What’s Your Blog About?
Typically I’m a negative person. It’s easy for me to notice the negative things in life, the negative things people and the negative things in myself. It’s hard for me to not want to call people out on things that I believe are wrong especially in this blogging age where everyone has a soapbox. Everyone can blast anyone they want and I can too. In fact I almost did yesterday. I almost wrote a post about a Twitter that was flying around and everyone was praising…. and it was wrong. It was a slam on people in a “Christian light” and I completely disagreed with it. And I wanted to blast it. I wanted to hop on here and give “my side”. But I didn’t. Mostly because Kristin wouldn’t let me, but she was right.
I started thinking about it more. I started thinking about what I wanted this blog to represent. I started thinking about the way that I wanted my blog to be “categorized” as. Did I want it to be a place where all I did was prove to people how right I was? How awesome I was because I disagreed with other Christians? How I could sit in my office and spout off anything “controversial” and hope that someone popular would ‘Re-Tweet’ me or something? Or did I want my blog to be something that you could come to and, God forbid, actually enjoy? Something positive? Something that is there to encourage people, lift people up and actually edify?
Remember when we started Positive Post Tuesday? That seemed cool. There’s still some folks doing that and I love it. I wish there could be more of that. That started because I was tired of negative garbage that fills up Christian blogs where all we want to do is tear down people so we look awesome, or like we know more than someone else. Is anyone else tired of that crap?
So, anyway, all that to say, I hope this blog is something that, if nothing else, represents positivity. Is that a word Positivity? And I’d like that for my life too. Years from now when our grandkids are making fun of us for “blogging” I want a positive spirit to still be something that I am associated with. Now, does that mean that there won’t be times that I disagree with something? No. Does that mean that every post that I write on here will be flowery and shallow? I hope not. But I think you can address things that you might disagree with in a positive way. And I hope to be able to do that.
So here’s my question to you. What’s your blog about? What do you want it to be about. Let’s say there’s a “Legacy” that your online life can leave. What do you want it to be?
Ready? Go.
Positive Post Tuesday
Well, it’s been a while since I’ve done a Positive Post Tuesday post. Not because I haven’t been positive, but because I just keep forgetting. Well, yesterday I heard someone talking on the radio and they challenged everyone listening to not say anything negative on their Facebook status and it reminded me about this whole talking positive thing. For those of you that don’t know, it’s easy. All you have to do is write something positive on your blog and link to it in the comments.
So where to start. It’s been insanely busy these past few months and from my end that’s a totally positive thing. Finishing out the year with Billy was great. I still talk to those guys regularly and it’s awesome to go from one organization of good people to another organization of good people and there’s no weirdness or feeling of abandonment or anything like that. Just smooth transitions and we’re all still friends. The MercyMe tour is off to the races and it seems like it’s going well. It’s awesome to be out with the Fee guys too, though we still need to get our flag football on before they leave.
Another amazingly positive thing is the way Kristin and the boys have handled this whole last few months. I don’t know how she does it but somehow Kristin keeps on top of all the home stuff while I’m out running around like a maniac. I don’t know many other people that could handle that and she does it gracefully.
So in a nutshell, I guess this Positive Post Tuesday is about work, friends and family. Now let’s hear yours. Write about something or someone on your blog and throw the link in the comments.
Glory To God Forever
Not only is this an epic worship song, but this entire record is amazing. I’ve been excited about this record coming out for about six months now, and today is the first step toward it’s release. If you haven’t already, stop what you are doing and go download it from iTunes right now.
On top of releasing this song the boys in Fee have put together a little Twitter giveaway over on their blog, where you can enter to win an autographed pre-release copy of the record before it comes out in October. Not a bad deal.
So here we go. Step one: Go download the song “Glory To God Forever” from iTunes and leave a review on the iTunes page. Step two: Head over to Fee’s blog, and check out the Twitter Giveaway and follow them on Twitter for a chance to win the pre-release of Hope Rising.
Sounds like a pretty Positive Post Tuesday to me. Don’t you think?
Positive Post Tuesday – The Next Level
Welcome to Tuesday. Most of you already know about Positive Post Tuesday, and most of you have already been involved in it to some level. Well, I’ve been thinking more and more about taking it to the next level and I wanted to start with some different things. Originally we were using the Mr. Linky thing and that seemed to go okay for a while, but they have changed up their format and I think we can really start stepping it up. First up, I’ve created a Twitter account specifically for Positive Post Tuesday. Here’s how that will work. Instead of writing on your blog and posting the link to the Mr. Linky on my blog, you will now just Tweet your link as a reply to @positivepost. Also make sure to finish out your Tweet with #ppt. What I will do is then re-Tweet your link from the Positive Post Twitter Account. Make sense? This is the first of several changes that I’ll be making to Positive Post Tuesday, so make sure to spread the word and lets make this bigger than ever.
Now, if you’re here and haven’t heard of Positive Post Tuesday allow me to explain. It’s pretty simple. Write something nice (or positive) on your blog, Facebook, Myspace, Live Journal, or whatever other online documenting system you may have and share the positivity. Sounds easy right?
So that’s the start of this little campaign I’m calling ‘Be Nice’. I’m glad you all are a part of it. Spread the word, tell your friends, and let’s start being nice.
Ready? Go.
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Positive Post Tuesday – Suburban Hell
We live in the suburbs. You know, matching mailboxes, Association requirements, wave at your neighbor type suburbs. Now, I know what most of you are thinking. “Ugh, that’s not nearly as cool as living in some hip, swanky, midtown with aged bookstores and trendy coffee shops. How can you expect to be a hip as humanly possible living in the suburbs?” I have several friends that even refer to the area that I live in as ‘Suburban Hell’. They say there’s nothing to do, no culture, and again, it’s ‘not nearly as cool as a downtown’.
Now, I understand some of that and Kristin and I have always wanted to live in the hipster, trendy downtown areas to some degree, but here’s the thing. We have kids and we want what’s best for them. Not to say that living in the city is bad for kids, but for our kids and our family, suburbs is the way to go… for now.
I’ve been home this whole week. Slow mornings, lunch on the back deck and later evenings. Time to spend with Kristin and the boys, and time to embrace Summer. For the past four days the boys and I have gone on evening bike rides (thanks Michael) and have ridden nearly five or six miles a day. Even Aiden. Yesterday we rode over the the County Rec Center and got a membership for the year. The boys and Kristin played in the pool and since I’m not a fan of water, I was able to run for a while in the gym. After that we rode through the neighborhood home and had a late dinner. All in the suburbs.
Now, I haven’t always been an advocate for suburban living. In fact, for the most part it’s nothing like Kristin and I imagined we would be living, but recently I’ve been learning to love the situation we are in. I love that there’s little to no crime where we live, the only traffic we see is one of our neighbors waving to us, and our boys are able to play freely outside.
So we may live in a ‘Suburban Hell’ as some of you call it, but it’s our suburban hell and we’ll take it. And who knows, maybe someday we’ll be the young, cool hipsters walking to cool coffee shops and embracing culture, but for now, I think we’re good.
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Be Nice
In an ongoing attempt to make this whole interweb a more ‘positive’ place, today I decided to create a little something called ‘Be Nice’. Yep. That’s it. Most of you have noticed that on the end of my Tweets and at the end of my posts I have started adding a plus sign (+) to them. Some of you have caught on and are joining in the fun and some of you aren’t. Here’s the deal. I’d like for this to become something that becomes the ‘norm’ in my little corner of blogland. In the same vein as ‘Positive Post Tuesday’ I’d like for this to become something that’s bigger than me or this blog.
Because it’s such a simple exercise, I’m going to keep bugging you guys about it until it becomes more and more of a ‘thing’. I’ve had a lot of people asking me what the deal with the plus sign is and in case you missed it before, here’s how it works:
If you write something positive, put a plus sign (+) at the end of it. If you write something negative have the guts to put a minus sign (-). Now I’ve seen a handful of people participating in the ‘positive’ side of things but I’ve still seen plenty of negative Tweets and posts, and we all all too scared to admit that we are being negative. Funny how that works huh? Simple enough rules right?
Now, sure there’s going to be things that you say that aren’t positive or negative in nature, but that’s what makes this exercise so cool. It’s at least making you think. I’m typically a pretty negative person and with Twitter and blogging it’s become increasingly easy to send out that negativity to the world, but I think it’s time to switch things up.
So here’s what we are going to do. If you’re reading this and have a blog, write a post about ‘Be Nice’. Steal the image above and write in your own words what the idea behind this is. Post it on your Facebook, Twitter it. You can even put it on your Myspace if anyone still uses that.
Now, this isn’t some way for me to get more traffic or get people talking about me. In fact, if you don’t want to mention my name or link here, then don’t, but I’d really like to see the idea of putting a + or – at the end of everything spread like crazy. Let’s make the internet a whole lot more +, shall we? Remember, it’s not that hard to ‘be nice’.
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Positive Or Negative
So, I’ve been thinking about this a while and I wanted to throw something out to you guys and see what you thought. Now, a lot of you have been amazing at participating in Positive Post Tuesday, and this Tuesday, I wanted to try this out with sort of the same mindset. Here goes.
To anyone with a blog, Twitter, Facebook or any other one of the numerous social online network things, it’s no secret that at any given point of the day we can hop on thee old laptop and at the same time hop on thee old soapbox. We can speak our mind freely and openly without really much consequence. And those that are especially gifted with their wording can get away with saying whatever it is that they want despite the feelings of their readers. We can talk about what social networks are stupid, or awesome. We can talk about what our church is doing right and nit-pick everything they are doing wrong. We can discuss drama at our workplace, school or family. The freedom of our speech has never been more available. And I’d like to challenge you… and at the same time challenge myself. Are you ready?
I’d like to see us all who participate online to follow up everything we write with one simple symbol. + (positive) or – (negative). It’s that easy. Here’s the thought behind it. ”Is what you just wrote a positive statement / blog post / Tweet / ect? Or a negative one?” So what’s the challenge? To be completely honest with yourself and your readers. And I dare you to try it. I dare you to add one little character at the bottom of all your Tweets, blog posts, Facebook status updates, or whatever else you put online for the rest of the world to read.
My hope in this whole thing is to really focus on what I am sending out into the world. What’s my “emotional footprint” on this whole interweb thing? Am I one that is constantly throwing out negative (-) statements? Or am I focussing on, what I believe to be, a bigger challenge and keeping things uplifting and positive (+)? Now, sure the world is a negative place, and there will be times that I spout off and say something with more of a negative (-) tone, and I can only hope that I’m honest enough with myself and you guys to put that little dash (-) down there when I do.
So what do you think? You guys up for it? I dare you to give it a shot and tell your readers what you are doing.
Ready? Go.
+
Stats Suck Sunday – In Bullet Points
- Today we decided to skip church and hang out as a family. It’s been almost two months of me traveling, and us running in different directions, and it felt like it was time to do that.
- The Franklin Festival is amazingly expensive to ‘walk around’ at. Five dollar corn dog? Really?
- Last night with Billy went well. Completely out of my element, but I think that will only make me work harder.
- Working on my fourth cup of coffee today. Seems like I should be really awake.
- The garden Kristin planted a few weeks ago is starting to show signs of life.
- Still trying to figure out the whole ‘Cupcake Craze’. I think it bothers Kristin more than me, but we both think it’s a little silly.
- I’ve decided that this week is a week of getting organized, so we’ll see how that goes.
- Organization is not my strong point.
- It’s been a while since I have done a Stats Suck Sunday post, but it’s been cool to see both this and Positive Post Tuesday continue to some level.
- I wish the font that I was typing this in, actually showed up like this when I published it to my blog.
- Fresh basil is awesome.
- Seriously, who would have thought two years ago that Cupcakes would be the new awesome trendy thing?
- I’ve been really wanting to see the third ‘X-Men’ movie for a while now. I might need to go get that.
- Haven’t Cupcakes been around forever?
- I met Dane from The Biggest Loser last night. He looked good and supposedly ran a marathon yesterday. A marathon where someone died running it.
- I bet Dane from The Biggest Loser doesn’t eat trendy Cupcakes. I should have asked him.
- Two different ice cream trucks have come into our cul-de-sac in the past hour. I think we’ve been targeted.
- This list is long and probably pretty annoying.
Welcome to Sunday. Our stats will suck, but we all have random stuff to say. What’s on your mind today? The rules are simple. Write your bullet point random thoughts on your blog. Fill out the box below. Sounds easy right? Ready? Go.
Positive Post Wednesday?
Yep, it’s not Tuesday. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be positive right? To be quite honest, I have been unbelievably slammed with work and travel that it completely slipped my mind on Monday to prepare and then yesterday I was running around all day and didn’t have a chance to sit down and think up something to write. Now here’s the thing. I’ve been crazy busy and the more I started thinking about that, the more I realized that in this particular time in our country and our economy, being busy is a really positive thing.
Now, I don’t want this to come across as something arrogant or ‘look at me’ or anything like that, because that’s the last thing I feel. I just have started to realize that in these tough times to start a business under a year ago and be this busy is a really cool thing. I am completely humbled everyday that I get to do what I am doing and work with the people that I get to work with and see it actually shaping things in the industry.
So today, on the first, and probably only, Positive Post Wednesday I just wanted us all to realize that even as bad as things get here in America, we are still far better off than most of the rest of the world and that’s a pretty positive thing.
Let’s hear what you’ve got.
You know how this works and since I was late and messed up the whole “Tuesday” thing, I will host this one. I know there are some of you out there that wrote yesterday and I’d still love for you to add your name to the list. Sound good? Ready? Go.
