There’s a number of oddities in Minnesota, from our state having two major cities less than 12 miles apart, to having uniquely high and low temperatures throughout the year, to having a forest in the city, Theodore Wirth Regional Park. It’s located 4 miles from the downtown skyscrapers. Sometimes you don’t have to go very far to see something new, fun, and out of the ordinary. I had been to the park before but yesterday my family decided to take the 15-minute drive to the park and walk around. It was fun to drive through our area, and we got to see a new building, and its where my sister skied in…

For Praxis this month I’ve also been reading a book called Niche Down. It’s about “how to become legendary by being different” (Niche Down, 0). It’s been a convicting read concerning how to create great businesses, and what makes a business fail or succeed. I enjoyed the read, it helped me understand the business world better, and made me think about the problems in our world and what potential solutions could be. Many businesses pop up in every field, from clothing to restaurants, to tech and beyond. But what creates staying power? Niching down. Admittedly the first thing I notated in the book was a statistic that mentioned that we’re at the lowest levels…

I have finished reading The War of Art (TWoA). It was a bit different than any other book I had read before. It had an odd layout but one that was relatively easy to read, actually. The third, and final section was called “Beyond Resistance: The Higher Realm”. This section focused on the challenge of initially starting something and staying with it, as well as finding our talents and using them well. When we write and create via our authentic selves we are doing what we were meant and designed to do as individual people. As the author puts it: “Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal…

My grandparents are all amazing people. From American war veterans to wonderful housewives, and so many other qualities beyond. They have learned a lot, and done a lot in their lives. They are inspiring. My Grandma Parkin helped to raise three children while having a husband who worked for the phone company and volunteered in the police force. In addition, I love seeing the history from this corner of the family, and I’ve even seen pictures of many ancestors including one of my great-great-great grandmother. It’s all well-cared for genealogy that has allowed me to meet so many family members over the years, even if its a bit confusing. It’e also…

I’ve told a lot of stories on this blog so far, and it’s been fun for me. From retelling memories, to explaining some of my favorite things, I’ve actually enjoyed writing and while that’s not entirely new to me, getting to write how I want mostly is. I’ve tried to write with my own voice, and a lot of what we discuss last night for Praxis Wednesday was cleaning up our writing voice for the sake of our readers. Making things flow better so that even though its our voice, it will be easy to read. We edited our past articles as a group and found the strong points and…

What if there was more marketing education on YouTube? For last month’s module in the Praxis program, I was challenged to create and develop a project of my own choosing, I decided to make a channel and share marketing videos to whoever would search the topic on the site. Whether your a student interested in marketing, a business that wants to figure out how they can better strategize their marketing efforts, a professional who likes to learn about new things, or something else my marketing videos will help you better understand the marketing world, especially in terms of small businesses, and the psychology of how marketing works. In the youtube…

My module group was challenged last night to look at another person’s blog post and try to identify a personal brand that goes with it. Even if the challenge didn’t go as I would’ve wished it was a good challenge and made me think more about how I can better present some of the same ideas. My hope going forward is that beyond just writing about things that are true to my brands, that my tone and style would match that brand. I want to be careful as I develop my brand in that I’m true to myself, but that I’m also presenting the best content that I can. Personal branding…

Ever questioned something and not known how to prove any view to be correct? This is how I came to find truth in Christianity but I’ve since realized that it can apply to many areas of life. For instance, in a job, you might feel there’s a better way to do something, but thinking through the process of what makes a system work could reveal why it’s been used, or perhaps why it shouldn’t be used after all. I’ve realized before that sometimes I need to go about figuring out why other people think I’m wrong about something, and often it leads me to have an even firmer, though more…