Opportunities

Doing anything in a mastery level is not an easy task. Grading for your black belt is one of the hardest paths I had to go through. What made it easier for me is taking any opportunity I had along the way.

These opportunities present themeselfs and you can either take them or ignore them. Some of these opportunities for me were going to the fitness class, trying to make every sihing class I could attend (and changing other commitments to make it work), going to as many classes as I could and participate in the class, teaching the kids classes...

Going for you black belt this year on the next? take as many opportunities as you can!

Leadership

Last Friday I attended a leadership conference. It was very insperational but lacked something. I did not feel connected to all the speakers as they used a one sided story to illustrate their points.

I don't consider myself as natural leader. Being in front of people is hard for me. Talking in front of a gorup is even harder. Leading a group? 

While training for my black belt, we discuss the types of leaders - the one that leads by charisma and the one that leads by example. I always tend to be the one that leads by example. For some reason (read on to find out) I don't have the required charisma to lead a group of people. I think I'm afraid of failure. What if I tell a group of people to do one thing and it turns to be a bad idea? What if I say something and no one listens?

I see the say charasteristics of my self in my son and girls. I want them to be better than I was. I want to lead by example and show them that I can also lead with charisma. Something to work on and grow.

Look Up

When you are too busy looking down you don’t see the chances you miss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY

Appreciation

This week I had 2 topics I wanted to blog about. I didn’t want to leave one of them to next week and I was going to blog twice. Then I figured both are different but the same.

I was a single parent this weekend. Starting Thursday I was on my own. Taking the kids to their classes and teaching in the kids classes, sending them to school, meals, birthday party, more Kung Fu classes, working in the garden, bike rides, building forts, more meals, more classes, even managed to complete a project I had on my list for few months (when the kids were at school).

When I had some time to think about all I was doing I had appreciation to single parents, managing to juggle life by themselves. I also appreciate my wife who is doing the lion share of this work on a regular basis.

Today is also the Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel. I remember stories my dad used to tell me about days without food. The fear of being taken to the death camps. All these memories came back today and I am so thankful to be living were I am. Having a house, food, security.

We really need to appreciate all that is around us. The people that surround us and the environment we live in.

168 hours

Most of us complain about the lack of time. We have 168 hours a week to do everything we want. It all depends on our priorities. What is most important for us? If it is important we will find the time for it. Of course we have to sleep, eat, work…

Considering 7 hours of sleep (every night), 46 hours at work (including commuting), about 5 hours for eating – that leaves 68 hours. Now it doesn’t look so good but this is almost full 3 days!!!

Trying to avoid the down time when I’m staring at the computer not understanding what I’m doing and why I’m not doing what is important to me. Well, step one is to determine what is important. Step two is to plan what you do and step three is to act on it.

Can I plan my week to the minute? Is it overkill? Probably it is but if I keep reminding myself what is important to me, I’m sure I will find the time to do it.

Back pain - again?

Today I bought my personal massage therapist. The one the is always there for you. Although limited to the back, I think it will be a great companion to my chiro visits.

This weekend was lots of fun - on Friday we had Dragon practice, Lion dance practice, presentation of our demo forms. Then for my anniverssary date we went on for a nice vietnamese restaurant. Saturday we spent some more time at the kwoon and in afternoon we went swimming. Today we went bike riding and later in the evening we went for an early Easter meal.

Now time to go, relax and get my back massage....

To sleep or not to sleep

The obvious answer is to sleep. The past week I was soooo tired.

Going to bed in a decent hour is becoming harder as there are so many things to do. I hardly drag myself out of bed and go to work, to the gym. I think it might be dangerous to drive in this state. I thought need to take a day off and catch up with some sleep but now I realize that this wont help. I need to go to bed on time no matter what and get 7-8 hours of sleep.