Chris Walker Live

Leading At Home

March 20, 2013 — Leave a comment

When people talk about leadership, I often think about business, sports, and church. What if we turn our thoughts on leadership and apply them at home? You hear about the MVP who led his team to the Super Bowl, but do you ever hear about the MVP of the household? (Just a tip: Moms are always the MVP.)

I do not hold an official position of leadership where I work. But at home, I am a husband and a parent, and my family depends on me to be a leader.

My wife and I are partners on our little team and our children help out as well, as we train them up to make bigger contributions.

If you apply this business metaphor to your family dynamic, there are 3 ways that you could look at it.

1. The Sole Proprietorship

This is the single person with no children who lives alone. You are completely independent and in charge of leading only yourself.

2. The Partnership

This is the couple who is living together without children or any other roommates. You lead and work together.

3. The Team

This is when you have more than 2 people living together and can include children. If it is a group of adults only, then the group would lead together like a board of directors. If there are children who are dependent on the adults, then they serve in a learning role where they contribute while they continue to learn new skills.

I believe that the most important place we should be leading is at home. I have found it easy to neglect my leadership at home. So I have decided to be more intentional and focus more of my attention on how I am leading my family.

What does your leadership look like at home?

In Leadership

Jon Acuff Wants to Help You Go From Average to Awesome

March 18, 2013 — Leave a comment

Jon Acuff, blogger at ‘Stuff Christians Like‘ and author of the book ‘Quitter‘ has a new book coming out on April 22nd called ‘Start‘. ‘Quitter’ was about how not to quit your day job while hustling to work on the things that you are passionate about. This book is about how to find your way from average to awesome. We often settle for average in life, but awesome is closer than you might think. Fear wants to keep us trapped in average while awesome is just waiting for us to start.

I also wanted to let you know about a cool deal. If you pre-order ‘Start‘ between now and April 21st, you can receive $250 worth of free stuff including the Kindle and ePub format of the book, 4 Quitter Conference Audio Lessons, 2 video segments from Start Night, and 2 other eBooks from Jon called ‘The Hater Handbook’ and ‘The 3 Stages of Every Awesome Idea’.

Just click on the image below and you can learn about how to get the free stuff. You can order from any of your favorite online retailers.

In Books

Making Security Questions Secure

February 26, 2013 — Leave a comment

I have a love/hate relationship with security questions. You know those questions and answers you are required to setup with your online accounts so that they can add extra security levels if you forget your password.

I am grateful for the added security. But I always get annoyed when I have to set them up or if I login from a different computer and they add steps to my login. Oh, and beware that they are usually case sensitive, so you had better remember whether or not you capitalized your answers.

My biggest annoyance about security questions is that they are often too easy for someone to figure out or something that I might have a different answer for next week because my favorite food might change. They are not always as secure as I would like them to be.

Here is my solution. Make up better answers that are not true so that someone who knows you will not be able to guess the answers and gain access to your account. There are people in my life who know the answers to some of these questions who I don’t want to have access to my accounts.

Here is an example of using a different answer that you would remember.

Question: What is your mother’s maiden name?

Instead of using your mother’s maiden name, you could use someone else’s maiden name. Maybe your grandmother, or a friend. Or you can answer this question with the last name of your favorite actor or musician. You just have to remember the answer you put in there. I always make it something that the question will actually trigger my answer, but it is more like an inside joke that only I am in on.

I am not going to give away my exact methodology because then you might be able to guess my answers. Just know that the answers to mine are funny. For some reason, I remember funny things better than anything else.

Now you have some new options when creating security questions. Just don’t forget your answers.

In Internet

Take Heart in Times of Trouble

February 25, 2013 — Leave a comment

Storm Approaching [Photo Credit - mrpbps on Flickr]

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
- Jesus – John 16:33b

You no doubt have experienced trouble. Some more than others. There are many things that happen in this world that break my heart. Just watch the news. We live in a broken world where the natural current leads to trouble. And sometimes trouble finds you no matter how hard you fight the current. Jesus didn’t promise us a trouble-free and comfortable life. He told us we would encounter trouble. But there is no reason to worry because Jesus has already overcome the world. So when you find fear creeping into your heart because of the latest news report remember the words of Jesus and take heart.

In Scripture

Hits of the Week #2

February 22, 2013 — 3 Comments

It has been another fun week in the constantly growing and changing world of technology. Here is my second attempt at this weekly post bringing you cool things that I learned while reading, watching, and listening to those who are smarter than I am.

1. Michael Hyatt Podcast – The Fine Art of Delegation Part 1

Michael Hyatt does a weekly Podcast called, ‘This Is Your Life.’ This week he shared what he has learned about delegation. This really grabbed my attention, but I don’t have anyone in my professional life to delegate things to. But I do partner with my wife to run our household and I can delegate things when we have some sort of social gathering. So if you aren’t managing people at your work, this may still be of interest to you.

I was particularly interested in the part where he shares he 5 levels of delegation. I always thought delegation was just assigning tasks to others to complete, but there are different levels of expectations and freedoms in the task that you can use to make delegation more productive. If you like podcasts about leadership and productivity, this is a great weekly subscription to sign up for.

2. Sunrise Calendar App for iPhone

I found a new phone app this week that I am quickly falling in love with. The Sunrise Calendar App is for Google Calendar users. You connect it with your Google Calendar account and it imports all of your calendars. If you are like me, you have a lot of calendars. It has a very simple and clean design that is not very complicate. You can scroll through your calendar with ease by day and month. It also adds the local weather right into your calendar giving you an idea of the weather throughout your day right in your calendar.

So if you are tired or bored with whatever calendar app you are using on your phone, this would be a good option for you if you use Google Calendar.

It is available for iPhone and Android is in process.

In Hits of the Week

Lift – Simple App For Habit Building

February 21, 2013 — 1 Comment

Lift App

Lift is a simple app that I use to help me build and track better habits in my life.

My favorite thing about the app is that it is very simple. I have played with other goal setting apps before that get overly complicated and detailed. Lift simply lets you add a habit that you want to do on a regular basis and each day when you complete the action, you go to the app and check in for that action. It keeps track of how many days you have checked in for each habit and also how many days in a row.

I look forward to going into Lift each day and checking in for each habit I want to add to my life.

It also adds a social aspect showing you others who are checking in on the same habits. You can follow others and comment on and like each other’s check ins. Right now, I don’t know anyone personally who is using this, but it would be cool if more of my friends jumped in and we could encourage each other to keep up the good work.

Currently I have added habits for #EarlyToRise, Write Blog Post, and Exercise. There are some other simple ones that I want to add to just to give me more things to check off and remind me to do them each day.

If you are looking for a simple app to help you build habits, then you should give it a try. You can sign up through your Twitter or Facebook account on the app. Once you have done that, search for me (chris_d_walker) and we can help each other build better habits.

It is currently only available for iPhone, but will be on Android in the near future.

In Discipline

Kick Your Bad Day To The Curb

February 20, 2013 — 2 Comments

Ever have a bad day at work? Yeah that is like asking the Hulk if he likes to smash.

Today was a rough day for me. I was behind from the beginning. Got crushed with requests throughout the day. I finally came up for air about 15 minutes ago.

For a while I could feel myself wanting to smash something. I wasn’t turning green yet.

Then I reached a point where I was caught up. I took a moment and I packaged up the Hulk and put him away.

I took a deep breath and focused on how I have control of my attitude. Now it is all good. It is almost time to go home and I have better things to look forward to than my day job.

How do you deal with a bad day and the Hulk Smash attitude that may creep into your mind?

In Productivity

Pushing Through

February 19, 2013 — Leave a comment

I have had a strange couple of days.

I am adjusting to a new work schedule and had some early appointments on Monday and Tuesday that made it a bit more challenging.

I spent yesterday fighting a migraine that finally was defeated by going to sleep last night. We had a surprise $700 car repair try to derail my finances.

It feels like over the last couple of days all kinds of circumstances are coming after me.

Last night, all I wanted to do was to lay down in my bed and crash so that my head would stop pounding. But I had some things that really needed to be done last night that I did not want to put off until the morning. So I pushed through. I attacked each task and did what needed to be done despite my body telling me to give up and go to sleep.

I am glad that I pushed through.

What circumstances do you need to push through today? What is trying to sabotage your awesomeness?

In Discipline

Simply Discipleship

February 18, 2013 — Leave a comment

I love when a single verse of Scripture is full of application. Yesterday at church, the teaching was focused on the following verse.

Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. – 1 Corinthians 11:1

That is discipleship in a nutshell.

Our behavior speaks volumes to this world. Our daily interaction with someone may be the only gospel that they see or hear. You may not see yourself as a great teacher or evangelist, but you are a living breathing example of Jesus walking around this planet every day.

Are you following the example of Christ every day so that others may catch a glimpse of him?

In Discipleship, Scripture

Hits of the Week #1

February 15, 2013 — Leave a comment

I am always learning new things as I read, watch, and listen to what others are sharing across the Internet. Often there are little nuggets of awesomeness that just wouldn’t make for a great blog post. So I am going to start putting those things together into one weekly post on Fridays where I share my favorite little discoveries throughout the week. With that, I present to you, the premier of ‘Hits of the Week.’

These are in no particular order of importance:

1. Use Simple Calorie Calculations to Better Plan Your Weight Loss Goals

This article on Lifehacker grabbed my attention because I am still on a weight loss mission. This article breaks the weight loss calculation into a simple formula. The idea that you must burn 3500 calories to lose 1 lb can be turned into a formula to project your weight loss based on your calorie intake and the number of calories you burn each day. Here is an example of what the formula looks like to find your calorie deficit.

2000 (calories consumed) – 1900 (burned by default) – 600 (burned through exercise) = -500 (calorie deficit)

Once you reach a calorie deficit of 3500, you should lose 1 lb. Check out the article for more detail.

2. Calorie Burn Calculator

In order to know how many calories you burn all day, you will need the Calorie Burn Calculator. You may have a hard time burning calories at work if you sit in a chair all day. But you are burning calories just sitting there. This calculator will tell you how much your are burning off. Just fill in the number of minutes you spend for each activity and it will give you a good estimate of how many calories you burn.

3. Broken Home Button on iPod Touch or iPhone

This week, my son must have been a little rough on his iPod Touch and managed to destroy the Home button. It doesn’t click or do anything anymore. Fortunately, Apple has an Accessibility option for people who struggle with clicking the Home button. Here is how to fix it.

Settings – General – Accessibility – Turn on Assistive Touch

This will add a button to the screen that you can click and it will bring up a menu allowing you to click the home button from the touch screen. This saved me from having to throw out a perfectly good iPod touch other than the broken button.

I hope you enjoyed the premier of ‘Hits of the Week.’ If you have anything you would like to share that you learned this week, leave it in the comments. I would love to learn from you as well.

Have a great weekend!