Enjoy the Ride

"Buy the ticket, take the ride..." - Hunter S. Thompson

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our safety net of daily patterns, we forget to live and experience life. I am just as prone to this as anybody. When change occurs, or the pattern is disrupted, I have to remind myself that the "edge" can awaken our senses if we just allow ourselves to come close it.

This past week was my wife and my annual "Grandma & Grandpalooza" event for the grandkids. We take all of our grandkids into our home for the week. We let their parents enjoy some time off as well. We plan out activities and other exciting things for them to do. In many ways we are trying to give them great memories before they are too old to be bothered with Grandma and Grandpa.

My wife always gets excited leading up to the week. She gets to have all of her sweet babies around her and all that stuff Grandmothers do. Myself, I get a touch of nerves as my slight affliction with obsessive compulsive disorder can set off alarms in my psyche. There will be a disarray of toys, clothes and divided attention required. I prepare and steady myself as the time approaches.

The day arrives and events of the week unfold in a perfect non-pattern enjoyment.

We effectively buy the ticket and take the ride during the week. No matter what happens, we enjoy and allow life the happen in a somewhat unscripted fashion. And today is the last day of a fun-filled ride. No scrapes, no bruises or broken bones; well maybe a few scrapes. But the grandkids, grandparents and even our pet dog have enjoyed the week.

You might be saying, "Wow, that's really living out on the edge Joe!"

Experiencing the edge does not have to mean going through a dazed week in Las Vegas or even throwing caution to the wind. It means changing up the normal and making sure you experience life in different ways.

The "edge" I speak of is and will be different for everyone.

It is at the "edge" where you might find a great idea that will take you in a new direction.
It is at the "edge" where you might find a new place to achieve greatness in life.

Buy the ticket, take the ride and enjoy life. Stay inspired my friends.

Front Window View

"See life through the front window, not through the rear window." - Brett Favre

Life tends to rush past us in a seemingly endless stream of blurred images. We look behind us to see what we missed, trying to capture what has already gone by.

Much of this happens due to our busy lives. Working hard in order to earn a promotion at work, trying to improve all that we do consumes so much of our time. The days and people in our lives simply disappear into the rear view mirror.

If you can simply slow down just a bit and allow your self to see life coming at you. It will give you more time to appreciate those around you, it will give you more time to enjoy your life.

Stay inspired my friends.

Put a Bird on Life

“You live and learn. At any rate, you live.” ― Douglas Adams

It was a fine late spring morning that my grandson played upon the backyard deck as I watched him meander from one spot to the next. It was 6:00 AM in the morning and he was taking in all that a near 18-month old can absorb.

As the sun began to peak above the horizon, a chorus of male birds began the familiar chatter of letting each other know they were alive and well. It is in the chirping that they communicate to let other birds know they are still here; protecting their territory, stating their existence.

A brand new day was beginning.

My grandson began to stop and listen to the cacaphony, seemingly trying to figure out what the noise was. In an odd sense he appeared to be learning the language of the morning symphony. He then began a conversation with the birds, declaring his space and that he too was alive and well this morning.

A loud squeal would come from him and the birds would lower their declarations. A pause and they would return to the loud chorus and again my grandson would shout out a morning call of his own. Back and and forth this went for one or two minutes until he looked at me, smiled and giggled a bit.

The birds were finished and so was my grandson.

The toys on the porch now occupied my grandson and the birds went about their business of worms and nest repair. The morning had begun and life was back in full swing as the sun came over the tree line. It will be a glorious day once again today and every day.

Make each of your own days a declaration of life. Make each day a spectacular example of all that is good. In other words, put a bird on it!

Stay inspired my friends!

Today We Honor

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation." - President George Washington

The day begins with gnats biting at their faces while they stand in formation awaiting the days orders. It is in the same early morning light of a hot and humid place that they train. The long ruck marches through the lifting fog only to meet up with the blistering sun.

These are the men and women of our military who train and prepare while we make our morning coffee. As the rush hour traffic frustrates our commute, two or more hours have passed for military personnel. In fact, the military never sleeps in protecting our ability to wave a flag, argue left or right, and dance our nights away.

I have known many that served their country. Some were once young, others are still young. All them of them, proud and brave. Their names are not in the great books and movies we each have read or watched. There are no statues bearing their likeness in the town square nor portraits upon the walls of government buildings.

Yet each one remains as brave and heroic as any medal given.

Each of them served during time of war.
Each of them I respect and admire.
Each of them are my heroes.

Ralph Gale: WW-I
Lawrence Primm: WW-II
Paul Schmidt: WW-II
Arnold Gale: WW-II / Korean
Jerry Perkins: Vietnam
Gerald Primm: Vietnam
John Primm: Vietnam
Roy Carter: Vietnam
Brian Smalley: Gulf War I
Joseph Schmidt: Gulf War I
Daniel Primm: Iraq

And there are many others that would fill days upon days to honor each and everyone. Many that served during times of conflict and during times of peace. Each placing their lives into service of others. And many more that gave their life in defense, honor and service to our country.

Today we honor those that train in the early morning fog. We honor those that protect our freedoms. We honor those that have sacrificed so that others may live in freedom. On this day, Memorial Day in the United States we remember the men and women who died while serving in our country's armed forces.

Thank you brave and gallant warriors. Thank you for each and every moment given.

Stay inspired my friends.

Expect It

“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow.” - Orison Swett Marden

Expectation - as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is;

Main Entry: ex·pec·ta·tion
Pronunciation: ek - spek - tā-shən
Function: noun
Date: 1540

1: the act or state of expecting : anticipation

2 a: something expected b: basis for expecting : assurance c: prospects of inheritance —usually used in plural

3: the state of being expected

4 a: expectancy b: expected value

The 'act or state of expecting' of something different or 'anticipation' of something that could happen in your life. Each of us should and do have expectations of an event or change happening for us. And each of us should have anticipation of change occurring; it is why you dream and set goals in your life.

So many times we set these goals or dream of something grand, only to never take it the next step. That step is 'expecting' greatness will happen by speaking into your own thoughts; by believing you will accomplish it. Of course you will never achieve just by saying you want something and it magically appears.

But if you don't believe or 'expect' it to happen, you will never step towards attempting to capture it.

Think of those that play the lottery. "Your actual odds of winning the lottery depend on where you play, but single state lotteries usually have odds of about 18 million to 1 while multiple state lotteries have odds as high as 120 million to 1." There are those who say, "you have no chance at all unless you actually play."

The same is true for achieving goals or a vision of success. And without expectation that something will occur, without stepping out towards change, nothing will occur. Simply put, you will not achieve anything if you do not expect to achieve it and by stepping out in change.

Expect greater things for your self, expect that you will achieve more in your life. Then step out and cause movement in your life.

Stay inspired my friends!

Wide Sky

“Sometimes I go about pitying myself, And all the while I am being carried across the sky, By beautiful clouds.” - Unknown

When the day seems to be going wrong in every aspect, remind yourself about the beauty of nature. Think of all that is right in this world and let yourself be carried away from a troubled mind.

The picture above was taken near the Ashfall Fossil Beds close to the city of Royal, Nebraska. The area was formed some 12 million years ago when a volcano in southwest Idaho spread a blanket of ash over a very large area. One or two feet of this powdered glass covered the flat savannah-like grasslands of northeastern Nebraska.

The landscape lays out in front of you in a wide vista of possibility. The wonderful sky above this expanse of land is quite beautiful and also covers the wide open space in other parts of Nebraska.

Take delight in the wondrous things that nature can offer to us.

They are like gifts to us which can brighten our day.

Stay inspired my friends.

Spring Away

"Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!" ~Sitting Bull

There is a childrens poem that goes, "April showers bring May flowers, that is what they say. But if all the showers turned to flowers, we’d have quite a colourful day!" A playful look at new hope and possibility after a long, cold winter.

Spring is but a reminder that possibility exists for each of us. An earthly reminder that change can happen in our life. Yet this possibility exists with each new morning whether it be spring, summer, autumn or winter.

Never lose a single day to step forward in greatness. Never lose a single day to create a great life. Never stop treating each day of your life like its spring.

Stay inspired my friends!

Smell the Roses

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” - Henri Matisse


“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the flower leaves on the heel of the one that crushed it.” - Unknown


“Kind hearts are the gardens,kind thoughts are the roots, kind words are the flowers, kind deeds are the fruits. Take care of your garden and keep out the weeds. Fill it with sunshine, kind words and kind deeds.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


“Happiness held is the seed; happiness shared is the flower.” - Unknown


“If you're still hanging onto a dead dream of yesterday, laying flowers on its grave by the hour, you cannot be planting the seeds for a new dream to grow today.” - Joyce Chapman


“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.” - Joseph Addison

Flowers can do so much in our lives. They bring happiness and joy to anyone that takes the time to enjoy them.

Stop and smell the flowers along the path of your life. Learn from their beauty and let that beauty shine through you.

Stay inspired my friends!

Planting Now for a Later Harvest

"It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn." ~ B. C. Forbes

The fall will arrive quickly and we will wonder how the year went by so quickly away from us? It will seem like only yesterday that we were celebrating the new year, full of hope and wonder? Will we have wasted our days daydreaming or will we have prepared those dreams and planted them in the spring?

When September takes hold of our days, the harvest will be upon us.

Those seeds of hope and want were planted in great soil in the spring of the year. Will we have carefully watered and tended to them into the summer months, knowing our expectation of a bountiful harvest? And when fall arrives, will we reap the reward of our hard work?

When we harvest that bounty, will we store those collected achievements to carry us through the winter months. For it is the harvest that gives us yearning and desire for new dreams when another new year approaches.

Are you acting upon your dreams and planting them with actions?

Will you tend to them and move boldly to ensure your dreams take root and flourish? If not, you will wonder where the time went when harvest arrives and there is nothing for you to reap. Or you may wonder why your harvest is so small. For the time was wasted and a cold winter will approach and want will take over your days.

We are now in the time of planting and tending to our dreams.

The actions you take now, throughout the summer and into the fall will prove to be worthy. Spring time is the time to begin movement. Start now, preparing, moving, and bringing your dreams to life. Spring is a great time to plant seeds and the time to take action upon your dreams is now. The great harvest this fall will be the reward for all of your hard work.

Stay inspired my friends.

Reaching the Moon

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." - John Fitzgerald Kennedy, September 12, 1962

Trying to achieve great things in life is not easy to do. It takes faith in oneself, hard work and the ability to adapt to the changing circumstances. There are those who win the lottery or a huge inheritance, but the vast majority have to work long and hard for it.

People such as Chris Gardner, going from nothing to having all he may ever want. Or others such as the actor Jim Carrey, software giant Larry Ellison, media personality Oprah Winfrey or famed chef Gordon Ramsay.

Even the famous Rockefeller family had to start somewhere as did John D. Rockefeller whose full salary for his first three months' work was $50. This is a very modest $1000 a month in terms of salary in the year 2009.

When you read stories of where these and other successful people started, you begin to realize each started with only a dream of 'achieving the moon' in their lives. Each found their own version of the moon as they achieved the goals set.

You can get to your own moon by starting with a belief in yourself. Reach for your dream by placing one foot in front of the other in movement. Eventually you will find the earth leaving quickly behind you as the moon begins to draw closer.

Stay inspired my friends!

Repairing a Leak

"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of." ~ Jim Rohn

Most every morning is a quiet pre-dawn drive to work. Very little traffic, the windows down and the springtime air flowing through the car. My short drive takes me down a freeway to a familiar exit. A few more blocks and the empty parking lot awaits my arrival.

These early mornings give me a peaceful couple of hours before others arrive. I can get many things accomplished with very little distraction. A soft start to the day before the crush of everything takes hold.

This day was seemingly no different in its beginning as I pulled out of my driveway. The cool morning breeze filtering through the car, out the neighborhood and to the freeway. My freeway exit arrived and as I pulled up to the stop light a very odd noise from the rear of the car. As suddenly as it sounded, it went away. A few blocks to work and I would have my cup of coffee.

As I pulled into the empty parking lot, a new sound pierced the quiet morning. A small part of me for an instant thought, "no, the noise is coming from somewhere else." Wishful thinking, a rear tire was losing air. The awful hiss of a tire venting itself of all it contains. You can insert a small amount of grumbling at this point.

The cool morning breeze mixing with the warm compressed air flowing out of my tire did nothing to brighten the moment. I stood there thinking the person that lost the package of wood screws would be scratching their head about now. They would be saying to themselves, "I know I packed those in the truck this morning before leaving."

So here I have a tire going flat, a perfect illustration of one losing their momentum. All energy and attitude escaping from within oneself. I could have reacted similarly to that tire. I could have gotten upset, yelled a few cuss words and kicked the tire. Okay, I grumbled a few cuss words. But then it was a matter of just getting on with it.

Life will toss moments at you. Some times it will be nails in the road to flatten a tire. Other times it will be worse. All of these moments will cause you to 'leak' your attitude. You have two choices at those moments in time.

One choice is to go flat and do nothing but give up. A flat tire and a flat attitude will not go very far. Eventually the tire will shred and your life will be left in pieces.

Your other choice is to get on with overcoming the circumstance. You repair the tire, plug the hole and refill your life with new air, new attitude. When you have a well-rounded tire, filled to the right PSI then life rolls on much easier, much more efficiently.

Before long, you will be back out on the highway to your destination. You will be back on the road to your dreams and not stuck on the side of the road with a flat life.

Stay inspired my friends!

What Am I Missing

This is a reprint of a popular post from June of 2009.


“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” - Dale Carnegie

There is so much going on in our lives, one son home visiting from Denver; one son back home from Iraq and being transferred back to the states; one son home from college at the University of Georgia; one son recently graduated from high school; one daughter getting ready for a missions trip to Ecuador; one daughter getting ready to visit us from Los Angeles; one daughter with three kids starting school in July; one daughter getting ready to get married in one week from now.

Is there something I'm missing?

No.

A benefit event that we are helping with is tomorrow; our wedding anniversary is coming up in just over a week; graduation celebration for a good friend this weekend; a family reunion coming up in July.

Wait, there has to be something I'm missing.

No.

With this many kids, birthdays are always happening; many little side events that are sure to pop up along the way; I'm sure that is everything. Writing everyday, promoting a book (CHANGED LIVES) ... still trying to get Oprah to invite me on.

Actually, I'm sure that I have missed something I'm supposed to do along the way. But all of this 'planning' information isn't to impress you with how busy we are. It is to show you that all of us are busy. You, me, the grocery clerk, mailman, Pastor, the person next to you on the bus and most anyone you want to pick out of a crowd.

So when you feel like being a little bit 'short' in attitude with others because you are busy, just remember they are likely experiencing the same thing. We are not alone in 'life happening', all of us are effected by living. It can be overwhelming at times and if it is, stop and take a day or two to step back.

Then jump right back into the 'game' of life.

Keep moving, keep connecting, keep living. The good thing is that while you are busy, there is movement in your life. Things are happening and you are connecting to others. You get to see what others are going through. Learn from those interactions, grow with those interactions and live life with an increased awareness.

It isn't necessarily easy and yes, it won't necessarily clean up that day planner.

But maybe you will be able to cope just a little more. But then a busy calendar is better then having nothing at all in your life. I like to go back to a great quote from the movie Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy living, or get busy dying."

I choose to live life living and figure the dying part will happen on its own. Live life even with the busy things that go with it.

Stay inspired my friends.

Lasting Impact

For all are friends in heaven, all faithful friends;
And many friendships in the days of time
Begun, are lasting here, and growing still.
- Robert Pollok, Course of Time

There are days I reminisce about old friends and one particular friend from Nebraska came to mind. He is a good friend even though we rarely see or even get to speak to one another. Doc Watson is his name and we go way back having first met on the job when I worked several years ago in the Dakota Territory, also known as North Dakota and South Dakota. Like myself, he has gone through some difficult situations but has emerged on the other side of an open door that I have spoken about before.

What had me thinking of him recently is the upcoming wedding day of my daughter. With all of the pending preparation, there is a little bit of stress involved making sure all is ready.

A few years back, I had gone through the same thing with another daughter's wedding. As I am inclined to do, I simply asked my mother for patience. Even though she has already passed away, I talk to her from time to time. It was a moment that I needed some comfort and Doc's name came to my mind.

The reason he came to mind is that he attended my mother's funeral. He had very comforting and encouraging words during that difficult time. It was exactly what I needed during the time. So thinking about him, that feeling came back over me and all was well and calmed my concerns for the pending wedding later this month.

Even though he doesn't realize it, he helped me out that day and today.

Sometimes we find those that have gone from us, the memories remain and continue to impact our lives. We also find that people we know here and today, while far away, can have an impact on our lives. That is what your life is all about, being able to make someone elses life better.

You may not be there to see it happen, but it does.

Do something good for someone and it can have a lasting impact.

Stay inspired my friends!

EMC World 2014 - Now Back To

"You can focus on things that are barriers or you can focus on scaling the wall or redefining the problem." - Tim Cook

It is the end of the week, EMC World 2014 is over and we can all return to our normal lives. Or can we?

During this IT conference, customers, analysts and others heard information on how the storage industry is being redefined. The traditional second IT platform is going the way of the buggy whip and horse-drawn carts. There will still be quaint horse-drawn carriages around the park on a Saturday evening.

But the Lotus F1 of third IT platform is here.

To borrow a quote from a Stephen King novel, "Get busy redefining or get busy dying." EMC is changing and redefining how storage is done and how companies are going to meet the challenges of the third platform. This week in Las Vegas at EMC World, we clearly marked that beginning.

But will you go back to your regularly scheduled programming? Or will you be changed? Will you redefine the way you think about storage and your way of doing business in this new third platform?

Better yet, will you redefine your life?

Changing the way you do business means dropping what has gone wrong, what has been slow and what has been holding you back. Changing the way you do life means doing the same things. Drop what has gone wrong, slow or held you back. In other words, REDEFINE how you approach life going forward. Do not let the past define you.

Do not return to the regular scheduled programming. Redefine yourself, do something for others, help others redefine themselves and see how life gets redefined, gets lifted, to a new and higher platform.

Redefine your business for life in the third platform and redefine your life for something better. Stay inspired my friends.

How can you redefine things in your life?

Check out Charity: water

EMC World 2014 - Safe Water

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today marks the final day of EMC World 2014 here in Las Vegas, an annual get together of the most brilliant minds in the IT industry. And I am talking about you, the attendees that truly make the industry run and perform as well as it does.

In all of the hubbub of everyday work life, conferences such as ours, we spend an awful lot of time trying to solve business problems. That is a good thing because business drives the economic life of the world, your city and your household. Without it, we would be scrambling to find those basic needs in life such as food, clothing and shelter.

Without it, we would be searching for clean water.

Water, that is what I am here to talk about today. How much do we take it for granted that we can turn on a faucet and drink clean water. To step into the shower and have water to bathe in or to fill a pot for cooking.

An organization named Charity:Water thinks about that everyday. Everyday they know that 90% of the 30,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions are in children under five years old. That diseases from unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. They also know that over 3.6% of the global disease burden could be prevented simply by improving water supply, sanitation, and hygiene.

So how can you REDEFINE your life?

You can take part of your time, your money and your talents to help organizations like Charity:Water help those in need. You can change your way of thinking by changing the way you think about others.

We get a limited lifetime and the greatest reward you will ever achieve is in helping others. Now that is life REDEFINED.

Stay inspired my friends!

EMC World 2014 - Forward Motion

"If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears." - Cesare Pavese

The product I support for our company is called VNX. It is a storage system that I have seen evolve from the early days of 1987 when old traditional storage was simply "too old" for what the industry needed. During those days, we developed a SCSI disk array that managed to take several disks and basically band them together to present one pool of storage to host computers.

Relative to the time, those disk arrays were pretty FAST given the technology. But then technology moves on and over the years faster and more intelligent disk arrays become even faster and more intelligent storage systems. The only way we can move forward is by taking the good and smart things we have learned, discarding what went wrong and moving the technology forward. One example is the our company partnered with the Lotus F1 team to change and accelerate their success.

This is how we advance our products and our lives.

The same can be said for our lives. We start out with what we know and generally do pretty well. As we move forward, we take what we've learned and apply it to better our lives. Yet sometimes we hold onto the past. We hold onto grudges, hurt, pain and pride which slows us from making our lives better.

If we are to truly have a great life, what some call your best life, is to lay down those things that are slowing you down. Pain of broken promises, or the hurt experienced by some event will only keep you planted in the past. If you are holding a grudge due to a real or perceived incident, let it go. Forgive yourself by forgiving the other person if only within yourself.

Move yourself forward to a better life and a better way of living.

As each of you in attendance at EMC World 2014 are learning about some very cool and FAST ways of deploying, managing and growing with your storage needs. Take some time to learn, to REDEFINE your own life. Grow out of the old way of doing things and accelerate your life to a great life.

And stay inspired my friends!

EMC World 2014 - The 3rd Platform

“Happiness is not so much in having or sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” — Norman MacEwan

People ask me quite often these days, in the world of Information Technology, what exactly is the 3rd Platform. In our business, we like to show the above diagram and talk tracks describing it. Sometimes it comes off sounding like a lot of marketing and at other times it gets so deep into the technology that one can feel overwhelmed by all of it.

Relax, I'm not here to sell you a product or wow you with technical brilliance.

When you try to comprehend what the 3rd Platform means, bring your thoughts down to just you and your connections to other people. On average, most people indicate they have what they would call three close friends. If you add that to our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the many other social networks we probably have more than 4003 friends.

The data generated just by your interactions with these friends is enormous. In 2012, it was estimated that every household alone generated 52GB of data. That is two years ago and this data growth has only accelerated. Think of everything you do, you location services on your smart phone, use of your ATM card, watching cable television or a doctor's visit; all of these things are amassing more and more data.

Without going into the reasons (good or bad) on why all of this data is being collected, what the 3rd Platform does is to help companies handle this huge amount of data. Given the amount of data and infrastructure needed to support all of this data, if we did nothing it would be similar to needing tens of thousands of people as were used to build the pyramids.

So the 3rd Platform creates a need for simpler, more versatile and more powerful options to store, manage and use the data. This includes newer, more cost and flexible storage systems. It includes software that provides an easy method to manage, move, and measure all of this data. And we are talking lots of data.

It is estimated that every minute...

- YouTube users upload 48 hours of new video
- Instagram users share 3,600 new photos
- Brands and organizations on Facebook receive 34,722 "likes"
- Over 100,000 tweets are sent

So what you are doing in your life is adding data to this 3rd Platform data surge. And I don't mean to scare you away from generating data. I believe every connection we can make with another person, every good thing we can do, in every method available to us is a good thing. The 3rd Platform is not a bad thing, it is just a thing. What matters is how we respond as humans within the crush of all that new data.

Connect to life using your tablet, smartphone, biometric watches, laptops, televisions, cars and everything else.

Just don't forget to look up from your device and connect with other people, eye-to-eye, handshake to handshake, and voice to ear.

And stay inspired my friends.

EMC World 2014 - The Day Begins

“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride...and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well...maybe chalk it off to forced conscious expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.” - Hunter S. Thompson

Here it is, Monday, May 5th in Las Vegas, Nevada; entertainment capital of the world. And it is the start to EMC World 2014, a much anticipated event each year by those in the IT industry. As data growth explodes, EMC creates the infrastructure that enables you to manage your business and your career. EMC World is where you get to mingle with the top engineers and thought leaders in the IT world.

You also get to meet, greet and spend time with your peers in the industry. A time to see how others are doing their job and life. Reconnecting with old friends and making new friends. In a crowd that can be nearly 15,000 in size, you are bound to run into something old and something new.

There are a lot of folks at EMC and within our sponsors who want to welcome you and make this a productive and fun time. As Hunter Thompson said, you "buy the ticket, take the ride..." which is our industry. It can get bumpy at times but we are here to help make that ride a little smoother.

Enjoy the ride and let me know how the experience was. You can comment on my blog post or tweet something out to @jprimm on Twitter. Enjoy the week everyone.

And stay inspired my friends!

Green Grass

"When you accept that the grass is greenest where you stand, you will then be able to see greater possibility." ~ Joseph Primm

We go through life always viewing what is on the other side of the fence.

- The neighbors have a nicer car.
- The people down the street have a bigger house.
- Your co-worker has an easier job.

The list can go on and on, always yearning to have something that others have. Yet we fail to first appreciate our current place or condition in life.

What our life is composed of has certain qualities to it. The pieces of our life have made us who we are. So the need exists to appreciate our current place in life before we will ever have the ability to appreciate anything beyond the present.

Having an appreciation for our current circumstance allows you to see more clearly what exists on the other side of the fence. It gives you a focused view both in directions and what you really need in life.

Without a view that the grass is green under your feet, you will never find green enough grass, you will never be satisfied.

Accept what you have now and work from that place. Enjoy those things you do have and give yourself a new start on a journey to what you will enjoy in the future.

As always, stay inspired my friends.