Could a new book or series of books change the world like Charles Dickens’ ? In this past week, I have been inspired to look for ways to change the world from reading the book Abundance by Peter H. Diamandis, Steven Kotler. The book talks about ideas like sustainable toilets that don’t need plumbing and crops grown indoors.

I have also thought about how I can change the world. The first thing I started talking to people was about toilets. I have also talked to people about home hydroponic gardens and the potential for a new monetary system not based on gold or paper.

This morning I thought about writing books that might change the world. The first idea I had is writing a story about a person or married couple that faced the struggles of working low wage jobs with no health care and trying to survive in the million-dollar economy. I would like to include a Harry Potteresqe element. Maybe through in a character that is really rich, really smart like Tony stark that has always looked for challenges, like being a Navy SEAL, climbing Mt. Everest and has discovered one of the most difficult things in the world is working at a fast-food restaurant so he is looking for ways to make the lives of those people better. Not just by giving them money but by teaching and inspiring them on how to, and creating the tools and incentives for them to change their own lives. Maybe adding the idea that it is like the underground railroad of getting people to freedom.

Another book idea I have had for some time is a book about a scientist that is trying to save the world and he discovers hidden messages in our DNA from the advanced civilization that put life on earth. However, there is also a malicious advance civilization that is trying to steal the resources of this building advanced civilizations. It is interesting that someone mentioned in the Abundance book about someone embedding messages in DNA sequences for people to decipher.

Today, which is a Saturday, I woke up at 5:00 AM and then got lazy and stayed in bed. I didn’t get out of bed until 7:30. There is a slight chance that I will get in a 30-minute work-out sometime today but the possibility is way down.

We cleaned the church from 8 to 9 Am – I thought about renting a leaf blower. It’s $30 for four hours or $50 for the day. I might try and get someone do split it with me for next weekend. I just hope it doesn’t rain this week.

Now it’s back to work.

I am trying to write every day, but I’m not quite there yet.

It is crazy to me the new perspective this book has brought to my mind. I think for the first time in my life I feel like there is a possibility for me to make an actual difference in the world.

And there are not a few possibilities there are many many possibilities.

Reading in the book abundance it talked about how much it would cost in hours worked for an hour’s worth of light from a 100 watt light bulb during history. In 1750 BC, 400 hours, in 1800, 50 hours, in 1889, 3 hours. Now 1 second. Here is an article that has a graphic on the stats The Cost of Light.

Yesterday I looked up the invention of the first electric generator was in 1831. Interesting timing if you compare it against the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

There are many things available to everyone today that many would have called magic only a generation ago. This makes me ask the question, “what will be discovered tomorrow that will change the world.” What is the question that I can ask that will change the world?

I started listening to Abundance by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler. It’s along the same lines of Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker. It a great book pointing out how the standard of living is really going up for everyone. I like that they have a new remedy to the Malthusian fallacy of overpopulation. They attempt to prove that as the standard of living increases the birth rates go down. And this is easily proved with the statistics showing the most developing countries are having less than 2 lives births per woman.

I really like that they point out that memorizing information is not a skill we need to teach. But what we need to promote is creativity and critical thinking.

They also point out that our brains are wired to seek out and remember the bad and ignore the good. They point out that for most of human existence this type of thinking has kept us alive, but does not help us realize the abundance in the world and in our own lives. They point out that refrigerators, air conditioning, and indoor plumbing were not enjoyed by the richest people in the world 100 years ago. And the computing power we hold in our hands in our cell phones, now available to the poorest people in the world in Africa, is a better communication device and has access to more information instantly than the President of the United States had available to him 30 years ago. It’s fun to think about trying to notice the wonderful abundance we have available to us.

Now in another direction.

It was brought to my attention yesterday if I am going to be journaling I need to talk about more broad things that are happening in my life and then I need to create a plan to review these things periodically so I can see where my I am improving.

First my relationship with Amanda is going well. However, I still would like to go on more frequent dates.

Kate, is almost six, prompted us to go and out and rake leaves yesterday. I think she had grand plans for jumping in big piles of leaves. She really enjoyed it and had Amanda start helping Marsha, which encouraged Scott to get up from his nap and help. Kate said at one point, “This is more fun than watching TV.” I am hoping we can help keep up that motivation. Sadly she didn’t get to jump in a pile of leaves. I think we will have her jump on the leaf bags today.

At work, I am struggling to figure out how to pull leads out of Linkedin in and more automated way. It’s interesting how much work I can do now compared to what I was doing when I started pushing the limits of lead generation in March.

Emerson was just promoted at his elementary cleaning job and did well as a Junior in his school golf.

Roman has made some sales with Fortitus Financial and traveled to Syracuse NY this week to implement one of his sales.

I enjoy teaching, more face to face than online. But I am enjoying the interaction in both places.