Big city

This weekend I went back home to visit lots of friends and family in Phoenix. I forgot how big Phoenix is over the last year. I also forgot how fast paced life is their.  I do miss all of my family and friend but it is crazy to try and catch up with them all in 4days. Miss them all but also glad to be back home in my little town.

First visit to a place I called home for 32years.

Today is my first day ever visiting Arizona. 14 months ago I moved to California and have not been back to visit until today. It is very weired being back. It new but it's not. I know were I'm going and forget that I have CA plate on the back of my car. I'm staying with family and feel like I should go home and get ready for the day. Yet it is no longer down the street. It will be a very interesting visit to AZ. Can't wait to go out and see everything I know is already there.

My sweets.

Over the past week I cut sugar from my diet. I have decided to do this for the entire month. I'm not trying to lose weight as much as I'm trying not to put on 10 pounds this month. At my job this time of year cakes, cookies, donuts, and plenty of other sweets are all around me. I decided cut those out this month to save me a lot of added pounds this holiday season. If I don't eat your sweets this month, its me not your sweets.

Reading a book!

It shouldn't sound crazy but it does to me. I have read more books this year than I ever have in my life. Reading has turned out to be very beneficial to me in my life. I'm not a fan of books that are just for entertainment. I want a book that will teach me a useful skill or trade. Lately I have been reading a lot of books on sales and have recently started a book on management. I have tv, video games, and a smart phone to entertain me. I need books to guide me in to the future of sucess.
Looking forward to this beautiful holiday season and more books read in 2012 than ever before.

Good morning!

Its has been a crazy week and I'm so glad that the weekend has arrived. I do wish my children would not come in at 6AM to wake us up but I understand that is more than likely karma knocking on my door. I was always an early riser as a child. My mother always  hated it. Sorry about that my wife. Other than that everything is great in California and I can't wait until Christmas when we get to visit all of our family and friends in AZ.

It is so smart it is just dumb!

Today is the first day I have had a smart phone in over a year. I have missed it but man it does more than I actually thought. I thing it is funny that the word phone has anything to do with what this thing does. I have apps that I use more in a day than I will use the phone feature in a week. Look forward to more posts on this site, Twitter and Facebook. I think that one day soon these "phones" will almost replace computers for the average person. They have already in my opinion replaced digital cameras.

The vacation is over, but still lots of fun to be had.

Since I moved to Fresno in November I have been felling like I was on vacation. Even though I was working and Jenna was in school every weekend seemed long and every week seemed short. I guess it was the fact that everyday was so full of new and exciting things it seemed very unreal until the past couple of weeks. Both the girls are in school now, I was promoted to a management position that requires more responsibility, and things seem to be just a little too real lately.

Not that things are not going well or that we don't love living in Fresno because we do. It's just that all the new and exciting things have just became a part of normal life. The vacation might be over but we have lots of new adventures ahead us this year. Stay tuned it is going to be a great one!

Improvement has been made

At the start of the month I started to track my daily adventures at work to help me remember what I have been doing and talking about to my accounts. This week I have noticed a huge difference in my performance at work. This week before I go into an account I read what we talked about last time I was in the account and go in talking about things I never would of remembered before. I also remember it better because I wrote it down last week. Another amazing tool to remember and make my customers fell special. Happy customers make $$$ for me.

One month of self improvement test.

I have decided to track everything I do at work for one month and see if it helps me to remember and improve my sales tactics. I purchased a spiral note pad and labeled it August. Everyday I will write down what I did in every account in detail. At the end of everyday I sit in my van before I go into the house and read over all of the notes of my day and summarize everything I did wrong and what I did right. It is what I'm going to call my daily self improvement book. I will let you all know how things are going through the week and my thoughts on the outcome at the end of the month. I have left accounts knowing I said the wrong thing or said all the right things. I want to go over all those things at the end of everyday to make sure I do the right things more often and the wrong things less often.

Me getting older is the easy part.

Today was my 32nd birthday. This morning my 7 year old Jenna and 4 year old Mikayla were so excited to see me and wish me a happy birthday before I went to work. They spent the entire day planing the perfect birthday for me. When I say they, I meant mom drove and paid but Jenna and Mikayla made all of the decisions. My little girls decided since I was so lucky to have Cars 2 open on my birthday they must take me to see it. The first Cars was a hit in the Mitchell house and we had seen it a hundred times or so. They also decided my party needed a theme so the got me Cars 2 plates, and cake decorations. Jenna was very upset that mom sad no to the pinata idea. When I got home I was showered with love from 2 very excited little girls wishing me a happy birthday. I was given a stack of homemade cards, and gifts. Then my girls preceded to tell me about all of the hard work they had put into my birthday over dinner. Once dinner was over my 7 year old had a surprise for me. Hanging from the stairs was a homemade Pinata. She had tied a string to a plastic bag that hung from the top of the stairs. She then handed me a large TV remote to swing at it. Once my eye mask was securely on and I had been spun around 3 time. I went at the Pinata wielding my large TV remote with my 7 year old controlling the string and giggling uncontrollably. When I finally got the Pinata open a piece of paper fell out. I opened it and Jenna said it is a birthday song I wrote for you dad. She got her guitar, looked up at me and sang the cutest birthday song ever. She didn't even need the song sheet. She had practiced so much she new all of the words.

Sitting in the move theater tonight with the most amazing little family ever. I looked at Jenna and Mikayla and thought to myself. I could care less about how old I get every year. What scares the hell out of me is that one day these girls are going to grow up, and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to handle that.

I also want to put out a very special thanks to the amazing love of my life that helped assist my daughters to day and making my favorite cake for me. I love you so much.

I'm for sale.

Spending the last 12 years of my life in sales, I have learned that you are the only thing for sale, no matter what you are selling. If your customers like you, they will buy your product. If they don't, they will not, no matter how great your product is. Sales is for a certain type of person. I have been selling products for 12 years now but I have been selling myself for much much longer. I have made a career out of what I do best and have lots of practice at.

For as long as I can remember, I have always enjoyed the thrill of talking to people and learning things about them. I have become very good at reading people and learning what interests them. I guess you could say I'm a people pleaser to a point. I don't always agree with people, but I'm always willing to hear their side. I have always been good at making friends with new people and getting along with most.

I have always provided top notch service in all areas of my life and positive reinforcement is a driving force in what I do. Even when I was a young boy, my chores always had to be done before I could play on the weekend. I would race home on Thursday from school and get all of my chores done so that when I got home from school on Friday it was play time. Now, my positive reinforcement comes from my accounts and supervisors, instead of my play time or parents. The positive reinforcement is them being pleased with my service and products. A pay check is pretty positive too. The job of a salesman cannot be for the pay check alone or they will fail. You have to really enjoy what you do in any job to be successful. Sales can change in an instant in all industries. So if you do the job just for the pay check, you can be very disappointed. All sales jobs are like riding a roller coaster in the dark. Sales go up and down and it is very hard to see what is next.

A Million Miles you say?

I have finally decided to get off of my butt and start exercising. I want to start training for a half marathon and sprint triathlon. I have a goal to be able to do both by the end of summer. I did some research and discovered a website called "I Bike Fresno" and they are challenging local Fresno area people to ride a 1 million miles in the month of May. The "Million Mile Challenge".I have pledged that I will contribute at least 60 miles in the month of May. I figure 2 - 8 mile rides a week and it should be real easy. Then in June I can set a personal goal to run a marathon over the month, just over 26 miles. Then in July put it all together and do 74 on the bike and 26 on foot for an even 100 miles. This is my training goal till the end of July then I hope to have an event to set my goals on and go from there.

Insanity!

I'm at an age when the reality of life is facing me every day. It seems like every time I turn around a new person in my life is dealing with really hard times. From financial, to personal, to relationships. We are all in a very hard time in this country and I have come to realize that you grow in these times or you end up defeated. If you fail, learn and grow you have not been defeated.

Looking at my personal life I have had my share of financial issues from credit card debt, to home foreclosure. Those were some nasty punches but, instead of complaining and pointing the finger at somebody else I have taken responsibility for my actions and learned from them. I'm renting a home I can afford instead of buying a home I can not. I'm no longer in a job that makes me feel stuck because of how much I make. I make less than I did before but I love what I do. I'm still dealing with some CC debt but I'm paying it off and not adding to it.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

This is one of my favorite quotes and it is one to live your life by. Don't wait for the change in your life, be the change in your life.

My big night out!

This Friday night my 7 year old daughters school hosted a Father / Daughter school dance. I got her a new very nice dress, took her to dinner, then off to the dance we went. It was actually a very nice event that her school put on. I think we both had a really great time and it reminded me that I need to spend more individual time with my girls. Now I'm going to schedule a big night out with Mikayla.

It was the first event I can say I have gone to since moving to Fresno and I will tell you it was different. I have never entered a room at an event and not known at least a couple people. Last night I knew my daughter and that was it. I discovered that I need to start to make some friends here. I miss all of the friends I left in Arizona very much and wish I could move them all here. Since that is not likely I'm going to have to make some here. Being a person that lived in the same place his entire life I'm not sure I have ever had to make new friends.

How do you do it? Maybe I should ask my 7 year old. She had lots of new friends last night at the dance.

Life in Fresno!

I'm really starting to get settled in and comfortable with our new place. My new job is still going very well and I continue to grow my sales route every month. I continue to add customers to my route and improve sales of my existing customers.

All of my girls are adjusting well to the new place. Jenna is doing very well at her new school and we have our first father daughter dance this Friday night. Kristina and Mikayla have gone to the zoo a couple of times and go to the local library every week. We do miss everybody so much and it has been so strange having no major plans every weekend but it has also been kind of nice.

It has been a very wet winter so I'm looking forward to drying out this spring and summer. The rainy days are rainy, but the sunny days are amazing. We are walking distance to a outdoor mall and have walked over on some of our clear days. It is so close it is almost silly to drive to it. I have only been out on my bike once but look forward to going out on it much more often.