Musings of a Restless Mind

Been awhile....

2007-09-19T10:23:00.000-04:00

since I posted last. I have been working on my other blog of late, and have been busy with that.

Got that up and running, and now I will be maintaining both blogs....so, lets have some fun

here is my other blog

http://www.daimonlures.com/bassreview

it is a fishing blog.....which is one of my passions......stop by and check it out.

The Lessons taught by a young boy

2007-08-17T09:33:00.000-04:00

My wife is an incredible person. She has been a stay-home mom for 13 years, and now that my kids are getting grown, she decided to go back to school and finish her degree. Her Associates course work is now done, and she is working on her BBA.

A few years ago, she agreed to volunteer with our local county sheriff, and serve as a Victim's Advocate. In this capacity, she helps families that have experienced death...car accidents, heart attacks. etc. She will get called to a place where the death occurred, and assist law enforcement in the managing of the families, etc. Contacting family members, transporting them to wherever they need to go at that point in time, etc.

She loves this work...she has a heart to serve people in thier time of need, and she is really good at it.

A few days ago, she was called to a nearby town, to help in a sudden death of a mom.

When she returned home a few hours later, she was visibly skaken, and upset, which is very unlike her. She explained that the mom had overdosed on medications, and her 7 year old son was in the apartment with her.

My wife explained that the boy was doing his best to remain in control, and trying to be brave througout this ordeal. He was picking up his toys, and helping the officers and the medical personnel to find her things, to get her ready to be moved.

MY wife was so touched by this little boy, and his circumstances, and his bravery and courage in the face of this adversity.

There are some lessons to be learned from this little boy. When we think that things cant get any worse in our lives, know that they can. Even so, you need to deal with what is in front of you with courage and bravery, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

I asked my wife if it were calls like that one which would make her resign.......she said "absolutely not!" She does indeed have a heart to serve.

JM

www.daimonlures.com

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2007-08-16T16:08:00.000-04:00

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The Law of Attraction

2007-08-15T17:41:00.000-04:00

Most folks are familiar, at least in principle, with the Law of Attraction. It simply states that you attract into your life what you think about, and what you project....that is a simplistic explanation, of course......if you want more detail, google it up, and read on.

Anyway, I came across an interesting blog post about the LOA......and the 1o things you CANNOT do with the Law of Attraction.

http://www.todayisthatday.com/blog/10-things-you-cant-do-with-the-law-of-attraction/

If you think back in your life, you will likely discover the same thing that I did......this law is infallible, and plays no favorites..ranks up there with the Law of Cause and Effect.

The Bible refers to these laws, too.......the Law of Attraction can be found in Proverbs.

" As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is"........if you think bad thoughts, you will attract bad situations in your life. Likewise, if your thoughts are good, you will attract positive situations and circumstances. It is a guarantee.

The Law of Cause and Effect is simply the concept of reaping and sowing, which is found everywhere in the Bible, and in your life, every day......if you sow corn, you will reap corn...you cannot reap corn from soybeans.

If you sow destruction, you reap destruction.........if you sow kindness, you reap kindness. You get the picture.

Brian Tracy has written some good material on these, and other laws of the universe. Do some research on these topics........what you discover may change your life!!

Till next time

I see YAHTZEES!!!!

2007-08-09T15:24:00.000-04:00

This is a story about enthusiasm, and a positive out look on life and circumstances....it is also a true story.

Most everybody is familiar with the family game, Yahtzee. It is a simple game that requires the players to achieve certain combinations of numbers using a set of dice........5 to be exact.

If you are not familiar with the game, or the rules, you can do some research on it here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahtzee

My kids love to play this game.....my daughter, who is 13, and my son, who is 11, will spend hours playing each other, and when they can convince their mom or dad, or if they are really good at persuasion, mom AND dad to play, it is BONUS time.

This past week, the kids were sitting at the dining room table playing each other....and it was a heated game. My daughter was winning, rather handily, and my son was playing his heart out, trying to catch up. He was literally trying to "will" the dice to produce the combinations that he needed to make up some ground on his sister. None of his exhortations had been effective, however, and he found himself on the verge of losing the 50 pts that a Yahtzee would bring him, and he needed the points to stay in the game.

He had made his first roll, and came up with a mixed bag of dice....really nothing he could work with........his second roll produced two of a kind, which is only three shy of what he needed.

With one roll left(and his final roll of the game), my daughter said to him, "There is no way that you can roll a three of a kind on this roll......you are gonna lose.....I don't see how you can do it."

My son, who is an eternal optimist, (at the age of 11).....looked at her, and said..."I can do it...I see YAHTZEES!!" This simple comment stopped me in my tracks......here is an 11 year old kid, with the odds stacked against him, and he is absolutely sure that he is going to succeed, ...not a doubt in his mind.

I think we can all take a lesson from that.........don't ever give up.......keep your goals in front of you, and stay positive....all of the time!!! Even if things don't look so good....stay focused, and stay positive!!!

Norman Vincent Peale would have been proud of my kid right then.......I know I was!

Hiroshima Day

2007-08-05T22:02:00.000-04:00

Monday, August 6 marks the 62 anniversary of the dropping of the A-bomb on the city of Hiroshima, which marked the beginning of the end of World War 2.

Since then, the debate has raged whether it was necessary, and in the best interest of mankind, to use the new technology in war.

Ultimately, I think that history has judged Harry Truman to be correct and right in his decision to use the bomb against Japan. Despite all of the hysteria from the anti-nuke types, and the "Kumbaya" crowd, the decision to drop the bomb, and thus shorten the war by months, maybe years, and save countless thousands of American and Japanese lives by negating the need to invade the Japanese Islands with ground troops, was a justified decision.

As time passes, and the greatest generation dies away, the debate will still continue......although it does not seem to matter anymore. The decision to drop on Hiroshima, and Nagasaki three days later, had their intended effect upon the Japanese military leaders, and hastened the end of a bloody and brutal war.

The other part of that is that we also discouraged the Soviets from invading Japanese territory from the north.....they were hungry for land conquest in Asia, as well as all of Eastern Europe at that time. Truman was not so dumb after all, in light of what we now know about Soviet intentions in 1945.

5 Reasons Why You Should Read History More Than News

2007-08-04T13:21:00.000-04:00

My passion for history has led to many other interests, and I am always looking for interesting nuggets and tidbits relating to history.

Here is a post from a blog that I read on occasion....it is some good insight, I think.

http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2007/07/29/5-reasons-why-you-should-read-history-more-than-news/

Eventually, what is news now WILL be history.....and as we see more news become history, it becomes more clear that the machine that reports the news has a serious impact on how it is received and percieved by the people who watch it every day.

I do not watch much news anymore.....I don't have the patience, nor the time.

Anyway........enjoy the article!

Book summaries at Summaries.com

2007-08-04T11:19:00.000-04:00

Recently, I ran across this website www.summaries.com

It is a cool website.......offers executive summaries of popular books on a variety of subjects...business, biographies, internet subjects, etc.

for a small fee, you can sign up for one of three different plans, and the summaries will be emailed to you in PDF format. I have tried it, and the summaries are good, concise, and easy to read and absorb.

There is no substitute for reading.....but this is a good idea for reading on airplanes, on your lunch hour, etc...

I am in no way affiliated with them....I simply think it is a good idea. Wish I would have thought of it!

Like to fish? visit us at www.daimonlures.com

"B"-type business ventures

2007-08-02T10:58:00.001-04:00

I have been studying the concept of "B" -type businesses, as defined by Robert Kiyosaki in his book "Cashflow Quadrant" Kiyosaki essentially maintains that there are four ways to make money in our country....he defines them as the following:

E: Employee
S: Self-employed individuals
B: "B" -type businesses
I: Investors

To further elaborate on this concept, lets take a look at each type, and discuss pros and cons.

E: Employee

Everyone is familiar with this quadrant......it is where most people start out, and where a significant number of people spend their entire working lives. The E quadrant is by far the most populated.......it is characterized by SECURITY and SAFETY. In this day and age of coporate downsizing and cost cutting, safety and security could very well be the biggest myth of all. The biggest downside to living in this quadrant is the fact that you really have little control over your life. You are expected to be somewhere at a certain time, and expected to work a certain amount of time each day, to achieve someone else's goals and dreams. Most of us don't think of it in those terms.......we have been trained and programmed to "go to work, and get paid".

S: Self-Employed.

Self-employment is the quadrant where many people dream to aspire to. They grow weary of being an "E", and dream of going into business for themselves, usually with the logic of "I KNOW I can do it better than my boss......so I am going to start a company, and compete with him", or some thought process similar to that. This is a noble cause.......I have started a company myself, although I used a bit different logic than the above example. That said, the results are the same as with the "E" quadrant......trading time for money. There is tremendous upside to owning your own business.........you are not tied to the timeclock..if you want to grab an extra 30 minutes of sleep in the morning, you can do that with little or no repercussion. If you want to take off in the middle of the day, and do lunch with your wife, you can do that...(one of my favorite practices, by the way).

The downside to being self-employed is that you really are never "off the clock". Even though there is no clock, if your business is to succeed, it is up to you to make it happen. No one to fall back on, to blame for failures, etc.

All things being equal, having been in both of these quadrants, I much prefer the "S", if I had to choose between these two alone.

Here is the drawback to the left side of the quadrant........no matter how you cut it, you are trading time for money...if you want more time, you will have less money....if you want more money, you will have less time.....when you quit putting in the time, the money dries up.

Now, lets take a look at the right side of the quadrant.

"I" INVESTOR

Kiyosaki, in his book Cashflow Quadrant defines an investor as someone who could lose $250,000 overnight, and not have it affect his lifestyle. Personally, I know a couple of people who would fall in this category, but not very many. There are many investors these days....I just don't hang with any. Because of that, I cannot elaborate too much on the pros and cons, as I don't have any experience with this quadrant.

"B" B-Type business owner

This is the quadrant where most people should be moving towards. The premise of this quadrant is that a person needs to build business SYSTEMS, that once built and executed, will provide the owner with PASSIVE income.........i.e. income that he does not need to trade his time for. Examples of this would be franchise owners that do not work IN their businesses....McDonalds comes to mind......a wide variety of businesses may be included here. The web provides a ton of opportunity for this type of business....affiliate programs, Google AdSense would be another example. The point? To build pipelines of income that require little or no attention once they are implemented and executed.

One such business owner is Steve Pavlina www.stevepavlina.com

I recently discovered his website, and am enjoying reading his articles, and his insight into doing business in the Information Age.

Things that fascinate me.........

2007-08-02T10:03:00.000-04:00

range across a wide spectrum of topics. I am sure that is directly related to the "restless mind" thing.......my wife sometimes suffers from what is known as "restless leg syndrome"......which causes the legs to be "not at ease"........it seems that my mind has the same affliction...never completely content with what is there.......always searching, and hungering for new input, new data, new boundaries to push, new territory to explore.

"RMS" (Restless Mind Syndrome) is what has led me to explore the incredible array of opportunity, and frontiers to expand on the World Wide Web.

All that being said..........I am indeed fascinated by many things

Fishing, baseball, airplanes, history, personal development subjects, God and Jesus Christ, business, technology advances, e-commerce, ethics, philosophy, politics, geography (I love maps).....you get the idea. :)

So........my "affliction" with RMS has served me well, and has also gotten in my way a few times, too.........will elaborate on that some more in the near future.

Well, here we go!

2007-08-02T09:40:00.001-04:00

I have been active on the internet in various capacities for about 10 years now. Been engaged in e-commerce for the last five of those years.

www.daimonlures.com

It has dawned on me in those five years that I am an entrepreneur at heart.........after spending many years working in "corporate America", and getting a taste of the corporate America "early retirement" plans that are everywhere these days.....you know the plans........."We are downsizing the department, and you are the biggest target in the department........so pack your stuff and go"............happened to me twice now.

Anyway..........doing the "e-commerce" thing has exposed me to many opportunities and trends.......blogging is probably the most fascinating thing to come along in years.....certainly, it is nothing new, as people have kept journals for centuries, but the cool thing about today's world, is that we can share them with the world, and at the same time, we can link to each other, and promote our businesses and other ventures in a way that was simply unthinkable even 15 years ago.

I have kept a running journal on my fishing lure website for quite some time:

www.daimonlures.com/BLOG.html and I will continue to maintain that, but I have decided to pursue another avenue for sharing my thoughts, interests and dreams that do not necessarily pertain to fishing. So, here I am!

The ultimate purpose of this blog will be to give a forum to my sometimes unconventional methods of thinking, and processing the world around me. I am an avid reader, and will include reviews of books that I read, products that I use, and anything else that strikes my "muse button"

Hang on.........it is gonna be a fun ride!