John Dilbeck And Friends

On another of my blogs, I recently wrote about how broadband makes a huge difference in online marketing.

In that post, I concentrated on the benefits of fast Internet access and how it helps to get more work done.

In this post, I’m going to look at the other side of the coin and how broadband Internet access throws up so many shiny red balls that tend to catch my attention and pull me from my work.

To be fair, life is not all about work and there should be a good balance between work and play, business and family, and even being at home and getting out in the world. I know those things.

What brings this all up is that I’ve been spending much of my time with my daughter and her family this month and I’ve encountered some things that have made it more difficult to focus on my work and to ignore the distractions.

1. Television - the great time waster.

For years, I could only see 3.5 channels on TV - NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS. I say 3.5 channels because I could only receive PBS part of the time.

When TV switched from analog to digital, I could see exactly 0 (yep, zero) channels. No TV!

For many people that would have been a disaster, but for me it helped to make more time to focus on my work.

Now, I don’t know how many channels are available here. There are channels I’ve never seen before and some of them catch my interest in ways I never would have imagined.

I was watching a show about rebuilding Stonehenge on the National Geographic channel. It was a fascinating story of how some folks built replicas of the Stonehenge monolithic rocks using foam and rebuilt what they think is a good replica of the original Stonehenge. I found that fascinating. *Poof* there goes an hour of my life. Was it educational? I think so. Did it help me get closer to reaching my goals? Not at all.

My daughter introduced me to a show called Cake Boss about some folks in New Jersey that have a bakery and specialize in some rather awesome cakes. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d find that interesting, but I did. The next thing I knew, I’d watched three episodes and another hour and a half had evaporated. Entertaining? Yes. Closer to achieving my dream? No.

I could go on and on. I bet I’ve wasted 30 or 40 hours this month, just watching TV. I’ve been watching old reruns of NCIS, Becker, Cheers, and lots of other old favorites. Why? I’m not really sure.

2. Internet video - both useful and an incredible time waster.

I have really mixed feelings about this one.

Now that I have access to broadband, I’ve discovered that I both like and loathe online videos, and I haven’t been good at separating the two.

I recently learned about Hulu.com and while I enjoy some of what it has to offer, it has cost me quite a few hours of productive work time.

For instance, I have watched six or seven episodes from season one of The A-Team and enjoyed all of them. Entertaining? You betcha. Helps me get closer to reaching my goals? Quite the opposite.

I have been a big fan of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis for several years. Since I didn’t have cable TV, the only way I could watch them was to rent them on Netflix.

While playing around on Hulu.com, I discovered that Amanda Tapping, who had been one of the co-stars in both Stargate series had a show of her own called Sanctuary. Three episodes were available on Hulu and I watched all of them. I liked the show so much that I added all of the episodes from season one of the series to my Netflix queue and eventually they’ll show up in my mailbox.

With broadband, I don’t have access to just three DVDs at a time, I can watch shows online from NetFlix and that’s a huge temptation.

Until this month, I had much less temptation to watch movies and TV episodes because I had made it a habit to do all my work first and would reward myself with a little TV (by watching DVDs from Netflix) while eating dinner.

Now, however, there is a huge number of shows and movies I’d love to watch and I don’t even have to wait the two days it normally takes to mail a DVD back and get the next one in my queue.

So, I’ve had to think about ways to deal with these distractions.

I realize that watching old reruns at random is a waste of my time and energy. I don’t think I’m going to have a difficult time tuning them out.

On the other hand, I’ve also discovered the lure of YouTube.

I will never get hooked on the mindless entertainment that is available on YouTube. I have no doubt about that.

However, I’ve discovered that YouTube has some interesting and useful content that I will watch and some of it may even be helpful in my business.

For example, I’m a huge fan of Napoleon Hill and his books Think and Grow Rich and Law of Success. But, until last week, I’d never seen a video of him. Quite by accident, I stumbled across a video of Mr. Hill talking about his initial meeting with Andrew Carnegie and how that launched his career devising and publicizing his personal success courses and philosophy.

Since I have some pages on my sites about Napoleon Hill, I added this video to a couple of them. For example, you can see that video on this page: Napoleon Hill - Think and Grow Rich - Law of Success.

I think that video actually adds something to the information about Mr. Hill.

So, while I’ll never waste any time watching videos of squirrels surfing or idiots doing stupid things, I do find value in some of the videos available on YouTube and I’ll be making use of some of them in the future.

One of the things I plan to do is create short videos of some of the business owners on Murphy Gold where they can talk about why they enjoy owning and operating the businesses they do. I think that will provide good information that some of their customers and prospects will enjoy learning.

I still have to learn how to create and edit these videos, but that’s going to be pretty easy since one of my granddaughters has a photography business and can take good videos with one of her cameras.

I have video editing software on my computer that I’ve never used, so it will be interesting to learn if this will be another distraction or a way to help promote my business and my client’s businesses.

So, perhaps I needed to get caught up in some of these distractions this month in able to sort out the useful from the shiny red balls that just lead me off track.

I can see how someone who doesn’t have a plan or goals to achieve could be dragged into hours and hours of wasted time.

It’s easy to do. Just veg out in front of the tube and let it feed nonsense into your receptors.

On the other hand, when I find something that matches the goals I have set for myself, I’m discovering a whole new world of information that can really be useful.

The hard part is to separate the two and not let myself be distracted by things that will never lead me one step closer to achieving my goals.

What about you?

How do you deal with distractions? Do you have plans and goals you want to achieve? Do they help you stay focused?

All the best,

JD

I’m a day late, but I wanted to take a moment and wish all of my family and friends a very Merry Christmas!

I had a computer-free day, yesterday, and that’s very unusual for me.

I spent the day with my daughter and her family and had a wonderful time.

There are many holidays and events that are celebrated at this time of the year and each of us has different views of what is important to us and our family and friends.

Sometimes that leads to big disagreements, which I think is unfortunate.

Over the years, I’ve had good friends who celebrated things differently than I do and I’ve learned to be happy for them and what they believe and not to try to convince them of my way of thinking.

So, even though I have different views than most of my family and friends, I can still enjoy spending a happy day with them and basking in the warmth of love and friendship.

So, whatever you celebrate at this time of year, I hope you enjoyed it with family and friends.

The two holidays I celebrate are Yule and Christmas and I enjoyed both of them.

2009 was a very difficult year for many of us and I am happy that we can have a few days where we can celebrate the good things in our life before we roll into a new year and start the annual cycle, again.

Here’s my wish that all of us will have a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2010. It’s only a week away.

All the best,

JD

I’m not going to lie about it.

2009 has been a very difficult year for me, but it could have been much worse.

My home is not the home of my dreams, but it gives me a place to live until I can earn enough to buy or build the home I dream of.

This old house is where my parents retired in the early 1970s. They left Atlanta and moved to Murphy, NC. They loved living here, even when times were tough.

Pop died in the summer of 1991 and Mom died last year, just before Thanksgiving.

Both of them have been on my mind a lot this month.

Mom’s birthday was November 6; their anniversary was November 25; Thanksgiving was a couple of days ago. It’s been a month of memories and being thoughtful about what is important in life.

Both of them worked hard all their lives and were quite a bit healthier and stronger in their latter years than I am now. It gives me something to work towards - better health.

Both of them had serious health problems earlier in their lives and they still managed to mostly overcome them over time.

Pop broke his back when he fell off a crane onto a truck’s roof. For years he could do very little. Still, many years later, he could easily outwork me.

Mom had trouble with her legs for most of her life, but that didn’t stop her from doing what she wanted, until her cancer surgery caused nerve damage and she was no longer able to walk unassisted.

So, I can look back on my illness earlier this year and think “poor me” all I want, or I can continue to do what I can to get around and rebuild my strength.

Sometimes life just isn’t easy. It’s the challenges that make us stronger and help us develop real character.

So, maybe that’s what I’m working on now - character.

Money is tight, but I’ve managed to find something to eat for over 57 years while fending off everything that tried to eat me, so I guess that’s some measure of success.

(I’m not sure who said that originally, but I read it some time back and liked it enough to paraphrase it for myself.)

I love living here in Murphy. Sometimes it’s hard to earn a living here, but other people in other areas have had it tough, too. We do what we have to do to survive.

I’ve decided that I want to help others as I help myself and that’s why I’ve dedicated myself to building the best marketing system for locally-owned small businesses in Murphy, NC. You can see the start of it at Murphy Gold and Murphy Connections. Over time, it will get better and better and I look forward to helping small business owners in our little mountain town market their businesses to a wider audience.

While I may not have all I need right now, I do have a plan and I’m working on that plan every day. It gives me something to work towards and that’s important.

Thanksgiving was an interesting day. I spent the day alone, but I still had contact with family and friends online and over the phone.

Several friends called to see how I was doing and to wish me a happy holiday.

I was in touch with family even though I didn’t see them in person.

I was alone, but not lonely. Memories of past holidays gave me good feelings and I smiled quite a bit during the day.

Even though I may not be able to visit my brother and his family this year, I’ll think of them often.

I’m looking forward to Christmas breakfast at my daughter’s house and spending time with that branch of my family. Christmas will be here before we have a chance to turn around a few times.

Would I have enjoyed a house full of people and a table loaded with traditional Thanksgiving food this year? Of course, I would.

But, I’ve done that many times over the last few decades, so missing it now and then really isn’t such a big deal.

I’m grateful for all I have and I intend to redouble my efforts to rebuild my marketing business to where I’ll be enjoying prosperity instead of mere survival.

As we enter into this major winter holiday season, I hope you’ll reflect on all that you have and all the good memories of times and people who have helped shape your life.

We all have a lot to be thankful for.

All the best,

JD

Today is my daughter’s birthday.

Happy Birthday, Dena!

I hope this is your best year yet.

I love you.

We had a great time at our Christmas get-togethers yesterday.

I posted some Christmas 2005 Photos on Flickr and you’re welcome to view them if you are interested.

I had a very good visit with Mom in the nursing home, where she’s recovering from a broken leg, and then visited my daughter and her family in the afternoon. Dena was feeling poorly and spent most of the afternoon napping on the couch. The kids were excited, as you’d expect.

Dragons were the theme for my gifts yesterday. My brother and sister-in-law gave me a novel about dragons, and my grandkids gave me a great book on Dragonology.

I had a great time. I hope you did, too.

A few minutes ago, I heard someone drive up into our driveway, so I went to investigate.

It turned out to be some of the youth from the Grape Creek Baptist Church, just up the road. They brought some chocolate-covered cherries to Mom and wanted to sing Christmas carols to her.

What they didn’t know was that she had just spread out to do her monthly budgeting and check writing and was pretty much blocked into her chair. I quickly helped her move the things so she could come to the back door and rushed back to tell them she’d be there in a couple of minutes.

Using her walker, she made it into the kitchen and we blocked the storm door open. I put a chair right behind her so she could sit and enjoy the music.

For the next few minutes, they sang the old familiar tunes she loves so much and it really brightened her day.

A few people singing in the back of a pickup truck — sometimes it’s the small things that really make someone happier. Thanks!

Happy Holidays to all of you,

JD

December 05, 2004 6:31 PM

All day Friday, Mom was complaining of pain in her abdomen. After several calls to one of her doctors, she was advised to go to the emergency room, so about 4:00 pm we headed off to the hospital where she was diagnosed with gall bladder trouble. It’s been a rough couple of weeks for her, and this brings a new level of uncertainty to what’s going to happen next week. She has an appointment with her surgeon on Monday for follow-up on the surgery from a couple of weeks ago and I’m sure he’ll examine her for the gall bladder trouble at that point.

Last week, we were sure it was going to be her last week of radiation, but her doctor examined her nose and wanted to wait a few days before continuing treatment. So, we’re scheduled to resume the last 5 radiation treatments starting on Monday.

While we were at the hospital, however, there was good news, too. We were checking Mom in to the ER when someone slapped me on the shoulder and I turned to see my friend, Bill Grove, standing there. He inquired about Mom and then told me his good news.

His wife had delivered their twin daughters earlier in the day. Congratulations!

During the confusion, I didn’t get their names, but Bill said Mom and girls were doing well.