I have read and talked about the great book Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. I am believing more in it as I practice what it says more consistently. One area that feeds me so much that I have been neglecting is writing or scribing if you follow the SAVERS model in Miracle Morning. This is a first effort in righting the ship.

I am now reading The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington. It has been really good so far. It strikes me in the the analytical side of my brain but is helping to make a path from the visual to the analytical. I get off track on doing what I know I should be doing because I struggle with the very thing that I coach on. Having a strong visualization of what I want my future to look like and time blocking. What I have found is there is nothing like getting up a little earlier in the morning while others are either asleep or rushing around the house getting ready for another day in the rat race and starting my day with some reading and some intentional thought.

It’s interesting as I am reading it as the same time I am reading The Inner Game of Golf (IGOG) by Tim Gallwey. I have couple that I am giving golf lessons to that we recently did a playing lesson with. It’s uncanny the similarities of teaching someone golf and coaching them as a business coach. On the golf course I offer very limited advice on how to swing the club, actually I rarely give any at all. Instead I help them focus on visualization and letting what IGOG calls Self 2 to captain the ship. The book introduces 2 versions of self that the author identified when trying to improve at Tennis and then applied the same principles to golf.

Self 1 is “the coach” and the critical analytical self that is telling Self 2 who is the one that actually executes the shot what to do. Self 2 can do fine by himself so long as he has great visualization of what he wants to ball to do but does dramatically worse when Self 2 tries to coach him as what to do when he is actually executing the shot. Self 1 also is attached to the ego and is fast to point out when Self 1 is performing like a blithering idiot.

The interesting thing that I observed during my playing round was 2 part. One, the need of the husband to take over the Self 1 role for his wife and tell her ever thing she was doing wrong as well as playing the role of Self 1 for his Self 2. Even after countless times telling him that there was nothing he could do to impart any positive results the day we were playing by tinkering with his swing. Time and time again I told him to picture the shot and walk about to the ball and hit it. Over and over again he would get over the ball and go through 7 or 9 gyrations of grip fiddling, club waggling, obviously playing over and over again in his head what Self 1 was telling Self 2 about how to execute the shot. On the few occasions where I prevailed and got him to step up to the ball and swing without thinking, the results were markedly better.

She, on the other had was would ask for advice on what club to use and I would tell her what the correct club and shot would be to play the percentages. She would inevitably pick what she determined she was most comfortable with and would hit 2 or 3 balls executing it poorly only to come back to the suggestion and play the percentage shot that produced a much better result. This pattern repeated leading me to see how folks get stuck in patterns of staying in their comfort zones even when the results they are getting are much less effective that if they changed. Their lies the similarity.

Why is it we stay where we are comfortable even though there is a better place to be? The 12 Week Year says it’s because when we set business goals, we fail to connect them to a vision of what personal life would look like when we reach those goals and I tend to agree. I think that is why I was struggling to make the time to follow what I know was a better routine for me to win by getting up earlier and reading, writing , exercising and following the Miracle Morning routine.

I did a thing today. I haven’t done anything like this in a LONG time.

I had a 2oo mile ride while listening to some of my favorite podcast material by Tim Ferris. He interviewed Matthew McConaughey and Richard Koch.

It was a beautiful ride down along a route through Lascassas where we are looking for land and back up 96 to the dam at Centerhill and then back down through Lancaster, Brush Creek, Alexandria, Watertown and Gladeville to go early vote.

Listening to Richard Koch walk folks through where there gifting and passion lies reminded me how much I enjoy writing and sharing a few thoughts. I guess I need to get back at it.

Dear Journal,

Well this feels more like a confession than a journal entry. It looks like it has been almost 4 months since I have made an entry. Ouch. I guess that is an epic fail.

Well, I did get some things done though.

Book update, well I have the book written, edited and my brother Ken Maynard has about got the jacket done so it should be ready to go to print this next week. I will have the website up for it soon. You can find Ken at The Mayn Idea 

I also have a website for my coaching now at CoachWithWade.com

The new coaching gig has been very rewarding and challenging. Sewing faith in others, motivating them and helping to keep them in the present and process focused is a difficult task but it brings with it great rewards seeing people grow and excel.

On the SAVERS:

Today I did SERS,

I am going to ask a coaching client that had a great affirmation to see if he would share it with me to help me with mine.

I am grateful for my wife and kids. We had a wonderful Memorial day weekend catching up on a few things at the house and playing in the pool. Our neighbors Matt and Aha had some family visiting who had recently adopted a little boy and girl and they have had a blast with our two kids this week. We all went to the Corner Pub (the kids call it the burger store) last night for $5 burger last night and then on to dance where our daughter is getting ready for her recital coming up the first week in June. She was so cute in her outfits!

I am grateful for our neighbors, the house were we live, a wonderful church for us and our kids and a great family where I kids go to day care. They play Christian music on the radio for them during nap time so they know all of the words to the current Christian songs on the radio. We were all singing along to Zach William’s Fear He is a Liar on the way to the burger store last night. It was a blessing.

Not much else to write now, I need to get some golf and fishing in sometime soon. I have only played once this year. Brother Ken said he has a boat that we can keep for awhile. I think I will take him up on that if I get the chance and get the kids out fishing again. Aubrey caught her first 2 little bream last year and she was thrilled so we need to get Aiden a couple too.

We are looking at buying an RV for all of our trips this year. We are not big into spending money on things like that but we are hoping on finding a good enough deal where we can use it a year to see if we like it and if not sell it and not be out any for the purchase price. I know we will end up spending quite a bit on travel in it but it sure would be convenient for our trips to TX and FL.

It’s 6:45 time to go start breakfast for everyone. I hope you all make it a great day and remember… It’s not about the destination, It’s all about the Ride

She Said it ain’t about an exit past
A dot on the map no, that ain’t where we’re goin’
It ain’t about the road we’re on
How far we’ve gone as long as we keep rollin’
It’s not about the path we take
Or the end of the line
It’s not about us getting somewhere
As fast as we can drive
She said Baby
It’s all about the ride

Mark McGuinn

Well it’s 6:40 so it’s going to be brief this time. Here are the 6 habits for the Miracle Morning:

1. Silence
2. Affirmations
3. Visualization
4. Exercise
5. Reading
6. Scribing

Ok Silence, I was quiet this morning at least the best a “baby bull” can be but I guess I did spend a little time on unplugging. I did not open up a piece of technology until scribing time to write this.

Affirmations, I skipped this, I will get it in next time. Ok, I will give a couple; I am so grateful for the opportunity to fulfill a life long passion to be able to sew hope and seeds into others success. I am grateful for a wonderful wife and two loving and health children that God has blessed us with.

Visualization: See affirmations, yep skipped it too. I know how important these two are I am not ignoring them but I just finished the book so give me a break 😉

Exercise: BIG WIN I did 20 minutes of beginners yoga

Reading: Yep I read the last 3 chapters of Miracle Morning and my bible reading for the day as I just started a read through the bible in a year plan.

Scribing, well, your reading it.

I started the new Job as a National Sale Coach for Movement Mortgage on Monday. Shout out to Tim Davis for honoring me with the job and to Rob Durden for taking me onto his team. I can’t tell you guys how much I am looking forward to the next chapter in my life with Movement as a coach.

I’ve been studying the culture and learning about the leadership and I have been really impressed with their vision and their passion. I think this is going to be a great fit.

It’s almost 7, time to go get breakfast ready. I think I will write about the roles we play tomorrow and start mapping out the plan to write my first book. That is what I want to accomplish with my Miracle Morning this year.

This is a story about two little trees…

Who would not give up, even though they were not planted in fertile ground.

They were struggling to survive wondering where they belonged and needing something to live for. God told them they were to bloom where they were planted and trust in Him that He would provide.

And so He did and he gave them a little tree to love, also born out of difficult circumstances but now thriving in the new soil where it was planted.

In the meantime there was a fourth tree. Though it had been cut back several times and shrouded by the garden around it, it still emerged over the under growth, too innocent to know that is should not be thriving in such an odd place.

So the four trees came together to form a family, their bonds formed not from blood but by love and they were strengthened by their shared circumstances and trust in the Lord.

These trees started emerging from the edge of our flower garden where we cleaned out and put new landscaping fabric over all but the existing flowers a few years ago so as not to have any “volunteer” weeds or other unwanted growth forming.  Steph called them “weeds”as they were still pretty small and she usually pulls the weeds out but these were no normal little “weeds”.  

When I went to investigate I discovered that they were in fact, little trees.  After they started to grow a little and she asked me about pulling them, I was thinking about George Strait’s little flower growing up in the middle of the sidewalk in the song “I saw God today”.  The challenge that these trees have gone through just to survive where they are is incredible. We don’t take great care of the garden and have even been successful in even killing a cactus! We don’t have a green thumb between us. 

With that thought in mind, I thought, you know what, those two trees were not just trees, they were me and Stephanie. We might have not have come together under the best of circumstances and the Lord knows the struggle that what we have been through would have toppled many, but we have survived and the struggle has made us a stronger couple. 

Oddly enough, another new and even smaller one has bursted from underneath that same landscaping fabric on the other side of the house.

The forth and final one has fought it’s way right through the hasta at the end of the garden where the drive angles out and everyone accidentally runs over it when leaving our house. It’s been run over by cars over and over against and I’ve tried cutting it back several times now as it is right in the middle of the other plant but it just keeps on coming back. 

I guess we’ll all just keep thriving where the good Lord put us and quit questioning it.

Our Family Tree. 

 

Conway Adoption Fundraiser

When: Saturday October 25

Where: Gladeville Community Center
95 Mccreary Rd, Lebanon, TN 37087

What: 

• Cornhole for all and sidewalk chalk and games for little ones start at 4:00
• Texas styled Brisket
• TN style Pulled Pork with all the Fixings
• Peach Cobbler with home made ice cream
• Dinner at 5:00-7:00
• Pick Up Orders text to 615-838-8777 from 4-5:30
• Alabama VS Tennessee Football on the Big Screen
• Silent Auction ongoing throughout event
• Bring a folding chair for TV or by the fire
• Online Donations at www.adopttogther.com/dreamchild

RSVP on Facebook at  Aubrey&BubbaQue  or email
Wade@wadeconway.com

*Recommended min donation $20 ea. or $50 per family. Of course we’ll take more and we can use it 😉 but just want to make sure our food costs are covered.