Pray First, Aim High and Stay Focused

There once was a man who had nothing for his family to eat. He had an old shotgun and three bullets. So, he decided that he would go out and kill something for dinner.

As he went down the road, he saw a rabbit and he shot at the rabbit and missed it. Then he saw a squirrel and fired a shot at the squirrel and missed it.

As he went further, he saw a wild turkey in the tree and he had only one bullet, but a voice came to him and said, "Pray first, aim high and stay focused."

However, at the same time, he saw a deer which was a better kill. He brought the gun down and aimed at the deer. But, then he saw a rattlesnake between his legs about to bite him. He naturally brought the gun down further to shoot the rattlesnake.

Still, the voice said again to him, "I said 'Pray, aim high and stay focused."

So, the man decided to listen to the voice. He prayed, then aimed the gun high up in the tree and shot the wild turkey.

The bullet bounced off the turkey and killed the deer. The handle fell off the gun and hit the snake in the head and killed it. And, when the gun had gone off, it knocked him into a pond.

When he stood to look around, he had fish in all his pockets, a dead deer and turkey to eat. The snake (Satan) was dead simply because the man listened to God.

Bottom line: Pray first before you do anything, aim and shoot high in your goals, and stay focused on God.

Stretch Goal for Electronic Village Blog

2010. First year of the new decade. A time for all villagers, including me, to take a close look at our goals and aspirations for 2010. Valorie Burton, a life coach and speaker, wrote,

"I challenge you to set a goal that stretches you - and as a result, excites you enough that you are spurred to action. A stretch goal is like a weight you use to tone your soul. It brings you joy. It develops your character. It taps into your strengths. Stretching doesn't always have to come from unwanted challenges. Stretching also happens when you choose to challenge yourself to grow and experience untapped potential."

Ms. Burton shared three (3) questions to start the new year:

1. What vision feels just beyond your reach?
   
2. What specific, measurable and time-sensitive goal would bring me closer to that vision?
   
3. Who will you tell?

I am going to determine stretch goals in the personal, business and blogging spheres of my life. The personal and business goal-setting will be dealt with offline. However, I will share my blogging stretch goals with you here online.

1. What vision feels just beyond your reach? - My vision is for this blog, Electronic Village, to become one of the top-rated Black-owned blogs in cyberspace.
2. What specific, measurable and time-sensitive goal would bring me closer to that vision? - Electronic Village will be in the top 5,000 overall blogs as measured by Technorati by the end of the year. We're currently the 7,243 ranked blog in the world with our Technorati Authority ranking of 440. This blog will strive to move up 200 spots per month.
3. Who will you tell? - We will share our progress with you at the beginning of each month.

We need your help. If you are a blogger ... please be liberal in your link-love with our blog. In fact, I wonder if any other bloggers want to join me in setting stretch blogging goals for 2010?

If you are not a blogger ... please consider subscribing to our blog!

Also, I wouldn't mind any advice from you on ways that this blog can improve itself. We are open to change!

Set Your Goals for 2009

Soulclap to Kai Dupe for the work he is doing to evolve our Black young boys on a path towards becoming successful Black men. In his recent monthly newsletter, 'The Successful Black Male Project', he wrote,

In order to be successful in the new year, we must nuture the habit of goal setting. Goal setting is not a complicated matter. However it is a major component of success. If you listen to what successful people are saying you will always hear them mention how they set goals and even more importantly how they maintain their focus on their goals. One of the main ways to stay focused on your goals is to write them down.

The other important thing to remember about goals is that you should only set goals that are important to you. It is a mistake to set goals that are important to others. Success requires work. And the energy you will need to get your work done requires passion. You must be motivated. It is much more difficult to be motivated about something that you are not interested in.

Countless movies have depicted the poor son who became a doctor or a lawyer to follow in their father's footsteps when they realy dreamed of having success in another walk of life.

As we start the new year take a few moments to jot down a couple of goals. Put them somewhere you can see them each day such as a computer screen saver or perhaps on the tape it to a bathroom mirror. If you wish to learn more about goal setting please pick up an excellent book by Brian Tracy, entitled Flight Plan.

We're one week into the new year. Have you written down YOUR goals for 2009 yet?

Village Resolutions: Financial Goals

Often we wait until New Year's Eve to make resolutions on important life goals. I was thinking it might be good to review our resolutions throughout the year. One of the major goals that all villagers should consider is:



Set Specific Financial Goals
Think about any unusual expenses you may incur or big-ticket items you need to purchase in the coming months. Start saving for such items now, not when it's time to pay the bill. This is as good a time as any to set an annual savings goal, such as ten percent of your salary.

Do you have financial goals in place? What say u?

Gotta Get Goals

Theo Johnson is the creative genius behind the Now That is What I'm Talking About blog. He tagged me with a meme on goals back in April 2007. The original meme was started by Alex Shalman. It has taken over five months ... but, the rhinos in my Electronic Village have elephant-like tendencies ... we never forget! My goals are actually quite simple at this stage of life.

1. Be a better father, son, brother and uncle - This takes many forms. First, I recognize that I need to be a better role model, including showing my children the importance of having God in your life. African proverb says that when there is a difference between a man's actions and his words ... believe his actions. My actions need to improve drastically in terms of my attendance and support of church. It is a tangible action that would be meaningful for my young son and daughters. It would also be something that my mother and sister would like. One thing is certain, I will be a great witness for others based on the ups & downs that I've had in my life. Finally, my nieces could use a positive male role model ... and Uncle Villager is ready to take on that role for the next few decades. I plan to write, call and visit with my sister, nieces and parents on a regular basis. We are located on the four corners of the continent ... so it will take some doing ... but, this is an important goal.
2. Become financially independent - I read with interest a post from Field Negro earlier this weekend. It reminded me of the financial roll that I was on a few years ago. Black Enterprises magazine once gave stats that showed I was in the top 2% of Black folks in terms of family income. However, that house of cards crashed when I managed to mess up my marriage ... get divorced ... and get hit with some whopper child support payments. At the exact same time, I left my corporate gig to start my own business ... and for a few years it seems that I lived off of credit cards and such. In other words, I dug a very big financial hole for myself. Over the past year I have been taking steps on a day-by-day basis to get my sh*t together. My credit score is moving up and my child support payments are timely. My new motto is ,'Start Late, Finish Rich'. I enjoy reading about bloggers that are making big bank. They are an inspiration as well. My former wife is also an inspiration in this regard. Anyhow, my goal is to become financially independent within the next five years.
3. Grow my business - I became a full-time entrepreneur on July 5, 2002. That is when I began my business in earnest. My largest contract was signed with the Cincinnati Business Incubator about a year later. I currently have 48 clients under contract at the incubator. These are some dedicated entrepreneurs and business owners that are looking to create jobs and economic growth in the community. Our most successful incubator client is a 3-year old firm, World Pac Paper, that is now one of the top six Black-owned companies in the city. My consultancy added other contracts and clients over the past year. The joy is that I have been a 1099-brother since July 2002. Those of you who own your own business will understand what that means! Now, I need to take my business to the next level. One thing that I need to do is update and implement a revised business plan. The steps that I took to get my consulting business started have run their course. I now need to take different steps to grow my consulting business over the long-term. As such, my immediate goal is to have a new business plan in place before the end of the year.
4. Provide four-year scholarships for BDPA students - I am the executive director for the BDPA Education & Technology Foundation. I was blessed last month to be able to hand out $40,000 in scholarships to students from Chattanooga, TN; Detroit, MI; Chicago, IL; New York, NY; and Rochester, MN. The scholarships ranged from $500/student to $3,000/student for the winning team from Southern Minnesota. My vision is to hand out 4-year scholarships to these students. If baseball, basketball and football players can get full rides from high school to competing colleges ... why can't these talented information technology students have those same benefits and opportunities. I created the BETF-Blog so that we can communicate more effectively. I hope to hand out the first full 4-year scholarship at the 30th annual BDPA Technology Conference in August 2008.

I have other goals in life that revolve around relationships and such. However, these are the ones that bubbled to the top as I typed out this post today. It is always good to put your goals in writing. We'll need to come back every once in awhile to see how these turn out. My thanx again to Theo for tagging me with this meme. I see that Vanessa and Benin were much more timely in their response to Theo's tag. I gotta get rid of this procrastination-habit!

Anyhow, I get to tag others now. My choices are:

• Adrianne - Black Women in Europe
• Bronze Trinity - Man I Need Something To Do
• Eddie - Eddie Griffin, BASG
• Invisible Woman - Black Cinema at LARGE
• Keith - The 'D' Spot
• Wayne - Field Negro

As we used to say when we were kids ... TAG YOU'RE IT!