We both are very busy with work and home responsibilities. There are a lot of activities going on in our lives which is nothing new for a lot of families, but what has continued to be reduced in the last few decades is Margin. You may ask what is Margin? Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives is written by Richard Swenson.  “Margin” the author explains is, “the space that once existed between us and our limits.” Swenson suggests and I’m in agreement that progress has eliminated our margin creating stress, overload and complexity. At this is not abating in fact its growing at an exponential rate!

Think about your life. Many of us have way too much activity, too much change, too many choices, too much work, too much debt, too much media exposure. We’re stressed by information overload. We’re stressed by accessibility overload. We’re connected all the time. The sheer pace of life for some is overwhelming. This has become very apparent to me this year, and there is a movement taken place the last couple years with people working on gaining back margin in various ways.

Take David Brueno for example that started the 100 item challenge. For one year, he lived with only 100 items which really transformed his live and caused many people to follow the same suite.

Willie Morris is a local entrepreneur, creator, and active nerd in Fort Lauderdale who is moving towards simplifying his life. He has down sized his home, changed his mode of transportation and reduced his carbon foot print. You can find out some more over on his site.

My Norwegian friend Ole, is also trying to simplify a lot in his life. He was in Brazil teaching, and he commented on overall how people were happy even though they didn’t have all the stuff we Americans have and he pointed me to a couple sites that gave a good description of what the slow movement is. He is also actively making changes in his life to slow down.

What am I’m doing to regain margin and not get swamped by the exponential pace of change that is happening around us? Will first you have to reevaluated what’s important to me, which has come down to this. To work on regaining a better balance in my life, work, family, physically, mentally and spirituality. I’m focusing on creating more opportunities to spend quality time with my sons, and moments where I can just be present. It can be small things like hanging out at a Coffee shop on a Friday reading a book, or engaged in some interesting conversation with a friend.

We have got to understand that our time is finite; we can’t be all things to all people. We can’t commit to every single activity, and be in all places at once. Doing so only reduces your margin. Reduction of margin leads to stress, which leads to fatigue, which leads to anger, which eventually if it continues leads to sickness.

So here are my action items.

• Saying no to extra commitments.
• Spending more time outdoors.
• Becoming debt free by this time next year, except the house.
• Becoming healthier by eating and exercising.
• Create more opportunities to spend quality time with people I care about for example the Book Club, I started.
• The big one is reducing my commute time. This means I may have to move to Ft. Lauderdale.

My question to you, have you noticed your margin increasing or decreasing. What are some of the things that you are doing to simplify your life?

During this time, one of a couple central thoughts that has remained constant is to continually learn, grow and introspection, so on Saturday I ran into this quote from a book I thoroughly enjoyed which is Echarte Tolle A New Earth which stated.

How to let go of attachment. “Don’t even try. It’s impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them. ~ Tolle

Growing up I was like the other kids I wanted the latest game system, nice expensive clothes, latest comics which later changed as I became older into more expensive things like, plasma TV, Tech gadgets, cars, big house. At the time, I had no idea why I wanted or needed those things. Now I know its for some of these reasons.

• I wanted to feel accepted by my peers
• I wanted to feel accepted within society
• I looking for stuff external to fill that insatiable need for more
• The egos insistent need to for grasping for things
• I was coerced by the marketing genius to purchase and want for things I have no need for
• I felt like I deserved it

What has changed and where am I now. I can sum this up in one sentence. My awareness has grown. Over the last 5ish years I am able to look inside myself and see what is driving me, I’m much more attuned with my feelings. I am able to see people who are trapped in that current state of wanting and needing things and see some of those aspects in myself. I’ve watched as friends spend most of their free time shopping, or online looking/hunting for the latest deals.

I’m at this point right now where my priorities have changed. What I hold more value towards is experiences than things and i’m making changes to be open to a new value that I currently hold as important. It is not paramount what car I drive. It is not paramount the size of my home, it is not vital that I attain more stuff. I will admit I still have some trappings and anyone that knows me can attest to my love of the iPhone. I’ll know that progress has been made when I don’t feel that wanting for his new device.

What is your relationship with material things? Why do you attain all that stuff? Do you value experiences over things? I would love to know.

I’ve heard this argument with Facebook and MySpace as well.

This is what we have to keep an eye out for that will kill twitter. As some may think It will not be low adoption rates, but any combination of thease items.

• Fail to quickly monetize twitter
• Continue to anger the developers that build 3rd party apps around their platform
• Get bought to soon by a large company like Google
• Fail to change their underlying structure to scale correctly and add new features quickly
• Facebook turns around and opens their platform up so people from the outside can follow you through Facebook
• Not figuring out a way to keep new users engated early once they first sign up

Nielsen suggesting that the retention rate of 40% may be incorrect. Neilsen failed to account for all access points. Here is an article that rebuffs Neilson findings.

The methods in which people communicate is decentralized and fragmenting. This fragmentation and is happening at a faster rate.  For companies that are trying to get into the space, they have to assess what the underlying trend is and pick the right platform to put their marketing dollars towards.

I’ll go out on a limb and predict twitter will not be a hot platform 3 years from now.

His speech was very powerful for me. Because he went out and made things happen. The road was difficult but he continued to push ahead even through adversity and the many challenges he faced his accomplishments are amazing!

After listening to his speech for the first time I wanted to sell the house pack up the family and move out there to help! But really… come on… I’m comfortable… I’m not going to do that. I’m in love with the idea. I believe in my life time we are in for some monumental changes where we will have to leave our comfy sofas and do something.

We are defiantly at a cross roads where we have to make some drastic changes if we want to insure our continued survival.  We… I… need to be more like Willie Smits and push forward in our own way to make some positive changes in our world.

My question is what are you doing to be more Like Willie Smits? 

The comparison between Bush and McCain are hilarious, although the same could be said between Barack and Bush and nearly any other politiction that was making an acceptance speech. 

Check out the video.

Lets cut to chase the consumers were stupid enough to buy a home that they couldn’t afford thinking that the housing market would continue to apprciate in value and with all the cash that was floating around lenders naturally were going to take advantage. My take is if you can’t afford the house don’t buy it!

I’m so apathetic, I’m totally flaccid! Let’s see what’s really going on with the housing bill.

·         This is a band aid being put on a stab wound!

·         More money will be printed to cover peoples stupidity

·         The government is saying hey Fanny May & Freddy Mac go and take all the risk you want the tax payers will bail you out

·         300 billion dollars over the past year has been spent already bailing out the industry

·         Treasury bills are exchanged for Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac securities what a smart move, what’s backing our dollar now?

·         In the 600 page bill all credit transaction will be reported to the IRS

·         Anyone in the mortgage industry will get fingerprinted

So what do we have more government regulation, less privacy, and more debt? Did I miss anything?

The release date for the phone was July 11Th. I was torn if I should get the new iPhone 3G, but Steve Jobs kept whispering in my ear telling me if you want to be cool, and accepted by society I must get this phone at all cost! Naturally I promptly obeyed his request and took the day off in hopes of getting the phone the first day it came out.

With my relaxation chair in one hand, and my pattie in the other I went to my local AT&T store at 6:00 am. Now the stores didn’t open until 8:00 am but I took the risk that there wouldn’t be too many people in line. Well my assumption was correct. I was sixth person in line! The wait was very pleasant, everyone seemed to be excited about getting the phone, including myself and the excitement mounted as it got closer to 8:00 am.

The doors were open promptly at 8:00 am and I was one of the first batch to get inside. I ended up getting the white 16 GB version the sales associated handled my baby like it was Tiffany Jewelry, and the excitement of the other customers, the phones could have been pure gold and you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference. I couldn’t wait to turn it on and get started.

I was very luckly and didn’t have the activation problems that most other people had across the country. I suspect because the east coast stores were the first to open in the U.S.

All in all I was happy with the experience as well as very happy with the phone. This is the first time I’ve sat in line to wait for a product. Not sure what that says about me? Their is a part of me that yearns for things and Steve Jobs marketing arm got the better of me. Luckily I’m at that point that I recognise that its just stuff to fill my live with and ultimately illusory, in the grand scheme of live.

Is their a particular product that you’ve waited in line for?

1. Civil Rights
2. Ethnicity
3. Conflicting Loves
4. Youth & Violence
5. Black Masculinity
6. Catastrophes
7. Anatomy of A Conflict Why Bill Cosby is still wrong

Overall I found this book very powerful and presents a very deep dive into very controversial areas. Unfortunaly their is not enough dialog about those very serious issues. There is such a wealth of ideas presented in this book I could start a blog just tackling those issues.

From reading the book here are a few thoughts.

The 7 areas discussed in his book, are not black and white but many shades of grey. I‘ve gained an appreciation of how complex each of these areas discussed in the book are.

The real struggle is about power and control. Those who have it the “ruling elite” and those do not “everyone else” To illustrate that example here are two facts. Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and African Americans constitute about 25 percent of the population together. They have about 6 percent of our nation’s operating businesses. These businesses account for about 1 percent of the nation’s gross business receipts.
Less than 1% of fortune 500 companies are lead by black CEO’s, although African Americans represent 13.1% of the population.

Power concedes nothing without a fight.

When a group of people that have been enslaved, who were treated less than human for several generations those scars do not disappear in a few years. Those emotional scars are deep. The resentment, fear, self hate are ingrained in the African American psyche and those manifestations are portrayed daily!

We essentially all want the same thing, good schools, a home to raise our family, and a way to provide for our family.

Playing the role of a black celebrity, father, sports star has a unique set of pressures and the stake of failing in your marriage, responsibility as a father are much higher.

There in no magic bullet to fix some of the problems we are facing today.

Dawson social commentary and his honest dialog is a fresh breath of air. His command of the English language is equivalent to the dexterity of a brain surgeons scalpel. I highly recommend his book.