Here's the list

My family has been bugging me lately to provide them with a list of things I would like to have for Christmas. The very request has a lot to do with why I am labeled Scrooge.   I hate to make out a list?  I thought it was supposed to be about the giving and not the getting.   My list could be very simple.   "Just get me something that comes from your heart" would be a very easy answer.

However, since Christmas is next week I thought I had better do what the family is asking.  So here is my list:

• A recliner to sleep in while I watch the Cardinals win the world series next year.  You know it's going to happen and I need a recliner.   I currently have to sleep on a couch that is too short for me to watch the tv from.
• While we are talking about the Cardinals, I need someone to plan a trip to St Louis next summer to see the Cardinals play Boston and the Yankees.  Both teams are coming to St Louis in 2014.   I NEED to go and someone else should plan the trip (tickets, hotel, etc)
• We need another family vacation like the one we had last summer.  It was great and doing that again would be a great present.
• I NEED a Browning T-Bolt .22.   I don't hunt much but I am 55 years old and didn't really get to enjoy a Corvette for a mid-life crisis.   A beautiful .22 to give to my grandson some day shouldn't be too much to ask for.
• I want headphones for my iPod, iPhone, iPad (yes, I have all 3).   I want some red ones and I want them to be those really cool old fashion kind that I see the young people wearing these days.  They NEED to have great sound.  No Bose.  Too expensive.
• I want to go to Oshkosh to the airshow next summer.  Who wants to go with me?
• I want someone to help me clean out my closet of all the old shirts, slacks and ties.   Let's take some of them to the thrift store.   But wouldn't it be really neat to cut some of them up and make a quilt out of them and then take the quilt to someone who needs it.  
• Since I gave all my clothes away, someone had better take me shopping so I can buy some new clothes.
• I NEED a picture of my grandchildren to display in my office.
• I need someone to help me clean up and organize my garage and storage building and home office.  They are a mess but they always have been.  So no hurry on this one.
• I want one of these:
  
• Or one of these:
• 
• Or one of these:
  

 

 

I am really going now.   This should get the family started but I am sure I will add more to the list very soon.   My birthday is in February.   They will need a list for that event also.

Pull yourself up and do something

We all know that the holidays can be a very depressing time for some people.   There are many reasons that may be but that is not the purpose of this post.   I am not talking about clinical depression.   I am talking about the winter time “blues.” Dale Partridge recently blogged about steps to pull yourself out of those “blues”.

Here are the steps he suggest:

·         Serve someone who needs you.

·         Be nice to yourself

·         Drink a beer, but not 7

·         Stop working so freaking hard

·         Change your scenery, literally

·         Then repeat as many time as necessary 2 Timothy 1:7 – “I’ve not been given a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of sound mind”

So get up out of that recliner where you are feeling sorry for yourself and go ring a bell for the Salvation Army or something similar.

Don’t forget, it’s Christmas time.  

Life is great.

Here is a picture of my mom and sister, Brenda.   Brenda became a grandmother today.

There is nothing like the sleep of a satisfied man

There needs to be a good reason you do what you do.   I have been thinking about this a lot lately.   2013 has been quite a year for me but that is another story for later.   I have decided that 2014 is going to be one of the best years of my life.  I HAVE DECIDED.

I recently read an article on the growingleaders.com web site about helping young people just starting out find the right (career) ladder to climb.   You should read the article and you definitely need to watch the Stephen Kellogg Ted video that is referenced in the article.  As a matter of fact, I don’t really care if you read the article, just watch the video. 

The second best quote from the article is this “It’s better to be at the bottom of a ladder you want to climb, than the top of a ladder you don’t.”   As a leader (and hopefully a mentor to some) it is my job to help others make sure they are on the right ladder.  That’s not always easy.   My own self-interest sometimes gets in the way.   Hopefully, at the end of my career (life) I will be able to look back on those that I have crossed paths with and be able to say that I helped in some small way. 

Here is a summary from the article on how to choose your ladder:

When passion, need, strength and opportunity all meet – you are on a good ladder:

1.       Passion – the work represents something you love doing.

2.       Need – the work you do answers a “cry” and solves a problem.

3.       Strength – the work you do involves you using your primary strength.

4.       Opportunity – the work you do isn’t forced but is a prospect in front of you.

Is there going to be a train wreck

In my quest to gain knowledge about the past and present (don’t forget I am an apprentice futurist) I came across this interesting article from Business Insider from last July written by Henry Blodget.   “If you’re wondering what’s wrong with America, look at these four charts” is the title of the article. 

Let me summarize:

Unemployment is above 7%

Growth is weak.

Most consumers are strapped.

Meanwhile, the stock market is hitting record highs, and corporations are printing money.

Blodgot uses four charts to prove his point. 

Chart one illustrates the fact that corporate profits and profit margins are at an all-time high.

Chart two shows wages are going the other direction and are at an all-time low as a percent of the economy.

Chart three is a graph of jobs from the US Department of labor showing that fewer Americans are employed than at any time in the past three decades.

Chart four, also from the US Department of Labor, shows that labor’s share of the national income is at an all-time low.

Blodgot suggest that it is time to rethink our current business philosophy.  In short, he says

“..the religion of "maximizing profits" that has developed in America over the past 30 years has created a business culture in which executives dance to the tune of short-term traders and quarterly financial reports, instead of investing aggressively on behalf of employees, customers, and long-term owners.”

I am sure that Mr. Blodgot’s facts are correct but I am not sure that they are fully in context.  However, one can’t be encouraged with the direction these important indicators show our country is headed.  My job, as a futurist, is to offer some thoughts on the subject.   The question is, will the trends indicated in these four charts continue into the future or will some event happen that will alter the trend of one or more of the charts?   Another question for a futurist to consider is where will it all end if nothing changes?  

ummmmmmm! I will get back to you on that.

It's a bad habit

It has been a few days since I have posted.   Our weather has been bad here in the Ozarks.  Snow and cold temperature seems to have a negative effect on my mental juices.   I just want to curl up on the couch under a blanket and sleep.  

Now I don’t want you to think that the winter weather has effected (or is it affected) my writing.   I am only a few posts into this new blogging thing.   I have a lot of different subjects that I want to write about.   I have so many subjects I have been struggling to decide which should be first.

Today I read an article from the Addicted2Success web site about the one bad habit that can de-rail your chances of success.   You would never guess what the one bad habit is. It’s indecisiveness.  You can read the article by clicking here.  

“Unsuccessful people aren’t wrong all the time, but they share one common trait that is obvious to those who look closely. They are very poor decision makers.”

As you know, I am new to being a futurist.   As a futurist, I need to be thinking about 2014 and beyond.   This, of course, leads to New Year resolutions.   One of my resolutions is to be more decisive.  I want to be quicker and better at decision making.   

This idea should apply to both my personal and business life.  At least I think so.  I will have to think about that.   Maybe decide later.

The Man in the Arena

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

From a speech given by former president Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne in Paris on April 23, 1910. The speech is titled Citizenship in a Republic.