See Your Future

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Just 4 weeks into my program at Chippewa Valley Technical College there is one thing that comes to the fore front of my learning experience thus far. It is…

The Importance of Vision, Character and Personality

Vision (noun)

- the act or power of anticipating that which will or may come to be
- a vivid, imaginative conception or anticipation: visions of wealth and glory.
dictionary.com

 

Character (noun)
- what you do when people are not watching.

 

Personality (noun)
- what you do when people are watching.

 

In order to be successful in life, you have to have all these traits working in your favor. You have to take the time to evaluate yourself. Ask yourself the questions you need to in order to figure out where you are and where you want to be, so you can get to where you want to be. Where do you see yourself two years from now, five years from now or even ten years from now? If you have no idea, it is time to start spending time with yourself.

Start by evaluating yourself, evaluate your character and personality traits. What do you stand for? How is your character, are you honest? Trustworthy? Dependable? Confident? Creative? Intelligent? Easy-going? Perceptive? Spiritual? Faithful? Adventurous? Generous? Lazy? Is your personality inline with your character? Or are you a complete opposite when people are watching and when they are not? It is important to keep your personality traits and character traits as close to each other as possible. You don’t want to have to spend brain power trying to remember who you are based on where you are, do you? Why waste the energy?

Vision is also quite important. You have to see yourself with what you want. Having goals is also a part of having vision. If you don’t have goals to look forward to, what will you look forward to? Do you see yourself victorious, having achieved all your goals? See yourself having attained your victory, that is vision. You should also update your goals occasionally, so that you always having something to look toward. Having vision helps you to plan your now so that you can reach your future goals. Vision can involve work, family, hobbies, finances, where you want to live, health, faith, basically anything you want to have and how you want to have it.

 

“Where there is no vision, the people perish…” – Proverbs 29:18 KJV

 

What I found the most interesting and weird was that the instructor asked us in our assignment, “Begin with the End in Mind”, to have us think about what someone would say at our funeral. It wasn’t a handed in or graded assignment, just a suggested assignment. I figured why not I’ll do it, can’t get any more to the end of the vision than that. I suggest you try this “assignment” for yourself, see what you come up with for your funeral, weird right? This is what I came up with, with my wife’s help of course:

 

“Paul was a dedicated and loving husband and father. An enthusiastic fisherman and gamer. He had drive and determination to be successful in business and life in general. He was devoted to giving his children every opportunity to be what they wanted to be. In the things that mattered, he put his wife and children first and made sure they would benefit from his decisions. He was liked by all. There wasn’t anyone that didn’t benefit from his laughs and smiles. We will miss his humor and joy.”

 

Weird right? Now go try it!

 

By the way, school is going great. Oddly enough, I think I have more client work now then I did before I started school, guess I needed the extra challenge? It has been A LOT of late nights, but I have accomplished everything so far.
Reference:

New Year For New Things

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It is now 2012. I officially start my journey in two weeks. I feel prepared and ready to learn new things and re-learn some things that I already know.

I feel that I finished 2011 rather successfully. I completed my goal of finishing the Advanced Track of Introduction to Artificial Intelligence course offered by Stanford University. I finished with an overall grade of 60.4%, which I am actually very proud of. I didn’t quit along the way and I completed all assignments. Also, most of the information was more math intensive than anything I have been involved in for at least 15 years. I had statistics and theory coming out of my ears. I spent a few nights staying up until 3a.m. just to get my work in before it was due. In some situations I disappointed myself because I know I knew this stuff back 15 years ago and I was great at it. Now it was like I had never taken it before.

Artificial Intelligence - Ninja Web Studios - Paul

Artificial Intelligence - Ninja Web Studios - Paul

Oh don’t get me wrong, I wanted to switch to the basic course numerous times, so I could just sit back and not really learn anything and just watch the video lessons. It would have been so much easier. But I stuck it out. Like I said before, I am not a quitter, quitting is not really an option because I would have hated myself for the decision later. Ya I learned stuff that I may never use, but I have a notebook full of notes just in case. Preparation time is never wasted time, even if you don’t know when or if you will use the information. Doesn’t hurt to know too much.

So whats next? On January 16, I will begin my journey with Chippewa Valley Technical College (CVTC) in Eau Claire. Most of my classes will be online, which is great considering I am 76 miles away from campus. I really can’t wait to get started. I’m in a want to learn mode right now, that I really hope doesn’t go away. I have been teaching myself JavaScript and PHP programming, through a few different sources, for the past 2 months and am wanting to learn more. I’m sure CVTC will feed my fire. I have 5 classes coming up this semester, only 5 because I transferred a bunch of classes to CVTC from my previous schooling, which was great in saving me some money.

The courses I am enrolled in for my first semester are: Programming Fundamentals – JavaScript, IT-Programmer Analyst Exploration, Operating Systems, Web 1 – HTML/CSS and Database 1 – SQL (Structured Query Language).

Should be a fun learning experience. I just have to stay focused. I can’t let school get in the way of work or have work get in the way of school. Organization is key and have to try my best to stick to some sort of schedule. Usually I only stay up late to do whatever I want to do, not doing what I have to do. But, if I have to stay up until 3a.m. to get things done at least I know that I can, thanks to the Stanford course.