My Plate at the Moment.

Wow. Sometimes, when you grab life by the horns, it kicks you in the nut sack and says "don't you touch my freaking horns."

There is so much on my mental plate right now. I recently wrote about how you can tell what's important to you by what you actually physically do with the 24 hours you're given each day. There are so many things that I either want to do, or am about to do, but I haven't done any of them yet. It's like that point on a roller coaster right at the top of that first giant hill, when you begin to feel gravity's pull, but you haven't actually started to plummet downhill yet.

• I'm currently co-writing the pilot to a mini-series that I think will make an impression on many people. I plan to actually put pen to paper for the first time tonight.
   
• I've been commissioned to create an infographic as a freelance job. I plan to begin moving the needle on that tonight as well.
   
• I've also been commissioned to design a logo for a newly opened online store for baby things.
   
• Yet another entrepreneur friend has asked me to be his go-to guy for all creative projects taken on by his up-and-coming marketing agency. We're still talking numbers.
   
• I've been speaking with a friend about adding illustrations to the posts on his hilariously clever tumblr page.
   
• I have received a wealth of confirmation that my daily drawings could turn into something big. They've made it to the front page of Reddit on more than one occasion. I'm currently working on figuring out how to make them make me money.
   
• I'm helping more than a few of my friends and family figure out how to see their own entrepreneurial dreams come to fruition.
   
• I'm still planning on painting a series of paintings for my nephew. Just because.

I think that's it. There's probably more. But I think that's it.

In order to handle doing all of these things, though, I've had to narrow my focus. I've made some changes in how I spend my time and where I pour my interest, so make room time-wise and brain-wise for the things I want to include in my life.

I'm taking a break from social media right now, and I won't be doing any more daily drawings until I can cater them towards whatever plan I come up with to monetize them. As I continue to make progress in each of these ventures, I'll likely post them here.

I find that I normally only blog when I learn something, and I expect to learn a lot once all of these things jump from my head to my hands and start happening.

This is all for now,

-R.

TIL...

It's 7:12 and I've been working from home for about an hour.

I woke up at 6 this morning to work, because I told a co-worker yesterday that I had hit a landmark on a project, that I actually hadn't hit. But it needs to be presentable by 10 today for a meeting, so I got up early to finish it up.

I've been able to force myself to wake up at the butt crack of dawn in the past, if what I was waking up for was extremely important - like a mission trip out of the country, or my high school girlfriend's mom's legendary Saturday morning garage sale of 2005.

...or, y'know, something like finishing up a project that I said was already finished.

What I'm getting at is that I thought I had trouble waking up early in the mornings, but I guess the root of the problem is that I don't put enough importance on the things I would wake up for.

I've been saying I need to cram a meditation, workout, or creative endeavor into my pre-work day, which means waking up butt early to do it. But I guess those three things just aren't as important to me as doing overdue design work.




But seeing how easy it is for me to wake up early for a specific task gives me hope that if I can figure out a way to convince myself that meditation is more important, I might actually be able to wake up early every morning to do it.

I'm batman

Yep, I made a batman costume out of long underwear and wore it to work.

 

Ben Franklin Was Smart

This story from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin illustrates the counterintuitive concept that asking people for help brings them closer to you.

A new member of the General Assembly opposed Franklin's appointment to the prestigious and lucrative clerk position. Franklin explains how he win this person over:

I did not, however, aim at gaining his favor by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some time, took this other method. Having heard that he had in his library a certain very scarce and curious book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of pursuing that book, and requesting he would do me the favor of lending it to me for a few days.

He sent it immediately, and I'd return'd it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favor. When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death.

According to Franklin, this illustrated an old maxim: "He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged." There are two reasons for this:

First, once a person has helped you, he's more likely to help you again because refusing would mean he made a mistake in the first place. Assuming there were no bad consequences the first time, not continuing to help is to admit bad judgment.

Second, the prior interaction may have led to a better relationship. Therefore, doing something for you again has become natural. You, of course, should reciprocate, and an upward-spiraling, mutually enchanting bond can ensue.

So the thinking that people resent those who ask for favors may be wrong. Who are we to argue with Benjamin Franklin, anyway?

An excerpt from Guy Kawasaki's Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions

Why I'm Not Rayron

Today I was talking to a friend of mine about how I went from being Rayron to the man I am today.

As I went over everything that happened to bring me from then to now, I came across a realization:

I owe all of my personal improvements in the last six years to the existence of Glennda Bayon in my life.

This isn't a mushy "she makes me better and that's why I love her" thing, because that idea really is kind of selfish, I think.

It's more about stakes.

As a director, one of the most powerful tools we use to evoke genuinely meaningful performances from our actors is to raise the stakes. We take the situation that the characters presently face, and increase either their reward for success or their penalty for failure. Or both.

For example, I had an actress play the character of a lonely woman who spends 5 minutes pleading with her ex-husband to come back to her. She didn't seem desperate enough, so I told her that her character was pregnant. Out of the blue, she hit the degree of emotion that I was looking for. None of the lines hinted at a pregnancy, and she didn't reference it with her body language - it was just a seed that I planted in her head, and it stayed there - but it changed everything she did.

That's what happened when I met Glennda. Sure, I was growing up slowly and aimlessly, but I had no real reason to improve, other than the fact that I hated who I was. No one would suffer if I didn't mature, and there was no real reward waiting for me on the other side of adulthood.

But then, I met her. And we connected.
And we knew that we would spend our lives together.

All of a sudden, the stakes were raised. If I didn't grow and figure out my life, her future would suffer. But if I took the reins and learned how to be the man I needed to be, her life would improve too.

So again, the mere existence of Glennda in my life made me try that much harder to get from there to here, because she raised the stakes. I suddenly had something to lose. I had a lot to gain.

I had a reason to grow up.

And to this day, that's still the only reason I do anything to improve who I am. In that conversation with my friend, I made the comment:

"If I had never met my wife, the person standing in front of you would be an empty relic of who Rayron once was, hollow and only slightly less clueless."

This is all for now
-R.

The Idiot's Guide to Liking Your Life

The secret to liking your life, I've discovered, is to change it.

Alot.

It's not about getting rid of bad habits or finding new hobbies. It's not about reinventing yourself or creating the "new you." I find that those ideologies tend to focus on becoming who you wish you were instead of cultivating who you were born to be.

No, this is more about realizing that new things are exciting. That's because discovery is exciting. Creating things is exciting. Inventing things is exciting. Pondering awesome ideas is exciting, and it spurs you to action, which is exciting. Heck, research can be exciting if it's something you're super interested in.

And the things that they all have in common is change.

Growth is life, and growth is change. Therefore change is life, and thus stagnancy is lack of life.

...so if you're not living a life-filled life, what on earth are you doing?

...I think that's a fairly safe line of reasoning. Simply put, if you want to be excited about your life, change something in it. It really doesn't matter what. Start a diet. Keep track of your diet. Did it work? Did you like it? If not, try something else. Switch from a PC to a Mac or vice versa. Rearrange your living room. Buy a betta fish and see how long you can keep it alive. Plant a venus fly trap. Force yourself to wake up at 5:30 AM every day for a week.

The list goes on ad infinitum. Just change something, and you'll find that you'll become excited about that something. You'll come home from work or school or whatever you do during the day, thinking about that something. You might even obsess with your something.

And then, one day, it will either become a part of your life and you'll be glad you made that change, or you'll go back to the way things were.

Either way, when that day comes, change something else.

This is, I find, the best way to stay excited about life and be proactive in your growth as a human being. And let's face it: who doesn't want those two things?

This is all for now.
-R.

A New Take On An Old Tradition

So it's Day 1 of February, 2012. That means I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to write this for the past 31 days. But thanks to my February resolution, I have time. I've made time.

I've always followed the tradition of pledging to do something different with my life every New Years, even if it's a small change. I've never been able to keep New Years resolutions past a couple weeks, so I've spent the past few years trying to figure out ways around that.

My challenge to myself this year was to read every single day before I went to bed. I've got way too many books on my "to-read" list to not do this. But I've also been wanting to get to a point where I'm okay with waking up early, to avoid the all-too-common scenario of rushing through my morning routine and arriving late to wherever I'm scheduled to be, simply because I just had to have that extra 5 (read: 25) minutes of sleep.

A buddy of mine said:

"I have no problem waking up early; it's the getting-out-of-bed part that kills me."

This affected me in a profound way. He was right - I can wake up easy peasy. But it's resisting the temptation to go back to sleep that gets me every time. So my train of thought went something like this:

"I should resolve to get out of bed as soon as I wake up every morning. I'll set my alarm for the last possible second I could wake up, but if I wake up at 5:30, I get up at 5:30."

"But I already have a resolution: read every night before I go to bed."

"What if I did both? No, because then every time I heard something cool, I'd add it to the list, and before I knew it, I'd have 12 resolutions to keep up with."

...And then it hit me. It's much easier to keep something going for 30 days than it is for 365 days. So I decided to have a new resolution each month this year. The idea is that if I can read every day for all of January, then by February it will have become part of my routine (and it has).

So when February rolls around (and it has), I will already be in the habit of fulfilling my January resolution, so I can start to focus solely on my February resolution (and I have).

But the trick, as I've said before, is not to plan everything out beforehand. This is where I would normally continue by saying "...and here is a list of all of my resolutions for the year of 2012."

...But I didn't make a list. I don't plan to. In January, I knew what my February resolution would be. Now, I know what my March and April resolutions are: to learn how to utilize my "inner nag" to get things done, and to act on it when I say "I need to ______." (e.g. sending that email NOW instead of LATER, or setting a solid date to hang out instead of saying "we need to hang out soon")

I'm not sure which will come first, but by May 1, I will have done each of them for at least a month.

The reason I'm not planning this out is because I am constantly changing and my world is always evolving. Come August, I may not be where I thought I would be. I may have different needs in the monthly resolutions department.

So there you have it. Instead of a new resolution every 365 days, I'm living by a code of new resolutions every 30 (or 31...or 28...or 29) days. And this month's resolution is going to annoy the hell out of me. In a good way.

This is all for now,
-R.

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.