Jim Lastinger

The new and expanded edition of The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss is a fantastic motivational tool. Tim raises some pretty big questions, such as “Why do we work all of our lives, taking only 2 weeks of vacation per year, just to have a little bit of freedom at the end of our lives?” 4HWW gives insight and methodologies for reducing the amount of time you spend working each week so that you can actually spend your time doing things that you enjoy. I recommend this book to everyone, whether you own a company or are an employee (Tim has lots of insight for both).

The full title of the book is Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son. Manhood is essentially a group of essays about everything from starting a comic book club as a kid to throwing away your children’s crafts as they get older. Some of the essays are quite funny, most are pretty boring though.

Purple Cow is all about making your product or service standout. It’s a great read, quick and insightful. Highly recommended for any business owner or marketing exec.

I’ve completed the very first item from my list of 100 Awesome Things to Do. This past Sunday night was a beautiful, clear night. It was also considerably cooler than the past few days had been. So I trekked outside with a blanket and just stared up at the sky for a half hour or so. The moon was full the following night, so it was a little harder to see the stars than normal, but I didn’t mind.

Jupiter is mid-sky right now after sunset, so it’s easily the brightest object in the sky. The near-full moon was beautiful as well.

I like to take these kinds of opportunities to think about our place in the universe and remember just how small we are and how beautiful the universe is.

Everyone has goals that they don’t meet. They have things they want to do but never get them done. They have dreams that they don’t fulfill.

I’m going to take a slightly different approach to fulfilling some of my personal goals. I’m coming up with a list of 100 things (all kinds of things, too) and I’ll write a blog post detailing what I did as I mark something off my list. My goal is to complete my list by Halloween 2010. Sounds pretty fun, right?

The hardest part may actually be coming up with the list of 100 things to begin with. So I’m gonna jump right in and start listing the things I want to do.

1. Photograph a beautiful sunset over a large body of water.

2-5. Take some time to look at the stars, at least once per season.

6-17. Read 1 business book per month.

18-23. Read 6 novels throughout the year.

24-27. Take my daughter to the zoo once per season.

28. Take a moonlight stroll on the beach with my wife.

29. Have a picnic with my wife and daughter.

30. Start my own personal blog (CHECK!)