Andrew Thorn and Professional Practice Meeting

I just attended the first professional practice meeting for this semester (Spring 2009) at Alliant International University. Andrew Thorn, whom I am pleased to say is a strong acquantance, and even friend, spoke to us this evening on personal best leadership. I dare say he started the semester off right. He did very well. In speaking about his blog and how authentic he was in his daily postings, the thought of "justjg" as a blog name came to me. I had started my first blog ever called "rhetorical frameworks" just a couple of months ago, but I had not written on it as much as I thought I would (my first choice was "whatever" for a blog name but that was already taken). As I thought about it, my feeling was that "rhetorical frameworks" seemed too niche and too specific, just by the title. So to start rattling off my own thoughts and opinions about something totally unrelated to rhetoric didn't seem to quite fit the name. However, as Andrew spoke of being authentic, the blog name "just jg" seemed to fit quite nicely, so it is here that I shall call my blogging home for now and see what comes of it and out of me at the keyboard. But I will visit "rhetorical frameworks" occasionally. I have thougths for it scattered on pages through out the house and in the margins of dozens of books.

Andrew also spoke of having the perfect day. By this he meant the perfect "normal" day. It would be filled with everyday things that you would want it filled with and it would be a day showing a life in balance. It is something that needs to be planned out. I have started to do something akin to Andrews concept of the perfect day. Though not quite planned out (my approach has been a little more organic) in the sense of having a specific time set aside for certain activities, I have made it a point to take about twenty minutes to take a good brisk walk and to also make sure that I practice the piano, even if it is just for ten minutes. As a graduate student in a PhD program, it could be said that I do not have the time to do these things even for a very limited amount of time. But after three semesters of grad school, I am at the point where I realize that I cannot afford not to do these things. I'll make the time, and still have the time to take care of school work and spend time with my wife and three daughters. Something I read in Richard Carlson's book, "Don't Worry, Make Money" has stuck with me. It is that if you keep telling yourself that you do not have the time, then you won't have the time. That sort of negative self dialogue is not very useful nor is the negative energy that it creates. All I could say was "duh, I knew that". I usually think of myself as being pretty good at being aware of how I talk to myself, but I let this one get past me. Ironically, my semester has been alot more stress free just by this one attitudinal shift in my thinking. I'm walking almost every day, teaching myself to play the piano. Oh, and I make sure that there is some time everyday to practice the guitar even if it is just for five or ten minutes. I have been playing since I was sixteen, but have decided to take my current skill set and bump it up a notch. So there it is. And as an aside, all of Richard Carlson's books that I have read are most excellent and I do not doubt that the ones I have not yet read are as equally excellent. I was quite sad to learn recently of his passing away a couple of years ago. Bummer!