I’ve posted the lyrics to this song once before on a Monday… today, you’ll just get video. I’m starting a new job today, and this morning I’m listening to this song. It’s a good reminder of the things that truly matter.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhalHoKRsOU]

Can you tell that Andy Osenga has a song for every occasion? Yep. True fact.

There’s only one way you’re not in trouble with the law… and that’s if you’re in trouble with… gravity?

Aha… the question mark. It changes everything.

Things to listen to is usually where I tell you what I’ve been listening to that is awesome.

Add the question mark though, and it becomes your chance to tell me what to spend some Itunes money on.

It’s been a while since I’ve found any new music. Can you help? I’d love to see some suggestions.  Hook me up!

Supposedly from Pericles,

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”

Lots of changes taking place for me; proves that this statement is true.

There’s a moment in Hitch (yeah, the Will Smith/Kevin James romantic comedy) where Kevin James’ character, Albert, is trying to impress Alegra Cole. He’s doing so by sucking up to her clothing designer friend Maggie (who, for comedic effect, is a man). Albert asks Maggie, “Where do you find your inspiration?”

The response is, “Oh gosh, I don’t know… anywhere…”

Lame! I think… I feel like my inspiration comes from what I love. For example, I love family. I love God’s plan for family, I love the big impact it has on lives, so I’m motivated to make art that reflects that. In fact, in the science fiction work I’m currently attempting, one of my goals was to write an effective sci-fi protagonist that didn’t have mommy or daddy issues.

Not that parental issues don’t exist — indeed, they do. They are often motivators in human experience. Which brings me to another source of inspiration: truth. Things that are true are things that I endeavor to reflect in my writing. Things that are true are often things that are difficult: life can be ugly. Life can be beautiful. Reflecting that in art is a worthy endeavor.

Where do you find your inspiration?

Email is a challenge. You get any number of messages every day, requiring at minimum a delete… possibly a response or maybe even a research project. As a writer, your time is at a premium, even the time you spend on email.

So, Tim Sanders is this guy… he’s a believer and an author who writes and speaks about the way love can impact your business. His first book, Love is the Killer App is a great read. I thoroughly enjoyed it — it helped me to understand that you don’t have to be a shark to be effective in business.

Anyway, Tim is also an email / time management consultant. You can find some great tips over at www.emailatoz.com.

The most recently posted tip follows… it’s a life changer:

every Friday by end of day, he addresses every email he has in his inbox before the end of the day. So going into the weekend, he has zero email in his Inbox.

I love the idea of going into a weekend with no issues hanging about that aren’t on my calendar. I’ve tried a few different ways of managing email, and while I’m getting close to becoming an advocate of having an empty, managed inbox daily, sometimes its just not practical.

This tip, on the other hand, might take you an extra 15-30 minutes on Friday, but think of how great it would be to have an empty, issue free inbox as you walk out of your office on Friday. Magic!

Aristotle supposedly said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

I don’t know if that’s entirely true, but it feels like it is. I do know that I desire a life characterized by excellence. It’s easy to look at life — even in one week chunks — and to think, Well, it’s just another week. Ho Hum. I guess I’ll put in what’s required of me, make it to Friday, and then… Weekend!

That’s lame. Entirely not what I want for my life this week, that’s for sure. No matter the task, whether it’s cleaning a toilet bowl (likelyhood: 15%), changing a diaper (likelyhood: 100%) or resolving a customer’s problem (likelyhood: 100%… I almost did 110%, but I realize that 110% is not a real number. It’s like saying I’m one and one-tenths of a human being. Just unrealistic), I want to be excellent at it. I want to condition myself to the point that my responses aren’t just excellent, my entire behavior is excellent.

A more profound quote (not) “Be excellent to each other”… said by these guys:

A little bit of frivolity for you… go check out this story at the economist. They’re going to tell you how much it takes for people in different countries to make enough money to buy a Big Mac. Big Mac’s aren’t delicious, but it’s kind of a fun little thing to look at.

Happy saturday!

There are some people whose abilities with prose are just… above average. Far above average in the case of this post over at the Rabbit Room by Ron Block.

It is so still and serene there. God’s creation is; it’s just simply being itself. There is an immutable silence in nature that mere noise and activity can’t eradicate; the silence is always there under the noise, patiently waiting.

I recommend the read… it reminds me of the prose in Walt Morey books that I read over and over again when I was 10 or 11. The kind of stuff that boys dream of.

Me, that is… I had a great time listening to Jeff Bezos talk about customer service… I saw it posted over at The Mystery and the Magic. Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon.com, and he essentially gives away some business advice over the course of an 8 minute video.

He talks about the most important things he knows, like obsessing over customers, inventing on the behalf of customers and how it informs their culture at Amazon, and also… he uses a flip chart. Is there a slight irony in the founder of a huge technology company using a flip chart? Perhaps. But, flip charts are innovative too… it takes very little time to alter your presentation… just discard the existing page and create a new one.

Anyway, highly recommended. It’s a good little learning experience.