TrippAtkins.com

In 2008, one of my goals was to read one book a month.  I have never been a big reader.  In high school, I can only remember reading one book from cover to cover though many books were assigned to us.  I don’t remember reading anything cover-to-cover in college either.  One of the challenges that I faced heading into law school was that I didn’t like to read and as you may have heard, most law schools assign a hundred pages or so each night not just to read, but to study and know as well.

During law school I got much better at reading and got where I enjoyed it.  But mostly, I wanted to be able to read the things that I wanted to read.  In 2008, I decided it was time to start reading more and as one of my “personal development goals” I was going to read every month. I think reading is very important and it is a great way to get inside the head of some of the greatest thinkers of today and of history.

I got started late in 2008, but was able to pull off the average.  Here are the 12 books that I read in 2008:

1. The Servant Leader by Ken Blanchard
2. No More Mondays by Dan Miller
3. Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger
4. Chazown by Craig Groeschel
5. Cure for the Common Life by Max Lucado
6. No More Mondays by Dan Miller (Again)
7. Essential Church by Thom Rainer and Sam Rainer
8. Entrepreneurial Faith by Kirbyjon Caldwell and Walt Kallestad
9. The 9 to 5 Window by Os Hillman
10. Caught Between a Dream and a Job by Delatorro L. McNeal II
11. The Upside of Adversity by Os Hillman
12. Wide Awake by Erwin Raphael McManus

In 2009, my new reading goal is 24 books.  I will be doubling my reading load for the year, but so far I am right on track.

Starting around mid-November I began evaluating 2008 and looking ahead to 2009.  I have been setting my goals for the year in several different categories such as Financial, Social, Spiritual, Physical, Personal Development, Family and Career.  I personally believe goals are essential to helping you be successful.  However, I know how hard it is to stay on task with your goals when there is so much you have to do each day just to “put out the fires.”  This morning I came across this post, “The Thing About Goals” from Seth Godin.

I especially agree with this quote, “It seems to me, though, that the people who get things done, who lead, who grow and who make an impact… those people have goals.”

Here’s to meeting all of your goals for 2009!

It has just ticked over to Christmas Day, so I wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.  We are looking forward to a fun day with our one year old and lots of time with family.  We’re just glad that there is a minimum amount of driving!

Anyway, Merry Christmas.

Got this story in an e-mail the other day and thought it was pretty good.  Does this sound like anyone you know?

The Story of Life…

On the first day, God created the dog and said: ‘Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years.’ The dog said: ‘That’s a long time to be barking. How about only ten years and I’ll give you back the other ten?’ So God agreed.

Life has now been explained to you. There is no need to thank me for this valuable information. I’m doing it as a public service.

I was watching a re-run of The Andy Griffith Show last week over the Thanksgiving break.  It was one of my favorite episodes.  Here is the basic premise of the episode: The Mayberry choir has an opening for a tenor and Barney volunteers to join the choir.  After just a few minutes of practice it is clear that Barney can not sing.  But the big problem is that Barney thinks he is awesome, but no one has the heart to tell Barney how bad he is.

That got me thinking about some of the things I write about on this blog like passion, calling and faith.  I write alot about finding what you were created for.  Are you doing the thing that God uniquely designed and gifted you to do?  We were all given unique gifts and placed in unique circumstances and life experiences so we can have the impact that God intended for us on the world around us.

If you are doing what you were created to do you know it and everyone around probably does too.  If you aren’t doing what you were created to, even if you don’t know it, I can almost guarantee that the people around you know that you are doing the wrong thing.

So, are you being a “Barney”?

Well I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!  I am thankful for the time at home with the family today and the rest of the weekend.  We will be out and about today visiting family around town.  A Thanksgiving breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Phew!  I hope everyone can take some time today to step aside from the turkey and football and think about what you are thankful for this year.

This year my family and I have been very blessed.  I’m thankful for:

• my family (a loving wife and healthy, happy one year old son
• a chance to use my work to help people in need who can’t help themselves
• A church family who is supporting and caring
• the dreams and passions God has planted in my heart this year
• pizza factory pizza and mountain dew (an awesome combination)
• a chance to work with kids and share the Gospel with them
• the iPhone
• leaders who pour knowledge into me (that probably don’t even know who I am)

Well, I can’t believe it is already Thanksgiving!  Where has this year gone?  I hope you and your family have an awesome Thanksgiving holiday and that you have the opportunity reflect back on 2008 and think of the things you have to be thankful for this year.  It has been a very exciting year for our family as we watch our 15 month old son continue to grow and learn.

No matter where you are in life, right now we all have something (and most of us have many things) we should be thankful for. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

One of my goals in writing on TrippAtkins.com is to equip and empower young adults (20-somethings) who are feeling disenfranchised with life and work and trying to find the right balance in life.  Here’s my situation.  I am an attorney and my wife is a CPA.  Before our son was born, both of us spent many hours at work.  We both enjoy our work and didn’t think twice about spending extra time there because we could spend the rest of our time at home together or with friends.  Then our son was born.  Now, I don’t have the desire to stay at the office past 5:30 when we close.  I want to get home as quickly as possible.  Actually, since Cole was born I have been noticing how much time is wasted just because I "have" to be at the office all day.  There has to be a better way, right?

One of the things people in our generation are doing differently now, more than ever before, is getting a work model that fits with their life rather than molding their life to fit their work model.  Let’s look at the way things have been done for the last fifty years or so in the U.S.  Companies are open for business Monday through Friday from8 am until 5 pm.  That means if you are an employee of one of those companies you are required/expected to be there during those hours.  You receive a paycheck based on the hours you work and some measure of your value to the company. 

I work in the legal field which is still very "archaic" in how things are done.  Most law firms bill clients by the hour.  So immediately the only way to become more profitable is to bill more hours.  While the hourly rates can reach into the $300-400 dollar range there is never a threshold that says, "okay you are billing enough."  That high hourly rate basically acts as a set of golden handcuffs that keep you at work.  While the hourly rates may change depending on jobs and industries the principle is the same: simply exchanging your time for a paycheck is not how people in our generation want to earn a living…in fact it is simply unacceptable to most of us. 

A new form of income generation is emerging – value billing.  Actually it is, more correctly, re-emerging because this is how things were done prior to the hourly work model.  Value billing is where you are paid based on the value that you provide the client, company or customer, not based on the amount of time that you spend.  So rather than bill by the hour you bill by the project.  This allows you to leverage your time because you know what you are going to earn for the completion of the project if it takes you one hour to complete or if it takes you 40 hours to complete. 

So how does this help the disenfranchised young adult wanting more time for their family?  It totally provides you with time freedom.  The way I like to look at it is like this: it is going to take a lot of your time to create a successful business or to generate your desired income; however, those hours do not have to necessarily be from 8 to 5.  What if you work better at night, or really early in the morning.  What if your son has a baseball tournament or you have other more important family matters than just sitting at a desk?  When you control the work rather than the time for the work you allow yourself to be much more productive and leverage your time and your business.

In the book "The Four Hour Work Week" Timothy Ferriss discusses a principle known as "Parkinson’s Law."  Parkinson’s Law says that work will expand to fill up the time allotted for its completion.  What?  Basically, if you set aside two weeks to complete a project, the project is going to take you two weeks to complete.  If you only set aside three days, you will probably complete the project in three days.  From a job perspective – if you are required to sit at your desk from 8 to 5 your work is going to expand to fill that entire time.  But, if you are free to do what you want after you complete your work, just think how fast you can get everything finished up.  Consider this, do you ever notice how efficient you are the day before you leave for vacation?  You always get more done on that one day than you have in the month before. 

“You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers.  In every momen tof our existence, ware are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices.”

- Deepak Chopra

How many choices have you made today?  Probably a thousand, and most of them haven’t been done with you consciously thinking about them.  Do you get up when the alarm goes off or do you hit snooze?  Do you brush your teeth before or after you take your shower?  Maybe some of your choices have more of an impact on your day, but nonetheless, you are constantly making choices in your life.

Andy Stanley preached a sermon and wrote about book about the “best question ever.”  He asked, “What is the wise thing for me to do, in light of my past experience, my present circumstances, and my future hopes and dreams?”

Choose to do what is wise.  Choose to do what is better.  When faced with a choice, ask yourself, “Which choice will help me to fulfill God’s call on my life.  Not all choices are bad choices.  Some choices are good choices, but some are better.

Luke 10: 38-42 tells of when Jesus came to visit Mary, Martha and Lazarus at Martha’s house, Martha was busy preparing a meal and making sure the house was in order for their “guest of honor.”  But instead of helping her older sister, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to Him and learned from Him.  Martha felt like she had to do all of the work she was doing to honor Jesus.  Realize, she made a choice to work rather than sit with Jesus.  Mary made a choice to sit with her Lord.  In Luke 10: 41-42, Jesus told Martha, “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

What do you have to do to be successful today?

Do you ever stop and consider this question?  Do you ever think about this question at the beginning of the day.  Personally, I know that once I get to work things seem to go crazy.  I usually have several files that I would like to work on, but between meeting with prospects and current clients, answering the questions of my staff, and putting out the fires that flare up during the day, there are days that I go home exhausted and feeling like I did nothing that I set out to in the beginning of the day.

Sound familiar?

So what can you do today to make sure that it is a success?  Pick only one major task that would make your day a success if you complete it.  Write it down.  Now you are focused on what you need to do to make sure that Today is a success. By knowing what your goal is you can make sure that your activities during the day are directed toward completing your target task.

By knowing what your necessary outcome is for the day to be a success, it makes focusing in on what comes up during the day easier to either disregard, delegate out, or put off until you have completed your other work.  You just pass the newly important task through the filter of, “will performing this task help me to complete my goal of completing (blank) today?”  If it will, then do it or make sure it gets done.  If not, delegate the task or put it off until later.

Now, go make today a success!