A leap of faith

One thing I've learned in life is that there are two general ways to reach a goal.

The first way is what I think of as the proactive way. What this looks like is, set a goal, make a plan, and start taking action to move towards that goal. This is the way I approach most of the goals I set for myself.

The second way is what I think of as the attractive way. What this looks like is, set a goal, put the vision out there, and start noticing what I attract that helps me move closer to my goal. This approach requires a leap of faith. Leap and the net will appear.

I've been living at my current address for two and a half years now (see Moving Day). I feel in my gut that it is time to move on. I'm putting it out there - I will move to a place of my own by September 1. The net will appear.

OmniFocus

I need to reboot my GTD (Getting Things Done) system. Last August I started using Thinking Rock as my trusted GTD system. After several months I had accumulated tons of "stuff" and stopped using it. I found that Thinking Rock gave me so many ways of slicing and dicing my "stuff' that I often got overwhelmed looking at it.

I continue to read and research GTD tools and methods, and I discovered OmniFocus. I used the trial version for a couple of weeks. One thing I liked about it is the Quick Entry window which integrates with Mail and other applications. No longer do I have to copy and paste information into my GTD system; with OmniFocus I just highlight the relevant text in an email, web page, or whatever text in whatever open window, hit a hotkey sequence, and the information goes into the a Quick Entry window and from there into my GTD Inbox. From here on this is a new must for me; any GTD application I use has to integrate with other Mac applications in an easy manner.

OmniFocus has a Review function, and by trying it out I have learned one of the areas of GTD where I need to improve. I need to learn that the Review activity is separate from the Process activity. The Process activity is a stage in which I decide what each email (or other item in my Inbox; not everything comes into my world through email), decide what it means. Do I need to respond, take action, can I delete it, do I just need to read it and delete it, or do I want to file it for future reference?

I need to keep in mind that the Process stage is separate from the Do It stage. When I am muddled about which stage I am in then I get overwhelmed by the numbers of items that I process. When I remember that I am in Process mode and am intentional about it then I am more effective and productive.

Process mode is about deciding what an item means to me. Review mode is about making sure each project has a Next Action associated with it and is generally moving along. Some projects are my front-burner projects. I review them more frequently, perhaps every day, or every two to three days. For these projects I need to have a clear Next Action. Review mode is about making sure that my front-burner projects have a clear Next Action and that my back-burner projects have a scheduled Next Review date.

Tether me up!

I got up early this morning to go to my BNI breakfast meeting. Before I headed out the door I decided to check my email, and noticed a message from Else, from the Toastmasters chapter that I belong too. One of the planned speakers had unexpectedly become unavailable, could I give a speech tonight, and since I've recently returned from Fiji then surely I have many interesting stories to tell.

Give a speech tonight? On the day of? Without enough time to prepare? Are you kidding?

Wait a minute. I just got back from Fiji. I graduated from Tony Robbins' Life Mastery and Wealth Mastery programs. I climbed The Poll. I’ve done the Firewalk. Am I really going to crawl back into my comfort zone, crawl back and live inside that box? Is that what I want my life-after-Fiji to look like? Duh. Climbing The Poll won’t mean anything, will be nothing more than a pleasant memory, if I start living like that again. LOOK UP.

I made up my mind that I would give that speech tonight after all. This would be my Speech #6.

I came up with the speech opening while in my car on my way to BNI. I recalled a phrase that I had written in an email I sent to my buddy Dallas the previous day. It was a phrase I had written in a moment in which I was feeling inspired to face a challenge that I had previously been avoiding. “Tether me up, I’m going to climb that pole!” I decided that this phrase was my new mantra and that it would also be the title of my speech.

After my BNI meeting ended I had a meeting with a business associate. I wouldn’t have access to my email until the afternoon so I wouldn’t have a chance to reply to Else, and by then she might find someone else. I didn’t want to let that happen. I decided I’d call her as soon as I arrived at my meeting location. STEP UP.

Ring ring. Else answers. Suddenly I realize that it’s only nine a.m. What if I’m calling her too early?

Only nine a.m.? I’m at my second business meeting of the day and it’s only nine a.m.? Life is not the same, life is changing - that’s for sure. I don’t have jet lag - I’m just living in my own private timezone.

I got a lot of positive and encouraging feedback after I gave my speech tonight. BREATHE. WHAT’S NEXT?

At the end of the meeting Else asked for volunteers to fill the roles for next week’s meeting.

“Is there a speaker slot still available?” I asked. There was. “Tether me up - I’m giving Speech #7 next week.”

One role out, another role in

In a few weeks I will be completing my role as captain of my men’s team, Grand Central.

Shortly after that I will be taking on a new role, as VP Membership of the Toastmasters chapter that I belong to.

Like the song says, “Life is changing.”

The Pole

Last year I walked on fire. This year I faced The Pole - a 50-60 foot pole that I and my fellow Life Mastery participants were invited to climb and leap off on the first day of the program.

The purpose of this exercise was to get us to confront our fears and bust through them; it served as a metaphor for life, for doing what it takes to reach our goals, to climb to the top and to leap and grab hold of our dreams.

I remember last year after I completed my fire walk I could tell by people's faces who had done it and who had not. The ones who had done it were glowing, pumped, exuding excitement. The ones who had not looked tired, worn down from having spent a long day at the seminar.

I had apprehensions about climbing The Pole but in the end I remembered the distinction in how people looked who had done the fire walk versus the ones who had not. I decided that I wanted to be one of the people who had done it.

Date with the Date Line

7:28am Today I’ve got a date with the International Date Line. I’m going to the other side of the planet, so far from home that I’ll be crossing into tomorrow before I get there.

I should be excited - and I am. I also have butterflies in my stomach.

Last year I walked on fire. This year - we’ll see.

It hasn’t become completely real to me yet. Maybe that’s because I still have much to do. Charge my camera batteries. Go to the bank. Get all the information to my accountant that he needs to complete my tax return while I’m away. Pack. Call my parents. Visit them.

Visit them? I won’t even have time for that today.

8:16am Correction - I won’t be traveling into tomorrow, I’ll be traveling into yesterday. My first stop over is Los Angeles which is three hours behind. When I cross the date line I’ll be going back a day. Either way I’ll be traveling through time.

8:52am I have some twenty hours of flying ahead of me. That should allow me to get a good start on the next installment of That Warrior Spirit.

9:14am Accounting! The numbers swim before my eyes. There are so many of them. Each number tells part of a story. But which part of the story is the one that my accountant needs? Giving him the wrong one could mean the difference of hundreds or thousands of dollars on my tax return.

I only hope that the story those numbers tell turn out to be a heroic epic rather than a tragedy - or rather than the comedy they speak of today.

11:03am Most of the numbers are in now. Not fully crunched yet, but partially chewed and somewhat compressed. It turns out that I won't owe on my tax return and that buys my accountant time to file my return.

11:30am That's all the attention I'm giving to my accounting today. The numbers are packed, now it's time to pack my suitcase.

Be Magnified

Lately I've been feeling a lot of discouragement with regard to my career and my business. Then on Thursday night, at worship team rehearsal, one of the songs we did was Be Magnified. The words spoke to me and I felt inspiration.

I felt prompted to record the service this morning, and this song is from that service.

Multi-camera editing

I'm running out of space on my Elephant drive.

I've had my Mac for almost a year now and the external media drive that I bought with it is almost full now. I analyzed the drive to find out what was taking up the most space. Last November we had a guest speaker, Claude Robold, at my church. I videotaped him - those files have been sitting on my drive since then taking up space. I had to delete the files or do something with them so that I could complete a project and archive the files in order to reclaim the space. I wasn't willing to delete the files yet, not without doing something with them first.

I ended up editing what was about a one-hour message down to 18 minutes.

Chuck had videotaped the speaker as well. Something I've wanted to do was a multi-camera edit, so I asked Chuck if I could get a copy of his video, which he let me.

I also had an audio track which did not come from either of the two cameras. I had recorded the audio off the soundboard, so it was not synchronized with the video. I was working with two non-synchronized video tracks and one non-synchronized audio track. By non-synchronized, I mean that the moment at which the speaker's mouth moved (in the video track) did not line up with the moment at which he uttered a sound (in the audio track). The first thing I did was manually synchronize the audio with each of the two video tracks separately. Once I did that, it meant that the two video tracks were also synchronized to each other.

At this point I had about an hour or so of content which I edited down to 18 minutes. The next thing to do is make an edit in which I select the points in time where I want to switch from one camera to the other.

One King video

I was at the Essential Skills Training event last week. My official role was Event Manager but I was also pressed into service as a trainer and as a videographer.

I had purchased new tapes to record the footage for the event but I forgot to check what was in the camcorder before I started recording. As a result I ended up taping over some of the footage that I shot at the Christmas Eve service. Fortunately I still had the footage of the song that we had learned, One King. After I watched that footage I felt motivated to produce a video out of it.

I shot that footage under low lighting conditions so I used the Night setting on the camcorder. The result is that the lighting and color looked low and dull. Furthermore, I had shot the entire sequence from a fixed location on a tripod with a fixed focal length. This means that there is little to no movement in the footage; it probably would make a dull video to watch as it was.

This called for experimentation with color correction and with some creative effects. I don't know if I've overdone the effects and made this look too cheesy but it looks much better than the raw footage.

Watch the video below.

Video journalling

I saw the movie Avatar a few weeks ago during the Christmas holidays. Saw it in 3D from the fourth row. Cool movie. The story was predictable, basically a science fiction remake of Dances With Wolves, but I thought it was told well. Awesome scenery and it all looked great in 3D. Even the subtitles appeared to float in the air in a space of their own. I don't know if I was supposed to return my glasses to the receptacles that they had by the exit, but I kept mine.

One thing about the story that I found inspiring was the idea of keeping a video log. I've done a lot of journalling through handwriting and on my Palm PDA, on various PC's, and I even kept a voice journal for a brief period. After seeing Avatar I got excited about the idea of keeping a video log. When i got home I did some googling and discovered an application called MacJournal. I downloaded and installed the 15-day trial version and started using it. I like using it, it's got that whole "Captain's Log" feeling, right out of Star Trek.

The 15-day trial period went by quickly. Did I really want to fork out the forty-something dollars to buy a registered copy? Well, three or four days after the trial period ended I was missing it. i had gotten into an almost daily ritual of recording into my video log and I missed it. Oh my gosh, it was like having withdrawal symptoms.

I bought it. Paid for it, got a license key, and resumed my video journalling. I got my fix.

Split Personality Disorder

Here is a statistic you should know about. Watch the video below to learn more.

Book is ready

It is done!

After a year and a half I've finished That Warrior Spirit Book I. It's now available on Lulu.

I'm taking a deep breath here. Is it relief or anticipation? Have I really done the best I could or have I allowed my impatience to get the best of me?

Whatever. It is now out there.

Essential Skills Training

Being the captain of a men's team has proven to be challenging, so I've gone and made my life even more challenging by accepting a role as Event Manager for an upcoming weekend workshop called Essential Skills Training.

I've had a taste of the Essential Skills Training workshop through a couple of conference calls that I've been on. I have found them to be powerful and inspiring, and I've come away with some new tools. With a new year coming around the corner I've started setting goals in place for 2010 using what I've learned so far.

I've identified my top three areas of improvement and have started setting goals in those areas. Some times all these challenges I am taking on feel daunting. But - this is the best time of my life to be taking on these challenges; this is the time of my life to be totally reinventing myself.

Third speech

The Toastmasters chapter that I belong to has a club goal for all members to give at least three speeches. I and one other new member both gave our third speeches tonight.

One feedback I got after giving my second speech last week was to print my notes on a one-pager instead of on multiple index cards. Doing so would free up my hands so I could better express myself and would prevent the danger of dropping my cards and having them all go out of order.

I followed that advice tonight. I still created the index cards to help me memorize my speech and then I typed in my notes from the index cards into a one page document in my word processor. Although I had my one page notes with me at the lectern I did not refer to them. At one point I had to pause to remember where I was supposed to go next but I didn't have to look at my notes. That's a good thing because one of the objectives of Speech #3 is to give it without refering to notes.

My speech #3 is now done and delivered before the end of the year as per the goal I set myself last week. Tonight was our last meeting of the year. Next week we have a Christmas get-together and then we resume our regular meetings in January. My goal for 2010 is to complete the Competent Communicator maual and the Competent Leadership manual. That means giving seven more speeches.

Holiday Showcase

I did my first trade show this weekend at the TBDC Holiday Showcase. I met quite a few people there, mostly the other vendors. I'm growing my network.

Being at the trade show was a lot of stimulation and I sure needed my time after to recover. I don't know if the trade show thing is for me; breakfast networking events such as BNI work better for me despite the early morning start.

I won't write off doing more trade shows just from the one experience, but I'm not going to rush out to do another one too soon either.

Season begins

One of the signs that the Christmas season has started is when I start listening to Trans Siberian Orchestra music. That happened last week when I pulled my Christmas Eve and Other Stories CD off the shelf and started listening to it in my car.

Another sign is when we start rehearsing a new song for the Christmas Eve service. That happened tonight at rehearsal. We started learning a new song (new for us that is), called One King. It's a complex song with key signature changes and time signature changes, and it has a really nice melody. We listened to a CD recording of the song a couple of times to familiarize ourselves with it. If we get can get the show lights and a children's choir, we could do this song like Trans Siberian Orchestra.

My second speech

I gave my second speech at Toastmasters tonight. The title was "This Will Put Fur On Your Chest". Three guesses what that was about and the first and third guesses don't count.

The chapter I belong to has a club goal for every member to give three speeches. I am now two thirds of the way towards that goal. Next week will be our last meeting for the year so if I get my third speech ready for next week then I will have reached that goal.

Some of the feedback I received was:
-good use of humour
-interesting how I personified my cats
-nice conversational style and great storytelling

Instead of reading from my speech like I did for my Icebreaker I had prepared index cards. I made a point on an index card for each paragraph in my speech. The process helped me to memorize my speech. The only time I had to refer to my index cards, the only time that I wasn't sure where I was going next and had to refer to the cards was at the end. I didn't know where I was supposed to go next because I was finished and all I had to do was close it!

The feedback I got about my use of index cards was to write out my points on a single sheet of paper and leave it on the lectern. That would free up my hands so that I express myself better.

I think that I didn't spend any more time preparing for this speech than I did on my Icebreaker, but I did use my prep time differently. Maybe prepping for a speech doesn't have to take as much time as I think it will.

Manuscript sent to proof-reader

I've sent my manuscript to my proof-reader. So, I'm getting closer to the completion of this stage of the book.

In the grand scheme of things, her quote for proof-reading it is not that big, but it's still an out-of-pocket cost that I will incur up front. Do I really, really need to have it proof-read? There can't be that many mistakes in it, can there?

Of course, when I sell my millionth copy the amount will be negligible.

On a different but related topic, I'm realizing that I miss my Palm TX. The Palm m515 that I bought to cover for it works but won't run applications I use such as NoteStudio, DayNotez, and Bonsai. I am missing having NoteStudio on a device that fits in my pocket. I used NoteStudio when I developed the outline for That Warrior Spirit and I found it great for capturing those ideas that occur in the moment and for organizing them.

I've heard about a guy named Chris Short who fixes Palm devices and he has a good reputation so I'm getting in touch with him to find out if he will fix my Palm TX and how much it will cost me to do so. Ouch. Another out of pocket expense?

Re-calibrating my writing plans

I miss writing for my novel, That Warrior Spirit. I worked at it diligently in August and in September and made lots of progress. By the end of September I felt like I needed to re-calibrate my priorities though, and put more focus on my business Pictures That Move. Consequently I didn't reach the target I had hoped to reach in October.

I haven't given up though. I've re-calibrated again. I'm so close to getting that first edition out the door that I can't just leave it hanging where it is and not do something about it. My new target is end of November. I've completed all the manuscript changes that I'm going to make, and I'm going to send it out to my proof-reader this week. All that's left for me to do is write the afterword, design the back cover and get it out to lulu.

My plan is to resume my writing schedule in January to start writing what would have been Chapter 5 in my original outline. Meanwhile I've felt some ideas floating around in my head for another book series to start. I guess it can't hurt to start an outline for that series.

A dog eat biscuit world

That episode last month with the cat food left a bad taste in my mouth for a while (see Roasted almonds). I told Jan that I wouldn't eat cat food anymore. So today she makes a batch of dog biscuits.

She's going to put them in bone-shaped tin containers and sell them.

I decide that I am going to refrain from sampling them. Stay away!

I succeeded. Mostly. Right up until Jan took one and right in front of me she bit into it and ate it. Then she told me how good it was and offered me one. So with some hesitation I finally tried it. She was right! It really was yummy. It's made of sesame and flour and other normal ingredients that one would find in a cookie made for human consumption. Except for chocolate of course.

I ate two before she cut me off.

At dinner, something got caught in her throat and she started coughing and gagging, trying to dislodge it and make it come out. "What's the matter Jan, do you have a hairball?"