Printable Train Tracks on SoHeresMyLife.com

Since my past toy car road printable went over so well over on SoHeresMyLife.com, I decided to do another one for train tracks.  Printable Train Tracks is the result.  It's a quick craft that you can do for or with your kiddos.

The coolest part about it is that you can arrange and create it however you want.  Even once it's assembled, you can rearrange the panels in whatever configuration you can come up with.  If you want more, you can print out some more pages and make it as elaborate as you want.

Soon, I'll be coming out with a new printable set that ties both the train track and roads together.  If you sign up for email notifications over at SoHeresMyLife.com, you'll get the latest and you won't miss it.

Changing Businesses or Changing Lives?

Changing lives instead of just helping business.

People think they want their businesses boosted, but what they really want is a better life.  I want to be in the business of building people as well as businesses.

I've been thinking a lot about a business model for a service business targeting small businesses.  In my skillset, that would likely encompass, IT, web and/or marketing.  I would want my business to be more than just a standard business, though.  I would want it to build people up.  I would want to help them in a way that makes their lives better.  If I were to have any employees or partners, I would want to have myself and my business model invest in them.  I believe that if you truly invest in people, you'll see the greatest returns.

Is this crazy?  If it's not, what are some ways that this would manifest itself in a practical way?

Freedom or Money?

Today, I was offered $8000/year in exchange for what I consider a significant chunk of my freedom.  Right now, I work full time for an IT company.  About a year ago, I took a 10% pay cut to take 4 hours per week to work on my side business.  These 4 hours per week have proven very lucrative for me, as it's enabled me to take on more projects and work to build a clientele and income streams separate from my employer.

My eventual goal, of course, is to work for myself doing consulting and building passive income streams.  Being able to take these 4 hours each week to focus on building something for me and my family is worth more to me than the money that is created by it.  It provides much more fulfillment to me than my full time job.

The offer of $8000 in exchange for giving this time back to the company was meant to be generous, but would in fact have a net negative effect on my happiness, ability to help the most people and my annual income.  The biggest area that would have diminished would have been my freedom.

Tell me, who would voluntarily climb back into a cell after experiencing freedom?

Focus

Every day I have to re-learn a lesson about focus.  My progress is always hindered when my focus isn't applied.  I find it most easy to focus when I have my tasks listed somewhere so that I don't have to try to retain it all in my brain.  It takes up so many extra "CPU cycles" to try and maintain all of this important information in the forefront of the mind.

I'm also trying to impart this to my 4 year old.  When he's picking up toys, it often takes him forever and he's running back and forth across the house moving a single Lego to the Lego bucket, then some colored pencils to his art area.  I'm trying to get him to get used to picking up one type of toy at a time until that's done then moving on to another one.  He gets it done so much faster when he focuses.

Through incremental improvement, we'll both get there.  I think he's making faster progress than I am, though. ;)

SoHeresMyLife.com's New Design

I have another quick plug for my wife's blog over at www.SoHeresMyLife.com.  I've implemented a new design on the site that I think looks really great.  I can't really take credit for the design, just the code behind it.  While I can code, I am not a designer by any stretch of the imagination.  Though, I can fake it sometimes. ;)

The design was actually created by a good friend of mine and an incredibly skilled designer, who I have learned so much from, Rudi Backart.  You can see some of her paintings over at her site RudiBackart.com.

My Cool Printable on SoHeresMyLife.com

My hot (and only) wife has a really cool blog over at www.soheresmylife.com.  It's mainly aimed towards moms, but has some cool crafts that even dads can do with the kids.  

One of them was actually created by me.  The Printable Road Map for Toy Cars craft post and the freely downloadable PDF are my work.  I had a great time creating it and putting it together.  

The pages have road pieces and building pieces which are printed, cut out and glued together to create an infinitely customizable play set.  Head on over to www.SoHeresMyLife.com and check it out.  I've honestly played with the town during the boys' naptime more than once. :)

I am going to have a train track set coming out soon on her blog, as well, so watch for that.  If you have any ideas or requests for upcoming projects, let me know and I'll see what I can put together.

My 2014 Goals

I'm not into New Year's resolutions, but I do like to create goals for the coming year.  Here are a list of some of my goals for the upcoming year:

• Fitness
• Be able to do a handstand without support or starting vertically
• Be able to climb a 5.10 and a V4 at Stone Age Climbing Gym
• Run a 5K
• Be able to do a Kong Vault
• Lose 15 pounds
• Study the Bible and pray daily
• Make $1000/mo in passive income
• Get back into playing my bass guitar and further my proficiency

There's this great new app called Lift for iOS that helps you keep motivated and making headway on your goals.  The platform allows you to specify goals, which basically places you in a 'group' where other people are pursuing the same goals.  The users in this group are notified of the others progress and can give each other 'props' for their daily progress.  It's a fun and easy way to feel good about maintaining your diligence.

If you've decided on some goals for the upcoming year, post them below or toss them out there on Twitter to me: @yeddish.