Unstoppable Skills

Remember that communication doesn’t really happen unless the circle is completed. The circle includes transmitting the message clearly to a receiver and the receiver acknowledging the message was received. It’s best to include what was transmitted in the response so both know and agree on what was communicated.
#us #communicative

I’ve enjoyed several of Bob Goff’s books over the years, and “Undistracted” is another one that I really liked. His stories bring light on things and inspire me to do more. Especially when he talks about the “all-access pass” we’ve been given. Check his book out at
Undistracted: Capture Your Purpose. Rediscover Your Joy. https://a.co/d/crsD4z2
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#us #book

One of the things that I insisted that my children do until they were out on their own if they were living in my house and my responsibility was to get up by 9am. They argued with me and they would ignore me and sleep in and then complain about not having time to do things.
And I told them I didn’t teach you to sleep past 9am, I taught you to get up by 9am because if you sleep past 9am you’re burning daylight and you’re not going to accomplish things. I had friends at work that would sleep half the day away and then take a nap in the afternoon and then complain about how they couldn’t sleep at night.
And I just kind of laughed and said well if you get up and you move around you’re going to be tired at night but if you sleep all day you ain’t going to be tired. Even working shift work I made myself get up.
If I worked a closer and was at work until after midnight I would still get up no later than 9am because number one I didn’t want to waste the day and number two if I was really tired I’d take a nap in the afternoon to help recover from the late shift. I learned this watching my father as he got older and my mother too, but when we would go and visit down there at their house they would talk about how they wanted to fix breakfast for us the next morning and then dad wouldn’t get up until after 10 a.m. I would have been up since about 6 30 at the latest and would be hungry so I’m fixing my own breakfast then he would come stumbling out of the bedroom and say oh hey let me let me get busy fixing bacon and eggs and an hour later we’re eating quote unquote breakfast. But it’s practically lunchtime because he didn’t get up.
Not a big deal. And if you’re not working it’s really not an issue, but I’ve seen so many articles about older people getting their days and nights turned around. So many younger people, and even older people too, get into trouble because at night, at two and three in the morning, they think nobody’s watching and it’s not a big deal so they do whatever they want or they do things they’re not supposed to be doing, and then they get in trouble.
I just think it’s better if you get up no later than 9 a .m. no matter what’s going on. It’s one of those discipline things that I think help make somebody unstoppable because when people realize you’re actually gonna be up and you’re actually gonna be paying attention, they know that they can count on you and they don’t have to make backup plans every time they ask you to help them to do something or to meet them somewhere or anything like that.
So get up, sleepy head, teach yourself to actually listen and do what the alarm that you set said to do. Don’t set it for any later than 9 a.m. That way you can become unstoppable too.

I used to play video games. I loved Atari and would sit and play Space Invaders for hours. Usually only one since my mom made me turn it off.
As an adult I enjoyed playing Castle Wolfenstein and F-15 Strike Eagle. I loved flying into Middle Eastern targets low and then popping up and blowing things up and then getting out of dodge. I think I even had the stealth fighter simulator and would stay stealth until right above whatever and then open ports up and drop bombs and take shots and then go back into stealth mode and disappear.
Loved it. I played Doom a lot. Doom actually gave me weird dreams. I remember one time being at the airport when there was remodeling and construction going on in the terminal and it flashed in my head that this looked a lot like Doom. It was weird.
All that to say that as many times as I failed in video games and crashed and burned and died, which I don’t like saying, I never really gave up. Even though there was almost no way for me to win, I never gave up.
Because video games give you an ability that we tend to think we don’t have. Nowadays they call it respawning. You show back up where you stopped or wherever your last save point was. You face the challenge again and try something different.
And you lose and die and respawn and do it again. And respawn and do it again. And respawn and do it again. And that’s what we have to do in life. Yes, life is for real and yes, if you try to step out of your car while it’s moving at 55 miles an hour you will die and you will not be able to come back. They’ll have a funeral and you’ll be buried or cremated or whatever it is they do.
But when you try to talk to somebody and fail, it’s not over. Shake it off, pick it back up, and try it again. Or go in a different direction and try it again.
If you apply for the job and you don’t get it, shake it off, respawn and apply again, either at the same place or somewhere else. There are so many filters and barriers in place out there that if you can learn to take the no and smile and consider it something to learn from, then respawn and do it again a different way. Count them for points and brag that you’ve gotten more “no” answers than anyone around you!
You’ll be able to get around those barriers and get to where you want tobe. Salespeople get taught this a lot. Salespeople don’t make the sale every time and they take a lot of no’s, but they smile and they try it again.
No is not final, it’s just, oh, okay, I’ll try this over here or I’ll go with this person or maybe you can use me later.
Don’t give up, respawn. Then try again.

One of the things that I’ve been known for in the past and tended towards heavily was negativity. It’s the way I was raised. Murphy’s law was quoted often around my house when I was growing up and as an adult I was told that over and over and over by family members and by me.
Over the past few years I’ve been making efforts to be more positive. It’s challenging because of my tendency to be negative about things but I think I’ve turned a corner. Still not great but I’m a lot more positive than I was.
One of the things I’ve started doing recently is instead of using dashes as divider lines between things I’m trying to use plus symbols. A line of plus symbols makes a good line and it looks more positive to me than a bunch of minuses and if you read the history of the plus symbol it’s actually in that shape because the person who kind of got it going and encouraged it as a standard for addition was a Christ follower and wanted to have the cross everywhere.
So here’s an example of what I’m talking about.
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Makes a nice divider doesn’t it? I’m positive that this will help somebody 🙂
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#us #positive #communicative

One of the skills I encourage is to be positive. Not in a sickening-sweet way that is not based in reality, but in a way that encourages people to be more positive.
There is a site at
positivewordchallenge.com
I created it so that I and others could have a positive word for each day.
And if you’d like a positive question to use in conversation check out
positivequestionchallenge.blogspot.com
Enjoy!
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#us #positive

Getting things done is hard because you have reminders and they got a blast through all of the attention grabbing things that the online industry is throwing at you.
One idea is to make a playlist for things that you want to remember. Songs that talk about the work you gotta do for the things you have to check or people that you want to stay in touch with on certain days and then name those playlists for the day of the week or the day of the month. That way when you going hey I’ll listen to some tunes all the Monday playlist was see what I’m forgetting and then you play it and they remind you of all the stuff you want to do.
Another way you could use playlists to help you get things done is to make a playlist with different songs grouped by artist (like an album but do people even think that way now?) and then change activities when the next artist’s songs start playing.
Just a couple of idea for using playlists to increase productivity!