Excited for my kids

-
The weather is starting to warm up. We're moved in our new place. The kids are starting to play outside.

On the other side of our backyard fence is another family's yard that has a trampoline and swingset. Yesterday our kids noticed there were kids out in that yard jumping on the trampoline and they wanted to go play so bad... So I took them over to say hi, thinking we'll see how this goes. How will the neighbors be? How will their kids be? What are we going to talk about?

We opened the gate to their fence, walked into their yard, and started talking. Turns out we had some connections of people we both knew already, they were super friendly, but they had no idea anyone had moved in behind them.

Who knows, who our family will connect closely with as we move into this new area. What I do know though is most of the time the connections won't just fall in your lap... there has to be a little bit of effort to get to know people to get that at least started, which can be the hardest part.

I am excited for our kids though because it sounds like there are quite a few kids around their age that live really close and the kids are outside all the time which will be really fun as they get just a few years older. Thankful we've been able to move where we are.

Popular posts from this blog

Are you thankful?

-
Are you thankful? How do you show it? Do you write a note? Do you tell someone? Do you make a list? How do you express thankfulness? It always is good for me to think about and express thankfulness to others and God. Never have I gone through the practice of giving thanks and been disappointed. Thankfulness gets the focus off of me and onto others and God. Having meals brought to us in the past week after our new baby has brought the idea of expressing thankfulness to others into focus for me again. I wrote a few thank you notes to those that brought meals and it just feels good to do that. Plus, the act of receiving thanks is good for others as well. I ask our kids quite often when they're whining, "Are you having a thankful heart?" And sometimes I ask them to tell me one thing they're thankful for. It's good to get in the habit of being thankful.
Read more

Sending notes

-
I haven't been big on new year's resolutions lately, but I do like the idea of challenging myself in areas where I'd like to get better and setting goals for myself. Something that I've been thinking about doing is sending a note to someone different every week of the year just to say thanks or I'm thinking of you or praying for you. It wouldn't be hard to do and I know it's good for me as well as I think most people appreciate a little note. The other thing I've been thinking about along those lines is sending video notes. I heard this on a podcast recently. Since we don't see people as much these days it's easy to just record a video on your phone and email it or use a service like Loom to record your video and send a link or use an app like Marco Polo. It seems like this would feel even more personal than a note... though I haven't done it yet. So maybe send a note today to someone that's helped you out recently or maybe to someone who
Read more

Choose your own adventure

-
Do you remember the "Choose your own adventure" books? You would start the book and then as the story progresses the characters face forks in the road and you get to choose which way they go... which results in going to a specific page and continuing to read. I've been spending a considerable amount of time on marketing automation in the last month and these books from my childhood remind me of how marketing automation works. The big difference though is the customer doesn't realize he's choosing his own adventure as he navigates the communications we set out before him. He's simply making choices based on the marketing that we're putting out there and then based off of what he chooses we choose for him the next communication he receives. As I'm building this out I'm starting out with a pretty blank slate. There's a lot we don't know, but as we get more information from prospects and customers it will become clear who they are and what
Read more