natural byproduct.

So much of the time we live our lives on auto pilot. We work, we have family time, and we throw in some fun here and there. It doesn’t mean that things are bad. It just means that things could be better. Maybe it means that we’re lacking some meaning or purpose, or that we’re simply getting by.

Jon has been a formative voice in my life for the past eight years, and when I listen to him, something inside me stirs. I remember that I’m made for more. The topic he was talking about in this podcast was intentional parenting. I would guess that 75% of my strategy for helping to form my sons into men has come from Tyson’s work. It’s a topic that excites me.

So what does all of that have to do with me waking up this morning and doing manual labor?

It all fits together. Working outside in the heat does something inside of me. I remember in the moment that this house and this yard are gifts, and I’m meant to steward them well. I feel a sense of pride as I work hard. Listening to an interview that gets me thinking and dreaming also does something inside of me. And now, my guess is that I will get more done in five or six hours of work than I would have in eight hours of work had I started without these activities.

It’s weird how that works, and I might chalk it up to coincidence if I didn’t have a track record of it repeating itself over and over again. I’m grateful for the reminder, but more than that I’m grateful for my current emotions and mindset as I dive into the rest of my day.

My Enneagram Journey

Published by on June 29, 2021

I first heard about the Enneagram in the early 2000’s, but I didn’t really get into it until around five years ago. To say that it has been helpful is quite the understatement. I’ve always gotten a lot out of personality studies. StrengthsFinder was huge for Mandy and I when we first dug into it a decade ago, and the Enneagram has only added to this. As I’ve gotten more into the Enneagram, though, I have found it to be much deeper than anything else I’ve encountered. I feel that it’s difficult to exhaust all that I can learn through the Enneagram, and that’s what is so great about it.

This blog post presumes that the reader has at least a rudimentary understanding of the Enneagram and the nine types. If you don’t, or if you just need a refresher, check out Integrative Enneagram Solutions and The Enneagram Institute. My hope with this post is to give an example of how someone would go through the process of discerning one’s type.

When I first started reading several years ago, my first thought was that I might be a Three, but I had a couple of friends say that they didn’t see that. It was Mandy who first suggested that I might be a Seven. The Road Back to You, by Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile, was the first book I read cover to cover. I immediately dismissed the Seven as a possibility because of some of the stories the authors told. As I read that book, a Seven to me was personified by the class clown. It’s the person who is the life of the party. Neither of those have ever been me. So I quickly dismissed the Seven.

However, as I read more, and discussed it with Mandy and a couple of friends, I began to explore the idea that I had perhaps dismissed it too quickly. Learning about the triads was my first step towards the Seven. There are three triads, each made up of three of the numbers of the Enneagram.

There is the Body triad, made up of Eights, Nines and Ones. There is the Heart triad, made up of Twos, Threes and Fours. And then there is the Head triad, made up of Fives, Sixes and Sevens. As my study continued, I began to gravitate towards the Head triad. Those in the Head triad are driven by fear, though each number handles it differently. Fives externalize fear, Sixes internalize fear, and Sevens forget fear. When I read this, I knew that I was in the Head triad. I live in my head. And I am very driven by fear. So this meant that I was likely a Five, Six or Seven. I quickly dismissed the Six, so that left me with Five and Seven.

On this Typology podcast I learned about stances. Here’s what Ian Cron had to say:

“The social styles of the nine Enneagram types are divided into three stances: assertive, compliant, and withdrawn. Stances refer to the basic posture of each type and how they move in the world. The Assertive Stance (Types Three, Seven, Eight) moves against others and takes action to get their needs met. The Compliant Stance (Types One, Two, Six) moves toward others to meet their needs externally. The Withdrawing Stance (Types Four, Five, Nine) moves away from others by turning inward to find fulfillment.”

There are areas of this journey that have not always been clear, but this is definitely not one of them. I 100% am Assertive. This means that I am most likely a Three, Seven or Eight. If you want to read more on these stances, check out this article.

The final piece of discernment came when I heard this question: “What were you like in your early 20’s?” That was a very helpful question. Coming out of college, my biggest fear was that I would settle. Settle for doing what everyone else did or for living where everyone else lived. Settle for a typical job making a good salary. Those can be fine things, but I felt that I would be missing out on something more. I didn’t have a clue what that something more was, but it eventually took us to the SF Bay Area for further exploration. All of this is very typical of a Seven.

With each step in my journey I found myself moving closer to identifying as an Enneagram Seven. There are three areas that I believe all Seven’s have in common. They have to do with pain, authority and freedom. I’ll share the relationship I’ve had with each of these.

Pain
The need for a Seven is to avoid pain. Again, the way that we do that is through forgetting about it. I am an all star when it comes to reframing pain. When I was in college I gave a speech (in speech class) that was about a defining moment in my life. I talked about my parent’s divorce when I was four years old. In the speech I mentioned Romans 8:28, which says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” I could say with certainty that God had taken something bad and had brought about good in my life. I am a glass half full guy. I’m an optimist. I don’t struggle to find the silver lining in any challenge or difficulty. I love that about me, but the Enneagram has helped me to understand what is behind that. It’s often due to the fact that I don’t want to sit with my pain.

A key question for a Seven is, “What do you do with your pain?” As an exercise at an Enneagram workshop I went to a couple of years ago, this question was asked of me, not once, but over and over again. My first response was, “What pain?” That seems to be the first response for most Seven’s. The reason the question is repeated is that you have to dig deeper. There is pain in all of us, but Sevens do an amazing job covering it up. But to grow in health, one must go to those places of pain and deal with them.

I’ve found that there are some major ramifications to this in marriage. Reframing someone else’s pain has gotten me in trouble quite often. It’s difficult. When Mandy lost her job this spring, I immediately saw the positives. In that moment I had a larger vision for her life than I probably ever had for mine. Yet what she needed in the weeks to come wasn’t optimism and strategy. She needed me to sit with her in her pain. To listen and to love. That does not come easy for me, but it’s a discipline that I must continue to work on, both for myself as well as for those I love.

Authority
A Seven dislikes authority. To be more specific, they don’t want to be under authority, and they really don’t want to be in authority over others. To a Seven, authority equals limitations and control. I see that playing out in my life time and again. I’ve been a working adult for twenty-five years, and during that time I have had a lot of jobs. In fact, I’ve pretty much always had more than one job at a time. But in those many jobs I have rarely been managed by others, and I’ve also rarely managed others. I would characterize my jobs primarily as solo entrepreneurship.

Twenty years ago I was living in the SF Bay Area pursuing a masters degree and preparing to start a church. One of my non-negotiables was that I wanted to do that with a team. Part of that was because I strongly valued community, but as I look back on that now, I see that it was also because I wanted a flat structure. I didn’t think anyone needed to be in charge. We would all figure it out together. I chuckle a bit as I write that. It rarely worked very well, but I now understand some of the reasons behind why I wanted it.

Freedom
The ultimate goal for a Seven is freedom. A Seven hates to be locked in. They want to keep their options open. Commitment is difficult for a Seven because it can push against the desire for freedom. This has always been a big theme in my life. I’m extremely flexible, and I embrace change almost too easily. I’ve even been known to blow something up that was going great simply because I felt locked in and got bored. I didn’t know I was doing it at the time, but I did it nonetheless. Thankfully I’ve grown a lot since then.

One of the ways that a Seven deals with pain or boredom is through planning. I love to plan, especially when it comes to travel and other adventures. I heard one Seven say that a Seven goes on vacation to plan his next vacation! Boy do I resonate with that. One month ago Mandy and I went on vacation to Mexico. A few weeks earlier I was afraid that the trip might be cancelled due to COVID-19 lockdown in Mexico. One morning I woke up really early thinking about this. I decided to plan a backup trip. Around thirty minutes later Mandy woke up, and I, in a way more excited state than is warranted for that early in the morning, proceeded to share with her how I was ready to book a trip to Miami. I had the flights and hotels already picked out, and I was doing it all with points! She looked at me for a moment, and then said, “I think we’re going to be able to go to Mexico.” Then she turned over and went back to sleep. I didn’t think about that trip again, but those thirty minutes of planning sure were fun!

Thinking through these three areas has really helped me to settle in on the fact that I am a Seven. This has helped me to dig deeper into my motivations. It’s helped me to ask deeper questions. It’s helped me to pause and really take notice of pain rather than immediately trying to reframe it. I’d like to think that this has helped me to become more healthy.

Where the Enneagram gets really interesting is when you learn about the subtypes. There are lots of helpful books on the Enneagram, but my favorite has to be The Complete Enneagram, by Beatrice Chestnut. She has done a lot of work on the subtypes. Each of the nine Enneagram types has three subtypes, so in reality there are actually 27 types.

When delving into the subtypes, you need to understand about instincts. There are three instincts, and each of the nine types has all three of them. There is the self-preservation instinct, which focuses attention on personal safety and security. There is the social instinct, which focuses attention on the greater good of the community. And there is the sexual instinct, which focuses attention on one-on-one relationships. We have all three instincts, but there is a dominant one for each of us.

I have spent the last couple of months learning about these instincts so as to seek to figure out which subtype I was. I knew that I wasn’t a Sexual Seven. These are the charismatic wooers. Not me. I’ve had a couple of friends suggest that I might be a Social Seven. It’s the countertype for Sevens where sacrifice becomes the theme. While I’ve seen that in myself at times, it’s not that dominant. I don’t like writing this here, but I care too much about having my own needs met to be a Social Seven.

After a lot of reading and assessing, I identify as a Self-Preservation Seven. Here’s how Beatrice Chestnut describes Self-Preservation Sevens:

“These Sevens are very practical, good at networking, and skilled at getting what they want and finding a good deal; they tend to be opportunistic, self-interested, pragmatic, calculating, and clever. They readily recognize opportunities for creating an advantage for themselves. Self-Preservation Sevens always have their nose to the wind for good opportunities. They find ways to get what they need and want, and they have an easy way of finding pathways to making things happen for themselves – whether it’s finding the right people, the most advantageous connections, or a fortuitous career opportunity. They have their ears to the ground and are socially adept. These Sevens make business connections and network easily because they are alert and mindful to the opportunities that come along that can support their survival. They hold the position that if you are not alert to opportunities, you will lose out.”

I resonate so much with this.

There is so much more I could write about. Not a week goes by when the Enneagram does not play a role in my thinking and conversations. I continue to learn more about myself through the Enneagram, and I truly hope that this has helped you see the potential of the Enneagram in doing the same!

I’ll end this post with a few resources. I earlier mentioned a couple of websites that are helpful for further exploration. I also mentioned a couple of good books. Two podcasts I recommend are Typology and Enneagram 2.0. And while online tests aren’t necessarily the best place to begin one’s journey of discerning one’s Enneagram type, they can be helpful. In my opinion the most comprehensive and helpful is definitely the IEQ9. If you’re not ready to spend the $60 it costs, you could also try the RHETI.

What to do with Stress

Published by on June 9, 2021

Alternate Title: That Time I Went on Vacation and a Tree Fell on My House!!!

Last week Mandy and I were on a relaxing vacation in Playa del Carmen. On Wednesday morning we were in the pool, and when we came back to our cabana to dry off, I saw that I had several missed calls, and lots of texts. The first text I read was from a tenant. It said, “Please get over as soon as you can. A tree just fell on the house!”

We gathered up our stuff and headed to the room. For the next few hours I was on the phone with tenants, contractors and the insurance company. A limb off the very large tree next door had fallen onto the porch. And when I say “limb”, it’s better to picture a tree, because that’s what it looked like.

The next day the limb was removed, and the day after that the damage was assessed and a plan was made.

But that’s getting way ahead of myself isn’t it. Wednesday was a rough day. Here I was on this amazing vacation, and now I was majorly stressed out. How would I regulate my stress so that I could do what needed to be done plus be able to actually enjoy the last couple of days of my vacation?

Each day since last Wednesday has been better, but I thought I would share some of the things that were helpful to me.

First, this was not the first time as a landlord that I had an emergency. I’ve owned rental properties for over fifteen years, and over that time three things have happened. First, I’ve learned a lot. My knowledge and experience has grown. What this means is that I understood the basics of what needed to be done. Second, I have ample financial reserves. I expect emergencies, and therefore I knew that though I wouldn’t necessarily like writing the checks that were going to be required, it wasn’t going to kill me financially. And finally, I’ve developed good relationships with people who know more than I do. I was able to call on some of those relationships to get things moving while I was gone.

And actually, my being in town when this happened wouldn’t have helped much. Sure, I would have been able to go over there immediately, but it’s not like I was going to break out my battery powered Ryobi Chainsaw and start cutting up the limb!

These three things helped immensely, but the fear and stress continued to creep in throughout the day. I was grateful that no one was hurt. A couple of inches more to the left and it could have been a lot worse, since one of my tenants was in the front bedroom when it happened. Those thoughts really weighed on me.

As the adrenaline wore off after a few hours where I had done all that I could do, the stress began to descend like a cloud over me, and this is where the real work was needed.

I think self talk can be a gift at times, but what I’m about to share is a bit different than just self talk. I had to go back to what I believed about God.

I’m always nervous about losing a reader when I bring up God, but I hope that you see that my faith is fleshed out in the messiness of life. It’s not a bunch of platitudes or rules. It’s about a relationship, and if that relationship does not evidence itself during moments of weakness and challenge, I don’t think it’s much of a relationship.

I thought back to Psalm 62. It’s a Psalm written by David, and anyone who knows anything about David knows that he was a king, and kings know a bit about stress.

The Psalm begins, “My soul finds rest in God. He is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.” Who knows what he was dealing with at this moment, but he knew that it was actually possible for his soul to be at rest even as he went through a storm. That’s a pretty strong statement, and one that I was grateful to be reminded of.

It’s the ending of this Psalm that I thought about last Wednesday. David ends this Psalm by saying, “One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God are strong, and that you, O Lord are loving.”

This has been one of my favorite verses for a long time. What it says to me is that it’s one thing for God to be big enough to handle my problems and needs. It’s another thing altogether for Him to want to handle them.

Said another way, it’s one thing for God to be strong. When I think of God’s strength and power, I think about the creation and the sustaining of the world. I think about it in a macro way. It’s good to think about God in this way, but it’s not complete. God is the creator and sustainer of the entire world, but he’s also a father, and he loves his children. That takes the big macro view and hones it in to the very personal. God loves not only the whole world. He also loves me. He knows all about me. That’s huge.

As I reminded myself of these truths throughout the day, I began to experience peace. It’s in moments like these that I am so grateful for my relationship with God. I can look back over my life and see countless times when he took care of me. When I reflect back over that time, it makes it easier for me to place my trust in him today.

It’s Supposed to be Hard

Published by on May 12, 2021

I shared in a post a couple of weeks ago about a time in my life that was really hard. Though I would never choose to go through something like that, I’m so glad that it wasn’t wasted. It taught me that life is going to knock you down. There are going to be moments when you have to make a decision on whether or not you are going to get up. You’re going be tested beyond what you thought was possible. In summary, life is going to be hard. And it’s supposed to be hard.

Several years ago Mandy and I had the opportunity to go to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. I remember being impressed and moved by what I saw, but what has had a significant and lasting impact on me were four paintings by Thomas Cole called The Voyage of Life. These paintings portray four distinct seasons of a man’s life. The first is Childhood.

Thomas Cole (American, 1801 – 1848 ), The Voyage of Life: Childhood, 1842, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

You see immense joy as the child is experiencing the beauty of the world. The second painting is Youth.

Thomas Cole (American, 1801 – 1848 ), The Voyage of Life: Youth, 1842, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

Here the young man finds himself on his own for the first time. There doesn’t seem to be much fear. Just excitement as he steps into an adventure. The third painting is Manhood. And in case you weren’t sure, this was the one that stopped me in my tracks.

Thomas Cole (American, 1801 – 1848 ), The Voyage of Life: Manhood, 1842, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

The joy of the child and the excitement of the young man are both gone. It’s dark and it’s scary, and this man is just praying that he won’t die. What a shift, huh! I was going through this intense and challenging time when I saw this. I was in my mid-30’s. We had young kids. I was the pastor of a young church. We didn’t have much money. And I was embarking on a new business. This painting captured what I had been feeling.

Our family started reading the book of James together a couple of weeks ago. I encouraged us all to memorize James 1:2-3. This has been an important passage of Scripture to me for a long time. Here’s what it says…

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

This is such a good word. Our trials and challenges are not wasted. It’s possible to not simply go through them but to embrace them with joy, not because we’re masochists but because we know that there is nothing else in life that makes us better and stronger. How would you like for your life to be characterized by the phrase “mature and complete, not lacking anything”!

It will never happen without a fight. It will never happen by simply coasting through life. It only happens when we embrace the truth that life is going to be hard.

The even bigger truth for me is that I don’t have to go through it alone. My faith in God is what has gotten me through these challenging times. When I’ve been alone in that boat, being tossed by the waves, I’ve known that I wasn’t truly alone. The God who has guided men and women through those same treacherous waters has guided me, and he’ll continue to guide me. And that gets us to the final painting: Old Age.

Thomas Cole (American, 1801 – 1848 ), The Voyage of Life: Old Age, 1842, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

When I see this painting, I think of Paul’s words to Timothy, found in 2 Timothy 4 and most likely penned shortly before he was beheaded under the orders of Emperor Nero…

For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness…

The fact that we have this fourth painting tells us that the man praying desperately in that third painting made it out alive. He went through the challenge, pain and loss that is found in life. He did the work, and I hope that he feels the reward.

10 Rules for Life & Happiness

Published by on April 14, 2021

Awhile back I read a tweet from Ramit Sethi about his ten rules for money. As I read it I began thinking about my own ten rules, not just for money but for life and happiness. As I reflected on this, I thought about things that have remained important to me over my life, but I also began to think in terms of the most important things that I want to share with my sons. For the past few weeks I’ve been working on this list, and I thought I would share my rules here.

Before I begin, a word about rules…we normally don’t like rules because rules are something that others give to us. I’m thinking of parents, teachers and bosses here. Try not to think about the word this way. As I’ve researched it, I’ve discovered that the word “rule” comes from the Greek word for “trellis.” A trellis allows a grapevine to get off the ground and grow upward, thereby enabling it to thrive. We need the same thing in our lives.

Rule #1: Put your trust in God.
I consider this to be the foundation of my life. God doesn’t call me to know everything or to get everything right. God invites me to place my trust in him; to walk with him and be guided by him; to be with him when times are good as well as when they are bad. When I look back on my life, on those times when things were most challenging, I see that God was with me. I have a lot of questions when it comes to faith and spirituality. I am a skeptic at heart who continues to wrestle with certain topics. But through the wrestling, I always come back to this fact: that no matter what I go through, I can come to God for help. One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Deuteronomy 31: 8. It says, “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” If there was just one thing that I could pass on to Adam and Micah, it would be this truth.

Rule #2: Decide which worldview that you will give yourself to.
As much as I believe the previous rule, I recognize that not everyone will feel the same way. And therefore, everyone has to decide for themselves which worldview out there to give themselves to. As Bob Dylan once said, we all gotta serve somebody. We may believe that we’re calling the shots, but everyday we give ourselves to other people, things, causes, etc. It’s the way that we’re wired as humans. The key is to make sure that you’re giving yourself to the right things. If you’ve never listened to David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College, I highly recommend it . You can listen to it at this link, and if you don’t want to listen to the entire thing, just start around the 17 minute mark.

I’ve come to the place where I believe that the best worldview that I can give myself to is Jesus and the Kingdom of God. So many people have baggage over what they think this implies, so I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that there’s not much that I can do to convince a person that this might be the best worldview for them. Instead, I live my life in a way that allows this worldview to influence me more everyday. I’ve shared more thoughts on this here.

Rule #3: Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
I have always struggled with this, and I still have a long way to go. Asking for help signifies weakness, and I imagine most of us don’t like feeling weak. That has definitely played a role for me, but it was also about believing a lie that I was bothering people when asking for help. I’ve had to make a real effort to fight this lie.

When I think about this rule, I think in terms of everyday friendship, but I also think about the need for professional help. Mandy and I have been seeing the same therapist for over a decade, and I can’t begin to comprehend where our marriage would be without this. Sometimes a book, podcast, or conversation over coffee can give me what I need, but at other times I need something more. A friend of mine would often say that healthy people ask for what they need. I’ve learned this to be true.

Rule #4: Cultivate friendship
It’s good to have friends who can talk about sports and the weather and what you did last weekend. We all have those kinds of friends. What we need in addition to this are friends you can go deep with; friends who will on the one hand accept you as you are, yet on the other hand not be afraid to ask you the hard questions. Friendships like these are rare, and when you find one, don’t be passive. Invest time and energy, and don’t take it for granted.

Rule #5: Your interior life matters more than you know.
Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Much of life is all about what’s going on in the exterior of our lives. But it’s so important to take note of what’s going on within. When I think about this rule I think about character. I’ve heard character defined as “who you are when no one is looking.” While that is a part of a good definition of character, I feel like it falls a bit short. It focuses on the negative. It’s all about not sinning.

Dallas Willard, one of my favorite authors, says that character is what you do without thinking about it. You can have good character or bad character. We develop good character when we make good decisions; decisions that look to the good of others over ourselves. We also develop good character when we fail but then learn from our failure. Finally, just as a body grows healthy when more good things than bad are put into it, our hearts grow more healthy (and our character grows) when more good things than bad are put into it. As we cultivate our heart, we develop character, and character then automatically influences our actions.

Rule #6: Understand what fills your tank, and make no apologies for spending time doing those things.
So much of life is depleting. It’s important to know what things you can do that restore your soul. For me, it’s things like travel, hiking, biking, cooking, listening to good music, and reading a good book. I know it’s important to prioritize these kinds of activities into my schedule. In the past, when I have found myself getting burned out, I’ve often been able to point to the fact that I’ve been too busy to do these things, which is in fact a lie that we often believe. If these things fill my tank, then I need to prioritize them. I need to put them in my schedule just like I do a meeting for work. The first thing is to figure out what those activities are, as they’re different for every person. And then do them!

Rule #7: You will have fewer financial emergencies when you have money in the bank.
I learned this from Dave Ramsey, and I’m so glad that I learned it when I did. Most people spend every dollar they make. They have no financial margin, and so when an emergency happens, which it will, it can be devastating. When you have an emergency fund, you know that it’s only a matter of time before an emergency is going to happen, and you also know that when it happens, while you certainly won’t enjoy writing that check, you know you’re going to be ok because you have the money set aside. The emergency then doesn’t feel like such an emergency!

Rule #8: Never stop learning and growing.
Another way of saying this is, don’t forget to invest in yourself. Education doesn’t end when you graduate from college. Continue to read books, listen to podcasts, go to conferences, and learn from others. More than that, though, decide what you’d like to learn, and then set up goals for how you are you going to learn it. Find a topic that you’re interested in and go learn about it. There is more information and opportunities for learning than ever before, and it’s only going to increase. But you have to determine that you are not going to be satisfied with where you currently are.

Rule #9: Marry the right person.
I’ll admit that I’m being a bit sneaky with this one. The truth is that this is a tough challenge. How in the world can you know on the front end who is going to be a good fit for a life partner? Mandy and I are nothing close to the college kids we were when we met. But as we’ve grown and changed, we’ve done so together. At the end of the day, rule #1 (trust God) leads me to believe that there is some providence at work with something as important as marriage. But you have a role to play as well. As you date, think about the obvious things like friendship, attraction, and fun, but also think about common goals and vision. Have those kinds of conversations. I know that Mandy and I did. And as a word of caution, be careful about giving your heart away too soon.

Rule #10: Pursue Wisdom
This seems a fitting way to end this list of ten rules. At the end of the day, I want my life to be characterized by wisdom. Eugene Petersen says that wisdom is the art of living skillfully in whatever actual conditions we find ourselves. It’s an art rather than science, and it’s very practical. The book of Proverbs paints this picture of wisdom as someone offering to be your friend as you make decisions, navigate relationships, steer clear of temptations, and simply seek to be successful in life. I don’t know about you, but this seems like a good friend to do life with. There’s no money you have to pay and no test you have to pass to get this kind of friend. You just have to want it. You have to pursue it.

This was a great exercise for me, and I highly recommend it to others. It took awhile to settle on these ten, and a year from now I might organize them a bit differently. But I feel good about this list. These are things that have mattered to me for a long time. I’m not positive how or when I’m going to share these with my sons, but I’m definitely looking forward to figuring that out!

12 Week Year – Reflections

Published by on March 31, 2021

A few years ago I read The 12 Week Year, by Brian Moran and Michael Lennington. At the time, I picked up some good tips, but I didn’t take it farther than that. Towards the end of 2020 I heard Brian Moran interviewed on a podcast, and I decided to pick the book back up. Better still, I decided to put the system into practice.

If you’re not familiar with this book, the idea is that while having annual goals is better than having no goals at all, there are some real drawbacks with annual goals. We all know the feeling of setting annual goals in January, yet not feeling any real urgency since we have so far until the end of the year. It’s why in the fourth quarter we actually get a lot of stuff done. The 12 Week Year isn’t simply quarterly goals. It’s treating those 12 weeks as a year, with goals, strategies, and celebrations. As the authors say, “Twelve weeks is long enough to get things done, and yet is short enough to create and maintain a sense of urgency.”

This made a lot of sense to me, so I decided to give it a try. I set a few goals, some dealing with work and some with self-care. The two self-care goals were to read ten books and to do 48 sessions of cardio. I’m happy to report that I exceeded both of these goals. I track my reading with Goodreads, and last night I finished my fifteenth book. I set up a spreadsheet to record my cardio, and yesterday I recorded my 53rd session. The majority of these sessions was spent on a treadmill, though lately it’s been more bike riding or outdoor walks/hikes.

My other set of goals dealt with my work. I came into 2021 with several construction projects that had just begun. The first goal was to have 1176 Sledge Ave finished and on the market. I’m going to miss that goal by a week or two, but it’s mainly because we ended up doing more to the house than we first thought, which simply means a longer renovation period. The second goal was to be finished with our new construction project at 909 N. Avalon St. I underestimated this badly. We’re probably six weeks away from that being finished. This meant that my third goal, beginning construction on our second build, also did not happen. New construction is a brand new thing for us, so those were both overly optimistic goals. No harm, no foul. The last goal was to have 1195 Dorothy Pl under contract. That happened. I also bought and then sold another house during this time, and listed and got under contract a project we did a year ago, so all in all I’m happy with where I landed at the end of the 12 Week Year.

The last goal I had falls somewhere between self-care and work. It’s blogging. I set a goal of one post per week. This is my tenth post, so I fell short just a bit. Writing is something that I want to get back in the habit of doing, and while I have enjoyed blogging these last few months, I am definitely still trying to find my rhythm.

Now for some reflections…

With both of the self-care goals, the key was setting the goal, but then also having an easy way to track it. I’m going to continue tracking my cardio activity, but with the weather as awesome as it is, I will most likely set a little higher goal for this next 12 Week Year. And with reading, I’m inspired to set an overall 2021 goal of averaging a book per week. I’ve never done that, but I think it’s very possible. Goodreads has been a huge help with this.
I think the reading goal and the blogging goal can actually shape one another. It’s one thing to read a lot of great books. It’s another thing to take the time capture key ideas and reflections. I’m not always as good at that, but it’s something I want to get better at. For this next 12 Week Year I’m going to write some blog posts on key takeaways from some of these books.
The new construction part of my business is way more passive than the renovation part. The reason is that we hire a builder to do everything. It’s actually pretty fantastic. My goal for this first 12 Week Year should have been to implement systems for the builds moving forward. That is a goal that I was able to accomplish. We spent time getting set up with the vendors that our builder uses. We selected products for this build that we will no doubt use for future builds. This will allow the next projects to be even more passive than the first one.
I did not set any goals with my client business because I wasn’t sure what goals to set. That was a mistake. The goal I will set for this next 12 Week Year will have to do with the number of touch points I make each week with clients and friends. I’m really looking forward to making and accomplishing this goal.
Finally, with a new 12 Week Year right around the corner, I’m able to start afresh without waiting until the end of 2021. That’s genius. I get to celebrate my successes and reevaluate my misses.