It’s sad that Hollywood professes that being beautiful, having lots of money and being famous brings happiness.  They are all so thin and smiling.  However, now and again the facade breaks down and the truth is revealed.

Last week with the death of Cory Monteith, a TV star, is truly a tragedy.   I am hoping that this tragedy will be seen in the correct light.  It is painfully obvious that fame, fortune and good looks do not bring lasting happiness or safety.    In contrast, following the commandments, may not bring an easy road in this life.  But, it will bring happiness and freedom.

I have a hope that all of humanity will someday see this truth and strive to live in such a way as to bring the most happiness and freedom.  I really hope this is the case.

Every now and then, a song comes along that almost consumes me.  Sometimes, it’s only for a few moments.  Sometimes, it lasts a day or two.  And occasionally, it will consume me for months.  The great thing about music is that after some time that song can bring all that back.  I have a list  that is about 475 songs.  I randomly go through these songs in between new discoveries.   Sometimes music grows on me and sometimes It consumes me quickly and then I discard it.  Either way the best way to describe my relationship with music is “addiction.”

Music can change my mood, it can carry me away or it can help me focus.

I have also discovered over the years music is totally personal.  While people may like some of my music and I may like some of their music, the overlap is usually small.  Luckily, my wife and I have more of an overlap.  Our tastes are similar.  She likes some of the late sixties and early seventies music, like Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens and others more than I do.  But one of my to 50 songs is “The Boxer.”  I really like Trance style electronic DJ type music, my wife only likes a few of the songs.

I am to the point where I am very selective about the music I recommend to people.  I do like to share my experiences with music with people I know.  For instance, I have a subscription to a music service called Rhapsody.  Every Tuesday is the day they release most new music.  One Tuesday I saw Willie Nelson had released a new album.  I thought to myself, “That is cool, he has to be 70+ and he is still putting out music.”  I pushed the button to play the album, mostly because the first song was called “A Horse Called Music” which I thought was a cool name for a song.  The song was okay.  The second song started playing and I wasn’t paying much attention, then I heard a voice I didn’t expect to hear.  Then I started paying attention to the lyrics, “…. roll me up and smoke me when I die”  The chorus seemed completely appropriate for Willie, but who was this new voice.  He sounded vaguely familiar but I wasn’t sure.  So I looked at the title of the song, featuring Snoop Dog.  I started to laugh.  Once again, totally appropriate for him too.  I was amazed, amused and happily surprised to see that both Willie and Snoop have a sense of humor and are not taking themselves too seriously.  I like to share those type of experiences with my friends and family.  There have been several other songs; for which I am pleasantly surprised at the lyrics and story.  Brad Paisely’s “Karate” and “Harvey Bodine.”  There is LL Cool J’s “Not Leaving You Tonight featuring Fitz And The Tantrums, Eddie Van Halen”

Music can be fun.  Music can be happy.  Music can be relaxing.  Music can be motivating.  And Music can be grand.

My advice; just listen!

Not that I can control it, and it’s totally obvious, how time just marches on and without resolve things get left undone.

Yesterday was Sunday.  In the Gospel Principles class we talked about the Holy Ghost and his role.    One of his main roles is to testify of truth.  I think that is something I need to be seeking after more often, the verification of truth through the Holy Ghost.  I am going to be testing this out over the next several weeks to see if I can push my testimony to a new level.  The first thing for which I am going to focus is on is the Savior.  There is so much of the world that doesn’t even know about the life and mission of Jesus Christ.  In this day and age there are many that ridicule the belief in Deity or religion.  I need to strengthen my belief and therefore am going to try an experiment on searching for truth.  I am fully planning on that truth to be verified by the Holy Ghost.

That’s all I have for now.  I probably need to get on the road

It’s odd in my life I have been eased into soccer.  I played soccer one year when I was in 4th grade.  Then my cousin David was playing in Sacramento when we moved there.  My chemistry teacher in high school was the soccer coach.  Then I started watching my brothers play on club teams, and then in high school.  It was fun to watch and I started to realize this was one of the biggest sports in the world.  All over the world kids grow up knowing only about soccer.  They don’t play basketball, baseball, hockey or volleyball.  There are small pockets of these sports around the world but they are not that big of a deal.

When my daughter Paige started playing soccer my wife started getting into it.  A couple of years ago we started getting free satellite and we had access to all kinds of soccer.  We started watching Barcelona play.  Lionel Messi was amazing to watch, and then we started seeing other players that I had heard about.  Rooney, Christiano Renaldo and then I began to learn many more.  Diego Forlan, Mezzit Ozil, Danny Alvez, Iker Cassias, Ibrahimavic, Van Persie, Chicarito, Marcello, Cesc Fabragas, and others.  I started to learn about teams and managers(coaches).  I also learned about the leagues and tournaments.  Once I got a decent job, we even bought some season tickets to our local club here in Salt Lake, RSL (Real Salt Lake).  I know now why they call this the beautiful game.  There are big egos, big money, and fanatics that behave very badly.  However, 99.9% of the whole deal is beautiful.

Sometimes I wish that I had the exposure to soccer when I was eight.  I wish I could have been inspired with the vision of what soccer in the US would become.  I could have been part of it, not just the admiring spectator.  I am now drawn to the game.

This morning started with going to Paige’s Impact Cup, finals game.  Her team had earned the right to play in the finals because they beat a much better team.  They lost in the finals, 0-2, but they played hard and it was fun to watch.  I shot video of the game and you can see that online.

Then we had the opportunity to watch the USA soccer team play Cuba.  USA won 4 -1.  It was a double header and Costa Rica played Belize.  That game concluded with Costa Rica 1 and Belize 0.  Costa Rica should have had more goals, there were several misses by inches, and the goalie for Belieze was brilliant.

The other thing I had to deal with today was my Leaf.  I got it back from the dealership.  I had problems a couple of time charging on public chargers.  It would charge for about 1/2 hour and then quick charging.  I took it in, the dealership gave me a loaner car for a couple of days and they got it fixed.    It’s nice to have my car back.   I really enjoy it, it’s got some pickup because the electric motor is much better at getting the power from the engine to the wheels.  I am hoping the technology improves and we will be able to, in the very near future, be able to drive exactly like gas cars.  In the first month I only saw 3 other Leaf’s on the road.  This week I saw five.  I am sure there will be many more on the road soon.  It’s nice now because charging is free in most places.

Until tomorrow.

The first thing I need to get accomplished today is to get my sign up in the window of Shelton Photography.  I am hoping he will be in before 9AM.  If he is not, then I will have to wait until he gets in to put up the sign.  I will give more details as things with that project work themselves out.

This morning I had a thought about trying something new.  Mike my brother explained to me that someone had gotten a group of people together, provided them a meal and then pitched them the product he was selling.  He said that he wouldn’t ever do a one on one or small groups again.  I thought this would be a good idea for Mike.  However, my new idea is to try this for my pay for performance idea.  So I will be working through some of those details today.  I need to see if I can find a list of business owners with over 50 employees.  With this list create a mailer that I can send to each business owner.  I also need to work up a basic outline for the presentation.  I could possibly do that here.  I will need to provide each person with a small note pad to figure out some calculations.

The other thing I need to do is write down that speech to see if I can get it below 7 minutes.

I guess the first part of this is put in the disclaimer, Maybe put the disclaimer that if your business already has a pay-for-performance strategy in place this is not something that will be beneficial.

The first part of the presentation I will ask them to write down how many hourly employees they have and then to times that number by $5000 and that is the amount of extra profit you will get out of your business by implementing a p4p plan.  For instance if you have 17 employees, by implementing a p4p plan you will be able to create an extra $85,000 a year in profit.  The next calculation is the write down the number of salary employees.  Add up what you are paying them per year.  Then times that by 20%.  That will give you another opportunity for profit.  So if you have 5 salaried employees and their combined payroll is $375,000 a year times that by %20 which is $75,000 a year in extra profit potential.