Sometimes you can’t know everything.  No matter how much you prepare, how much you think, and how much you want to be awesome…you are just lacking.

It happened to me today.  I was working with a client walking them through a storytelling exercise.  By nature I am not structured and rigid, however, when clients are involved I tend to really pay attention that I stick to the time limits given to me.  So, I went into the meeting today with a plan to accomplish in 2 hours.  And, while I ran about 3 minutes long…it all happened in those 2 hours.

My main client contact and I were debriefing after our meeting and he had a point of feedback for me: I stuck too closely to the outline.  Their organization places a high value on a collaborative process that includes the ability to deviate from the plan to chase a few rabbit trails.  I on the other hand was working as hard as I could to keep us on point and wrap it all up in the allotted time.

So, I was lacking.  Lacking in the knowledge of their culture.  I was approaching it from my world view and my experience.  So, we got everything done, but the process wasn’t what they were used to.

I left feeling like a big fat loser…but I guess in the end I don’t know what I don’t know.  The good news is that next time I’ll chase a few more rabbits and let the time take care of itself.

I ran a 10K this morning.  I have been told that The Peachtree Road Race is the largest 10K in the United States.  (I cannot confirm it, but they expected something like 55,000 runners/walkers this year.)  That’s not the point of this story.  Bruce Springsteen is the point of this story.

It was somewhere between mile 3 and 4 today that someone was blaring “Born in the USA” along the race route.  As I listened to the beginning of that song something clicked in my brain.  I should be proud of where I was born.  I don’t know when it started.  There was no announcement, but slowly but surely a group of people in this country have decided that we should be apologetic for being American.

We are constantly bombarded with reminders that we are one of the richest nations on Earth and that somehow we should be embarrassed by that.  I don’t buy it.  I have a heart for countries that lack the freedoms, natural resources, and education that we have here in the United States, however, why should I be less proud of where I am from?  Shoot, even the President of the United States, Barack Obama, has apologized to the world for us being us.

I think it is high time we start being proud again.  As the World Cup has unfolded, ESPN announcers have lauded the pride of the fans of the other countries in the competition.  However, no one seems to laud the fans of the United States for having pride.

Why shouldn’t we be proud?  My favorite line from any movie actually comes from Rush Hour.  (Warning: Bad Language Alert) The main character, played by Chris Tucker, is in the police station after having caused a major explosion while trying to make an arrest.  His captain calls him into the office and dripping with sarcasm says:

“Every now and then we have to let the general public know that we can still blow shit up.”

I love that line because, while obviously not serious it really sums up the sentiment that sometimes we need to remind people who we are.  I think its time that we as a nation stand up and let the world know that we are still proud of who we are.  We aren’t sorry that we love our country.  We aren’t sorry that we love freedom and want to spread it around the world.

We feel like we live in the best country in the world.  We aren’t sorry that we were Born in the USA.

I’m not sure how dorky it sounded.  At the time I thought it was the right thing to say.  I guess when you are 12, scared to death, and wanting to be a leader of sorts you say stuff that when you are almost 30 sound really, really dorky.

There were five of us there that Sunday night at Lafayette Baptist Church: Me, Melissa Klerx, Sarah Bailey, Jeremy Holt, and JJ Kinstrey.  There might have been more, but those are the faces I remember staring back at me like I had just grown a third arm.  It was the night before the new school year started.  We were all going into the 7th grade and at our church that meant that we were moving from the children’s department to the youth department.  We would be hanging out with..wait for it…HIGH SCHOOL KIDS.

The four I mentioned before: Jeremy, JJ, Sarah, and Melissa all lived pretty close to one another in a different part of town.  (Also in that area were my good friends Jason and Jenna Hottel, Matt Klerx (Melissa’s older brother), Michael Bailey (Sarah’s younger brother), Matt Mabry (Michael’s neighbor and best friend…he was also in my mom’s kindergarten class.))

That Summer we would go pool hopping between the Klerx’s, Bailey’s, and Mabry’s pools.  I probably exaggerate the amount of time we were over there, but it felt like almost everyday.  (If we weren’t at one of their pool’s then we were at the Sports Center pool.)  The highlight of that summer was getting in a big group and all going to see Mrs. Doubtfire.  You know, the one where Robin Williams is in drag.

We were close that Summer.

I don’t know when I realized that I should be scared of going into the youth group.  Some switch flipped in my head, as if I had eaten the poisonous apple of adolescence, and I felt naked.  All of a sudden I realized that I wasn’t cool enough to be in youth group and that if I was going to survive I needed to have a posse with me.

So, I turned to them at the end of the service and said with as much courage and bravado as I could muster: “Guys, its just us now.  We have to stick together when we get into the youth group next week.  We have to be a team.”

I think JJ shook his head and Jeremy laughed, Melissa groaned and Sarah (my friend from 1st grade all the way to this day) tried to make me feel better, but I knew that I had already screwed up and youth group was only a week away.

Dear Courtney,

They tell me that the first wedding anniversary the “paper anniversary”. By now you have already opened the three boxes of paper note cards I bought for you, and you have read the paper card I bought that was enclosed in a paper envelope. But, for me a guy that spends the majority of my time away from you (and if I am being honest…a good portion of our together time) NOT using paper, I thought it would be fitting for that card to send you here to read my anniversary note.

When people ask me, “Austin, what have you learned since you got married?” I usually respond with a joke: “Well, I learned that I really care a whole lot about what side of the roll the toilet paper hangs. I never knew how important toilet paper hanging was to me before I got married.” I respond that way to people because I know they don’t really have time to hear all of the things I learned in the last year. (And everyone likes a good joke.)

Here is what they don’t have time hear:

• When it rained everyday on our honeymoon I learned that saying, “Well, at least we aren’t at work,” isn’t the best way to comfort you.
• When I lost my job last Fall I learned that you are more of a teammate than I could have ever imagined.
• When we moved into our new house I learned that you can carry heavier things than I give you credit for.
• When you imitate me to our friends I learned that you are pretty funny. (Never fear..I am still the funny one.)
• When I got serious about getting healthy I learned that you were willing to radically change your own life to help me
• When my grandmother passed away I learned that you love my family as much as I do.
• When I hurt your feelings I learned that you are forgiving and love me anyway.
• When finances got tight I learned that you were willing to cut the budget to the bone without complaining.

And, that is just a snippet of the things I learned this year. The most important thing I learned is that you are funnier, smarter, more loving, and more beautiful everyday.

I am so grateful I can share my life with you. Happy 1st Anniversary.

Love,

Me

I knew I shouldn’t cry.  10 year old boys don’t cry when their feelings get hurt.  So, I sucked up my hurt feelings and slowly pushed off the wall at the Round-A-Bout Skating rink as some late 80′s Glam Band sang a ballad.  I was holding hands with a girl that was more or less a last resort.  (Come to think of it if she knew she was a last resort her feelings would have been hurt, too.  I was 10 give me a break.)  But, that’s really the end of the story.  Let’s back up a bit. Continue Reading…

One of the most difficult things for Churches (and, really, all non-profits) is finding good volunteers.  There are many people that raise their hands to volunteer and then fail to follow through completely.  I am not a psychologist, but I have a theory about this:  I think people want to volunteer, I think they love their church, and I think they want to follow through.  However, volunteers sometimes like the idea of being a volunteer more than actually being a volunteer.  This is the case for board membership at large non-profit organizations just as much as preschool volunteers at the small local church.

5 Tips for Being a Good Volunteer

So, how can you be a good volunteer?  Glad you asked.  Here are my 5 tips for being a good volunteer: Continue Reading…

Marching on!  You now have sold a bunch of stuff, started paying off your debt, and you have a budget for your house.  Next up is simply getting used to the budget.  You have been doing your financial life differently from this for a while…some of you have been doing it differently for YEARS!

It is natural to treat this like most diet plans: I’ll do this until I get everything flattened out and then I can add some stuff back.  DON’T DO THAT!  It is pretty obvious that you wouldn’t be reading and following this advice if the things you used to do financially were working for you.  So, why would you want to go back to those old patterns?

This is not an easy step.  This isn’t a walk in the park.  It’s hard to say no to that restaurant or your daughter that just has to have a new pair of jeans.  Saying yes to those things ended up creating debt and angst in your house.  Don’t go back!

Use this as an opportunity to test your resolve.  It isn’t fun to tell your friends that you can’t afford that trip or your kids they won’t be going on that expensive vacation this Summer.  But, it will be fun when you can pay for those items with cash.  It isn’t like you are going to be restricting your fun forever…just until you are completely out of debt (except for the house) and have enough money in the bank for emergencies.

Think about how much more fun vacations will be when you just pay for them with cash.  Won’t you be able to relax better?  Won’t Christmas morning be even merrier when all of the gifts are paid for as they are opened?  Just imagine how much better you will feel when your hot water heater is on the fritz and you have a cash reserve just for that very purpose.

And best of all, just imagine how much better your marriage will be because you don’t have to worry about an economic disaster around every corner.  Imagine how great you will feel knowing that your children will start learning good financial principles now.

If you ever get discouraged on this journey…just come back to this post and remind yourself why you are doing this.

I guarantee if you put this one post into practice in your household you will never have a fight about money ever again.  PERIOD.  How do I know this?  Well, Courtney and I have never once had a fight about money in our marriage.  Not one.

You might be saying, “Well, you have only been married for almost a year…give it time and you fight about money.”  I beg to differ on that assessment.  The reason that Courtney and I will never fight about money is because each of us know exactly where every penny of our money is going every month.

Around the 15th of each month (that’s when the bulk of our income is deposited) we sit down together and work on our budget for the month.  No matter how much money we have we spend EVERY PENNY of it on paper (or in our case we use Mvelopes) before we ever spend a penny of it for real. Continue Reading…

Okay, you are probably reeling from Part Four, so I won’t push too hard today.  I hope that you spent the last week cleaning out your garage, closets, and storage sheds in preparation for a Yard Sale or eBay auction.  So, you are probably tired of my advice.

Today, let’s just take a deep breath and remember why we need to get out of debt.  I am going to make a big leap and assume that most of you buy into my premise that holding a large amount of consumer debt is not a good thing.  However, societal pressure (ie. Keeping up with the Jones’) may have led you astray. Continue Reading…

You might be in a situation where you have no savings and can’t get a good head start on your debt snowball, and you can’t imagine how you can find $1,000 to get an emergency fund.  Well, you probably have $1,000 laying around and don’t know it!

Brace yourselves: SELL YOUR STUFF.  Grab that big fancy Flat Screen, extra table and chair set, some electronics or extra computers, tons of old clothes and have a big yard sale.  Sell everything you don’t absolutely have to have.  Odds are you will be a lot closer to $1,000 after the yard sale than you were before.

Then, if you have to…find some extra work.  The sooner you get your initial emergency fund established the sooner you can start paying off debt.

Now you have the fund established…what do you do?  Well, remember the list of stuff you wrote down?  All of your expenses for each month?  You probably cut out magazines and cable television, but you still have expenses left over.  That’s where you start trimming the fat.

You need to start clipping coupons and buying store brand foods and drinks.  (Another great tip is to just make the switch to only drinking water.)  No more netflix, eating out, vacations, gifts, or other unnecessary expenses.  (I told you this wouldn’t be easy.)

Here are the things that you need to live: Shelter, Food, Water, Gas, Electricity, Clothes, and as few vehicles as you absolutely need to get to and from work.  Strip out the rest of the stuff you are currently spending money on and transfer that money to paying off debt.

Here is what your monthly budget should look like:

• Tithe
• Rent/Mortgage
• Auto Fuel
• Utilities – (Gas, Electric, Phone)
• Groceries
• Debt Payment

That’s it.  Period.  There are no other expenses.

“But, wait a second Austin…I have a car payment.”  Sell the car.  “But, Austin; I’m underwater on the car.”  Sell the car and get a loan for the difference, plus enough to buy a beater.

I know this doesn’t make sense…I thought we were supposed to be getting out of debt.  Well, let’s look at it like this: Your car payment is probably $300-$800 per month.  (Trust me, a loan for the difference is much cheaper.)  If you owe $18,000 for a car that is worth $14,000, wouldn’t you rather only owe around $6,000 for the difference plus a couple of grand for a beater?

This is the most painful step in the process.  This is the step where most people fail.  Most people check out at this point because they are attached to their stuff, they derive their self-worth from their vehicles and use vacations and entertainment to avoid dealing with their spending problems.

If you take this step seriously as a couple or as a family your relationships will flourish.  You will learn a lot about yourself and in the end you will break your attachment to your stuff.  (You can’t take it with you anyway!)