Towards or Away

You are sitting on a boat in the middle of an ocean.

You are moving.

You might not feel it – but you are moving. You are drifting.

Drifting is a terrible way to go anywhere, being intentional is much better and more fulfilling.

There are two ends of a spectrum people use when setting out into the vast ocean of life:
- drift – “God will take me there!!!”
- rowing – row the sailboat as fast and as hard as you can

Neither of those are good.

The best option is to sail the sailboat, where there is a role to play, but also the understanding that you do not create or control the wind.

With that …

there are two fundamental directions one can go:

Towards & Away

They look very similar, the boat is primarily moving forward, but the two directions cause dramatically different decisions.

You can sail towards an island, country, port, or just out to sea.

- vs -

You sailing away from your past, a harbor you want to leave, enemies …

And

You could be doing both at the same time, but what drives your decisions overall is always towards or away .

Sometimes we find ourselves in a situation where we must flee from the instance, event, people, circumstances, etc.

That is just life.

However,

There is a major difference between moving away from the fire and moving away from every piece of wood because it could be a flame

or never stopping your car by avoiding all red lights, stop signs, and traffic. You can get somewhere, but you waste a lot by running away all the time from something that needs not be avoided that aggressively.

The more productive way to live your life [or run a business] is to move towards something.

Solving a major problem
Learning a new skill
Helping a group to be able to feed themselves
Making the society better for success
Acquiring an item
Earning an award

All visions people have for themselves, desires that lead to action.

In the business world it is the difference between basing major decisions on a P&L (Profit & Loss Statement from the past month/quarter/week) or basing your major decisions on the budget.

A budget is your stated goals – what you are moving towards. A P&L, what happened in the past, is important
especially when developing a budget, or plan, but the first question needs to be “where are we going & why?” not “what has happened?”

Ask yourself ….

Do I mostly make decisions based on where I want to go or where I want to get away from?

Where do you want to go now?

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Trust & Direction -or- Shooting F*B

Recently Facebook changed their privacy policy significantly, beyond that, they showed the future they are attempting to build – or a part of their soul.

I must go back to why I started using Facebook instead of Vox.com.

Two primary reasons I liked Vox.com:

1. privacy settings – most of my posts were set for “only me & my wife”. My extended family was on Vox.com & we shared with only those we wanted.

2. simplicity – Vox.com was easy enough that all my family could handle it, especially the privacy and security options.

Eventually I set up a Facebook account, but did not use it much. Then, one day, the option to do friend groups/lists on Facebook & post stuff only for specific people or lists appeared.

I was thrilled.

I started pushing my friends and family to set up Facebook Accounts; it was simple & secure enough and focused on sharing with small groups of friends. Friend Lists were a little difficult to teach people to use, but over time many people got it.

Issues Today

I have two fundamental issues with Facebook:

1. I no longer trust them with my friends & family
2. I do not like the direction they want to go

There are many potential business models for a company like Facebook. Wanting to push everyone to share more and more is understandable.

In fact, sharing has great value, both to the company and the individuals.

Yet, that was not the deal I signed up for.

It would be similar to my favorite Pizza Place suddenly turning into an Italian Pasta Place. The food might be similar …. it might have a similar atmosphere, but the product that I went there for fundamentally changed.

BUT, there is that new “easy” security System!!!!

Yes, they set up this simple page.

My short view of the *new* privacy settings page is – it was a needed step, but does not really hit the two issues I have & is more complicated than they said it would be. You do not “one click” to turn off the apps or the instant personalization & you should. You also should go through lots of customization options.

My Plan

I cannot bring myself to totally leave Facebook at this moment.

If not for any other reason, when the great Facebook replacement(s) come along, I want to be able to help bring my friends and family over. It is also my only contact point to many people today & I believe in reaching people where they want to be reached.

Thus, my plan is:

1. focusing on JonathanNation.com — de-emphasising facebook

2. stopping actively using F*B – deleting from book marks I auto open each day – and removing the icon from my home screen on my phone & developing a system to auto shove posts of mine into facebook

3. show people ways to achieve their goals without using Facebook

Basically I am going back to the concept of a personal hub. My personal brand/website that I control – JonathanNation.com

It just happens that I drifted into primarily sharing stuff with the world on Facebook for a while.

I am also going to continue to coach people in developing their own personal brand.

more to come

I expect I am going to start releasing more.

I have been writing, and recording stuff from time to time, but very few people have had access to it.

To release my thoughts, writings, recordings, and other creations to a wider audience is something that I feel lead to do, but am also terrified at the idea.

There are a few people who follow this, I know – I look at the stats. If you would, send me encouragement to share more, especially if you are one of the people who have consumed some media from me & want more.

testing membership system

This post is being used to test a membership system we have had in place for a while, but not really used.

Some of the clients of SystemNation.com will probably want to use a system like the one we are testing, so we want to make sure we understand how it works and how to set it all up.

wii lan adapter shopping

I am looking for a Wii Lan Adapter, and really don’t know much. Amazon seems to have three ( one, two, three) options.

Will just a generic USB to Lan adapter work (it’s cheaper, though still not gigabit)?

Any suggestions and/or recommendations?

[Read more]

Android Party?

Save the Date for PodcampNashville3 – March 6th

PodcampNashville3 will be held on Saturday, March 6, 2010 – save that date now.

Years ago I went to the Mercy Lounge one Saturday, not for a concert or drinks at the bar (though those were available), but for a time of meeting, learning, and socializing with people involved in or interested in Podcasting. It was an ok event, with one stage, and some break out areas. The best thing I took away from that day was meeting Cliff Ravenscraft in person for the first time and being able to get to know him.

The next year, around the same time, came PodcampNashville2, this time at the Vanderbilt Owen School. That year I live bloged some notes. Lots of rooms, lots more people, lots more fun, and I did not make the mistake I had the first year – I stayed for the after party.

That fall I decided to go to BarCampNashville – many of the same people *work* both events, but I picked up on something additional that applies to both events: most everyone at both events is interested in learning, helping people, building ventures (could be their own business, or their own department), and something involving either better communications or technology.

It was at Barcamp 2009 that I decided that I would just go ahead and start planning each year to be at each event (podcamp and barcamp Nashville) if not any other reason to support such a great community of people striving to grow themselves or a venture to help others.

I’ll tell you more, and probably review some of my past notes (beyond any posts I can find), but today I advise and encourage you to make plans to be at PodcampNashville3. I’ll also be looking to be at a gathering of people the Friday Night before, either somewhere in Nashville, Cool Springs, or Murfreesboro area.

When you decide to attend PodcampNashville3 on March 6th, let me know & I’ll add you to a list of people to remind when more information comes out.

Paint The Picture

Today, not tomorrow, or at least the next time you are inspired to (for me it sometimes takes some time to get in the right “mood”) I want you to do something for your biggest project:

Paint a Picture

Use words, crayons, photoshop, clay, mud, or whatever media is best for you, just get that first vision captured in a tangible, or electronic form. [Read more]

if money were not an object

One common method for helping people discover their hedgehog concept/blue flame/purpose/mission in life is to ask the individual “If money were not an object, what would you do with your time?”

Other times speakers, authors, career and business coaches mention the “big why”: why are you doing what you are doing? Why are you pursuing your current path? And generally they stipulate that it is not, and cannot be, just because of money. Nobody (well, more or less) really wants little green pieces of paper, they want something else.

In the book Go Put Your Strengths to Work, there is an exercise where for a week whenever you get strong positive emotions from a situation or gained strength form an event, you write down on a card what was going on, and for strong negative or draining events – you do the same. At the end of a week you separate the cards and basically go through looking for patterns: what specific “who, what, when, where, and/or why” caused you to gain or loose strength? This exercise should help you:

1. gain better understanding of yourself and what makes you tick, and
2. provide guidance as to what you should do more of and less of.

This exercise is more difficult with an organization. It is not just one person, but the goals should be the same: gain a deeper understanding of what makes the organization tick & what the organization should be doing.

What if the first question when a new idea was brought up to a governing board was not “how much” or “how can we pay for it” but “does this help us achieve our purpose in life?” If that answer is “yes”, then the next questions should be “does it grow the organization in one of our primary resource areas (time, money, or brand)?” followed by, “do we have the strength & resources to make it happen?” Granted, there would be times when the answer to the last question is so obvious that the first two questions would not need a lot of time or energy spent when thinking about the projects. Wouldn’t it be refreshing to begin by asking and focusing on supporting the mission of the organization first and foremost?

I think the challenge I would give to you, future leaders and others, is to go back to whatever your fundamental business building material is. It could be an industry specific focus or not. Go through it again and each time the media asks a question or proposes a direction you should ask, “how should <enter org name here> answer this question?” or “how does this apply to <enter org name here>?”

Odds are many of the questions & plans will apply. If none of the thoughts in the media apply to each organization you are working with then you should probably find a better basis to build your career/personal life around.

If money were not an object, what would <enter org name here> do? Now, we should put all resources required for success behind that, if we possibly can, and do it. Then we should figure out what the “if we could do one more, then what would it be?” and do that.

It applies to you as an individual just as much as it does to every organization you have some level of influence on.