Friday, January 10, 2014

Long time...

Long time no post. Enjoying new season of Psych on USA. Now that I got Android tablet, this Google thing is making life easy. Amazing how much can be done from a tablet three times less than iPad. Swipe type awesome! Back to making 2014 a good year, may you do the same.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Day 10; Dreams

What are your dreams? Your spouse? What a great capstone for the journey.  Too often we grind it out.  Just making it through day, what's on tap tomorrow, lock and load, here we go...

Dreams work better together.  If you try to do it all alone, you might end up alone.  You have a better chance of realizing a dream together.  And it's more fun to have your best friend along to enjoy the journey.

There is a day 11, but it's more a reminder to keep building on these blocks from Days 11 to 11,000.  Like reading the instructions on your shampoo bottle, same applies here; lather, rinse, repeat.  Keep it going!

Best wishes to all who buy the book and thanks to Phil.  Who had a dream of writing a book on how to help married couples and it became a reality in How to Turn Your Marriage Around in 10 Days.

@PhilipWagnerLA 
www.philipwagner.com

Day 9; Needs

We all have needs. Like earlier post, life gets in the way.  The neat thing about this book is by this point of the journey, you become more away of deeper things.  I guess that's a summary point of why I enjoyed it so much.  You are drawn in by the simplicity of a ten day journey, but Phil has a plan.  As you step along the journey, you go from the shallow end of the pool into the deep end.  Needs is like getting the guts to jump off the diving board.  We both have needs.  How can we work to meet those needs for each other?


@PhilipWagnerLA 
www.philipwagner.com

Day 7; Connection

Connect. It is what brought us together. Then life gets in the way.

I love the quote by Jeff Daly- Two monologues don't make a dialogue.

This was something I needed to hear.  I have a Bachelor Degree in Communication though you'd never know it.  I interrupt.  Jump to conclusions without letting the other person finish.

What I needed to hear was the great info on the difference in how men and women process information;
Men tend to be literal,
Women naturally multi-task,
Women use more words...

These are near and dear to my wife's and my heart.  I have needed to learn to see gray.  Also, my wife can do two things at same time (listen to me and hammer away at PR release for Habitat for Humanity on PC).  My wife also uses more words (back to that communication degree, if I think I got the point, but she's not done, learn to keep listening, as more often than once my first guess was wrong).

Phil's final advice is to pray together.  This is a great section and is likely a change, it is for us, and not easy.

@PhilipWagnerLA 
www.philipwagner.com

Day 6; Change

Only guarantees in life are death and taxes.  Or as someone said on a sitcom, death in Texas (the character wasn't real bright).

I've learned professionally that change is inevitable.  If you wait long enough, the joke goes, the initiative you haven't adopted will change to another.  I have a file cabinet full of meeting notes sort of proving this point.

It isn't easy, but necessary to change.  Phil though pointed out the key is overcoming past hurts.  Wow, that's so true.  We all come into relationships with past hurts.  Baggage is a new term.  Need to lighten our load will allow meaningful change.

If the word change bugs you, try other words;
adaptable,
flexible,
etc.

Whatever it takes, as Phil says, develop getting past your past.

@PhilipWagnerLA 
www.philipwagner.com

Day 5; Forgiveness

What a difficult topic for me. The easiest response is to hold a grudge. Forever if needed.In the chapter is a great observation, why is it easier to forgive strangers than those close to us?

Phil has excellent examples of couples, but he opens with an example so amazing, it is my personal template for forgiveness.

I've lived my whole life in southeastern Pennsylvania.  The Anabaptist (Amish, Mennonite, Brethren  etc.) and with age I've grown to admire their faith.  The Amish community response after the Nickel Mine tragedy is the example.

What the world saw thanks to television was no pose for the community.  In fact, they hate the attention and glare.  This is how they live everyday.  My late father was in a bad auto accident and the other driver was Anabaptist.  They visited him in the hospital, asked what they could do to help.  Never once did they worry about guilt or innocence.  Glad he survived, what else can we do?  This was so strange to us, almost hard to understand.

Forgiveness is powerful, not easy, but worth the work.  I was glad to be reminded of the example set by my neighbors, and since I read chapter 5, as a horse drawn buggy slows my commute, I'm reminded of forgiveness.  Not how late I'll arrive.

@PhilipWagnerLA 
www.philipwagner.com

Days 5 through 10...

My review stalled at day 4 of Phil Wagner book. Forgive me blogsphere, life became busy causing my adult ADD to neglect finishing my posts. Stay tuned and be well.