Moving forward inspite of it all

Saturday, January 29th 2011. Cold, gray, wintery. Piles of snow everywhere and more on the way. Spending days snow blowing, shoveling, wrapped up, braving the elements. Also working on a Medicaid application - very tedious and time consuming. Buried in stacks of folders and documents. Finally, today, doing battle with a Blackberry that does not connect to the local server and can not get or send emails. Life is a struggle sometimes.

Here's the good news. No the great news! God knows us intimately and completely. Knows how we struggle to live and move and be. Knows our earthly troubles and tribulations. God faced these and overcame these and did it for us. So, if Jesus Christ completed this for me. Came, modeled life for us, faced trials, temptations and troubles and beat it all. I can live freer, more confidently, more boldly in the arms of Almighty God - who loves us with an undying, irresistible love. Not that I can live rightly by following Jesus, but I can live faithfully by following Jesus and this is what God desires. So, Spring is coming, the earth is blanketed (at least here in Lancaster) with frozen moisture that will nourish God's earth and bring forth life!

I tarry forward feeling God's love and smile. Have an awesome week!

Resources out the wazoo

If you ever need a cheap dose of encouragement, check out the phenomenal library of free empowering podcasts on iTunes. Also, look at the iTunes U side of this engine for hundreds of universities that offer audio and video content from top notch speakers and motivators! Just yesterday, I did a search on iTunes for leadership, opened the iTunesU list and clicked on the popularity button. This then sorted the offerings according to their popularity. I pulled up the 4th one in the list and watched General Colin Powell deliver a short vignette on building economic capacity. Very powerful, uplifting and inspiring. This was just a 16 minute piece of the hours of free content offered.

You could build an entire course or workshop around some of this freely offered knowledge.

Today, the world of information is at your finger tips and key strokes. What are you waiting for? Engage it, synthesize it, connect with it in new ways and bless others through your insights.

Slowing, Focusing, Paying Attention

After 77 hours of intensive coach training, having been coached for a number of months, and reading extensively in the field of coaching, you'd think I would be slowing down, focusing more and paying attention. That is what I keep practicing and trying to do. But, every now and then, I start to speed up, get in a hurry, skim the reading, skip the details and miss the really really obvious.

The other day, I had to take a document to AAA to be notarized. Here's what happened. I must have been in a hurry in filling out the form to be notarized and took the date March 12, 2007 and entered, March 7, 2007. Well, I got it notarized, sent it off and thought I was done with this project. To my dismay, a few days later, I received a note saying that I should have had March 12, 2007 on the notarized document, so I had to do it over. My initial thought was, "give me a break. Just change the date and make it right." But then I realized, it was my problem, not theirs. I re-did the form correctly, got it notarized again and sent it off.

What did I learn? I still have to be mindful in my daily actions, focus intently on each project in front of me and perform with excellence in a moment to moment time frame. Rushing off to the next project with a trail of shabby performance behind is not good stewardship or efficient use of time. Maybe this is helpful for you!

May you breathe deep the breath of God and be intensely IN the present moment! It's a wonderful present that God is giving you right now! Extravagant Blessings! Charlie