Moments in time, those defining moments that we all have and that ultimately shape our lives. I have been thinking a lot about moments in time as of lately. It has been brought on by an assignment I have for my toastmasters group.
This coming Wednesday I am giving my first official speech called an Ice Breaker Speech. The icebreaker speech is supposed to be a speech about you, introducing you to the group.
I wanted to share one of my most defining moments and how it ultimately led me to where I am today.
What are some of your moments in time? How have they shaped you? How do they define who you are and what you do today?
The video below is my practice speech. Any feedback is welcome as this is my first official Toastmasters speech.
Enjoy,
Carpe Diem,
Jesse
Monday, February 27, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Challenge Day and Another Ra Ra Speech
I never really got "hump" day as a label for Wednesday. After a careful survey of some of my closest friends I found out that there was no orgy, no increase in sexual activity, and no extra humping on that day so that kind of eliminated the literal interpretation.
Then we get into the "figure of speech" definition which essentially implies that Wednesday is the hump in the middle of the week that we all have to get over to get to the weekend. I personally hate this definition. Why subscribe to something that implies Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are wasted days. They are obstacles standing in front of YOU and the weekend.
Why can't everyday be equally as important and equally as enjoyable as the next one?
Hence Wednesday becoming Momentum Day. Now instead of it being a hump to get over it is a day to be great. A day to achieve and accomplish, and build momentum to help you finish the weekend strong and begin the weekend full of excitement.
To make Momentum Day even more empowering I have begun calling it challenge day. Each and every Wednesday I will pose a little mini challenge for the members of the 1 Year 1000 Challenge community to participate in. It is my hope that these mini challenges will provide a wonderful opportunity to learn, grow, and enhance the quality of all our lives.
Check out these two videos I just recorded. The 1st one is on Challenge Day and the 2nd one is on the 1 Billion Steps Challenge. I hope you enjoy.
Carpe Diem,
Jesse
Then we get into the "figure of speech" definition which essentially implies that Wednesday is the hump in the middle of the week that we all have to get over to get to the weekend. I personally hate this definition. Why subscribe to something that implies Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are wasted days. They are obstacles standing in front of YOU and the weekend.
Why can't everyday be equally as important and equally as enjoyable as the next one?
Hence Wednesday becoming Momentum Day. Now instead of it being a hump to get over it is a day to be great. A day to achieve and accomplish, and build momentum to help you finish the weekend strong and begin the weekend full of excitement.
To make Momentum Day even more empowering I have begun calling it challenge day. Each and every Wednesday I will pose a little mini challenge for the members of the 1 Year 1000 Challenge community to participate in. It is my hope that these mini challenges will provide a wonderful opportunity to learn, grow, and enhance the quality of all our lives.
Check out these two videos I just recorded. The 1st one is on Challenge Day and the 2nd one is on the 1 Billion Steps Challenge. I hope you enjoy.
Carpe Diem,
Jesse
Monday, February 20, 2012
1 Billion Steps... We Can Do This!
With the 1000 Challenge over I am going to start to better utilize the blog. Last year the blog served as a kind of weekly collection of my thoughts and feelings as they pertained to the life of someone trying to achieve the goal of doing 1000 things he had never done before.
Now I want the blog to become more than a summary, I want it to kind of act as a gateway to what is going on in my day to day life. I want to spend more time sharing random thoughts and ideas with you all. I want to be able to dive more in depth with certain ideas and issues on here as it is a much more formal space to do so than facebook, don't you think? There will still be summaries too,but they will be in addition to the above. :)
So with that, I hope you all will check back more often as I plan on updating and posting more often :)
With that being said, onto the purpose of this post. 1 BILLION Steps in MARCH. The main challenge will be recruiting enough people to make this a reality. I KNOW WE CAN DO IT! I have several friends and clients who have already pledged to take a part in it. They are also pledging some pretty lofty goals as well.
I recorded a little video to share with you all, I call it my 1 Billion Challenge Ra Ra Chant (my best cheerleader speech). I will post some more in the weeks to come. If you are reading this and not a part of the 1 Billion Steps Challenge, I hope you will become a part of it. Not only is 1 Billion Steps a cool goal to shoot for, but imagine how many people around the world we can inspire by achieving this goal.
Enjoy the video,
Carpe Diem,
Jesse
Now I want the blog to become more than a summary, I want it to kind of act as a gateway to what is going on in my day to day life. I want to spend more time sharing random thoughts and ideas with you all. I want to be able to dive more in depth with certain ideas and issues on here as it is a much more formal space to do so than facebook, don't you think? There will still be summaries too,but they will be in addition to the above. :)
So with that, I hope you all will check back more often as I plan on updating and posting more often :)
With that being said, onto the purpose of this post. 1 BILLION Steps in MARCH. The main challenge will be recruiting enough people to make this a reality. I KNOW WE CAN DO IT! I have several friends and clients who have already pledged to take a part in it. They are also pledging some pretty lofty goals as well.
I recorded a little video to share with you all, I call it my 1 Billion Challenge Ra Ra Chant (my best cheerleader speech). I will post some more in the weeks to come. If you are reading this and not a part of the 1 Billion Steps Challenge, I hope you will become a part of it. Not only is 1 Billion Steps a cool goal to shoot for, but imagine how many people around the world we can inspire by achieving this goal.
Enjoy the video,
Carpe Diem,
Jesse
Saturday, February 18, 2012
The 1 Month 1 BILLION Steps Challenge, February 17, 2012
I got an email the other day from a fellow member of the 1 Year 1000 Challenge Community that really got me thinking. The person writing was telling me about their excitement for the up and coming 10 Million Steps in March Challenge and how she wants to try and form a group in her local area to do the Challenge together. She said it would be cool to have some sort of prize at the end where the people in whatever geographic area log the most steps, get together for lunch to celebrate. In addition, I could do something to acknowledge that individual group on Facebook. Thank you for sharing this idea with me Missi, and to you and everyone else here are my thoughts and my Challenge. Let me know what you all think and if you are up for it!
I know we as a community can log more than 10 Million Steps in the month of March. Further, I also know that each of us has a tremendous potential that exists within us all. When the potential is put to use, there is virtually nothing anyone of us cannot do.
One of my goals this year is to travel.
Another goal I have is to do my first seminar in whatever form that may be.
So my challenge to you all, my fellow members of the 1 Year 1000 Challenge Community is this: lets make the challenge 1 Billion Steps in March. If, we as a collective community can achieve the goal of over 1 Billion total steps for the month of March, then I will fly out to the community that logs the most steps ( late April or early May, date to be determined based on 1000 Challenge Communities Commitment to 1 Billion Steps) and hold my first seminar.
Anyone else who wants to join would be more than welcome. If the winning area is in Europe then we will hold the seminar sometime tentatively in the summer when I think I will be in Europe. If it is in another country we will plan a future date (darn I guess that just means I will have to travel more!!!).
So 1 Billion steps in March. Can we do it? Are you all up for the Challenge?
Ok to make this happen fairly we need to have a few rules.
No pictures today, but I will leave you with this:
:Never tell me the skies the limit when there are footprints on the moon." We have Zero Limits everyone. We can achieve 1 Billion Steps.
I hope to see many of you soon so we can celebrate our achievement together.
10 Million / 1 Billion Steps Challenge
Carpe Diem,
Jesse
I know we as a community can log more than 10 Million Steps in the month of March. Further, I also know that each of us has a tremendous potential that exists within us all. When the potential is put to use, there is virtually nothing anyone of us cannot do.
One of my goals this year is to travel.
Another goal I have is to do my first seminar in whatever form that may be.
So my challenge to you all, my fellow members of the 1 Year 1000 Challenge Community is this: lets make the challenge 1 Billion Steps in March. If, we as a collective community can achieve the goal of over 1 Billion total steps for the month of March, then I will fly out to the community that logs the most steps ( late April or early May, date to be determined based on 1000 Challenge Communities Commitment to 1 Billion Steps) and hold my first seminar.
Anyone else who wants to join would be more than welcome. If the winning area is in Europe then we will hold the seminar sometime tentatively in the summer when I think I will be in Europe. If it is in another country we will plan a future date (darn I guess that just means I will have to travel more!!!).
So 1 Billion steps in March. Can we do it? Are you all up for the Challenge?
Ok to make this happen fairly we need to have a few rules.
- This is not only on an honor system, but this is also something that is very important to me. No cheating!! Cheaters will not only be disqualified from the competition, but they will also be barred from the celebration and seminar.
- In order to help ensure the integrity a picture of your pedometer along with the local newspaper, a website, etc... needs to be taken everyday just so you have a running log that if needed we can refer back to to validate your total steps.
- A weekly picture of you and the total number of steps you logged for the week needs to be posted every Sunday on the 1 Year 1000 Challenge page. Early or late submissions will not be honored unless you write to me prior with a reason why you will not be able to post on a Sunday.
- The winning geographic area will be determined by a state first, then a major city level. The same applies to our Community Members outside of the USA.
- So for example there can be a group of people from Los Angeles and a group from San Francisco. If the San Francisco group logs 20 Million steps and the Los Angeles group logs 18 Million the seminar would be held in San Francisco.
- I will personally challenge myself to reach a minimum of 400,000 steps (which is about 6 miles a day) for the month.
- That's all I can really think of as far as rules (I am not a big rule person). Honesty is most important.
- According to the website, "The Walking Site" there are approximately 2000 steps for every mile which means about 10,000 steps for every 5 miles.
- 1 Billion Steps will = approximately 500,000 miles. That is the equivalent of walking around the circumference of the earth more than 20 TIMES!!!
- To achieve 1 Billion Steps, we will need more people!
- If each person averages 2000 steps a day we will need 16,130 people walking 2000 steps a day to reach 1 Billion
- If each person averages 4000 steps a day we will need 8,065 people walking 4000 steps a day to reach 1 Billion
- If each person averages 6000 steps a day we will need 5, 377 people walking 6000 steps a day to reach 1 Billion.
- If each person averages 8000 steps a day we will need 4,033 people walking 8000 steps a day to reach 1 Billion
- If each person averages 10000 steps a day we will need 3226 people walking 10000 steps a day for reach 1 Billion
- and so on....
- As of this writing we have 141 people who have committed to the Challenge on Facebook. If each of you 141 people recruited 5 friends to do take this challenge with you and each of those 5 friends recruited 5 people there would be a total of 3,525 people plenty to achieve the goal of 1 Billion
- Think of the benefits:
- You are going to be more active which helps achieve health and fitness goals.
- If you are moving more you will most likely be losing weight.
- You will be improving your cardiovascular health as well as your cholesterol levels etc..
- In hopes of recruiting more people I will be sending Michelle Obama and her "lets move" campaign messages on twitter daily in hopes that they see what we are trying to do and help us spread the word and recruit more people. If you would like to join in this endeavor she is: @MichelleObama and lets move is @letsmove
- Create a signup sheet on your office bulletin board
- Recruit family members.
- Ask people at your local church to take the challenge with you.
- Set a goal, say 400,000 steps, and ask people in your community to pledge money for each step you take. Then donate all the money you raise to a charity.
- HAVE FUN WITH THIS!
No pictures today, but I will leave you with this:
:Never tell me the skies the limit when there are footprints on the moon." We have Zero Limits everyone. We can achieve 1 Billion Steps.
I hope to see many of you soon so we can celebrate our achievement together.
10 Million / 1 Billion Steps Challenge
Carpe Diem,
Jesse
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Making time for what you love February 9th, 2012
But first, a few house keeping items:
1.) On Tuesday night I launched the 10 Million Steps Challenge and already we have over 100 people committing to partake in the Challenge! YESSSSSS!!! YES YES YES!!! We will need every single person to do their part for us to hit, and pass the 10 Million Steps mark. This is a great opportunity to work towards some fitness related goals, to get out and move more, and to enlist some friends to do it with you. It is also a great opportunity to meet some accountability friends along the way. For more info and to sign up, please click here: 10 Million Steps Challenge.
2.) Thank you everyone for all the great feedback on my updated website www.jessebrisendine.com . I am really loving the new layout of it. This will be the portal for just about everything I am doing. I will still have individual sites and pages, but if you ever need to find out where anything is at just go to www.jessebrisendine.com
3.) Continuing on the update trend - my monthly newsletter is back up and running again (yea me!!) I hope you all are enjoying it. It will contain updates as well as my thoughts and insights into all the important components of life. If you would like to sign up to receive the monthly newsletter, click here: Newsletter Sign Up or go to www.jessebrisendine.com
4.) Time. As the 1000 Challenge Community continues to grow I will unfortunately have less time to respond to all the emails, comments, and questions because of the volume increase related to the community growth. I still do my best to read everything. I am very excited and proud of our growing community and want to be able to interact with you all as much as possible. To help with this I am going to start doing Ustream Chats more frequently. More to the tune of every 2 weeks as opposed to once a month like we have been doing. To further support this, once I get my debt paid off (one of my goals this year!!!) I am going to sign us up for the nicer Ustream channel, the one that does not have the commercials, streams much more smoothly and appears in HD so we can all get more benefit from the chats. :)
On the topic of Ustream, remember - this Sunday, 7:30am PST we will be having a Ustream Chat. I hope everyone can attend. Please remember to vote on the topic on the 1 Year 1000 Challenge Page.
In addition I have received several speaking requests in the last couple of weeks. I am very open to these and love doing speaking appearances. If you have an idea in this regards please email me. I am still working on getting seminar ideas put together so I can hold my first one this year!! :) :) :)
Thank you everyone for your patience and understanding. Also thank you so much to those of you who have written in and asked my advice on deeply personal questions and are willing to share these questions during our ustream chats. I promise you, WE ALL get something out of these types of questions.
Now, onto the good stuff... Making time for what you love:
Last weekend I spent the morning taking photos at the butterfly perserve here in Santa Barbara and I had the greatest time. I was with three friends which always makes things fun, but what made it even more so was being out and doing something I enjoy so much - taking photos. It got me thinking just how important it is to make the time for the things we love so much.
We are all busy. And it is so easy to get caught up in the rat race of life that we forget to slow down and smell the roses. What is the point of it all if we are never taking the time to do the things we enjoy the most, the things we love?
I have been guilty of this the last few weeks. I have been spending more time thinking about what I "NEED" to do next rather than what I "CAN" do now. My thoughts have been preoccupied with "I need to do this to grow my business, I need to do this so I can do that, I need to answer these emails, etc..." All that time focusing on my perceived needs left me lacking in fulfillment because I was not paying any attention to what I really wanted.
What I wanted was a reason to be outside in the warm air, running, hiking, taking photos, exploring the world. I was neglecting these things because of all the excuses created by the "I NEED to do this attitude."
I went for a run today, the weather was beautiful, the run was strong, it was great. After I got done there was a dead seal that had washed up onto the shore :( I wanted to take a picture of it. The surf was also much bigger than normal, I wanted to take a picture of it. And there were these itsy bitsy birds that would run to the edge of the water to grab a quick bite to eat and run back away before the water ever touched them - I also wanted to take a picture of that.
I thought to myself about my choices: run home and do more work that I "need" to do, or, I CAN take 10 minutes and do something I LOVE TO DO.
I chose the later and I am so happy I did. I got some great photos, I felt so refreshed from the combo of running, sun, beach, and photos that when I got home, I was able to focus much more clearly on the work I no longer "needed" to get done. Now I just simply wanted to get it done. A much more freeing, more empowering mindset.
I watched this movie last night called "Final Destination 5" the 5th installment in the Final Destination series. The movies are corny, cheesy, and mindless - I love them for this. It requires zero brain cells to watch them. If you are not familiar with the franchise, the plot is essentially this: Some sort of disaster happens killing everyone involved except for a small group of people who escape because one of them had a case of Deja Vu and got away before the disaster happened. The rest of the movie is then spent with "Death" coming up with clever ways to kill the people who "cheated Death."
Anyways the point of me bringing it up is in the movie last night the remaining survivors are told that they only have a limited time to live. Instead of going out and really LIVING, doing the things they love to do, they go to jobs they do not like, they go and get lazer eyes surgery (big no no when death is after you), and so on. As this was going on I started thinking of what things would I do if I found myself in a similar situation. What things do I LOVE doing so much that I would want to spend my last days doing them?
It is a good question to ask yourself. Hmmmm, I guess "Final Destination 5" did require a couple of brain cells to watch. Who would have thought it was such a deep, thought provoking movie? :)
Be cautious of the "need" attitude. We all have things we need to get done, but never fully sacrifice the things you love to do. They are what make life worth living.
Enjoy the pics,
Carpe Diem,
Jesse
1.) On Tuesday night I launched the 10 Million Steps Challenge and already we have over 100 people committing to partake in the Challenge! YESSSSSS!!! YES YES YES!!! We will need every single person to do their part for us to hit, and pass the 10 Million Steps mark. This is a great opportunity to work towards some fitness related goals, to get out and move more, and to enlist some friends to do it with you. It is also a great opportunity to meet some accountability friends along the way. For more info and to sign up, please click here: 10 Million Steps Challenge.
2.) Thank you everyone for all the great feedback on my updated website www.jessebrisendine.com . I am really loving the new layout of it. This will be the portal for just about everything I am doing. I will still have individual sites and pages, but if you ever need to find out where anything is at just go to www.jessebrisendine.com
3.) Continuing on the update trend - my monthly newsletter is back up and running again (yea me!!) I hope you all are enjoying it. It will contain updates as well as my thoughts and insights into all the important components of life. If you would like to sign up to receive the monthly newsletter, click here: Newsletter Sign Up or go to www.jessebrisendine.com
4.) Time. As the 1000 Challenge Community continues to grow I will unfortunately have less time to respond to all the emails, comments, and questions because of the volume increase related to the community growth. I still do my best to read everything. I am very excited and proud of our growing community and want to be able to interact with you all as much as possible. To help with this I am going to start doing Ustream Chats more frequently. More to the tune of every 2 weeks as opposed to once a month like we have been doing. To further support this, once I get my debt paid off (one of my goals this year!!!) I am going to sign us up for the nicer Ustream channel, the one that does not have the commercials, streams much more smoothly and appears in HD so we can all get more benefit from the chats. :)
On the topic of Ustream, remember - this Sunday, 7:30am PST we will be having a Ustream Chat. I hope everyone can attend. Please remember to vote on the topic on the 1 Year 1000 Challenge Page.
In addition I have received several speaking requests in the last couple of weeks. I am very open to these and love doing speaking appearances. If you have an idea in this regards please email me. I am still working on getting seminar ideas put together so I can hold my first one this year!! :) :) :)
Thank you everyone for your patience and understanding. Also thank you so much to those of you who have written in and asked my advice on deeply personal questions and are willing to share these questions during our ustream chats. I promise you, WE ALL get something out of these types of questions.
Now, onto the good stuff... Making time for what you love:
Last weekend I spent the morning taking photos at the butterfly perserve here in Santa Barbara and I had the greatest time. I was with three friends which always makes things fun, but what made it even more so was being out and doing something I enjoy so much - taking photos. It got me thinking just how important it is to make the time for the things we love so much.
We are all busy. And it is so easy to get caught up in the rat race of life that we forget to slow down and smell the roses. What is the point of it all if we are never taking the time to do the things we enjoy the most, the things we love?
I have been guilty of this the last few weeks. I have been spending more time thinking about what I "NEED" to do next rather than what I "CAN" do now. My thoughts have been preoccupied with "I need to do this to grow my business, I need to do this so I can do that, I need to answer these emails, etc..." All that time focusing on my perceived needs left me lacking in fulfillment because I was not paying any attention to what I really wanted.
What I wanted was a reason to be outside in the warm air, running, hiking, taking photos, exploring the world. I was neglecting these things because of all the excuses created by the "I NEED to do this attitude."
I went for a run today, the weather was beautiful, the run was strong, it was great. After I got done there was a dead seal that had washed up onto the shore :( I wanted to take a picture of it. The surf was also much bigger than normal, I wanted to take a picture of it. And there were these itsy bitsy birds that would run to the edge of the water to grab a quick bite to eat and run back away before the water ever touched them - I also wanted to take a picture of that.
I thought to myself about my choices: run home and do more work that I "need" to do, or, I CAN take 10 minutes and do something I LOVE TO DO.
I chose the later and I am so happy I did. I got some great photos, I felt so refreshed from the combo of running, sun, beach, and photos that when I got home, I was able to focus much more clearly on the work I no longer "needed" to get done. Now I just simply wanted to get it done. A much more freeing, more empowering mindset.
I watched this movie last night called "Final Destination 5" the 5th installment in the Final Destination series. The movies are corny, cheesy, and mindless - I love them for this. It requires zero brain cells to watch them. If you are not familiar with the franchise, the plot is essentially this: Some sort of disaster happens killing everyone involved except for a small group of people who escape because one of them had a case of Deja Vu and got away before the disaster happened. The rest of the movie is then spent with "Death" coming up with clever ways to kill the people who "cheated Death."
Anyways the point of me bringing it up is in the movie last night the remaining survivors are told that they only have a limited time to live. Instead of going out and really LIVING, doing the things they love to do, they go to jobs they do not like, they go and get lazer eyes surgery (big no no when death is after you), and so on. As this was going on I started thinking of what things would I do if I found myself in a similar situation. What things do I LOVE doing so much that I would want to spend my last days doing them?
It is a good question to ask yourself. Hmmmm, I guess "Final Destination 5" did require a couple of brain cells to watch. Who would have thought it was such a deep, thought provoking movie? :)
Be cautious of the "need" attitude. We all have things we need to get done, but never fully sacrifice the things you love to do. They are what make life worth living.
Enjoy the pics,
Carpe Diem,
Jesse
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