I regularly serve Wednesday nights at my wife's ministry and usually bring her dinner prior to the start of the event. Between getting off work, grabbing dinner, and making it to the church, I am always in a mega rush. (Not sure why, but traffic in Bloomington always seems heaviest on Wednesday afternoons!) A few Wednesdays ago, I decided to get us Chipotle for dinner. I eat there pretty frequently, so I can recite my order in my sleep. I got stuck in line behind three college-aged kids who were taking their sweet, sweet time with their order. Getting irritated that they didn't let me go first, I quickly ordered my food and dashed over to the fountain machine to fill our drinks... ...only to accidentally spill Coke Zero all over my pants and floor.

Yesterday, I had a bit of a wake-up call. Both of my blogs, LYEATT and Engedi Artistry, were created to serve a purpose. For LYEATT, it's developing a community amongst professionals of all ages (and young professionals, in particular) to share emerging ideas in business. For Engedi Artistry, it's creating a community that appreciates art in all aspects of life. And, because I try to be as transparent as possible, the meta-theme for both blogs is reintroducing you to a faith that has probably been tainted by somebody or some group in the past. I've said before that I don't really care about the numbers, but if I'm honest with myself, they do. That became super apparent yesterday.

Whether it's assembling a new piece of IKEA furniture or replacing that flaky light switch, you're going to want to have some tools around the house. Now, you don't have to be like my dad and have every single tool Craftsmen has to offer, but you'll want to have a core few of them around. We'll take some time in this post looking at a few recommendations. I'm going to skip a few obvious (but still essential) ones like hammers, screwdrivers, and tape measures and instead opt for a couple you might not regularly think about. (And just to make it even easier on y'all, I'll include pictures of each tool and a link to buy them on Amazon!) Let's get into it!

While most of the content on this blog is geared toward all ages and all audiences, I have  stated numerous times that this blog is geared toward young professionals. I was thinking about this on the elliptical this morning and realizing... hey, there's really not a ton of content on here for that very specific audience. Time to change that!

On Christmas Day of 2002, 55-year-old Jack Whittaker was lucky enough to pick the winning numbers of the Powerball, earning him a whopping $314.9 million, the largest ever lottery win at the time. Jack was already doing pretty well for himself as the president of a construction company, so this windfall had pretty much set Jack for life. Shortly after his win, Jack seemed to have his life on track. He donated a good chunk of money to philanthropic efforts. But this lifestyle wasn't to last. Things quickly took a turn for the worse. Foolish with his money, Jack carried around enormous sums of cash in briefcases just because. Because of his reputation of carrying around this cash, he was robbed multiple times. Jack also lost a ton of money literally gambling it away. And if that isn't bad, it gets worse. Jack's granddaughter, only 17 years old, was found dead (presumably murdered), wrapped in a tarp and dumped behind a van, reportedly with many drugs in her system....

Well, folks, we've made it another year, and what a year it has been. It simultaneously went by really quickly but also really "slow" in a way, too. Slow in the sense that this was a very big year for me. There is a lot to be grateful for, and given that I think gratitude is a key competency, I think it's only appropriate to spend this Thanksgiving expressing my gratitude for 2016.

Several weeks ago, I published a post on five tips for running an effective meeting and promised in there that I would be publishing another set of five tips soon. Well, "soon" came and went, and I completely forgot to publish my other five tips. Until now! These tips are meant to work in conjunction with the previously suggested tips, so if you need a refresher on what those original tips were, click this hyperlink .

So like I mention in my review of the book , there's definitely a reason I chose to pick up The Dip again now. It's an interesting time in my life. An exciting time, mostly, but unfortunately I have to concede to my own limitations.

If you think you've seen this book before, you're probably not mistaken. It's not a new book at all. It came out in 2007, and the first time I read this book was actually back in 2011. For personal reasons, I chose to pick it back up, and I'll talk about that in a separate post. Having been five years since my last read, I'm glad I dug this back up. It's a pretty teeny book, as you can see in the image below. A person can definitely breeze through the entire book in an hour or two. Anyway, this is a book review! How does this book hold up in the nine years since it's initial release? Let's get into it.

Even if you've not heard of it, I'm sure you can guess the show's premise just from the title. Extreme Couponing is a show on TLC that, naturally, follows the lives and habits of extreme couponers. The show generally begins by showing the habits and rituals that an extreme couponer does to prepare themselves for the big trip and ends with them saving big at the cash register. These folks certainly seem to save big. I've seen people on the show walk up to the register with $500 in merchandise and walk away spending only a few bucks, if anything at all. Heck, I've even seen a few folks that walk away with all the merchandise AND extra cash in their pocket. As impressive as it all sounds, it's actually really dumb and shares a bad message. And there are several reasons for this.

It's that time of year again. If you're like me, the trees in your yard have gone past that pretty orange stage and leaves have fallen on the ground. Time to pull out your rake! So, this challenge might seem pretty obvious, but there's a little more to it. Obviously, you're getting your yard clean. (And if you're married like me, a happy wife = a happy life!) If you don't have a yard with mature trees, I'm sure you have a relative or friend that has a yard that needs raked, and I'm sure they'd appreciate you raking it for them! There's a two-fold reason I suggest this challenge to you all.

Amongst my family and friends, and I am known as the tech guru. Any time they have any questions, I'm usually the first guy they call. And it's pretty understandable why: 9 times out of 10, I can help solve their problems. It's kinda weird and doesn't make sense to me. For example, I've been asked numerous times for help with something on Facebook. Um...... I don't have Facebook. (Well, at least, not anymore. I had one from 2008-2011 but haven't had one since.) This isn't to say, however, that I am useless here. In fact, my track record for solving Facebook questions is 100% so far. So what is it about me? As the title of this posts suggests, I'll be the first to raise my hand and tell you that I am not a tech expert. I have no formal training, no formal IT certifications, and only took one computer programming class in high school. So what I hope you learn from this post is what you can apply to become a "tech expert" yourself.

You may have noticed that I have referenced this book in several posts before. Obviously, I am just now posting a review, so to answer that question in the back of your head, yes, I just now finished the book. This might sound crazy, but I started reading this book back when it came out in the fall of 2014. Yikes. That was over two years ago now! So why is it that it took me so long to actually finish the book? Is it because I found it so dripping with useful information that I let it all sink in over time? Or was I just being lazy about it? We'll answer those questions and more down in the review below.

Even though I don't work in a church, it's no secret that I have very close ties to the church. I attended undergrad at a Christian university, so most of my friends are pastors. My wife works at our church. I volunteer in two areas at the church. So it's pretty safe to say that me and the church are like PB&J. (I'll let you make the call whether I'm the peanut butter or the jelly.) Let's face facts: in many senses, the church is a business. Granted, it's a nonprofit, but the church has employees that get paid and work in 40 hour increments. Most pastors I know, since they work Sundays, take off a Monday or a Friday each week, so it's not particularly as if they're working this vast amount of overtime. The church is also very reflective of the government in the way it gets its income. The government gets its income from taxes, and the church gets its income from tithes and offerings, which is very synonymous with taxes. Despite the fact t...

Whereas the first key competency we analyzed, gratitude, may have been more subtle, our second key competency, confidence, is probably a little more obvious to you. I really like how Google defines the word and want to share that here: "Confidence is the feeling or belief on can rely on someone or something; firm trust." I like it because it might not be what you think when you think about confidence, but it's so true. Let's not put your presuppositions about the word aside, though. When you think about a confident person, you probably think about somebody who knows their stuff and isn't afraid to share it. Speaking of that word, "afraid," confident people generally tend to be fearless. One of my favorite illustrations of confidence is actually found in the Bible with none other than Jesus Himself. Let me paint a really quick picture for you. At this point in His ministry, Jesus has been preaching to small communities throughout the countryside. As...

Well, ladies and gents, we have a new president elect: none other than "The Donald" himself. Who could have seen that coming...? Okay, okay, all joking aside, this has been an unprecedented election, to say the least. Regardless of how you feel about the final outcome, I think we can all agree that neither Trump nor Clinton was the ideal presidential candidate in most people's minds. The real question here, then, is how did it get this far? It's not as if these two dropped out of the sky; they were elected in our national primary elections. Clinton seems to make a little more sense given her political history and what not, but Trump is in a league of his own. In Trump, we have somebody with no formal political history and never having served in the military now taking over the @POTUS handle. It's a real mystery how things got this far... ...or is it? Did Trump just get lucky, or did he successfully pull off one of the greatest tricks in American hi...

The time is 1:13am. Sleep won't come to me as my eyes remain glued to CNN watching the nation elect its next president. At this time, it appears that Donald Trump has won, so Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta, appeared in front of the crowd at Clinton's HQ to encourage people to go home and get sleep as the final votes continue to roll in. Meanwhile on CNN, Corey Lewandowski, furiously shared his frustrations about Clinton's no show expressing that Trump would not be shown the same mercy of the tables were turned. Regardless of where you land on this argument, the words shared by CNN pundit Van Jones will stick in my mind as words that extend beyond the election: "Where's the grace gonna come from? It's got to come from ordinary people." No matter your feelings on anything else Van Jones shared tonight, this rings so true. And powerful. Does the president, any president, have an influence on our lives? Sure. But you know who has a stronger ...

They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but let's be honest: in many cases, we do anyway. So about the cover of #GIRLBOSS... let's see... we have a young woman, Sophia Amoruso, wearing a business suit. Hands on her hips and confident look on her face, she looks like she's ready to take on the world. So what's this book about? Is it a memento tearing down the misogynistic foundations of the good ol' boys, or is it something different? Something that doesn't quite align to the powerful image displayed on the cover? Let's get into it!

If you follow me over at my other blog, Engedi Artistry, you'll notice that I have started reviewing music albums. I've found the whole reviewing process to be really fun, and since I do a lot of reading, I wanted to bring that idea on over to LYEATT with books. My book reviews will be a little bit different than my album reviews. At the end of my album reviews, I have a star rating (out of a potential 5), pros, cons, and suggested tracks to check out. I don't really think that is all that appropriate for books, so I'm going to take a different approach to reviewing books instead. And as you saw at the top of the post, I have created some new graphics to accompany them!

After a long day at work, you probably unwind on the couch by picking up your laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Think about the sites (or apps) you engage with on a regular basis. Take a moment to list them out in your head. For me, it's Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, and tech blogs like TechnoBuffalo or MacRumors. (I don't have a Facebook account, but I'm sure many of you would add that to a list like this.) Most of those sites have something in common: they're social platforms. They're ways for people to connect about a particular thing. In the case of LinkedIn, it's about work-related or business stuff. With Reddit (at least for me), it's something to do with video games or technology. We make a big huff about search engine optimization, and don't get me wrong, it's still important. But we have to ask ourselves this fundamental question: why is it we use search engines like Google?

A few posts back, I examined the first key competency of a performer: gratitude. Since posting that, I have thought a lot about that idea in my own life and how we can manifest that in a tangible way. Moreover, I have been thinking about ways to engage you, the readers, on a level that I haven't tried yet, so my thought was to start a set of challenges. I have a few in mind already, and since already talked about gratitude, this is a good start.

As a runner, I spend a lot of time keeping in shape by using the elliptical, and since I have the attention span of an eight year old, I opt toward watching YouTube videos on my iPad instead of full blown TV shows or movies. I have a lot of regular channels I subscribe to, which includes one of my favorites, The Game Theorists. Just like the title of the channel sounds, the channel and its host Matthew Patrick (commonly known as MatPat) create regular video game theories ranging anywhere from why Link is dead in Zelda: Majora's Mask to why Smash Bros creator Masahiro Sakurai is secretly sick of creating the Smash Bros series. They're all excellent and well produced videos, but what some people might not realize is that MatPat is a consultant for other channels on YouTube on helping them optimize their content to gain the most views. He's even posted videos about it a few times, and I would definitely encourage you to watch the video below. To summarize that...