Removing distractions is critical when looking to engaging in focused thinking.  Sometimes its not so easy to remove those things that we’ve grown to expect in our daily routine.  One of the suggestions that Maxwell makes is “Don’t allow yourself to look at e-mail until after 10AM.  Instead, focus your energies on your number one priority.”  If you are like me you probably have a routine that you go through nearly daily.  Mine is:  Check the Charlotte Observer (I NEED to see if there is any breaking Panthers news), Check ESPN (why not watch highlights from the game that I JUST WATCHED last night), Check GMail (no idea why i do this), Check Fannation (once again…maybe there is a rumor that my boys may be picking up a player in free agency).  I know this is not productive in any way, yet I engage in it first think…shamefully almost daily.  Once I’m finished with my rounds of procrastination, I usually choose some the tasks that will take the least amount of time to complete to focus on first.  Now whether this is right or wrong is up for debate, but here are some words of wisdom that Maxwell has offered up..

This is something that may be easy for some to digest, however for myself, this is something that I’ll have to work at doing.  My nature of being a procrastinator does not want me to dive in head first…first thing in the morning….into a task that may take me days to complete.  To be fair, I’m using the word “procrastinator” for myself by what I believe my standards of focus and hard work should be.  There are plenty of folks that would look my way and not see a huge problem, but I think everyone should hold themselves to their own standards as long as they are reasonable.  Back to the topic, doing first things first sounds to me like a tip that I should embrace and could make a major impact in my life.  The author goes on to recommend how one can begin to put this tip to practice.

Insulate yourself from distractions.  Maxwell speaks of how he needs blocks of time to think without interruption.  Mastering the art of making yourself unavailable when necessary is critical to focus.  In a world where instant messaging, twitter, and the internet is king, making yourself unavailable is not really hard to do, but it definitely is sometimes hard to make yourself willing to do.  Will I miss something?  There’s no problem with just having the applications up in the background right?  I learned to multi-task well in college (won’t go into my learning methods)…that should still work well for me right?

When I was in college, mutli-tasking was crammed into my mind as the way (and likely the only way) to survive in the “real world”.  Reading this chapter has really caused me to question how useful multi-tasking really is.  I’m not saying there is never a time to balance multiple tasks, however I’ve found that the moments that I do allow myself to focus for an extended amount of time on one particular task, I’ve seen the best results.  So my next thought naturally was, how can I have those moments of focus more often?  What brings about that focus?  Reading a little further, a few nuggets worth noting were revealed..

Not only do my objectives need to be clear, I’m really buying into the fact that I need to write down my goals…both long and short term.  Having that flag in the distance to, at the very least, give you something visual to indicate where you are headed is more valuable that you can imagine.  There was another quote in the book that I want to remember because it really stood out to me…

I think brainstorming and “vision” are two of my stronger characteristics.  Often I have these ideas that I believe in, but articulating them to someone else is not the easiest thing.  Sometimes my ideas are so elaborate, or rely on so many details, that I try to spew them all out to people at one time…..leading them to become confused and/or think the idea is not as great as it is.  I want to make note of this quote, so that I’ll remember to try and be concise and articulate the purpose of an idea clearly rather than focusing on detail.

Chapter 3 was about harnessing your creativity.  For the most part, I didn’t find much in this chapter that I felt a need to make note of.  I do think the chapter is worth reading, however I don’t feel led to share much of it.  I did find one quote in the book that I’d like to share, which is simply a definition of creativity from the author’s point of view.

Here’s the question at the end of the chapter.  I’ll have to learn to not overlook these questions and try and answer/apply them….most of the time I read them, but it all ends there. 

Question to ask yourself:  Am I working to break out of my “box” of limitations so that I explore ideas and options to experience creative breakthroughs?

I chose to pick up “How Successful People Think”.  I’m only a chapter into the book, and its already proving to be exactly what I was looking for.  The book gives the author’s opinion of which distinct characteristics belong to those successful people that he considers “thinkers”.  The author goes a step further to explain why people in general do not spend a ton of time thinking…his answer was simply because REAL thinking is hard work.  There are pointers in the book on how to establish the discipline to think.  Here are a few points that I’ve taken down thus far that I thought were worth taking note of:

There also were a few quotes that the author mentions in the book that made lots of sense.  I’ve been interested in getting into blogging more (thus this entry), and hopefully it will prove worthwhile.  As an example of a good quote, here is one that Maxwell uses..

How much sense does THAT make…right?  It is a statement that is blatantly obvious when you read it, but taking it…internalizing it….and putting this to work is something that I don’t do, and I’d dare to say there are many others that are in my same boat.  I’m beginning to realize more and more the importance of writing down thoughts, and developing those in the process.  Maxwell also makes another point that I’ve clearly acknowledged prior to picking up this book, however by reading the book I’m gaining a bit more clarity and focus which can only aid as I determine the things I’d like to do.

One last quote from Maxwell, then I’ll wrap this up.  The other day I posted a quote that I saw on my timeline on twitter.  The quote says “Always see the person from where they stand, not from where you stand.”  I liked the quote because I feel that more often than not, when there is a debate we fail to step back and try to view the situation from the other person’s vantage point.  This isn’t an easy thing to do.  The book dives into this a little in the first chapter.  “Who you are determines what you see – and how you think.  Big-picture thinkers realize there is a world out there besides their own, and they make an effort to get outside of themselves and see other people’s worlds through their eyes [...] To see how others see, you must first find out how they think.  Becoming a good listener certainly helps with that.  So does getting over your personal agenda and try and to take the other person’s perspective.”  I took this excerpt in its entirety (almost) because it is something that we all should work on.  More “big-picture” thinking in this world would certainly be a step in the right direction.

I’ll likely follow up with more as I read more, but its been a really good start.  Sustained focused thinking is a problem area of mine, but I’m working on it.  If its a problem of yours too…this book appears to be a good place to start.

“Always see the person from where they stand, not from where you stand.”

If we could rewind time, and it were up to me, I would have probably approached the use of our #1 pick a little differently.  I would have said, “Hey, we need to put together a plan to land a veteran QB, and we should bolster our defensive front with our pick.  Maybe Jimmy Clausen isn’t a bust and he can learn behind a proven vet.”  From discussions with friends, it seems that I wasn’t the only one thinking this way.  So what do we do in actuality?…we go out and and select the athletic, the talented, the “risky” Cam Newton.

Here’s why I’m OK with our pick, and actually looking forward to seeing what happens…

With a brand new coach in Ron Rivera, and practically an entire new staff, the Carolina Panthers have shown our cards and are making a statement loud and clear.  We are rebuilding.  We are not expecting to win a Super Bowl anytime in the near future.  Bringing in a QB that is going to cost our team an absurd amount of money at this point just isn’t going to happen.  The team has selected Cam Newton to lead us into the future.  I think its evident that the style of a Cam Newton may not look like a Peyton Manning (definitely won’t) or a Tom Brady, but can it win in the NFL….maybe.  That’s all I can ask at this point.  I’ve sat through a couple of woeful seasons and watched a team that may have been the best in the NFC fall due to a quarterback that just could not make things happen.  I understand where we are as a team at this point, and although I don’t agree with all of the moves we’ve made as of late, I will support our most recent move in selecting Cam Newton…..after all, do I have a choice?

The very first thing that I noticed about the headphones when I put them on in Best Buy is that they were not small by any means.  I was almost deterred by that alone, but my mission was to test out the best products so I tried them out.  Once you put these headphones on you won’t want to take them off (I’ve been bobbing around my house with them on…LOL).  You LITERALLY feel like you are in a recording studio….you can hear every bit of the music.  I particularly like this because coming from a music background, I am allll about hearing the small things that make the music.  Another thing that you will notice very quickly is the BASS in the music.  The great part about the bass is that its not like you are in someone’s car with WAYYY too much in their trunk making the car rattle.  The bass is drawn out so that it compliments the music (but let’s be real, these are headphones by DRE so you do feel the bump). As i said before, I tried out the Bose Quiet Comfort headphones too, and I liked the sound these gave better.

The one drawback for these headphones is that they do not do a very good job at all of keeping the music audible to JUST the user of the headphones.  You can actually turn the volume all the way up and lay the headphones down on the table and everyone in the room would be jamming to what’s playing.  Because of this…i have to dock some on my rating scale. I’d imagine that most people do not want everyone in the room singing along to what they are listening to.  Overall though, these are probably the best headphones you are going to get (short of whatever the DJs and professionals invest in), and because of this, labeling them as “overpriced” is inaccurate in my opinion.  Everybody isn’t going to be interested in paying that much for some stinking headphones, but if you are a music lover and will be using them a lot, I’d say give them a look.  I give the Beats by Dr. Dre Studio Headphones a 4.5 out of 5.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

I got the beats by dr. dre monster headphones, and a Sony MP3 player.  When I tried out the headphones I knew I had to have them…I even liked them better than the Bose headphones and I’m a Bose NUT.  Check out the pics.  You can get to the gallery through my Pictures page too.

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So I gave you the rundown of what went down on my actual birthday (March 18), but the weekend was packed, so here are the highlights. Friday night we met up with Dave and Jo at this spot called Cabana’s in Georgetown on the waterfront (on the boardwalk). The place was terrible (IMO). The food was cold and they had the windows open like it was warm…but it had to be low 40′s. It was good seeing the peeps of course, but I don’t feel like I’ll be going back to that place anytime soon.

Saturday, the fellas had a dinner for me at OYA in Chinatown, which was actually very nice. Good fresh sushi, and some of my boys that I haven’t seen in a while showed up which was cool. We hopped over to the U St. area and passed through a couple of spots….eventually landing at Tabaq. Of course since we were in the area and a couple of the guys hadn’t been there, we stopped by Ben’s Chili Bowl…not really for the food because its just OK, if you’re looking for a greasy bag of food and a trip to the bathroom…but really for the history right? LOL…well anyway, it was a great time.

Last, but certainly not least my thoughtful wife had a final surprise for me on Sunday. We actually spent the evening cooking with acclaimed Italian Chef Roberto Donna at his home in Virginia. This turned out to be the very best gift, and really an opportunity a lot of people aren’t afforded. So here is the menu we prepared:

• Vegetable & Bean Soup
• Fettuccine w/Artichoke Pesto
• Chicken w/Almonds
• Sicilian Zucchini w/Raisins & Pine Nuts
• Sfinci

We prepared the food in the courses mentioned above, and I don’t know if its just a cooking thing or an Italian thing, but between each course we had “wine breaks” LOL. I think the highlight of the food was the fresh pasta that we made. There were five of us, and everyone had to work together to keep the dough from breaking and folding over. Once it was all done, we tossed it in the pesto sauce and when I tasted I thought I should have my own cooking show. Of course everything tasted ridiculously good, but working with a Chef that’s been on Iron Chef….at his house…was great

As we entered the restaurant we realized that there were not many patrons there, which at first may seem concerning, but considering it was a Thursday night in Woodbridge it really didn’t matter much. We pretty much had the whole place to ourselves, which was nice. Now to the important part – The FOOD. So I had the Fricassee d’Escargots, Prosciutto wrapped Sturgeon, and at the end they brought out some fruit dessert medley with a candle on the plate. I enjoyed myself of course and everything was delicious…..but after dinner we kept it moving.

After dinner we headed into the district and checked out this restaurant/lounge off of 14th St called Masa 14. The games were on, and the space was very nice. Evidently this is the largest (or maybe longest) bar in DC, but it was definitely a good spot to round off the night.

Little did I know, this was just the start of many birthday events…but it was a great start