For 2016 I picked 10 goals, and that was too many (something I learn every year it seems) :). A year is too long too, so I am going to try 3 month periods as that seems better and try to help me connect to the big goals going forward. And, that will let me focus on only one new thing per 3 month period, which some studies seem to indicate helps the habit stick…

So for the first 9 months of the year how did I do?

Major Focuses:

1. Make my new business a success!!!
– I always want to go faster, but I am happy with where we are at. The next 6 months are going to be fun!

2. Do yoga 3x a week.
– I did decent here, although I only did 20 minutes of yoga three times a week and never converted to a hour long practice. With us moving ~9 times since we moved to Colorado I never tried to go to a class. In August I switched it over to Foundation Training as the Chiropractor wants me to avoid twisting my back for now. So I am pushing this into the morning rehab bucket for Q4, and starting to think about starting a new sport.

The Rest:

3. Further build my morning habit of rehab and meditation.
– Doing awesome here, although it has been hard the last couple months to do it all in the morning. I’ve done 198 days straight of meditation, and 268 straight of my morning rehab practice.

4. Read two books with Lindsey on marriage to spur discussion and to improve/learn.
– In progress and should be good!

5. Update: In January the doc told me i need to stop running due to my back. So I am shifting this goal to: Bike 3x a week and see if I can shift over to that.
– With so much moving this one was a total no go. I originally had run 3 to 5 miles, but due to what the doctor said I changed it to biking. I just got a cheap stationary bike setup, so I am hoping to start that. I really want to get back into shape, I miss trail running.

6. Build up to 10 minutes of non stop ball rehab workouts by the end of the year.
– Dropped this one as no room in the places we stayed. And, it was too much to throw in on top of other things.

7. Go mountain biking or sledding at least once a month.
– Totally missed this one.

8. Read 100 books.
– Going slow but going well, looking forward to my vacation so I can read a bunch more. I flew a lot less which hurt this number.

9. Make sure to make time for friends & family in Arkansas & Colorado.
– Did well here.

10. Join Vistage and EO once I am living in Denver.
– I joined vistage in Feb, and EO had some delays due to conflicts with their dates. I just did the new member part, and putting in an application soon.

So, too many :)

Working to plan out Q4 and do a bit of a reset, especially now that some other stresses are winding down.

Here is the animated gif that best represents the 2016 political season:

Part of my LOVES it! We are not sure what we are witnessing, we don’t know where it will end up, but this is CHANGE in some form. It is just going to take a good 1 to 15 years to see how this shakes out.

The other part of me is absolutely terrified and sad. The fact that you get polling data that says this…

54% of republicans think Obama is a Muslim.
20% of republicans are against interracial dating.

It makes me sad that such a huge portion of the country believes such a thing. I was on a bus in Ireland and a women announced that Obama wasn’t even born in the USA. I just don’t get it. He was born here, and is Christian (2 facts).

Facts are dead in politics.
Compromise is dead in politics.
Science is dead in politics.
Joint solutions are dead in politics.

How do we get to something better?

I think someone has to WIN the country over on the big argument… IE, what is “America”? Does America mean a larger government that does more? Or does it mean a small government that does little? Sure there are little arguments here and there, but this is the fundamental question on most debates.

Where do I think we are headed?

I think the Republican party is going into decline (if it stays in it’s current state). Young people and the fastest growing segments of the population don’t vote Republican. I do not see the Republican party being an equal force to the Democrats in 10 years unless they change. Trump is just leading them further off the cliff and one last death rattle. Even if he wins I think it will only speed up the decline.

What do I want America to stand for?

• I want a strong federal government that does more.
• Combat Climate Change and accept it is real.
• Stronger oversight over stocks/financial markets. Possibly a tax on banks, and high frequency trading to create a better framework and tax for useless activity.
• Stronger Food Safety. Nothing should be labeled incorrectly/deceitfully.
• Less defense spending.
• Universal pre K.
• Raise saleries for teachers by xx% and start putting more money into education.
• Universal health care & death panels.
• Allow medicare to negotiate with pharmacies.
• Revamp pharmaceutical pricing, I like the British system.
• Expand State/Federal funding for University, and cap it at some ratio to the average salary.
• Higher minimum wage.
• Tax revamp, hopefully to a territorial system like the rest of the world. Possibly lower tax rate on C corps where you don’t worry about flow through like scorp/llc.
• Universal child care on a progressive fee scale.
• Remove the Social Security caps for contributions above 110k. Accept that social security is the retirement plan for most of this country and start beefing it up.
• Fix 401ks so they have no fees, or capped at .10 of a percent.
• Increased budget for pure scientific research / Nasa.
• Revamp American infrastructure plan, for persistent funding year over year so it isn’t a surge and then disappears. We’ve lost so many skilled construction people because they can’t count on the business. States and the government need a consistent yearly plan.
• Let students declare bankruptcy and clear student debt, we fucked all of them, and by we i mean the government by creating a non capitalistic backed loan market.
• Let more immigrant entrepreneurs in. Some good progress showing here.
• Focus on preventing WMDs from getting in terrorist hands. But otherwise find our balls and realize it is mostly fear terrorist peddle, and we just have to accept some deaths and give them the finger.
• Focus less on troops on the ground, more on special forces. And, focus on computer, air, and navy superiority.
• I’d love to see payroll taxes lessen, as from what I read I think it could be an interesting experiment in promoting hiring. It might not work, but right now a business pays ~20% in taxes to federal/state to hire someone. If you removed that and replaced it with income tax you could shift the tax to the wealthiest, while promoting more employment. Hard one as payroll taxes raise 33% of federal tax revenue, but I am fine with a 50% tax rate on higher brackets.
• I’d love to explore a VAT tax for the USA, ie tax consumption, not earnings.
• Return the estate tax to Clinton levels.
• Reduce mortgage deduction for high income households.
• Expand funding for SBA.
• Raise the social security retirement age by a few years.

How do we pay for all that shit? Higher taxes, especially on capital gains. And, significantly lower defense spending back to 1996 levels. Not to mention closing a ton of loopholes and shit that we designed badly.

It is going to be a fun 10 to 20 years, I can’t wait to see where this is headed. I hope Clinton wins, but part of me wants to see Trump destroy everything so that the country really shifts.

I posted a while back about making 100 consective days of meditation, and I have now made it to 190 days! I wish I could tell you it was easy, but it has been really fucking hard.

The first half of the year was great, but July / August I have really struggled and it has only been the habit and chain I built up that has kept me going. It is amazing how things in life just can sap other areas. I’ve been getting some of my energy back (which is good) and the doc gave me some stuff to help rebuild my adrenal glands a bit, but all that energy is making the sitting in the mornings HARD. I am just wanting to start work and get going :). One trick is that if I do a 20 minute meditation, by about minute 10 I am much calmer, but if I only do 10 minutes just feels like the intro to saving private ryan.

I found these when cleaning out boxes :), this is an old Site5 marketing experiment with metal business cards for VIP customers when we were testing something.