Digging Deep, a book review

I just finished reading a really great book that not only surprised me, but it changed me. It's called "Dug Down Deep" by Joshua Harris. I'm including my book review below and I'm encouraging anyone who desires to TRULY know God, not just EXPERIENCE Him, to give the book a read. Enjoy!

Dug Down Deep Review

I am one of the Christians that Josh describes in his book who 'knew a lot about the Christian religion, and so little about God'. The emphasis in my early Christian life was on developing a friendship with Jesus and embracing all of the 'good feelings' associated with following him.

I missed so much. I missed the opportunity to truly know him - through grounded and unapologetic doctrine. I was afraid of it, that in some way, absorbing all of the theology would diminish my love for Jesus. This book reminded me and encouraged me, that it is the theology that will actually move me towards knowing and loving him more.

I am so thankful for this book and for the simple and tender way with which it is written. Josh speaks through personal experience and careful observation that guides the reader through the process of embracing the need to dig deep!

Back in the saddle

It's hard to believe that it's been a year and a half since my last post. Yet, when I consider all that has happened, it makes perfectly sound sense.

I'm going to embark on this blogging journey once more. While Larry and I continue to pursue right living through cautious and wise spending, it has become so much larger for us. We have gradually learned that our money is, or should be, the littlest of our concerns. My hope is use this blog as a cathartic means of grappling with all of the areas of life that we pursue in an effort to find meaning, hope and true joy. Oh yeah, and I'll throw in some good book reviews along the way.

As before, I welcome your insight to any and all posts.

Here's to the journey once again!

Jan

When was the last time...

When was the last time you took a serious inventory of your life? Sounds deep doesn't it? Yet, it's something that we should all spend time doing.

Last Sunday, my pastor reminded us that all businesses have annual business reviews - a time when they look at their previously stated goals and measure their success. I remember having to do this quarterly as a business manager for the companies that employed me. It was something I always regretted doing but was always so glad when it was completed.

The first and most obvious question is, "Have you ever taken the time to commit your goals, dreams and family aspirations to paper"? If not, it will be tough to measure how you are doing. I encourage you to take time to dream. The older we get, the easier it is to brush things aside as childhood fantasies but something magical happens when we take the time to put these dreams to paper. Start small, perhaps a list of 10 things that you hope to accomplish this year. You can even just commit your values to paper and then see how you live out those values over a given period of time.

I recently found a bucket list of 100 things I wanted to do before I died. This was a list that Larry and I made about 12 years ago. I was cleaning my desk when I found it. I was amazed to see how many of the things I had accomplished without even viewing the list after I had committed it to paper. Imagine if I had put effort in to it and revisited it on a regular basis?

If you have made a list of your goals, when was the last time you took it out and seriously reviewed it? If it's been awhile, take time to do that now. The weather is perfect to be indoors with a warm cup of tea snuggled on your favorite chair or sofa. Pull out your list and walk through each item carefully. If you haven't completed an item on the list, ask yourself why. Perhaps it's not as important to you as it once was, but perhaps there is something that is preventing you from living the life you were meant to live.

There is nothing more engaging that a human being who is living their life to the fullest. Someone who lives with intent and purpose. You probably know and admire someone like this in your life.  My encouragement for you today is to be that inspiring person in someone else's life.

Do it today!

Waking Up...

The challenge. Make a 'specific' list of all of your gifts, talents and abilities. For example, rather than saying you are creative, say "I am a talented photographer". Once you have taken the time to make the list, write a number next to each of the items indicating the number of hours you spent this past week doing them. Ouch!

This was another great exercise in my book titled, "One Month To Live" by Kerry and Chris Shook. Yet, this one really hit me hard. First of all, it takes time to come up with the list. My first inclination was to say that I don't have any talents. That moment passed and then I stalled out in coming up with more than one or two things. Forget about the final task of assigning time allotments, I couldn't come up with the list!

It's a great exercise and one that I encourage you to do, especially while you are still young and have years ahead of you to develop good habits of making time for yourself and those unique gifts that you have been given. For the rest of us, it's a great idea to remember those passions that we've buried deep within.

What's so amazing to me is that for every truly exciting idea that keeps me up at night, I usually have the ability to accomplish it - yet, I don't. Why? Why is it that we're uniquely created to accomplish specific things in life yet we settle for the path of least resistance? We settle for the safe choices, the popular choices, the choices less likely to 'rock the boat'.

I honestly think we need more people willing to rock the boat. We need passionate, excited and talented people standing up for their ideas and for rising above the status quo. When was the last time you were fired up and DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT?

We visited with a friend this past Sunday who told us about a political rally that he just participated in and how doing this elevated his spirit. In the past, he complained about the problems with our government to anyone and everyone. This was the first time he did something about it. Hooray!

In his book "Living Your Strengths", Donald O. Clifton says from a very young age we are taught to be well rounded. Teachers and Adults in our lives attempted to soften our sharp edges, to become smooth and well rounded. According to Clifton, however, what we're often taught is how to become as dull as we can possibly be. We're taught to play it safe, to be compliant, to follow convention and tradition, to color inside the lines and to stay inside the box. God never meant for us to be well rounded, he made us each unique with unique talents, passions, abilities. We should pursue those things we're good at and let go of what we're not.

I've made my list and I'm fired up! I'm excited that there is not another Jan Wood out there and that it's up to me to be all I was meant to be. I am happy to embrace all of my talents and abilities, and to speak up regarding those things that I'm passionate about. I'm going to focus on them and develop them until they flow out of me without my consent.

Watch out world, one more sleeping giant has been awakened!

Babyboomers Beget Babies of Babyboomers

I am a Baby Boomer. I don't say that as if it's a badge of honor but it does carry with it the notion that we are a special generation. Most Baby Boomers are associated with possessing a rejection or redefinition of traditional values despite having been a generation that most commonly grew up in a time of affluence. In fact, as a group, we were the healthiest, and wealthiest generation to our time and among the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time.

In fact, I was so convinced that things would just continue to improve that I didn't think I needed to extend much effort, including finishing school. Somehow, the benefits of growing up with the security of a roof over my head, a good job and all I could want, would just follow me wherever I went.

This was reinforced by the fact that I had the good fortune of landing really good jobs in my late teens. I enjoyed work in those days and because I was a real people-pleaser, I had no problem getting noticed and learning the art of how to get promoted quickly. The fourth job I ever had was with Apple Computer. Apple was the epitomy of a company culture started by Baby Boomers. Apple re-defined what changing all of the rules meant and my time spent there continued to promote and encourage my independent character and demand for the best of all that life could offer (or at least money could offer).

I remember my first business trip with Apple at age 21. I was picked up by a limo driver and taken to SF International Airport for a business trip to Calgary, Canada. I flew business class and in Calgary, stayed at the best hotel available. My stay was four days but my actual hours worked were about six. The remainder of the time was spent touring the city, eating new exotic foods, experiencing my first massages and getting a taste for good life, all on Apple. I remember thinking that I had arrived and I was only going forward from there. 

I received a call while in Canada that I was needed for a show in NY City following this trip. This was my first trip to the Big Apple and I was asked to demonstrate Apple Hardware at the Financial Business Analysts Meeting at the World Trade Center. Our CEO, John Sculley, and all of Wall Street were there asking me for one on one demonstrations of our new products. I think if I had only grasped what I was actually doing at the time, it would have been too much to bear. 

Larry and I met while working for Apple and after working there for almost 13 years. Both of us had grown up with the lavish benefits of working for this company at a time in our industry where we thought we could never be touched! Our entire courtship was funded by Apple as we worked in sister organizations providing us with trips around the world - all expenses paid! So it's no wonder that our marriage began with the mindset that we deserved the best and that living the lives of the rich and famous would just continue.

Sadly, there was a huge cost to this insatiable desire. The most costly was my time. My job with Apple required that I travel about 80% of the time. That meant that someone else would be raising my kids and when I was home to see them, I was exhausted. In my mind, it all made perfect sense. I made great money and on occasion I got to take them with me on these trips so they were afforded all of the benefits of my hard work. Makes sense right? Wrong.

I had no idea that what our pursuit for stuff and lifestyle was really telling our kids was that happiness existed in things or in outrageous experiences. Further, because we never learned the wisdom of saving for a rainy day or investing for the future, we never taught that to our children either. Therefore, they grew up as we had modeled, expecting things to just fall in their laps with little or no effort on their parts and wondering why life was so tough when they had to maintain this lifestyle on their own. Or, they decided to drop out of this materialistic society and live on love!

Larry and I have five kids between us and it's interesting to see how our choices have affected them. Out of the five, one is a saver, an investor, and a very hard worker. I think she saw our choices as potentially harmful and feared our living on the edge choices. She committed to 'never living like that'. It's the 'fear' part that concerns me. While I'm so happy that she has adopted these good saving habits, I hope that she'll manage to have some enjoyment in living without the fear of making our same mistakes. 

Two of the five kids have openly adopted a lifestyle that is in complete opposition to anything that remotely smells of materialism. They are our silent sufferers. They definitely adopted the "I'm doing it my way and to heck with societal norms" approach to life, regardless of the struggles that they appear to be having. Our hope for them is that they find the balance of earning as much as they can so they are free to live whatever life they choose without so much personal hardship. 

One of them is a mirrored image of us - living on the edge, seizing every opportunity for fun and party making. "Tomorrow will take care of itself - in the meantime, enjoy all that money can buy". Unfortunately, we are living in a vastly different time. Without an effective and solid plan, the world will have it's way, as we've seen all over the news. Oh how I wish, we would have been better stewards of our resources and better teachers to our kids.

The final child is a mixture of all of them. She has the conscience of knowing that there is a better way to live but a deep taste for the 'sugar'. The battle of those two things rages wildly in her. At a relatively young age, she has already experienced some of the heartache of these choices. I pray she learns how to limit the desire to spoil herself in exchange for a safer and potentially more secure future.

I find myself wondering how many other baby boomer children of the baby boomer generation did not have the benefit of role models or good teaching. For those who followed my path, I'm confident that we have produced a generation of confused consumers and disillusioned children. What really concerns me is that many of these kids are suffering the fall out for the former generations choices.

I'm writing this blog primarily for the grandbabies of the baby boomer generation. My hope is that they will find good teaching and excellent examples of people who have learned how to live below their means - people who have found that time with people is more important than a garage filled with stuff. I'm committed to being one of those examples. I'm thankful that I still have time to do it right and that my own grandchildren may see an example of someone who loves the gift of life more than the gifts. May they develop a desire to love people and use things. May they cherish the things that they do have and be satisfied that it is always 'enough'.

Will you join me in being an example for these future generations? There is a prayer that I learned at a very early age and it's one that I've adopted again and I recite each morning. It's one that I've committed to teaching my grandkids for in it is a reminder to always ask God first for all that they need and to only ask for that which is truly needed and nothing more (anything above is truly a gift)  I like the translation below - it may be a bit different than the one you learned.

"Our Father which art in heaven, Holy is your name. 

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.

GIVE US DAY BY DAY, OUR DAILY BREAD.

And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that sins against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil."

Amen.

What Does Your Checkbook Say About You???

I've been thinking a lot about our financial journey in recent days and, like most times of reflection, I've come to some revelations.

And, like many times of reflection, some revelations are not as pleasant as others. So is the case with this most recent occasion.

I remember Larry and I reading a book about 12 years ago titled, "Your Money or Your Life". It was a really inspiring story of two very successful stock brokers from New York that were tired of the proverbial rat race. The book chronicles the course of action that they pursued in order to change their lives. Their ultimate goal was to become Financially Independent. At first blush, this sounds like most people. Yet, their definition of independence was a bit unique. They considered the notion of independence to be one where money would no longer have a hold on your life. You could actually live 'free' from it.

They take you on a personal journey of discovery including: documenting every penny you've ever made and giving an account for it, tracking your expenses (to the penny) for a period of two weeks, and spending time developing a 'fulfillment rating' for the activities you do in your life. An example of the Fulfillment Rating would be to assign a number of 1-5 (one being the highest level of fulfillment) to all of the activities in your life. Once completed, you would take your expense sheet (where all of your money went) and lay that against your Fulfillment Chart. In our case, we found that our expenses were in no way a reflection of where we found our greatest joy.

The final activity was an exercise to determine what your current job was actually paying you once you netted out all of the intangible costs. For example, what type of car do you have to drive for that job, how far do you travel, what clothes do you have to own, how many stress days do you have to take, how many hours are you actually away from the home, etc. Once we completed this exercise, we were amazed. In fact, I learned that the six figure salary I was earning was actually netting me about $12/hour, once I deducted these hidden costs. It was out of this exercise that we decided to leave the bay area and move to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada to raise our kids and improve our quality of living. A move in my life that I've never regretted.

Sadly, like so many other great inspirations, we never completed this journey. Instead, we grabbed on to the notion of a lower cost of living lifestyle while still earning high incomes. The net effect was that we continued to spend every penny we had and ultimately drove ourselves right to the poor house (or in our case, the trailer house).

Today, I was asked the question, "What does your bank statement say about your values"? 

It's a really fair question and one that I haven't asked in a long time. While my bank statement is dramatically skinnier than it has been in years and the fact that we currently do live beneath our means exists, I'm still not happy with what it says about my values.

In a time when every marketing message aimed our way says 'you deserve better', 'live for today', 'take care of number one', it's difficult to stay focused on the dreams that I had for a bigger impact on the world. 

In my own county, homelessness has just increased a whopping 29%, yet I'm continually concerned about the color of my walls. I say that I care about kids who have no parents, yet you would never know that by the entries in my check register. Rather, my banking statement says quite loudly that I've bought the madison avenue messages hook, line and sinker -  I'm numero uno! 

It's no wonder our nation is fighting over health care reform. Who cares about the other guy - I've got to take care of me and mine! 

I'm guessing that there are others out there like me, who, when faced with the realization that you are not living the life you say you want to live becomes the motivation to do something about it. If so, I'd love to hear from you. Perhaps if more of us started to really analyze our pocketbooks as a statement of our values, we'd actually begin to live the lives we were called to.

What does your checkbook say about you and what you value?

About Friendship...

I had a lot of time to think about friendship this past week while visiting my home town. I had hoped to see several friends while there but ended up falling short of my plans. It reminded me of what life was like in the past when making time for friends was an afterthought.

When I was a 'career' woman and living life, friends were people that could fit in to my schedule. If I wasn't too busy working, shuffling kids, attending seminars or taking well needed vacations, I could make time for them. Larry and I remember meeting one couple that we had really hoped to spend time with so we tried week after week to find time in our schedules to get together. We lived 30 minutes apart but it seemed like an impossible task. It wasn't until we were on vacation - 200 miles from home - that we ran in to them. I think all of us were struck with the sadness of our mutual too-busy schedules.

Our dear friend Gordy used to say, if you have more friends than you have fingers then a) you don't know the meaning of friendship, or b) you are a freak of nature. I never really understood that until I had the type of friends that I think he considered finger-worthy. It took me years to understand what he meant because to me, friends were all of the acquaintances that came and went through the doors of my life. I don't think I would have ever been able to say I had a "BFF" and it was never really clear whether the 'friends' I had picked, had picked me. I think that this is a sad artifact of living an upwardly mobile lifestyle. If friendship isn't part of that plan, then you probably won't find time for it.

I regret that I lived my life this way for far too many years. Coupled with the fact that I didn't know myself well enough to make myself fit for a long lasting and intimate friendship. (Anything less than that is a relationship of casual acquaintance).

Of all of the things I am thankful for, it is learning how important friendship really is in a persons life. Larry and I have always had an incredible friendship between us but it is so important for each of us to have deep bonds with other people. In the process of changing our lives and slowing down, we have finally found out just how sweet having friends to share our dreams, hurts, struggles and joys with can be! Where we used to have great intentions to see our friends, today, we see them. We are doing life with these people and it's made our life so much sweeter. I wish I would have learned this lesson sooner and had been a better friend to those that considered me theirs.

To all of my friends, I'm so thankful for you. I cherish you and I can't imagine life without you!

Jan