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.

Less meat, week 1

This week I started a test to see if I could eat less meat and add more vegetables and other protein sources to my diet. I have always had 2 to 3 meals a day with meat in them. This week I only had 2 meals all week with meat in them. I'm not about to give up meat all together I like it too much. The more I learn about how meat gets to my table and the poor quality of meat available to us in fast food, and restaurants. The more I want to make sure the meat I eat is of the best quality. That is the point of this. If I'm only going to eat 2 - 3 meat meals a week instead of a day. I'm going to be very selective about the meat I eat. No fast food for me. Nothing but great tasting meats full of flavor and of the best quality. Not sure I'm willing to go an entire week with out meat yet but I might give it a try soon.

On a side note I'm not sure what it means, but being vegetarian gives a whole new meaning to "being regular." If you eat you will have a movement. I thought regular was once a day. Now it is around 3 times per day.

Less meat day 1

Today I'm starting my less meat plan. Today is the first day and my diet will consist of no meat. I can't remember a day in my life when I did not consume meat. I'm going to do my best to go the first 2 days without meat then have 1 meal with meat in it. My goal isn't to have no meat, because that would be crazy. My goal is to make sure the meat I'm going to be eating is of the best quality. Since I will only be having 2 - 4 meals a week with meat in it. No fast food or crappy cuts of meat will be in my diet. If it is not going to be awesome. I will not be interested. I'm going to be having quality meat instead of the quantity. I'm not sure where I will go with this for sure. It is just something I want to try.

Less meat?

I have always loved my meat and meat byproducts but have been considering backing off the meat a little and trying to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. I'm not going to go vegetarian because steak is just too good. I have decided that living in the central valley that it should be easy to find a lot of really good fresh fruits and vegetables. I need to do some more research before a make this change because a body that goes from 2 to 3 meat meals a day to 2 to 3 a week will need to make some adjustment. I want to make sure I'm still getting all that my body needs with just less meat.

I think this post alone and the fact that I'm even considering this change makes me a little more California than I ever thought possible.

This was something I have been thinking about doing but this article put it in my head to actually do it.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=dm-mmavegetarians021711

An amazing weekend!!!

Thursday night I acted on a post that my wife had posted to FB saying "needs to see the ocean. and soon!" I talked her into letting me book Friday and Saturday nights at a hotel in Morro Bay. After some help from Yelp we chose an awesome hotel on the cheap. This weekend was full of awesome!!! We ate food and we could see where it had been caught, randomly went places and just stopped to enjoy the sun, beach, and amazing views. We walked piers, boardwalks, beaches, and grassy parks along the beach. We went to a farmers market and even drove out to Morro rock to watch the sun set Saturday night. Every time we tried to set a plan we ended up doing something even better. We didn't put much thought or planning into this weekend and I don't think it could of been any better. I think this will be a weekend my 3 valentines will never forget.

New years resolution time.

Now that Man Christmas (The Superbowl) is over it is time to look forward to summer and start to work on my bathing suit figure. I have put together an 18 week challenge for myself starting tomorrow. I would love to do another sprint triathlon this summer or fall but have a lot of training to do before that can happen. Wish me luck and follow along to see how I'm doing. If you would like to join me let me know and I will send you a copy of my spreadsheet. I plan to stay focused and watch my diet until August when I will once again put beer, pizza, and wings back into my diet:)

All most a month now!

I think that it is crazy that it is still January. I feel like we have been in our new place for a while now but it has been less than a month. I'm not sure what that means. Life has been just moving at a slower pace since we moved. I don't work as much and we have a lot more free time then we have in some time so maybe that is the reason. I'm not sure if this will keep up but I'm really enjoying all the free time. I found myself to be bored the other day and it was everything I thought it could be. Our place is starting to really come together and I thing we are starting to get a little more familiar with our surroundings. I have been living in California for almost 3 months and I have now been in Fresno with the family for almost one. Cheers to new beginnings and Friday nights!

In need of the Mitchell's?

Today we went and looked at some of the local hotels in the area for guests to stay at. They are all in a cluster and are less than a mile away. You are always welcome to our futon or air mattresses on the floor. With a 2 bedroom there is little privacy but plenty of floor space in our living room. I will put these in order of what I thought was the nicest from the lobby, reputation, and area.

1. Hampton Inn & Suites The Hampton suites is one of our favorite hotels to stay. It is very nice looking and I would highly recommended it at this point.
2. TownePlace Suites by Marriott These looked very nice and offer a lot if that is what you are looking for.
3. La Quinta Inns & Suites I have never stayed at a La Quinta but it looks very nice and they say it is a new location so I'm guessing the hotel was build recently.
4. Holiday Inn Express This is a very nice hotel and the only reason this is on the bottom of the list is because it is backed up to the 41 freeway. It looks very nice and possible new but if you cant get a room on the front of the building you will here freeway noise.

I'm looking into some close places to stay if you have a summer home on wheels and need a place to stay when you are visiting the Mitchell's.

Any questions please feel free to let me know. Looking forward to seeing you all.

Settling in.

We have been in our new place in Fresno for 3 weeks now and things are going great. Our place is starting to look like a home instead of a maze of boxes and we are getting more familiar with our location. I'm really liking my new job. I pretty much shoot the breeze with people all day long and make money doing it. It is an ideal job for me since I love to talk to people. It has been so long since I had a job that was not extremely high pressure. It has been a very nice change. Not to mention I work 35 - 40 hours a week instead of 50 - 60. Jenna is in School and finally starting to get the hang of it. She is really liking her new school and meeting new friends everyday. Mikayla will not be starting school until August. Kristina is still learning her way around and organizing our place and stuff. Moving from a 4 bedroom over 2,000 to a 2 bedroom 1,400 sq. ft. has been difficult but I think we are finally adjusting. Last weekend we purchased annual Zoo passes and this weekend we purchased an annual park parking pass. We live not very far from a very nice park and went and had a picnic lunch there today. Things are going very well and I'm extremely happy with the way things are going. I will try to post more often to keep you all updated on our California adventure. Love and miss you all very much. Hope you can all visit soon.