Mike In The Bushes

I recently had to put down a very amazing cat who I had the pleasure of living with for over a decade. Many years ago I had a downtown apartment, and there was this really cool black and white cat who would always meow at the people in the complex next to mine.

My balcony had a view of their porch. Occasionally I would run into this cat outside and he would never let me touch him. But I would see this one little girl who lived in the complex next to mine sitting outside petting him.

Eventually these people moved and I didn’t think anything of it. Until I was emptying my trash and was startled by a cat flying out of the dumpster as I threw my bag in. If I was outside working or washing my car this cat would come and hang around with me. He still wouldn’t let me touch him but he liked being talked to.

He was skinny and dehydrated so I started leaving food out for him on my porch. One day I heard my neighbor across from me yell, “GET OUT OF HERE”, and then I heard his girlfriend saying, “you didn’t have to do that”. I’m not sure what he did. But I rushed outside and chewed my neighbor out, and said that was my cat, and he better not ever touch him again.

Then I let the cat in my house. He ate some more food and then hopped onto the arm of the chair I was sitting in, and then put his head on my leg. It was so sweet, I decided that he was my cat. I made an appointment for him at the vet. He got a clean bill of health, and within a month this skinny dehydrated cat, was a big beautiful smart and loving cat.

The cool thing about him was he was really brave and always held his ground. I’ve seen him have face offs with dogs and people. He also liked to watch people work. Whenever I had a repairman or someone working outside they would usually comment on, what a cool cat he was. I guess, he was kind of a man’s man of cats. Because a lot of guys don’t care for cats but something about his tough little attitude made him really appealing.

I don’t think Mike ever regretted adopting me. The first few years of his life were a mystery to me. But I know the last decade he had a very good life. Below are some pictures of Mike and my very first You Tube video. The video is really me just playing around with my camera, but it ended up being the last pictures I have of him and his much younger sister, who I still have.

Young Mike

I'll brush my teeth later.

Mike Sleeping

Mike watching me work.

Mike and Bianca

Mike Systems Administrator

One of the greatest abilities successful people have is the ability to make decisions. I believe making decisions is a learned ability and good decision making comes from practice.

When I was young making decisions seemed overwhelming to me, and I would often turn to my mother for advice. For some reason she felt like the ability to make decisions was important too. So instead of helping me she would say “hey, you’re on your own, you need to learn how to make good decisions.”

In retrospect, maybe giving me some useful decision making tools would of been helpful. But that’s OK, mom. I figured it out. Why mess with time saving shortcuts?

In spite of my own school of hard knocks training. I am still surprised by people who are unable or unwilling to make decisions. I’ve noticed it most in the corporate world. Where people in management positions aren’t able or willing to make decisions.

I thought making decisions and taking on responsibility was the whole purpose of going into management. Apparently these folks thought management would be a good way to get out of actually doing work. This logic will probably lead to a short lived career.

I am currently reading Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina. This is the second book in my Book Review series. I’ve only just began the book, and I have already stumbled upon some decision making gold.

He is talking about making your mind grow by doing new things, and goes on to say:

“The second way to apply your mind’s predictive powers is to make conscious, deliberate predictions and use those predictions to make better decisions. Think about where you’re headed and ask yourself, how do I honestly expect my life to turn out?”

The simplicity of this concept is brilliant. You can set goals, take charge of your life and be proactive plotting your future course with this simple concept. I have some more information I would like to add about decision making. As I get older I realize that decisions that I made in my youth have gone on to affect my entire future life.

In an ideal world parents would prepare their children for the task of planning a successful life by instilling the value of good decision making and planning. For instance, I know of many people who are in their 40′s who have body piercings that they would not probably repeat at this point in their life.

I also have a couple of piercings that I don’t wear jewelry in any more. In my youth I actually had a friend who worked in a piercing studio and I would enjoy hanging out and watching the piercings and looking at the different gauges of jewelry and the sterile body piercing kits.

Bottom line the ability to make decisions is important and often times these decisions will go on to affect the rest of our lives. In spite of this all is not lost. Life experiences are how we learn and most things are not so bad that we can’t make changes and improvements down the road.

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.  ~Dr. Seuss 

I recently read Gain by Giving: How to Live A Good Life, and I was really impressed. This is what struck a chord with me:

Your value is based on who you are; the unique you who possesses unique talents. Only when we give our unique value away do we attain what is most valuable…A Good Life. The purpose of our unique value is not to hoard it, but to share it, and only in sharing it will we feel valued. Here are six simple things you can share that will help you live A Good Life:

1. Your thoughts, ideas, opinions
2. Your experience—show others what you can do for them
3. Your smile; your enthusiasm, your willingness
4. Your touch—give a pat on the back…shake a hand…show affection
5. Your time—a few minutes, an hour, or a day devoted to another
6. Your talent—share your creativity, your mechanical ability, your technical skills

Everyday, share what is unique about you. Kindly, generously, share your opinions and ideas. Be truthful, honest and willing. Smile and be optimistic about your gifts. Give of yourself so others can gain. Do it everyday, with every encounter. At the end of the day, reflect on what you did and what made you feel the best about yourself. That will be your clue about what you do and how you live tomorrow. Enriching another’s life with your unique gift is living A Good Life…however and wherever that manifests itself.

I know from my personal experience the people I value are those that aren’t afraid to share their opinion. Nothing is more annoying than people who are secretive, or afraid to have an original thought, or just feel they have to remain neutral at the cost of being their own person and having originality.

We are all unique, and sharing that uniqueness is a gift we can all give. So, thanks Dumb Little Man, I guess you’re not that dumb after all.

The first one is by my favorite vlogger Vic Franqui with a message to believe in yourself. The second is from Jim Kukral of The Daily Flip. His message is don’t be afraid. If you aren’t regularly reading and watching these blogs your should be.

 Vic Franqui

I’ve also been recently enjoying reading Terry Dean’s blog. He wrote this great post on Why Believing In Yourself Will Change Your Life. He also recommended reading The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About Itwhich I am doing, and learning a lot. The premise of the book is to create business systems that can run themselves instead of making your business just another job.

Just for fun I also discovered the best landing page ever. OK it’s actually a parody of a landing page. I discovered this page after reading a comment left by Rhys on Rich Minx.

So there you have it. Some entertaining and informative links reminding us to take action, believe in ourselves, and above all keep a sense of humor. Until next time, Emma

Learning to say no, can be one of the most powerful things we can do. Most of us are familiar with the feeling of having too many obligations and succumbing to the one that we are pressured to do by other people in our lives when we know it would benefit our lives more spending that time working on some other project.

Once we learn how to say no we can truly spend our time according to our plans. I think being able to say no is an acquired skill. But, you know you’ve made the right decision, when after that initial awkward guilt period, you feel a rush of relief and contentment with spending your time doing what you should really be doing.

I’ve noticed that lately I’ve been becoming a fan of Zen Habits, even reading the comments are beneficial. Today Leo interviewed Steven Covey and even asked him his opinion of GTD and The Secret, which Covey was able to tactfully answer without really answering. A skill reserved for a master of saying no.

When asked how Covey filters out noise in his life, he actually has a team to filter out the unwanted interruptions in his life. But he does offer this advice for the rest of us:

People who have no such team need to also make these larger decisions so that they can cheerfully say No to that which is urgent but not important. Learn to use technology in such a way as to filter out that which you really know is important to you personally and professionally.

1. How You Think Is Everything

2. Decide upon Your True Dreams and Goals

3. Take Action

4. Never Stop Learning

5. Be Persistent and Work Hard

6. Learn to Analyze Details

7. Focus Your Time and Money

8. Don’t Be Afraid To Innovate

9. Deal And Communicate With People Effectively

10. Be Honest And Dependable

I’ll let you decide how these traits apply to your life. But, these are traits successful people have in common. So, they are traits worth having if you strive to be successful. There is also power in writing things down. I think I’m going to take a trait that I want to work on. List how I’m accomplishing these things and post it somewhere visible, like the refrigerator.

Another inspiring post I stumbled upon, was just a question posed to readers. Leo Babauta, of Zen Habits recently quit his day job to be a full time blogger. So he asked his readers what are the best tips for working from home? As of this writing he had over 180 comments. One common tip that stood out to me. Is, a lot of people recommended showering and getting dressed before you start working just like a regular job.

I know I’m one of those guilty ones, who can start blogging in my pajamas, and realize it’s 2:00 and I haven’t showered yet. Being dressed and ready to go would make me feel more professional. Plus it would definitely make things like going to lunch and answering the door less awkward.

Finally last night I picked up a great tip from seeing Suze Orman on Oprah. The show was about a woman who would buy things she didn’t need and then not be able to pay her bills. Then, she would always hit up her hardworking sister, for loans.

The thing I like about Suze, is she finds the spiritual and psychological side, of why people do things with money. She told the sister  who was loaning the money, that she was actually doing her sister a disservice by loaning her the money. By not trusting her enough to make it on her own,

Also, when they showed up at the financially impaired sister’s house, it was a mess, dirty dishes, laundry, etc. Suze said, this was because people who have chaos inside, have chaos around them. It is true, successful people are usually clean and organized. So clean up.

One of the things I’ve decided to do when blogging and working on online projects. Is do my writing first, no email, stats, comments, or browsing, until I’ve knocked out at least one article. Then I can do other things. I would love to hear any tips you have, online or off. Emma

I have a picture of a water fowl with a plastic six pack loop cutting into it’s neck, burned into my mind. Therefore if I ever have those plastic loops I always cut them before throwing them away. I know the storm drain flows straight into the river, so I would never pour chemicals down it.

So for blog action day I need to start 2 environmentally sound habits, that I’m not already doing. I challenge you to do the same. These 2 habits are going to sound simple to you and yet if everybody did them it would have a huge impact on the environment. Plus for me these 2 simple habits will take some effort to make a part of my routine.

First thing, plastic water bottles. I love having a big bottle of Crystal Geyser with me at all times. We all know these plastic bottles are bad for the environment, even the recycled ones use up a lot of energy and resources. I have a PUR filter on my tap, so from now on I’m going to use filtered tap water in a Nalgene bottle instead. I know it sounds simple but this habit will take some effort for me to get used to doing it.

Habit 2 put some reusable grocery bags in my car, and reuse them. I know it sounds simple but this will take some effort on my part. I’m not only posting about blog action day. I’m taking 2 small but environmentally friendly actions. What are you doing?

He and I have reached an agreement. I’m not going to go into detail, because this is a public site, and I don’t want to reopen a matter that is hopefully closed.

But I just wanted to give an update to those who have been following along. Thanks for your support. The kind words were helpful.