May 2018 Reflection Point: 9 Lessons Learned, 8 Quotes, 5 New Things, & Goal Updates

How was your May? What did you accomplish? What got in the way?

With a work-heavy month, the NBA playoffs, and playing a new computer game, my month was jam-packed and filled with late nights.

The surge of new project work with multiple clients resulted in me logging 23 more hours than my top tier goal and boundary (122 hours). The boost will be nice since we had to replace our washing and drying machines, but my intent is to bring my hour count back down to earth here in June and take some time off.

In regards to the progression of my next book, my writing experiment project on truth took much longer than planned. While I'm glad to have published the final blog post, it delayed me from moving my book forward. For this reason, I'm going to slim down my goals and new experiments for June.

On the annual goal to volunteer at our church, I've committed to a greeting position until our baby girl arrives in September. Expect to see me on Sunday mornings regularly if you attend Gwinnett Church.

Blogging continues to go well, but it does feel like it's time to take a mini-break. In five months, I've published 61 new blogs. If I add this to the 88 from my weekday blogging challenge, I've added 149 new blogs since last August! In ten months, I've almost doubled the total number of articles on my blog!

Let's jump into lessons learned, notable quotes, new things, and goal updates. If you want a list of the articles and Quora answers I've written, you'll find them at the bottom.

9 Lessons Learned

I'm segmenting the lessons learned section to peel off quotes and new things. This will make it easier for you to find what you're most interested in and skip the rest.

Here are the nine lessons learned for May 2018.

• I wrote the final five or six blogs in May all at once. Writing so many blogs at once allowed for strategic placement and ordering. 
• People can look at the same thing, and take away different and sometimes contradictory interpretations.
• Change is hard, even for people who invite it. It takes time to adapt to and optimize the new paradigm.
• We're all standing on the shoulders of giants. Some shoulders we're aware of and appreciate while other times we have no clue. There are also times where we're extremely reliant on those shoulders.
• Headlines can be quite misleading, especially for viewers not fully paying attention.
• How to address complex and emotional issues? 1, Listen, even when we disagree. 2, Hold back judgment to prevent alienating others. 3, Pursue effective solutions, not actions that simply make us feel better.
• How we treat someone in just a few moments could transform their life for the better.
• There are four powerful human experiences. Helplessness, powerlessness, loss of control, and complete vulnerability.
• The visionary begins testing and exploring numerous ideas and projects out of their fueling passions, but as those passions fade and they lose interest or it gets hard, the appeal of new ideas draws them away from what they’re committed to, to something different.

Notable Quotes

The following quotes are ones I came across throughout the month of May and thought were worth sharing. Enjoy!

• “When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides... People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.” - Blaise Pascal
• “I’d rather be a lightning rod than a seismograph.” Tom Wolfe.
• "Children do what feels right. Adults devise a plan and follow it." — @DaveRamsey
• "Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity." - Paul The Apostle
• "Shared-"Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same." - Oswald Chambers
• "A fanatic is one who entrenches himself in invincible ignorance." - Oswald Chambers
• “No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.“ - Unknown (possibly Paul The Apostle)
• "Live wisely among those who are not believers, and make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone." - Paul the apostle

New Things

The following five things were interesting and helpful resources. I'm passing on what I found valuable.

• Kialo: Empowering reason is the promise of this newly discovered website. On it, you'll find a variety of discussions around hot topics. Kialo provides a clear and interactive way to intellectually engage these arguments without the emotional mess that usually bogs these types of discussions down.
• This online film community allows users to manage what movies they've seen and also to share their feedback on them. The site is intriguing and I look forward to seeing it grow. I've set up my profile here. 
• Ray Dalio launched his video series on principles for success. It's a powerful watch and I'd recommend you set aside the 28 minutes to view it.
• Video: Why Christianity instead of other religions?
• List of Christians in science in technology (past and present)

May 2018 Goal Updates

Here's an update on the three May goals, and how well I succeeded and failed in May.

• The Jump - Moving The Perpetual Small Business Forward: I've mostly failed on this one. My intent was to read the book twice, but I only got through 15% of the first read through. There is more work on the first read-through then I expected. I'm going to simplify my goals next month to focus on this project.
• Update IDEMA Medium Page: Success! The page has been updated. The page probably needs an annual update, so this keeps it good until 2019.
• Fix all broken links & crawl errors: This was successful and the website is now updated.