I just got off the phone with one of the people I want to be when I grow up: Jerry Goebel.
He called me for some advice and, as always, I was the one who ended up learning.
He shared this equation with me:
value * possibility = motivational force
value: How much we value an outcome (for ourselves, others, or the world)
possibility: How possible we think that outcome is
motivational force: That force the burns inside us driving to action to achieve.
It is too simple. If we don’t value something, we won’t work for it. If we don’t think it is possible we won’t work for it. Our motivation to act grows with each factor.
In honor of this new learning, for the next 48 hours, I am offering Jerry’s book Songs of Hope for $1 plus shipping.
Go to the on-line store and use the code “new_math”.
Order as many as you would like.
New Type of Math
Prayer eBook
A book that was started in the jungle of Costa Rica is finally done. It is a short reflection on prayer.
It is FREE!
Read it. Copy it. Share it.
Download: here
ALSO, very exciting news about a new project is coming. I am working with three other people (with a full cast of characters helping from time to time). Sign up for the big announcement here:
| Information about the new project: |
Corruptible
“It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.”
David Brin
Jesse Manibusan
The podcast is now up and working. Besides being able to download audios from the web page, you can now get all the audios through the iTunes store or any RSS feed reader.
To celebrate one of my old favorites has been posted.
In 2002 I send a couple of days hanging out in Jesse’s home asking him questions. I asked about him about music, ministry, and his family. He also sing a bunch of his songs (including two you have never heard) and tells the stories behind them.
New Audio Files: part 1 | part 2
All Audio Files: audio files
iTunes Podcast: Go to iTunes podcast. If you subscribe, your iTunes will add new audios when new ones are uploaded.
RSS Feed: feed
Rooting Interest
I love watching competition. I can easily watch soccer, football, lumber sports, world strongest man, and just about anything else. If they came up with rules and strategies for competitive fence painting, I could watch it.
As a general rule, I don’t root for professional sports teams. Players are as loyal as the next contract. Teams are as loyal as the player is useful. For players it’s a job (one they might love) and for owners it’s a business.
I have no problem with the business of sport. With that being said, it is the old Seinfeld observation, “We are just rooting for laundry.” The players change. The owners change. The uniforms don’t (for the most part).
This is year is different. I am rooting for the New Orleans Saints.
Not because I think Coach Sean Payton is doing a great job. (He is.) Not because they play a great style of ball. (They do.)
The reason is simple. If the Saints win one more game and make it to the Super Bowl, then New Orleans will be part of the single most hyped event of the calendar year. An event, which last year had more than 140 million views.
This will give CBS the chance to do a number of stories on the city. They will be able to do:
* Look how much joy and hope a silly game can bring a community.
* Look how much the players have learned for living through this with strong, hopeful, beautiful, loving people who just want their city back.
* Look how far we have to go is getting the city back to where it was.
As they chant down on the bayou “Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints, Who Dat?”
Let’s hope next week, for the sake of a city, no one.
The Simpsons as Anime
Better Feeling Emotions
An e-mail I received yesterday:
Our emotional state is a choice. Sometimes it may not seem that way, but it is.
Every emotion is preceded by a thought. We interpret what is happening in the world around us. We make a value you judgment (is it good, bad, unsafe, satisfying) and based on that judgment we then feel emotion.
No mater what our emotional state is right now, we have the opportunity to choose a better feeling emotion.
An over simplified example, just to make the point.
My grandmother dies. I recognize that I am never going to have tea with her in the morning on the way to work. I feel loss and sadness over this loss.
I can dwell on the fact that I will go without forever, or I can choose to think how blessed I was to have such an awesome woman in my life and think back to all those great morning we had.
My emotional state changes as I move from loss to thankfulness. I feel better.
This happened by choice. I choose a different thought, which produced a different emotion.
Sometimes this happens by accident, but we can consciously choose to do this.
No matter what emotion we are feeling right now, we can always choose a better feeling emotion.
Sometime it is work to do this.
Sometimes we would rather stew in our own juices than feel better.
But, we always have the choice to choose a better feeling emotion.
[the aforementioned prayer blog]
Inevitable
“There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.”
Marshall McLuhan
Humiliation
In the ancient Jewish book the Talmud (a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history) humiliation is equated to murder.
There is a great deal of conversation among Jewish scholars and theologians on around how literal this equation is.
If it is a one to one comparison or just ornate language to make a point, it is an interesting disposition.
When we humiliate others, by making fun if them (even if we think we are joke), on some level we are killing a part of them.
We are killing their sense of worth.
One more reason I am watching my language in the New Year.
[this is the right link to day. Join me!]
Smell in NYC
Results of Scott Adams’ investigation into the smell in NYC found this:
[via Dilbert Blog]
Okay, so he did make it up. Too funny!
On your prayer blog you wrote “the ability to choose a better emotion”.
What do you mean by that, if I may ask?