davidNprogress

I met my wife over 26 years ago as a result of a blind date and our 24 year anniversary of marriage was last week. That simple lunchtime together led to more dates, marriage, a child and wonderful life that has had its fair share of ups and downs. Through it all, I have striven to be as good of a partner and a husband as I can. I have often failed to live up to my own standards and have tried to take in my inner lessons to be better with every year. It is almost cliche’ for some guys to joke about having married up but I can tell you for sure that is the case for me. I often feel unworthy of this woman I get to spend my days with and want to ensure I am doing my best to live up to being the man she deserves. This week is the start of our 25th year of marriage and a good time to reflect back on what has made our marriage a success and mistakes I have made along the way. It takes a proactive effort to live a life together that thrives through the grind of day to day living and...

I still remember the day I realized that my daily diet coke habit was stealing my retirement dreams. At the time, Coke was running a promotion using a code from a bottle cap to get prizes. You would save your cap, enter the number on a website and points would add up for something fabulous. I kept these caps in a desk drawer and it did not take long for these to really pile up since I had a long time frequent habit of visiting the machine at work several times a day. There was the before work Coke, mid-morning Coke, lunch Coke, mid-afternoon Coke and usually something towards the end of the day. One afternoon I looked at the pile of caps wondered how much in cost that represented. Next, I began to think about cost over time and if I continued this pattern what it would mean in the long term. The final kicker was when I plugged in my average monthly diet coke spending into a savings calculator and considered how much $5 a day applied to retirement could mean if saved for the ne...

Twenty years ago last week Michelle and I started the amazing journey of marriage together. Just a few years prior to that grand day we had met on a blind date through a mutual friend. Now many years later we are at a beginning again of sorts as we are stepping into life together as empty nesters since our only child has now moved off to college. It is very appropriate in a way to have this anniversary and the transition to a new life together in the same year. These many years have been amazing and full of adventures, joy, heartache, togetherness, challenges learning and most of all love. I can remember clearly in the years leading prior to meeting Michelle wondering if I would ever meet someone that I would marry and spend the rest of my life with. There were times when I thought it would never happen. That simple blind date led me to a person that I had been praying and hoping for all my life.  I relish my time with Michelle. She is the perfect spouse, mother and fr...

August was big for us as our only child left the house to begin a new life in college. This event had loomed for a long time and to be honest I was not really sure of what would be my reaction. Excitement? Depression? Fear? The possibilities were broad and fortunately the realities turned out to be mostly positive for us. His excitement was completely contagious and I could not help but smile on my way home thinking of him back in the dorm room with this great next big step into adulthood. He said he could not wait to ask friends over to see his “place.” The reality is that moving on and growing up is a good thing and being human there is nothing wrong with parents experiencing all the stages of separation that is expected. You name an emotion and I have most likely felt it over these last several weeks as we prepared for the big day. I have tried my best all these years to be the father to my son that I never experienced as a child. I tried to be there for him when ...

You always have some students who say, ‘I don’t want to go to college; But they don’t realize whatever it is in life, they need to go to college for it.” Martin Copland (no relation to me) This is a quote I read recently in an article about plans to encourage more students to attend college out of high school. The quote was from a high school guidance counselor. First as a parent of a high school junior I want to make it very clear that we strongly believe the path to our son’s lifelong career success will pass through college. We are blessed that he already has decided his future career and is working now to ensure he is gaining skills that will help him in college and beyond. I also understand and recognize that the evidence clearly shows that college graduates over a lifetime will have a higher income and experience many other benefits. With all of this in mind, I nonetheless could not help but get angry over the quote. I just hate to think of the poor kid with ...

Hello my name is….. Regret, stupid, mistake, loser, ugly, fat, defeat For many people the labels we wear in our hearts about who or what we think we really are can be completely debilitating. Many are self-created for no real reason at all while others are the result of false assessments placed on us through the ignorance and meanness of others. I am 46 yet in my head on bad day I can see very clearly the time as a second or third grader when in a moment of self defeat I etched “dummie” on  a brick outside the west side of our house. That moment and that word haunted me for years as not only did it continue to echo in my head but later I realized it would not come off the brick. I had created a false label.  I think we all do this. We etch labels so deeply in our hearts that we just can’t seem to remove them. Then for some to feel better they transfer these labels to others in an effort to feel better.  I know way too many people that hate themselves an...

Like many people I know, I avoid shopping at Wal-Mart as much as possible. I loathe the dozens of cashier stations with typically just a small percentage open. I cringe at the thought of using the terrible self-service kiosks that always seem to crash when I use them while gleefully exclaiming, “item not found in bag” when I try to pay. Oh the agony. Then of course there are the people of Wal-Mart. It seems the store brings in a lower class of poorly dressed and equally poorly behaved people shopping in pajamas, house shoes and no bras. Give me the high class folks of Target or a locally owned store any day. Just other day the son and I were forced to shop in Wal-Mart together for an item that could not be found anywhere else. We bravely fought the holiday crowd while at the same time gaining great amusement feeling good about ourselves by making fun of the people in the store. Huh? I was no further away from the store than the parking lot when the whole thing c...

Thanks to smart phones and tablets, our society is quickly moving through a technology motivated transformation with broad impacts. Most of these are positive with hyper-networking opening doors to community and innovation that would not have been possible even just a few years ago. I think most of us now take for granted the amount of information that is available at any given time right in the palm of our hand. But with these changes have also come pitfalls as well and we should be ever on guard to ensure we embrace the positive side of technology rather than fall into a technological hole that will destroy us. Truly there is danger for it to take our lives, darken our souls, and destroy our families. Am I being over dramatic? Check out these facts about texting and driving. It seems more and more common to hear of accidents due to distracted drivers. Thankfully the wireless industry recognizes this problem and companies like Sprint are now offering tools to help. Sprint Cus...

“The world is what we think it is. If we can change our thoughts we can change the world” H.M. Tomlison A funny thing about attitudes is that they are as contagious as colds. We truly tend to catch whichever one we surround ourselves with most. No one is immune. I have often found myself in a circle of negativity fully participating in the downtrodden conversation about how terrible this or that or him or she is. Soon thereafter upon reflection, I often end up feeling a genuine sense of shame that I chose to take part and more importantly chose to enable. There was a day during my chemotherapy that served as perhaps the best reminder. I was sitting quietly in the waiting room before the start of my treatments when the nurse came in to get the gentleman sitting next to me. This guy was in obvious pain, poor health and was well advanced in age. The nurse asked, “How are you today?” Without missing a beat he replied, “Wonderful! My eyes opened this morning and the Lord has bles...

Conner is 16 now and it seems lately I have been thinking more and more about his future. What kind of man will he be? How will he do in college? Will his dream of becoming a petroleum engineer come true? Will he go on to have a big house, nice car and fat bank account? That stuff is all well and good but the bottom line really is that I just want him to be a Godly man and happy person no matter what path he takes to get there. I also hope that he is blessed to find a great woman to be his wife and partner through life’s journey. It is kind of surreal to think that his future wife is out there now. This week she will go to class, hang out with friends and I am sure spend a bunch of time texting. She is also daily making choices and developing relationship skills that will impact her and Conner’s future. The teen years are the most formative in determining who we become in the future. Right now she is learning what it means to be part of a family.   Her parents could be marri...

Have you ever fallen into the frequency trap? So much of life is a simple matter of routine. Same drive to work. Same people surrounding you. Same church on Sunday, Same chicken dinner every Tuesday and on and on and on it goes. Frequency creates numbness to our surroundings and often to our life. To break free, many people end up seeking a rush hoping to escape and find excitement. This can be positive with goals to learn new skills, go on a special trip, try that food that cannot be pronounced, start that devotional, go for that dream job. Of course there are unhealthy ways to break out that often lead to debt, distress and even divorce. Getting un-numb productively takes work but most of all takes awareness. It seems too often that we take for granted those things that are frequent. The seemingly mundane can be our best window to happiness if we simply take a moment to realize these are the moments that truly make our lives meaningful. There is no need to go jump out of a pla...

Years ago I used to facilitate a course that had a section about attitude. I began the session with a little exercise with the folks in pairs to share a story. The conversation had to be about a plan for the future and for round one no matter what person #1 shared the second person was to respond “ yes but !” “I am really looking forward to the weekend with my family” “ Yes but it looks like it is going to rain all weekend so you will not be able to do much.” “My son is doing great is school right now” “ Yes but you know college is going to be super expensive and most likely he will struggle to get a job when/if he graduates.” The round two response had to be a positive “ yes and ” “I am really looking forward to the weekend with my family” “ Yes and with the rain you could play some really fun board games with great conversations.” “My son is doing great in school right now” “ Yes and that is a terrific indicator of a positive future ahead.” You k...

“The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to...failure.” ― John Maxwell One of the key traits of successful people is a willingness to fail. There are many people out there that have never failed due to having never taken a risk. They have instead chosen the low road in life. The higher you try to climb the further you may fall after all. The risk taker steps out in front of the crowd to try. She takes the risk, fails, learns and then goes at it again with a new and improved strategy. This concept is known as failing forward and only a few have this great capacity. No one wants to be a failure but there are those who see missteps merely as chances to find new ways to win. Far too many people unfortunately use the fear of failure as an excuse not to try. Perhaps they were a poor student before so the thought of spending money to go back to school brings memories of emotions felt when that “F” arrived.  Ma...