“Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”  -Abraham Lincoln

In life it is important to remember we need to focus on who we are and not who are aren’t.  We should focus on what our passion is so we can flourish and not be something different than what our heart tells us to be.  Whether it is kids, dogs, or people in general, I think that is very important.

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Google Chrome

I’ve been trying out Google Chrome on Linux and Windows for the past few weeks now that extensions are available.  I like Chrome, it is very snappy and the number of available extensions are growing quickly.  I still plan on sticking with Firefox because it is open source and is something that just feels more familiar to me.  What are you using these days for your primary browser and why?

This is a great story about a 32 year old man named David from Phoenix, AZ who weighed 650 pounds. David had no friends or job and wouldn’t go outside except at night so he wouldn’t be seen because people would laugh and stare at him. The only thing that made him happy was food and soda. His life consisted of eating, sleeping, and watching television.

He contacted his local news agency for help and a week later a personal trainer named Chris Powell contacted him. The trainer put him on an exercise regiment and diet and in 26 months he lost 401 pounds. Chris didn’t make a drastic change to David’s daily life and didn’t just handle the matter physiologically but also psychologically. David’s diet and exercise consisted of high and low days where he could reward himself every other day.

David has had three operations to remove excess skin and according to him may need one or two more. The two have become friends and are roommates. Upon agreeing to help David Chris said he would help him lose weight if he agreed to pay it forward by helping others to do the same. TLC is airing the documentary tomorrow (7/12) they created titled The 650-Pound Virgin at 8pm. The documentary description on the website is: “Four years ago David Smith weighed 650lbs, he was eating himself to death and doctors said he wouldn’t hit 30. Now having lost over 400lbs he’s fit, healthy and hoping to make up for those lost years by finding himself a girlfriend for the first time!” Very inspirational and it is amazing what you can do when you truly put your mind to something.

Believe it or not I’m behind on my blogging.  Last week I was watching Pitchmen on the Discovery Channel because they were playing every episode in the series which allowed me a chance to watch all of them (filled up my DVR).  It is a great show and I really like Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan who constantly argue like school kids and even though Billy isn’t with us any longer due to his recent death it was obvious they cared for one another.

In one of the last shows of the season Anthony Sullivan had a great quote which I wrote down: “If you want to be in front you have to act like you are behind”.  That quote from Anthony Sullivan really rung true to me because I think we need to constantly remind ourselves to keep loving, keep fighting, keep working, keep living, but at the end of the day be content with what we have.  Sometimes when we are financially secure, our jobs and relationships are going well, our bodies aren’t ailing us, we stop trying as hard as we should.

Mays was wildly successful being the #1 pitchmen in the world which afforded him a Bentley and a mansion.  We all know money doesn’t buy happiness but my point is God gave him a talent and he wasn’t using that talent to its fullest extent.  In that episode Anthony noticed Mays lost his focus or hunger for achieving as much as his talent allowed (selling the Zorbees) and allowed Vince (who famously pitched the Shamwow) to steal some significant sales away from their product.  As Tony Robbins said in another more famous quote: “It’s not what’s happening to you now or what has happened in your past that determines who you become. Rather, it’s your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you’re going to do about them that will determine your ultimate destiny.”

Probably the most famous example of this is Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky movies.  Read the summary below from Rocky II from IMDB: “Rocky Balboa is enjoying life. He’s got a lovely wife, Adrian, had a successful fight with Apollo Creed and is able to enjoy the wealth coming off the draw. Unfortunately, Rocky becomes embarrassed when failing to complete and advert and ends up working in a meat packing company. He believe that he will no longer have a career as a boxer. Apollo wants to rematch with Rocky to prove all his critics wrong that he can beat Rocky. Can Rocky once again have a successful fight?”  In the video below you see what happens when he once again rededicates himself to his passion and what talents he has been blessed with.

I could write about winning for a really long time, I love motivational books and quotes.  Below are some other quotes to wrap things up but always remember to give life your all but be content with what life has afforded you.

• One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.” – Anthony Robbins

• “Winning is not a sometime thing, it’s an all time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” – Vince Lombardi

• “A quitter never wins and a winner never quits” – Napoleon Hill

• “Winning isn’t everything…it’s the only thing.” – Vincent van Gogh

• “Winning isn’t everything, but the will to win is everything.” – Vince Lombardi quotes

• “Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.” – Lilmmoe

• “There is no “i” in team but there is in win” – Michael Jordan

In the video Tim Ferriss asks if defining your fears could be more important than defining your goals.  I find Tim Ferriss fascinating and just got his book (the 4-Hour Workweek).  I will provide a full review when I get done reading it.  People think he is full of himself but I just see him as confident.

Key quotes:

• “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.” – Mark Twain
• “Named must your fear be before banished it you can.” – Yoda
• “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action”- Benjamin Disraeli
• “All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger (it’s possible), but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer.”- Niccolo Machiavelli
• “Every time we choose safety, we reinforce fear.” – Cheri Huber

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but the product of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”

- Albert Einstein

This doesn’t look real but I guess it is???  If so this guy has some totally awesome but totally useless skills…

If we could reduce the world’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:

• The village would have 60 Asians, 14 Africans, 12 Europeans, 8 Latin Americans, 5 from the USA and Canada, and 1 from the South Pacific
• 51 would be male, 49 would be female
• 82 would be non-white; 18 white
• 67 would be non-Christian; 33 would be Christian
• 80 would live in substandard housing
• 67 would be unable to read
• 50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation
• 33 would be without access to a safe water supply
• 39 would lack access to improved sanitation
• 24 would not have any electricity (And of the 76 that do have electricity, most would only use it for light at night.)
• 7 people would have access to the Internet
• 1 would have a college education
• 1 would have HIV
• 2 would be near birth; 1 near death would control 32% of the entire world’s wealth; all 5 would be US citizens

Source: http://www.familycare.org/