Wow! It’s been a very long time since I’ve written a blog post. Twenty-six months and two days to be exact, but who’s counting?!

These last few years I’ve worked hard, played hard and  spun my wheels. Many people I know who own their own business, working for themselves, often fall into the whole “the shoemaker’s children are barefoot” situation. This is a gentler, laugh-it-off way of saying “I’m too busy taking care of the needs of others to take care of those near and dear to me.” Or, “I’m overcommitted and unable to invest any time in personal development or focused business growth.” That all changed for me late last year, and now here I am… Baffled, Bewildered and Enraptured!

My business is successful. Every day I get to serve many amazing clients, putting my creative and problem-solving skills to work. I’m blessed with more work than I can even manage at times. Any given day I’m pushing pixels, tweaking timelines or wielding web code like a Braveheart-sized sword. Even with all this fun, fulfilling work, I probably grew a little too comfortable and predictable. I love a challenge. I love adventure. I forgot what it felt like doing something that didn’t come easy to me – until last week.

In what my wife might tell you is another one of my quarter-life crises or something, I applied to the School of Rockfish. It sounded like an amazing, awesome opportunity… for a recent college graduate. But for a 43 year old who owns his own business and has a wife and 3 boys ages 10, 8 and 2? That might be a stretch. Oh well, I went for it. And it’s been an amazing 7 days so far in the program. The last real coding I’ve done was in a C-based language at American Airlines in 1999. But, I love using that side of my brain and owning my nerdiness.

I’ve enjoyed working with some amazing people in the first school of Rockfish and finally learning some Objective-C and Xcode (Apple’s IDE for building iOS apps). I’ve paid the yearly subscription and had an Apple developer license since the iPhone came out in 2007, but the shoemaker-syndrome has been in effect and I never even installed the SDK.

I know a whole lot more now than 7 days ago. I’ve also become painfully aware of how much more I don’t know. I think we can get so good at doing what we do, we take it for granted. We also fail to get out of our comfort zone and learn new things and be daring. Since downloading and reading the free ebook ‘The Flinch’ by Julien Smith, life has gotten more exciting for me. I’ve taken his challenges to heart. I’ve stopped being so safe all the time and have purposely begun doing things I’d never normally do.

I don’t know where all this is going yet, but this latest little excursion has been fascinating and fun. Now before I get back to reading my new Objective-C book that just arrived via UPS from Amazon… I’ll close with some amazing words I just read at the end of Part I:

Don’t Stop (taken from the end of Part I of Objective-C Programming by Aaron Hillegass)

At this point, you’ve probably dealt with several frustrations: installation problems, typos, and lots of new vocabulary. And maybe nothing you’ve done so far makes any sense. That is completely normal.

As I write this, my son Otto is six. Otto is baffled several times a day. He is constantly trying to absorb knowledge that doesn’t fit into his existing mental scaffolding. Bafflement happens so frequently, that it doesn’t really bother him. He never stops to wonder, “Why is this so confusing? Should I throw this book away?”

As we get older, we are baffled much less often – not because we know everything, but because we tend to steer away from things that leave us bewildered. For example, reading a book on history is quite pleasant because we get nuggets of knowledge that we can hang from our existing mental scaffolding. This is easy learning.

Learning a new language is an example of difficult learning. You know that there are millions of people who work in that language effortlessly, but it seems incredibly strange and awkward in your mouth. And when people speak it to you, you are often flummoxed.

Learning to program a computer is also difficult learning. You will be baffled from time to time – especially here at the beginning. This is fine. In fact, it’s kind of cool. It is a little like being six again.

Stick with this book; I promise that the bewilderment will cease before you get to the final page.

- Aaron Hillegass, Author and Nerd Extraordinaire
from Objective-C Programming, The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

And now for Part II…

I have seen this before, but ran across these powerful words tonight and they reminded me of why I do what I do. Why I choose to be a Go-Giver.

To anyone reading this: Please don’t give up on your dreams. Don’t allow all the haters out there discourage you… especially the clueless oafs who have lots to say about you without even really knowing you. Don’t give them any power to discourage you from doing your greatest life’s work – the work you most likely perform out of a place of passion rather than the need for compensation. Do it anyway!

DO IT ANYWAY

People are often unreasonable,
illogical and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind,
people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful,
you will win some false friends and true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
Be honest anyway.

What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis,
it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

Mother Teresa
1910-1997

I started off the morning by watching this incredible little film called The Butterfly Circus. I found out about it from Michael Hyatt‘s blog and didn’t have the time to watch until this morning.

You should do all you can to take 20 minutes of uninterrupted time to watch this and allow it to affect your life!

Click here to watch The Butterfly Circus