Quitter Review

Title: Quitter: Closing the Gap between your Day Job & Your Dream Job

Author: Jon Acuff

Target Audience: People of all ages who are dissatisfied with their current day job and want to gain a little direction as they move to pursue their dream job.

How I found It: Jon Acuff is an author and speaker on Dave Ramsey's team. I heard about Quitter as I was listening to Ramsey's podcast.

Content - The Facts: Quitter might not be quite what you first think of when you imagine a book about pursuing your dream job. Acuff invites you into his own life, showing his own journey from day job to dream job, and providing humorous, anecdotal experiences. Instead of encouraging you to blindly leap after your dream job, Acuff begins providing a framework for you to work within, for everything from "falling in like" with your day job to avoiding "the dons" to defining success and more.

Nerd Fitness and the Angry Bird Workout

It's been a while since I'd posted an update blog.

The semester is finished, and summer has started. I managed to pass all of my classes, although Greek II almost got me. I'll have to be reviewing that material this summer, otherwise Greek III will destroy me. :(

My part-time job at the school registrar's office has ended, and I wasn't able to land another position yet, so a lot of my time this summer is free. I'm valeting part-time again to help counter that monetary lapse in my income, and I'm still working part-time at church, so I should be doing okay financially.

Recently I've been reading a bunch of blogs (what else is new), and the standout of the bunch is called Nerd Fitness. If you know me at all, I'm a pretty nerdy kinda guy. I mean, I balance it out fairly well with my enjoyment of sports and guitar, but I'm a nerd. Video games fascinate me, and I thoroughly enjoy the books I read (when I read). I'm even writing short reviews on the different books I read (or listen to as the case may be).

EntreLeadership Review

Title: EntreLeadership

Author: Dave Ramsey

Target Audience: Small Business leaders, particularly those with scalable businesses. But really, this book is good for anyone who is going to be in any leadership role.

How I Found It: I listen to Dave's podcast and radio show fairly frequently, and every once in a while he talks about this book.

The Go-Getter Review

 
Title: The Go-Getter

Author: Peter B. Kyne

Target Audience: Really, I feel like this book is good for anyone. It's a narrative, published in 1921, but the style reads easily. 

How I Found It: I've always known about the term "go-getter", but I didn't realize it came from a book. Dave Ramsey, a Christian financial adviser, has five short books that he makes every one of his employees read within the first 90 days of working for him. The Go-Getter is one of those books.

Content - The Facts: As I said, this book is a narrative. It's a story about Cappy Ricks and Bill Peck. Cappy is the owner of a big company, and he needs to replace part of his upper management team. In order to see if Bill is the right man for the job, Cappy arranges a test.

I Will Teach You to be Rich Review

Title: I Will Teach You to be Rich

Author: Ramit Sethi

Target Audience: "At last, for a generation that's materially ambitious yet financially clueless comes I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Ramit Sethi's 6-week personal finance program for 20-to-35-year-olds. A completely practical approach delivered with a nonjudgmental style that makes readers want to do what Sethi says, it is based around the four pillars of personal finance— banking, saving, budgeting, and investing—and the wealth-building ideas of personal entrepreneurship." - Book Description via Amazon.com

How I Found It: I found Ramit’s blog before I found his book. I think my first encounter with Ramit was in an excellent interview by Chase Jarvis. As an avid information collector, Ramit's blog was fascinating to me. Although on the surface the blog covers such topics as earning money, finding your dream job, and negotiating like an Indian, this blog is really focused on the psychology behind these things. I could go on and on about Ramit's work, but I think you get the picture. Warning: He communicates in a brusque, edgy, and occasionally offensive manner on his blog, although his book a bit more refined.

Don't Kill Desire, pt. 3

I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to get this last post out. I needed to make sure that my schoolwork and stuff was under control. Now that I've finished with that, I finally have time to sit down and finish up my thoughts on desire. This is part 3 of my mini-series on desire. In part 1, we established that desire is at the root of various habits and problems in our lives, and that killing those unwanted desires isn't enough to help us to overcome those habits and problems. In part 2 we further clarified why attempting to kill desire isn't enough with the examples of overeating and pornography. Now we're going to dive into what to do about it.

One last caveat before we jump in: Attempting to kill negative (or unwanted) desires completely is nearly impossible by itself, or so I've found. Willpower isn't constant, and when it wanes, I have found that negative desires spring up.

Don't Kill Desire, pt. 2

A few days ago, I wrote about the concept of killing desire in relation to overcoming habitual sin. If you haven't read part 1 head on over and take a look. This post will make a lot more sense. Or maybe not.

You all caught up? Good. Allow me to try to clarify why I don't think trying to kill desire is adequate for having us overcome habitual sin. Let's pretend that I struggle with being overweight. (If you know me, you know this isn't a problem, but for the sake of the analogy, let's pretend.) I understand that some people are obese due to medical or other perfectly legitimate issues, but let's say that I'm overweight simply because I love food. I love the way it smells, the way it tastes, the textures as I chew, the feeling of satisfaction that comes after eating. I love everything about food. Now let's say that I have decided that I need to lose weight, so I start a diet that removes unhealthy, processed foods from my normal eating cycle. After four weeks on said diet, I've lost 42 pounds and feel much better about myself, so I finish up that special diet and everything goes back to normal.

Don't Kill Desire, pt. 1

Hey guys, so this post could be a lot less structured than my typical posts. As I was walking to school the other day, I was praying and found myself wrestling with the concept of desire. Basically, what I’m planning on doing here, is revisiting those thoughts, beginning with the concept of desire and expanding outward from there as my thoughts lead.

edit: As I was writing, I found that this post is stemming from the idea of overcoming habitual sin. One teaching that I run up against often is to kill off bad desire. I don't think that's adequate, and this series of posts will, hopefully, explain why it's not and what I think we need to do about it. Although it's directly applicable to overcoming habitual sin, in a broader sense, it's applicable to enacting any major change in your life.

Updates and Thoughts on Prayer

It's been ages since I've written a blog. (Okay, okay, so it's been a month and a half). I've been busy, and writing and maintaining this blog has fallen on my priority list, unfortunately. I still have thoughts, but I always feel like I don't have the time to express them. I fear that I am too easily swept up in the meaningless and the mundane. I seek purpose in things that can't give me purpose. I ignore chances for excitement or even productivity for the dull and repetitive.

I have fallen behind in my 12 in 12 project, unfortunately. I will finish at least 12 books this year, but it won't be monthly, anymore. I feel like I've got more reading than I can keep up with because of school. Right now I'm about 2/3 done with  The Holiness of God by RC Sproul, and I'm slowly working through it. On to some other thoughts.

The Meaning of Marriage Review

Title: The Meaning of Marriage

Authors: Timothy and Kathy Keller

Target Audience: "Based on the acclaimed sermon series by New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller, this book shows everyone-Christians, skeptics, singles, longtime married couples, and those about to be engaged-the vision of what marriage should be according to the Bible." -Front Cover Flap

How I Found It: During the month of January, I was in a small group with a group of friends, some of whom are married, one engaged, and several of us are dating. We wanted to learn and discuss and grow as men, as Christians, and as (future) husbands.

Eating for Christ

Hey everyone, I'm working on expanding my blog and the main way that I'm going to be doing that is through guest bloggers. I'd like to introduce you to my friend Tim, aka Timoshizaki. I've known Tim for over a decade, and he's one of my best friends. He'll be popping in monthly to write about God and life, and possibly more. So, without further ado, I present to you: Tim.

~Chris 

Okay hello everyone this is my first time blogging in a long time, :) This will be a different kind of blog okay... here goes.

     January 30th.    I have recently visited the doctor asking him if there was something wrong with my ears and if I should be concerned with them, he told me it was nothing saying that it is natural to have puffy (feeling).  Then later on he told me that he was concerned about me and my weight, that it has increased a little too fast, and how it would effect me later on.  Knowing about the consequences I decided that I must take action. I made a New Year's Resolution over at my friend Kimberly's house but that did not last long; within one hour I said to myself it begins tomorrow, and sooner or later I have completely forgotten about my promise about becoming healthy.

Misguided Efforts

Have you ever gotten so excited about something that you lose track of what you're supposed to be doing? Let me rephrase that. Have you ever been so passionate about something that - in your effort to develop that passion, streamline it, increase its range of impact - you step back and realize that you've forgotten to continue doing what you're passionate about? It's the difference of working your passion and working on the thing you're passionate about. Can you see the difference? It's subtle. I think the concept is best encapsulated in Voltaire's moral poem La Bégueule - "...the best is the enemy of the good."

Tebow, Rodgers, and the Gospel

I know this blog is kinda late, considering the Broncos are out of the playoffs and have been for a while, but I was reading this blog post a while ago and it made me think about Tim Tebow and Aaron Rodgers. Now, for those of you who don't know, both Tebow and Rodgers are professing Christians, but how they profess their faith is noticeably different. While Tebow is exceedingly vocal about his faith and is known for "tebowing" during games after a touchdown, Rodgers said here,

Hipsters, Trends, and Friends

Isn't the trend of "hipster" rather strange? I mean, my understanding of "hipster" is wrapped up in four words: Before It Was Cool. That might just be the joke, but I feel like that's where it started out. Glancing around the Internet, it sounds like "hipsterism" as we know it started in the '90s as a reaction against... something. Hipsters created their own look by not looking the way everyone else did. They popularized hobbies that no one else did. They listened to certain types of music that weren't popular. So... hipsters did stuff before it was cool.

More Than a Carpenter Review

Title: More Than a Carpenter

Author: Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell

Target Audience: Josh wrote the book "hoping that it would help followers of Jesus to respond to questions about their faith, and inspire spiritual seekers to honestly investigate the claims of Jesus." -pg. ix

How I Found It: Honestly, I found this when I signed up for an online book club (not recommended. The deals look good, till you realize you have to buy a book every month or so). All I knew was that I recognized the authors and that it was about apologetics.

Celebrity Jealousy

With all of the hype surrounding Jefferson Bethke's video on Jesus and Religion, I had some feelings stirring up in my heart that made me stop and reflect. Maybe it's something that you can relate to, but when sometimes I get jealous. By the post title, you may gather that I'm not talking about jealousy of other people of my so-called social status. I'm talking about "Celebrities". Do you know what I'm talking about? You see someone who gets a lot of attention for one reason or another and you want what they have.

One thing that I've noticed is that I don't struggle with jealousy of long-time famous people. I couldn't care less about what the Kardashians have and do. I have no desire to be like them and, frankly, I don't really understand why there is such a fascination with them. They're famous because their dad was a good lawyer. I don't understand why his fame should be inherited. But I digress.

Talking About My Faith

Sorry about the lack of posts over the last few days. I went with my church youth group to winter camp at Pondo. It was a great time to get to know the youth better, as well as learn and grow myself. Personally, the biggest take-home was my experience of freedom and forgiveness on Saturday night. It helped me to know and understand God's love for me even more, and I couldn't help but feel grateful. Now, on to today's post!

A recent post for a blog that I try to read regularly touched on a subject that I'm growing to love more and more: talking to people about Jesus. Now, if you've been reading my posts regularly, you might have noticed that I tend to mention my faith and talk about different things from the Christian perspective in a lot of them. That's not what I'm talking about.

Book Reviews: Writing and Reading Them

Now that I've committed to writing a book review for at least 12 books (see here), I realized that I have never really been a big person on reading book reviews. I mean, sometimes I'll go on Amazon and look up the reviews of a book that I've heard of and might seem interesting, but I never really paid attention to things like format. I regret it a little bit, but then again, I don't know how many people pay meticulous attention to the formats of book reviews (aside from length). So I thought that, before I get started, I'd write a short blog explaining how I'll be writing my book reviews so that you'll be able to easily read and understand them. And if, for some reason, you ever desire to write your own reviews, you'll have a basic format to follow.

Kindle vs. Printed Books

I got my Kindle 3 in December 2010 as a graduation present. I was pretty much stoked on life, because I love to read books, particularly fictional novels. (In case you're wondering, let it be formally recorded that my New Year's Resolution is referring to 12 books that are non-fictional and not part of the Bible.)

However, I've come to a crossroad that I hadn't really anticipated before I got my Kindle. I'm starting to read things in which I want to highlight and refer back to certain sections. Now, when I was reading primarily fiction works, this wasn't so much of an issue for me, because I would just re-read the whole book. But I've found that some of my textbooks and assigned readings for classes and some books I use in my 12 in 12 resolution are available on Kindle. When it comes to non-fiction works, I've found that I enjoy highlighting and referring back to previous sections.

News and the Lord's Prayer

First off, you may have noticed that the blog has a couple new features, namely, the links at the top. As I mentioned in my New Year's Resolutions blog, this year I'm going to be reading a book a month (at least) and writing down a short review or response to it. I'm planning on continuing to read beyond this year, and I'll be writing about the books that I read in the future as well. Hope you enjoy it!

On to the topic of today's post: the Lord's Prayer. I've grown up reciting this in church (using some fairly archaic language, I might add), but until now I had never stopped and really broken down what Jesus was praying.

Passions: Lust and Anger?

There's a verse in the Bible where an older man tells a younger man to "flee youthful passions." When I was growing up in church, I always assumed that he was talking about lust. I mean, I'm a young guy, and the most powerful "youthful passion" that I experience is, arguably, my attraction to girls. But recently, I was challenged in my thought on this.

Baby Steps for College Students

Dave Ramsey has these 7 steps that, when applied consistently over time, will guarantee wealth. As a recent college graduate, I found that I learned a lot of these steps too late, or that they didn't seem particularly applicable to my life now. Rachel Cruze, Jon Acuff, and Christy Brown (from Dave Ramsey's Speaking Team) adapted some of these steps to be more applicable for college students, and I've brought them here to share with you, along with some of my own thoughts.

Thoughts on Growth and Evaluation

With the new year freshly upon us and those New Year's Resolutions still intact, one thing that I've come across is the concept of growth. Most resolutions, New Year's or otherwise, have some sort of measure of growth. A year-long fast from chocolate measures growth by the ability to avoid eating chocolate. For my personal resolution, growth is measured by getting a book, reading through it, and writing a review. Each step of this cycle that is completed is demonstrative of a little bit of growth. It's easy and measurable. But what about things that aren't so easily measured? How do we measure growth in, for example, becoming a better mother? Or breaking an addiction?

Friends and Technology

I've noticed, especially over this past semester, that I really don't have as many close friends as I once thought. That's not necessarily due to my being antisocial, although that may be part of it. Part of the problem is distance. All of the friends that I grew up with live far away from me. All of them attended different schools from me, so we've grown apart over these last four years. And now that we've graduated, they've all moved back home, but I'm still 6.5 hours away attending grad school.

11 Things I've Learned from Reading Harry Potter

There are life lessons all around us. The question is, are we paying attention well enough to notice the lessons. I threw together a quick list of 11 things that I learned when I read through the Harry Potter series over the last five months. Without further ado, here are, in no particular order, 11 Things I've Learned from Reading Harry Potter.

New Year's Resolutions

Happy New Year, everyone!

As one year changes to another, many people want to take this time to make changes in their own lives. I've seen friends swear off of things (chocolate, pizza, soda, etc.). I've also seen people resolve that they'll start something new, like working out or a new diet. Perhaps you've also made a commitment for the new year. Personally, I've committed to reading a book per month outside of school-assigned reading, and doing a little write-up that I'll post here.