Reverb11 - 11: Your Favorite Moment

Reverb2011 - Day 11

What defines a great moment? Is it a time when you learn something that makes you look at life in a different light? Is it a decision you make that enables you to live the life you want? Is it a conversation that you've waited years to have? Think about how you would define "a great moment," and then see if you can find a moment in 2011 that fits your description. This is most likely your favorite moment of the year. Tell me about it.

I find it funny that I put this prompt right after the "life-changing event" prompt, because to me, a great moment is defined by how much it changes you for the better. But now that I think about it, that's not true at all.

In all honesty, I think a great moment is when several unrelated elements collide to create an unplanned, unreproducible, completely coincidental, perfectly timed and conveniently applicable event.  It's one of those things that makes you scream "what are the odds!?" while you laugh at how inconceivably serendipitous the moment was.

In the year 2011, I would have to say my favorite moment, or the greatest moment, was somewhere during the day when I found out that I was accepted into the BFA degree program at UTA. I say it was somewhere during that day, because I can't remember actually when it was. What defines this moment is the fact that I stopped, took in my surroundings, and said to myself

"I think this may very well be the best day of my entire life."

Now, people say that all the time, but up until that moment, I never really tried to put my finger on what would be considered the best day of my life. Here's why it was the best day of my entire life:

• We woke up on our own time (but early) and headed to the State Fair of Texas bright and early. We had their breakfast, walked around, ate the food, saw the stuff we wanted to see, and left before noon.
  
• On the way home, we stopped by school to pick up the letter congratulating me on being accepted into the BFA program. Much rejoicing did abound.
  
• To celebrate, we went to IHOP (my favorite restaurant) and I stuffed my face. How I was still hungry after all the Fair food I ate is beyond me.
  
• We headed to Grapevine to catch a flick at the AMC Fork & Screen. It was either Real Steel or Captain America. I'm not sure.
  
• Anyway, we got tickets way in advance, so we had time to visit the Sea Life Aquarium at Grapevine Mills. It was incredible.
  
• After the aquarium (and a bit of strolling and shopping), and after the movie, we headed home, plopped down on the bed and watched our recorded shows until we passed out.

So, somewhere in there, I stopped and realized that I was living what might possibly be the very best day of my entire life. And that, my friends, was my favorite moment of 2011.

Reverb 2011

So this happened. I got an email from a good friend of mine, about this thing called Reverb. It started last year by a few bloggers who deeply desire to live rich lives and chronicle those lives through meaningful, powerful, and purposeful blogs. One of them actually shifted from a public blog to a mailing list to create a more intimate and focused experience for her readers.

Anyway, last December, they started Reverb10, which was a simple yet moving idea. For each day of the month, you write a prompt for your audience to contemplate and possibly write about, either in the blog comments or their own outlets. You invite people to join in to create a community experience of introspection and meaningful reflection on both the past year and the year to come.

So without further adieu, here are my prompts for December of 2011. This weekend's been crazy, so I've already missed a few days. And today's going to be pretty busy too. I'll start tomorrow with number five.

5. Looking down the mountain
6. Peering down the road
7. Jack of more trades
8. Your One Big Thing
9. New faces
10. One life-changing event
11. Your favorite moment
12. The most meaningful conversation
13. Filling the hole in 2012
14. A tough decision
15. The motivation equation
16. Biggest sacrifice
17. Five minuets a day
18. Tear-jerker (it's not what you think)
19. Eye of the beholder
20. The brave and the bold
21. One bad day
22. Waste not
23. A penny saved is a penny forgotten
24. Guilty pleasures
25. The sit-outside-and-do-nothing days
26. Undiscovered country
27. Best quotes
28. Get out of jail free
29. Disrupting your routine
30. You are a painter
31. Focus on tomorrow

These are the titles of the posts - the actual prompts will describe each one more in-depth. Again, the idea is to just think about the questions posed. It's good to write down your answers, even if in a journal you doubt you'll ever actually read again. It would be awesome if you posted in the comments or your own blog so that some awesome and meaningful discussions can erupt.

Happy Reverbing!
-R.

Why Networking Always Beats Having A Website.

I wear I Am Second shirts and stuff, because my dad is this guy. I am always so surprised how many people choose to ask me about it when they see me wearing it. It's not surprising that they ask, but that they always say something like this:

Hey, what is that I Am Second thing? I keep seeing it all over the place but I have no idea what it is.

Whaaaat? In an age where "Google" is a verb and almost any information is one serp away, why would people wait to ask a flesh-and-blood human being instead of just search the internet? How hard is it to see "I Am Second" on a billboard and then google it next time you're at a computer?

---

When I started teaching guitar again, everyone told me to create a website, so I did. It's not all that attractive or functional, but that's all being taken care of soon. I was led to believe that having a website would be the best thing I could do for my newfound business - a one-stop shop for everything anyone would ever need to know about my classes.

The website has brought me zero students.

I put up some Craigslist ads, and that brought me my first slew of students, almost immediately. In the ads, I linked to my site, so it got some play, but not a whole lot.

Since then, all of my following students called me because they heard about me.

...from one of my other students.

It was then that I realized that WOM actually does work better than just about anything else. But I also learned why.

It's because people want to talk to people, not a website. Sure, all the information's there, but it's an entirely impersonal experience, no matter how interactive you make it. That's why Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites are dominating the internet - it's a place where you can interact with real people and have real conversations.

So if you have something you want to share, I think it's more effective to share it with a handful of people - and share it in person - than to put it up on the "about us" page on your website.

As an SEO, this concept has the potential to be game-changing.

This is all for now.
-R.

What Happens When You Find Your Calling

When I spoke this past September at the Rethinking Everything conference, I had the chance to be interviewed by Peter Kowalke of The Unschooler Experiment. We talked about my homeschooled upbringing and how I transitioned from living a meaningless, self-centered life to a lifestyle of pursuing humility and seeking opportunities to love.

And here I am, 2 months later.

I've made some progress in the book I'm writing (including 3 or 4 complete re-writes), I've plowed through a couple of the books written by one of the speakers we saw at the conference, and the fire hasn't gone out.

It's flickered, maybe even dwindled, but it hasn't gone out.

I helped my wife start her business teaching ASL and Deaf Culture, and I'm doing what I can to get my dad's voice-over business on its feet. I've built a fairly healthy-sized Twitter following and have formed relationships with a few online influencers who can help me push out any content I develop regarding any of these ventures.

At work, I went after a raise, and got a promotion instead.  And then I got my raise.  My midterm grades this semester are straight A's. I've even had time to set up an online art gallery through which I sell my art, as well as rent out space for other artists to sell their stuff too. We've formed some really awesome relationships since then, and made some pretty radical life changes in the process.

In a nutshell, life's great.

It's an interesting feeling to not burn out. Normally, something like the RE conference would get me all excited about life for a couple weeks, and then I would get depressed because the "warm-fuzzy" feeling had gone, leaving hollow pit of emptiness in my soul.

Okay, maybe it's not that bad, but you get the gist.

But that hasn't happened to me yet. I don't know if it will. In my interview with Peter, I mentioned that you find your calling in the way you love people. I compare it to a room full of artists, all painting the same subject. You're going to get different renditions of that subject, based on each artists's eye and style.

In the same way, when you love others, the way in which that love manifests itself through your actions is equal to your calling in life.

And I found my calling mere months before the conference. I started acting upon it, and it landed me a speaking gig. I spoke, and moved lives. And since the conference, I've been pouring all my marketable skills into the success of others - for free, on top of a full-time job and a full-time school schedule.

You'd think that would burn a guy out, but it's quite the opposite.

I think that's why I haven't hit my "funk" yet. I think it's because I've finally found what I was meant to do, and I'm doing it.

I just had to get that out.

This is all for now.
-R.

College and Life Management

Let's face it: some people are masters at keeping their lives organized and staying on top of things, and the rest of us...are not.

...Or are we?

After spending most of the day taking care of my advising for the Spring 2012 semester, it occurred to me that there are three levels of management when it comes to getting through life in a non-floundering way. I really do think that everyone is able to operate on at least one of these three levels. Furthermore, the level you're best at may hint at your ideal station in life.

The Degree Plan

Also known as the "Big Picture." Your degree plan plots out a course for you, as a student, from 0% to 100% complete. You start with nothing, and that one piece of paper outlines every single credit you'll need to earn between day-1 and your graduation day.

People who are able to manage the "Degree Plans" of their lives know where they are, where they want to go and how to get there. They are the dreamers. Their strength is keeping their eye on the prize and plotting the course to get there. Their weakness is in the particulars.

My degree plan says I have to take a Drawing Concepts class, but it doesn't say which one to take, from which professor or on what days. These people are generally the entrepreneurs.

The Class

Normally, the syllabus you receive at the beginning will outline how things will be scored and provide a basis for you to calculate your own grade as you progress through the semester. When you're in the middle of a semester, you're not worried about our degree plan - it's all about the classes you're taking now.

Each semester is a new 15-week juggling act, and the trick is creating a routine. This routine will shift as each new semester arrives, but the principle is the same. Those who are able to handle heavy workloads on account of their extreme juggling abilities are the planners.

Planners generally maintain their finances on a budget and keep a daily planner on their person (or in their phone) at all times. They are experts at developing micro-systems to keep several tasks running smoothly and efficiently. Their weakness is that they cannot operate without structure, and they are the most adverse to change. They are typically the managers in a company.

The Assignment

The third level of management is the Assignment level. Here, you'r only worried about the one thing you're working on at this moment. When I'm working on a painting, I'm not concerned with the animation project that's due in two days. Each class consists of multiple assignments, but they come at you in waves (usually), allowing you to pour all of your focus on them one at a time.

The people who operate on this level have laser-like focus, but they also have blinders on. These are the doers. Their strength is that if you give them one task to do, they'll do the heck out of it, and the result will be magnificent and glorious. Conversely, their downfall is that if you give them two tasks simultaneously, they'll get overwhelmed and shut down completely.

These people are the technicians within a company. By that I mean that they actually do the grunt work that the company ultimately gets paid for. Sadly, they are almost always the lowest on the pay scale. They're the ones in the sandwich shop who actually make the sandwiches. They're the ones on the sales floor who actually make the sales calls.

The Bottom Line

As I said, I truly believe that every single human being is naturally adept in at least one of these styles of management. I personally am awesome at the first and third, but fail miserably at the second. My wife, on the other hand, is a Planner all the way.

Don't think you're not a complete person if you aren't good at managing life on all three of these levels. The trick is to figure out which level you work best on, and own it. Learning how you manage the things in your life will bring you one step closer to learning who you were designed to be.

This is all for now.
-R.

How to Make 1-Minute Breakfast Muffins

We've recently started eating low-carb, after reading the astonishingly large amount of studies that show how many negative health conditions can be eliminated by removing carbs from one's diet.

Since any kind of cold-turkey dietary sacrifice is enough of a mental shock on its own, giving up half the things you eat can be a little mind-numbing during the first few months. And on any low-carb diet, breads and pastries are among the first to go.

So we found this recipe for a low-carb breakfast muffin, that's ridiculously easy to make and surprisingly filling. Here is my how-to video.

In case you can't see it, here's the recipe:

 - 1/4 Cup Flax Seed
 - 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
 - 2 tsp. Cinnamon
 - about 1 tsp. Butter
 - about 1 tsp. Sugar or Sweetener
 - 1 Egg

Mix dry ingredients in a medium-sized coffee mug. Mix in butter with a fork until it's a consistent...consistency(?). Mix in the egg. Microwave for one minute. Garnish with the topping of your choice.

Some of my YouTube viewers have already taken the recipe into their own hands and started making substitutions that better suit their diets, but the concept remains the same. It's quick, it's portable, and it's a single-serving recipe that's good for on-the-go mornings or midnight snacks.


Bon Appétit!
-R.

Staying Focused

Hello again.

I haven't blogged since April. If I actually had a following, that'd be a problem. I've got so many new ideas and things I've learned, I've got enough to blog about for a good while now. I guess I just needed to take some time off to figure some things out.

But here we are.

I've learned that we as human beings are capable of doing incredible things, if we just focus our energy into making those things actually happen. In the same way, lack of focus leads to missed opportunities, mistakes, lapses in discernment, and aimless wandering.

It's not enough to just set a goal; you must constantly remind yourself of what that goal is and why it's so important. If your goal is not worth daily re-discipline, it's not worth meeting in the first place.

We normally manage to put away a few hundred a month for savings, but when I checked the totals for October, I found that the best possible scenario (other than me getting a raise or the apartment complex calling us and telling us we just don't have to pay rent anymore) involves stashing away upwards of $2,500 in the month of October alone.

I really want this to happen.

But again, it's not going to happen if I don't focus on this outcome each and every day. So, I used the calculator app on my phone to total up the maximum possible amount of savings we could possibly squeeze out of October, and I took a screenshot of that total.

Now, my lock screen is that screenshot. Every time I use my phone, I see that number in large numerals spread across my screen.

I use my phone a lot.

We'll see how it goes. Also, I just found out that my wife has a secret cash stash. So that will help.

This is all for now.

-R.

PS: It's good to be back.

Laid to Rest

My most recent short film runs just over 3 minutes, and is more of an exercise in artistic style than an actual narrative film.  I originally posted it as an unlisted video on YouTube, but was recently told by a very prominent filmmaker that I should let it go public to help get my work out there.  So here it is.

Comments welcome, as always.  I think this summer I might add more to this.

This is all for now.
-R.

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Nothing Left Unsaid

I went through a Ronnie Day phase which lasted just long enough for me to ensure that I would never forget the lyrics to any of his songs.  Which are all contained in his one and only album to date.  One of my assignments for Digital Design was to create an album cover in Illustrator, so I created what I imagined his follow-up album to be:

But, as always, my art is always a reflection of the life stage I'm at when I create it.  We started watching a show called "V," in which aliens visit earth and start this peaceful campaign to merge both species and culture for the betterment of both.  But actually they're here to destroy us, as they always are.  It's well written, because within the first two episodes, you've got an array of characters, each with their own mini-stories and their own generic conflicts:

• The FBI agent who learns the truth about the aliens' diabolical plot while her son decides to join ranks with them.
• The priest who struggles to help his congregation keep the faith while he inwardly questions the existence of God.
• The alien rebel who sets out to fight the aliens off, while keeping it from his human fiancée and putting her in danger.
• The journalist, whom the aliens put in the sticky situation of deciding whether to do his job or elevate his career.

The list goes on.  The reason this is good writing is because they have made an earnest (and pretty successful) effort to ensure that every audience member will be able to relate to at least one of their characters.  Parents who want to protect their children, career-driven professionals, religious practitioners, renegade underdogs, earth-hating reptiles, etc.

The reason we are captivated by this kind of storytelling is because each of us carries within us our own collection of characters.  People call them masks, hats, alter egos...I call them reflections.  My artist friends see my creative self, my intellectual friends see my brainy self, and my co-workers see my lazy self.  I mean, my awesome driven efficient go-getter self.

I've been learning some simple yet profound tidbits of wisdom from the oddest places lately.  My most recent life lesson has been that every new thing learned is an old excuse lost.  But that will probably become it's own article.  The other thing I'm learning is to live a life where nothing is left unsaid.  It is instinctive to show different faces to different people, depending on the nature of your relationship to them.

One of my closest intellectual friends said to me this weekend, "I wish I had a better eye for the artistic beauty of things."  The thought occurred to me right then and there that in the past 25 years, I can't remember the last time I had spoken to him about the beauty I see in the world - about the small aesthetic experiences that make life beautiful.  Maybe if I had switched gears and shown him that side of me, he would  be more in tune with the aesthetic beauty of every day life.

What I'm getting at is that if you only ever talk cars with your car friends and music with your music friends and movies with your movie friends, you are choosing to pass up an incredible opportunity to see people grow in new directions because of you.  Few things are more sobering than the stark realization that most of your relationships are one-dimensional.

Say things you wouldn't normally say to people you wouldn't normally say them to.  Show all of you to all of them.  Let nothing go unsaid, and see what happens to the way you interface with the world.  Take this as an invitation, a challenge, an answer, or a tiny quote printed on the bottom half of today's page in that desk calendar that's only really good for tearing out the pages and folding them into paper airplanes.  However you take this, expect me to start living like this.  Check back to see how it goes, because I really have no idea what to expect.

This is all for now,
-R.

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Apps That Don't Suck

When I bought my first iPhone, I pretty much spent every waking moment surfing the App Store, downloading every app that may come in handy one day.  After filling about a dozen pages with pointless games, oddly specific utilities, addictive social networking tools and other tidbits of randomness that I now look back on and wonder why anyone would actually take time out of their lives to write, I realized that I could live without most of them.  Okay, all of them.

Every now and then, I still do pop out onto the monstrous cash cow that is the Apple App Store, just to see if there's anything that may make my life a little more entertaining and/or easier to manage.  Everyone already knows about the heavy hitters like Facebook, Shazam, Pandora, WootWatch, and all those stupid games that get way more attention than they deserve, like that one with the slingshot and the birds.  ...I forget the name.

But then there are those rare finds that don't ever make it to the front page - diamonds in the rough that would be more popular than Plants Vs. Zombies if people just knew they existed.

App Shopper

When I first got the phone, I resolved never to pay for an app, because I knew that otherwise I would quickly have an apple-shaped hole in my pocket the size of the grand canyon.  My saving grace is that occasionally the paid apps go free for holidays or promotional events.  When they do, the App Shopper is there to scoop them up and put them in a convenient App Store-style list for you to download.  A must-have for anyone who doesn't like paying for apps.

HeyTell

It's like talking on the phone without calling anyone.  It's like texting, but you use your voice instead of displayed text.  It's like a walkie-talkie, but...not.  Basically, you record a short voice message and HeyTell wisps it away to the recipient of your choosing, and they in turn can send you a voice message in response.  It's like leaving a voicemail without having to call them first.  It also saves conversations so that you can play them back.  I'm not sure what that's useful for, but it's still pretty groovy.

VoiceBreif

We've all seen it in one form or another: the "home of tomorrow," showcasing an all-encompassing information center that reads your feeds while you get ready for the day.  News, stocks, weather, social media updates, traffic, sports scores, the whole nine.  VoiceBreif is definitely a step in that direction.  It's not all the way there, but it definitely makes my mornings that much better.  Definitely.

The Dark Nebula Series

Rarely do I find a game in the App Store that entertains me for more than a few hours.  By now, it's almost a reflex to delete a newly downloaded game after a 5-minute test drive.  With Dark Nebula, however, I couldn't stop playing, and I eagerly await the third episode.  I think I might punch a baby if I find out they've stopped making them.

Flashlight

Ever since the iPhone 4 came out with the LED flash, dozens of apps poured onto the scene, designed solely to turn the phone into a flashlight.  Most of them have splash screens or use the camera API, and take several seconds to actually turn on the light.  That may sound like a short period of time, but there are several situations in which one might need a flashlight, where immediacy is paramount.  This app is as close to instant light as I can find.

Tilt to Live

The Tilt to Live premise is brilliantly simple: the white arrow is controlled by tilting the device; red dots continuously pop up and float toward the arrow.  If the arrow makes contact with a dot, and the game is over.  Power-ups give you different dot-destroying abilities, and before you know it, you've been sitting on the toilet for over an hour trying to beat your 3-million high score and your legs are asleep.  Great soundtrack, too.

CrazyAlarm

Of all the alarm clock apps on the market, this one does the best at waking you up.  Mostly because the sounds are intentionally obnoxious and you have to shake your phone over 100 times to turn off the alarm.  It's very hard to not be wide awake after repeatedly hearing Robin Williams scream "Goooood morning Vietnam!" while you shake your phone like a zombified psychopath.  Plus, it's free.

All you iPhone users out there should check these out.  And if you have any apps that you just can't live without, share the wealth and post 'em in a comment.

This is all for now.

-R.

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