Joyful Jubilant Learning

Rapid Fire Learning: May 2007

Hi everybody - Terry Starbucker here.   It's time for Rapid Fire Learning!   I'm your host this month, so I'm really hoping we can get all my fellow JJLers, as well as JJL readers and supporters, to pitch in with their 5 things they learned in the month of May.  Post them on your blog, tag it as Rapid Fire Learning, and link back to us.

This kind of community learning will give us a head start for June and the rest of the year, so let's fire away, shall we?

Here's my list for the month:

1. I was reawakened to the symbolic meaning of butterflies - freedom and happiness.  I'll never look at a Monarch the same way again (and that's a good thing!)
2. I performed a wedding ceremony for the first time, and learned a little bit more about love - to see it so close up in the context of exchanging vows was exhilarating.
3. In response to a meme I dug inside a little deeper and revealed the 5 things I do every single day to be successful.   I sat in front of the computer for a while on this one before the words came out, but it was worth it.
4. I learned that a "blogging conference" could become much more than that - a celebration of the power of relationships and positivity.  While friendships can be kindled by words on a page, nothing beats face-to-face and heart-to-heart interaction.  I got more of that than I possibly could have dreamed of on those two days in Chicago. Talk about joyful and jubilant learning!  I can hardly wait until SOBCon08.
5. I rediscovered the power of hope when I watched the Shawshank Redemption, just like I did the other 20 times I've watched it before.  I love movies that can do that.

What a month of learning!   So what about you?  Come share with us, and keep that joy of discovery buzzing around the blogosphere.  Thanks!

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Terry Starbucker is an operations executive for a service company who lives in Connecticut, loves business trips to the Rocky Mountain west, and posts his musings and observations about "the optimistic side of the daily grind" in Ramblings from a Glass Half Full. 

Learning's Secret Ingredient

In the Book Review section of the New York Times this morning I read a wonderful review of the book "Einstein - His Life and Universe" by Walter Isaacson.

It inspired me to go out and buy the book this afternoon (a review of my own to follow), but it also compelled me to post to JJL this evening because of this quote by Einstein:

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

This, coming from a person considered to be THE genius of the 20th century?  It set me back in my chair for a moment. But then I realized I had stumbled upon a secret ingredient to learning.

While I had never put those two words together like that before, they made absolutely perfect, elegant sense.

We all can't be Einsteins coming up with theories of relativity, but we can use our passionate curiosity to inspire a lifetime of great learning and achieving.

What are you passionately curious about?

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Terry Starbucker is an operations executive for a service company who lives in Connecticut, loves business trips to the Rocky Mountain west, and posts his musings and observations about "the optimistic side of the daily grind" in Ramblings from a Glass Half Full. 

April Learning Brings May Blooming: My Rapid Fire Learning

I'm sure you've heard the expression, "April showers bring May flowers".  April is a transition month, as the promise of spring slowly gives way to the full bloom of May- with a few storms and speed bumps thrown in.

April of 2007 was a transitional month for my learning as well.  I experienced several things that served as "set ups" for the bright possibilities of May and the coming summer - things that paved the way for a personal "blooming" of my own, along with all the flowers and trees.  Here are my 5 "Rapid Fire Learnings" for April:

1. I  rediscovered (again) the enduring value of friendships and the comfort of my "musical markers"
2. My 100 year-old grandmother reminded me of how faith and love are the true foundations of a happy and fulfilling life.
3. "Half-fullism" is more than a catch phrase for me - it's a philosophy that can sustain me through hectic and trying times; ask Mopey Murphy!
4. Some tragic things you just can't rationalize or explain - so the half-full glass gets murky.
5. The amazing power of simply writing down your goals, especially at those times when you need to get back your "mojo".

With these learnings clearly in mind, I look forward to a wonderful month of May, and I wish you all the best for this month as well.

I'll be hosting JJL's May Rapid Fire Learning, so I'll be seeing you in a few weeks - happy learning!

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Terry Starbucker is an operations executive for a service company who lives in Connecticut, loves business trips to the Rocky Mountain west, and posts his musings and observations about "the optimistic side of the daily grind" in Ramblings from a Glass Half Full.  He's going to be at SOBCon07 in Chicago on May 11-12, and would really love to see you there.

The Half-Full Book Review: Seeing David in The Stone, by James B. and Joseph E. Swartz

It’s truly fitting that I chose to review “Seeing David in The Stone” for the 2007 JJL Love Affair With Books, because one of the core concepts of the book, about how 70 great leaders and thinkers achieved their successes, is what the authors call “powerful learning”.

Yes, learning – the process of acquiring and absorbing knowledge, is one of the 12 core actions that the authors identified as necessary to effectively recognize and successfully act upon opportunities.    Their 20 years of research examining the successes of people throughout human history, like Abe Lincoln, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, and Bill Gates, uncovered a consistent pattern of behavior, which they distilled into the 12 actions.

The learning comes in as part of the recognition process. As Francis Bacon is quoted in the book, “knowledge is power”. These successful people developed valuable expertise in their areas of success by targeted and effective learning. The authors call it “high-leverage” focus – the smallest amount of time to produce a maximum gain.

To be able to successfully achieve this type of learning, discipline of thought is certainly necessary – the book cautions us that the time we spend must be of high “quality”, free of distractions.  The ability to manage thoughts “one at a time” is considered critical. “The great ones”, say the authors, “could focus ---choose to have only valuable thoughts in their minds”.

A concept of “deep processing” is also introduced, and how the great ones were able to “process information deeper into their brains than less successful people did”. How?  By looking at the information from many different perspectives, by asking many questions about it, forming powerful mental images, and talking and writing about it often.

There was one other key ingredient too – passion.  We have to care about what we are learning.   This point resonated with me the most.  The best kind of learning occurs while in passionate pursuit of opportunity. There is quite an elegant simplicity to that.

What about the other 11 actions?  I’ll leave that to you to find out when you read the book, but suffice it to say that you will find them enlightening and useful.   

In the end, it’s still that passion, creativity and focus that allow us to see David in the Stone, just like Michelangelo did when he looked at that big piece of marble so long ago.  James and Joseph Swartz have done a great job of showing us how to put those three elements into action.

Enjoy this book!

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Terry Starbucker is an operations executive for a service company who lives in Connecticut, loves business trips to the Rocky Mountain west, and posts his musings and observations about "the optimistic side of the daily grind" in Ramblings from a Glass Half Full.  He's going to be at SOBCon07 in Chicago on May 11-12, and would really love to see you there.

In-Person Learning: An Invitation to SOBCon07

If we have learned much through the sharing of facts, ideas, thoughts and feelings on JJL and other blogs (and I would answer that myself with a resounding "yes!"), imagine the learning that would take place if all the bloggers actually got together face-to-face.

I, along with several other bloggers, had dreamed of this for many months, and a few weeks back we decided to make it a reality.   

So, it gives me great pleasure to announce to the JJL community  "SOBCon07 - Taking Your Blogging To The Next Level"

This exciting event will take place on May 11 and 12, 2007, at the Chicago O'Hare Sofitel Hotel.  It is designed specifically for relationship bloggers like ourselves who want to take our blogging and our learning to the next level. Here is a list of the events and speakers:

Community, Friday, May 11, 2007, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

• Christine Kane, popular guitarist, singer, blogger LIVE
• Open Mic Night Cocktail Party – Live community event (multiple microphones) Take the conversation out of the comment box!

Speakers, Saturday, May 12, 2007, 8:00 AM – 4:30 PM

• Phil Gerbyshak, Make It Great! Relationship Geek
• Liz Strauss, Successful-Blog SOB and BAD Blogger
• David Armano, Logic+Emotion
• Terry Starbucker, Ramblings from a Glass Half Full ; Rodney Rumford, PodBlaze; Ben Yoskovitz, Instigator Blog 
• Mike Sansone, Converstations & Iowa Marketing Bloggers
• Chris Cree, Success CREEations; Scott Rafer, MyBlogLog; Janice Myint Technorati
• Wendy Piersall, eMomsAtHome

There will be interactive presentations on publishing, design and branding, tools, analytics, social networking, marketing, and coaching -- all from the perspectives of the relationship blogger and the audience.

Only 250 attendees will be accepted, and we hope YOU can be one of them.

Come learn with us in Chicago - visit our registration site for more details. I look forward to seeing you!

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Terry Starbucker is an operations executive for a service company who lives in Connecticut, loves business trips to the Rocky Mountain west,  and posts his musings and observations about "the optimistic side of the daily grind" in Ramblings from a Glass Half Full.

Jump on the Learning Flywheel!

As this new year of 2007 begins I look back on the first three months of Joyful Jubilant Learning and wonder how we can sustain or even intensify the learning momentum that this thriving community has generated.

This wondering brings to mind the image of a flywheel – a rotating device that takes maximum effort to get going, but once it gets going the resulting momentum makes sustaining the rotation effortless.

That’s how I see JJL on this first day of the new year – a “learning flywheel” that we’ve cranked and turned and pushed forward as a “blogospheric” vehicle to promote, share and celebrate what we believe is an essential human process – to keep our brains active and alive with new knowledge and experiences.

Has the JJL flywheel reached that point of forward inertia where the learning activity is flowing, constant and effortless?   Not yet.   What will be the tipping point?   You!

You, our fellow members of the blogging community, can provide us with those last few pushes we need, by contributing your own learning experiences, ideas and methods. Click the “How do YOU get involved” on the left side of this page and “jump” on the flywheel.

One of my most rewarding discoveries of 2006 was the realization that I needed to learn as much as I needed to breathe – that is what drew me to JJL and the concept of sharing (and celebrating) learning.

If our Learning Flywheel can reach that tipping point with your help, there’s no telling how much more enrichment we can bring to our collective lives.  And since the momentum will then carry us all along for the ride, this enrichment will also become effortless.  Doesn’t that sound like fun?

I look forward to your contributions, and my very best wishes for a joyous and jubilant 2007!

Twelve Days of Christmas, the Joyful Jubilant Learning way

With all the warmth and spirit that this holiday can bring, the group would like to share this version of the Twelve Days of Christmas with you. May you sing with us now, and join us for a future collaborative effort.

On the first day of Christmas,
my teacher sent to me
A joyful network for learning.

On the second day of Christmas,
my teacher sent to me
Two thoughts inspiring,
And a joyful network for learning.

On the third day of Christmas,
my teacher sent to me
Three blogging tools,
Two thoughts inspiring,
And a joyful network for learning.

On the fourth day of Christmas,
my teacher sent to me
Four annual forums,
Three blogging tools,
Two thoughts inspiring,
And a joyful network for learning.

What I Learned From Blogging This Year

Ben Yoskowitz at Instigator Blog has come up with a great blogging project, by posing the question "What Did You Learn in 2006?". Since learning is like breathing for me these days, I am more than happy to participate, both on this blog and on my own site, Ramblings From a Glass Half-Full.

Here's what I posted on RFGHF:

The one "Big Thing" I learned this year was the huge personal benefit of blogging itself - by committing to write something down 4 or 5 times a week I accelerated the learning process (by keeping my eyes open a little bit wider) and had a heck of a lot of fun in the process (a "twofer"!).

The 12 "Little Things" are the monthly tidbits of knowledge and realizations that I came to only because of this blog over the past year:

1. January - I learned that Southern Colorado is an undiscovered gem, and that I have at least a little bit of a photographer's eye.
2. February - I learned that renovating a house can easily spin out of control by an attack of the "might as wells".
3. March - I learned that I really like my name on a Starbucks cup (and the customer service that implies).
4. April - I learned that a Blackberry and Half-Fullism really can mix (really!).
5. May - I learned that a company can aspire to be "beautifully artistic" and profitable at the same time.
6. June - I learned that promoting a "collective consciousness" within a company can pay big dividends, especially if the team members are geographically dispersed.
7. July - I learned that a code writing donkey named Basil could help me with my creative writing AND create a virtual chain of new friends (Ben, where is Basil now anyway?).
8. August - I learned the 10 Secrets to My (and Your) Success .
9. September - I learned that Thomas F. Swift, one of the victims of 9/11, was a person I now miss quite a bit even though I never met him.
10. October - I learned that lurking behind and around me for some 42 years was a "soundtrack", illuminating and enlightening my memories and experiences .
11. November - I learned the Midwest was my one of my favorite blogging solar systems, and Des Moines was the epicenter. That day in Iowa was one of the best of my year.
12. December - I learned I have two little gremlins arguing with me in my head, "Harry Half-Full" and "Mopey Murphy", and Harry usually wins (thankfully).

Come to think of it, there were probably 100's of little tidbits throughout the year, but I didn't want to fill up Ben's blog............

To my fellow "JJLers" and all who love to learn, I wish you a Joyful and Learning-filled Holiday Season, and a fantastic New Year!

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Terry Starbucker is an operations executive for a service company who lives in Connecticut, loves business trips to the Rocky Mountain west,  and posts his musings and observations about "the optimistic side of the daily grind" in Ramblings from a Glass Half Full.

How Do I Blog Thee? Let Me Start at the Beginning

I remember the first time I sat at a computer to blog - it was a lark, really, prompted by a friend who a couple of days before showed me his blog.  He was using Blogger so naturally I thought that it was the one and only way to do it (I was so naive).

I quickly set up an account (it took all of three minutes) and then I needed a title, essentially my "raison d'etre".   What was I going to blog about?   I sat and stared at the screen for a few moments.   I initially thought about writing about music, but in the end I didn't think anyone would be interested in what I had in my I-Pod.

Then I thought about just simply writing about my daily life - now that might be interesting, but only to me and my family (maybe).  The process however led me to this angle - putting my life into the context of a particular philosophy or belief that could perhaps be helpful to others.

What context could that be?   I tried to recall how others have described me, and something popped into my head - a particular event several years before where someone lamented that I "always looked at the glass as half-full". 

I pondered this and suddenly it was in my mind's eye:  "Ramblings From a Glass Half-Full".  I was going to blog about what I called "the optimistic side of the daily grind".  The title in place, I then quickly composed my first post:

"Hello blogland, starbucker here - I figured that Christmas Day was the best time as ever to start doing this. Yes, I always tend to look at the glass as "half full" - call me an eternal optimist, call me a fool, but I find it's the best way to live one's life with the least amount of angst. I hate angst. Now I wish I could always see the bright side of everything, but hey, that's why I need to blog - to share perspectives and learn from other experiences. At this point in my life most of my perspectives come from my career, which I'm in the thick of as a man in his late 40's (I'm an executive at a media company), so most of these musings will deal with that. I also have a few outside interests and passions that I'd like to share ideas on - music is one (both from a creating and a listening perspective), the Green Bay Packers are another (yes, I'm from the Midwest), and lately, No Limit Texas Hold'em (my latest half full goal is to play in the WSOP). So there you have it, and off I go into the blogosphere!"

What I still like about this post (despite the fact I've since given up on my poker dream and the Packers are having a lousy year) is that it illustrates best the "how" in my blogging - to put words on a page as if I am speaking to someone, and simply spilling my thoughts as honestly and clearly as I could.

Since then I approach most of my entries in the same way- I take a simple concept, idea or word out of my life experiences, or take an item or a book that I've read which has caught my interest, and then sit in front of the computer screen, and start typing.  Sometimes I wish I had more fully fleshed out things all ready to crank out, but it just doesn't work for me.

I now realize it's a big creative outlet for me to work "on the fly" like that, and I just want to keep doing it for as long as I can.  So I offer this advice to someone reading this who's thinking about blogging - go to one of those services like Blogger, register, sit in front of your computer, and start pouring some of your life experiences onto the screen.  At worst, it's therapy. At best, it's a whole new wonderful world.

Happy blogging!

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Terry Starbucker is an operations executive for a service company who lives in Connecticut, loves business trips to the Rocky Mountain west,  and posts his musings and observations about "the optimistic side of the daily grind" in Ramblings from a Glass Half Full.

A Thanksgiving Miracle and a Lesson in Humanity

It was the day before Thanksgiving, 1981. I was in the back seat of my 1974 Oldsmoble ’98, sleeping soundly after driving most of the night. Four college buddies and I started in San Antonio the day before, stopped in St. Louis to drop of three off, and now it was just the two of us, heading north towards Chicago at about six o’clock in the morning.

It was a cool and sunny morning, and I was very much looking forward to getting home to Milwaukee to be with my family and celebrate Thanksgiving together. I was going to college more than 1,100 miles away, so I hadn’t seen them since August. Since we only had a few days before we had to be back in class, we had decided to travel these many miles straight through, stopping only for food, gas and drop offs.

As we neared the town of Litchfield, Illinois the quiet was suddenly replaced by the sound of a shattered windshield. I quickly awoke to find we had gone off the road, hit a temporary road sign, and was careening into a roadside ditch. The driver had fallen asleep behind the wheel. We barreled through the ditch for what seemed an eternity and finally came to a stop, the radiator destroyed and the car very much undrivable.

There we were, two college kids with very little money and a broken car, still many miles from home. So as the police car came and got us a tow into Litchfield I was very skeptical that we could get the car fixed in time to even get back for classes the following Monday. Little did I know I was going to learn a lot about the basic good nature of humanity as the day progressed.

Our first stop was the local garage, and we were greeted with smiles as well as concern – we told our story as the mechanic took a look at the car and then disappeared into a back room, and I was very apprehensive as he returned and began to tell us what he found and what he could do. “Boys”, he said, “It’s your lucky day”.  “I just happen to have found the last radiator for a ‘74 Oldsmobile in the whole town of Litchfield – and since I know you are trying to get home for Thanksgiving, I’ll move the repair to the top of the list and we’ll have you out of here by early afternoon”.

Needless to say we were thrilled, but there still was a problem – we didn’t have more than $25 between the two of us. After explaining our financial quandary the mechanic suggested we go the Western Union office up the street and get our parents to wire some money. But first, he suggested “go across the street and get yourself some coffee and breakfast – they know you are coming and they will take good care of you”.

The owners of this diner were even nicer than the person at the garage – they already knew of our plight and made our coffee and doughnuts “on the house”. All the patrons were as friendly as could be, expressing good wishes and confidence that their local mechanic was up to the task.

By the time we had gone to Western Union (of course, the lady there was quite helpful and got us the money quickly) and come back to the garage, I was feeling like this was some kind of dream – and we were going to wake up any minute now and find out we were still in the ditch. The mechanic greeted us upon our return with the further good news that he was already finished with the work (and it was only noon!), and we could be on our way home.

We got back on the freeway still in disbelief as to what had occurred over the course of that morning, but thanking our lucky stars that we were going to make it home in time for Thanksgiving. When I did get home the holiday took on a special added significance for me, not only because I felt lucky I just made it there in one piece, but because of what I had learned about the kindness of strangers in the little town of Litchfield.

Yes, I’ve come to believe strongly in the “incredible potential of the human spirit” (it is the core of my Belief Statement on my blog), and a lot of that belief came about as a result of this wonderful Thanksgiving miracle. Now every Thanksgiving I remember those fine folks in Litchfield, as well as all the other caring people in the world who extend their hearts and hands to those in need. Thank you Litchfield for this valuable life lesson!

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Terry Starbucker is an operations executive for a service company who lives in Connecticut, loves business trips to the Rocky Mountain west,  and posts his musings and observations about "the optimistic side of the daily grind" in Ramblings from a Glass Half Full.