Meyers-Briggs

When I was in High School I took the Meyers-Briggs personality profile for the first time. I remember it clearly because I was a slight Introvert and embarrassed when the results were read aloud in class.

For the next few years after that, my Dad was working on his Masters and Doctorate in Organizational Leadership and one of the things he worked on frequently was dealing with various personality types and tests, so yours truly had the "opportunity" to take the test a lot more.

As I experienced various personal life experiences I became more extroverted and my results started to change, I became a consistent ESTJ.

I hadn't thought about the test since right before marriage when Erika and I both took it and my results were once again confirmed. Since then, LOTS has happened, so I was curious to see if I had changed when I saw the link on Mike's blog. The biggest change is fatherhood, and I think that's why when I just took it again for the first time in nearly 6 years my results were very different...



So being a dad has made me an intuitive, feeling, perceiver....huh

Goals and Books

Since it's January, and I've been talking about goal setting lately, I thought I'd share one of mine.

I read a few books every year, for the past few years I've been keeping track of how many...last year I set a goal to read 52 books, I made it to 44 (unless I count each book of the New Testament separately then I exceeded my goal!) When I looked back at my reading list for 2008 it was even more eclectic than usual. I've always read business and leadership books as well as theology and spiritual, but last year saw an unusual mix. I enjoyed almost every book I read last year, the one exception off the top of my head was Stumbling on Happiness...just not that into it.

This year, I've decided to cut the goal in half. A book every two weeks, 26 for the year.

I'm doing this for a few reasons...

1. I have a three and a half year old son
2. I have a pregnant wife
3. I will soon have a newborn son
4. There are other things I want to spend more time with...see above

I try to keep a backlog of books in the library to read in the coming months, I'm going to let this dwindle a bit, not much new stuff coming out soon that I'm overly interested in, though I am looking forward to Dino Rizzo's new book Servolution. While I certainly don't plan every book I read for the year, in fact some of the best ones I read last year were picked up almost accidentally, I do have a few in the queue. Books I will definitely be reading this year include--
Sin Boldly
On Writing
The End of Poverty
Confessions
Blue Ocean Strategy

I'm always looking for suggestions too, so if you've read a book that you can't help but gush about, let's hear it and I'll add it to the list!

Rental Property

Some of you may know about my excursions into the fun and exciting world of rental property. I bought my first place when I was 21, a little 2 BR house in downtown Cleveland, from there until a couple years ago I purchased at least one property every year. At the height of my empire ;-)
I had over 70 rental units....YIKES!

Rental Property can produce a lucrative income, it can also produce some world class headaches.

When my wife was pregnant with our first son, I started waking up to the reality that I didn't really want to be a property guy. So much so, that since that time we've cut our holdings down to 23 units.

Which brings me to my initial reason for this post. I happen to have a couple vacancies right now, if you know anyone who is looking for a place I've got a nice 4 br 2.5 bath house for rent and a 2 br 1 ba house for rent.

I'm also open to selling any or all of them, so if you ARE looking to be a property guy/gal, give me a shout.

S.M.A.R.T.

As I mentioned before, I didn't make a bunch of resolutions this year, but EVERY year, I update and look over my life goals and take some time to set, reset, eliminate, and update.

Goals and the ability to set and follow them have been a big part of me becoming who I am today(that may convince some of you to avoid them). With any goal no matter how big or small, what has helped me is to review and check my progress regularly, I use the New Year as an obvious check up but also try to look at them at least monthly.

Many of you are familiar with the acronym SMART when it comes to goal setting, but it warrants review. A great place to start after thinking about a goal is to answer the Who, What, When, Where, Why, if you can't come up with answers, probably not worth the effort of reviewing further...Your goals should be--

Specific--It's easy to say "I plan to lose weight" but my goal is more like-I want to lose 1 lb a week for the next 20 weeks and will do that by running 20 miles a week and eating three meals a day that total less than 1800 calories.

Measurable--This is not always simple, since some goals "To be a better person" are not as easily quantifiable as my weight loss example above but it helps to have a measurement for success, If I want to help people I might use time and dollars given as measures of achievement. How much/How Many??
In sales we often say What gets measured gets done...

Action-Oriented and Attainable--This is an easy spot to get fouled up, but if you don't set some action steps up at the outset you are far less likely to follow through later, schedule some things you're going to do to help reach your goals...then do them. Nearly any goal is attainable if you have enough desire and time to work on it.

Realistic--Are you both willing and able to work on it? If not, don't waste any more time and work on something that you are willing and able to work on. Also, consider who else needs to be involved, if my goal is to have ten more kids, I better talk to the wife to see how realistic that is...

Time-Bound/Timely--I have LOTS of goals, and the ones that don't get attention are the ones with the longest time horizon or no specific completion date attached at all...WE are naturally drawn to the hottest fires, so if I have a goal to pay off my mortgage in 30 years, that's probably about when it will happen, but if I want to pay it down in 5 that will require I do a lot more action items and measure it much more closely...of course that could also be shortened so much that it no longer meets the realistic criteria...

One reason I check up on my goals regularly is that priorities can change...my goal of having a convertible moved down the list when I found out my wife was pregnant again, the goal of a Hybrid SUV moved UP the list at the same time.

Whatever your goals, write them down and visit them often.

Hopefully this will help you as you review and set your goals for 2009 and beyond...

Tuesday Thoughts

I'm off to a bit of a slow start to blogging in the New Year, but here is what's on my mind today...

--I'm getting a little obsessed with my environmental impact, thinking about trying to start making some things at home, may start with a colony of bees to make honey and wax to use in candles, soaps, etc...

--Starting to feel like running is a little less of a chore which makes it nicer, I REALLY like Nike+!

--Headed out to California next week for work, then staying over a couple days to drive to Vegas

--Took a trip to the Recyling center yesterday, saved a LOT, but could do better.

--I like Music and a good book

--Starting to really hone in on some specific goals for what to accomplish in 2009 personally and professionally

It's gonna be a very good year.

Top 3 # 14

Well...I alluded to it last week in my year end top 3, so here it is

Top 3 Cities in the southeastern U.S.

If you've read my blog more than once, and I realize many of you have NOT... I just finished a series of reviews of the cities I deem to be the major must sees in the south, from Charlotte to San Antonio. I LOVE the south, but the best of the best are...

3. New Orleans, LA

2. Savannah, GA

1. Charleston, SC

Honorable Mention--not because its close to home, but honestly CHATTANOOGA, TN ROCKS! If there was a beach nearby it would probably knock one of the others out of the top 3!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man." ~Benjamin Franklin