TMT011 - What a burden waking up is

Listen to Episode 11 of The Matt Trick in the player above or download it.

Camilla bouncing around

Raise your hands if you pull Matt Tricks!

Cute baby's can pull Matt Tricks too!
(even if in their diapers)

The Matt Trick

Check out the Morning Routine app for android or the Barcode Alarm app for iPhone. These allow you to program in a barcode, like off your tub of toothpaste or anything, as the trigger to turn off your alarm. You can also set up a routine with a series of steps you do in the morning to turn off alarms. For example, 5:30 alarm rings, scan toothpaste, podcast app opens (listen to podcasts while getting ready), 5:45 alarm rings, silence alarm in office, personal prayer/meditation, 5:55 alarm rings, reading app opens, 6:15 alarm rings, calander/todo list opens, etc. you get the idea!

I even thought it might be a fun challenge to have one sequence step trigger be a barcode a mile down the road on a telephone pole I have to run to, but I haven't done that...yet.

Goal Line

OhLife has been okay this week. I was 100% in writing each day, but as far as recording anything interesting: meh. Even using the prompt “How have I seen the hand of God in my life today,” I still don’t think I wrote anything that great half the days, though I did always have something to write, which was good.

I guess this is something that really takes time to develop. Elder Eyering, in his talk that I mentioned last week, said that his eyes really opened up over time of writing in his journal and recording the blessings in his life. So I’ll continue receiving and replying to my OhLife.com emails and over time we’ll see how things develop.

I ran my longest distance ever this week of 16 miles. And even more, I did it on a work day and went to work afterwards AND DIDN’T DIE!! But it was close.

I’m not going to add any new goals, but I’ll just keep using my morning routine app and trying to get to bed on time. I feel like I’ve setup some great habits or at least they’re forming, so I want to keep those going.

Matt-spiration Moment

Last April in LDS General Conference, Elder David Bednar told a story about a husband and wife. Though the wife was skeptical, the man wanted to buy a four-wheel-drive truck. He even appealed to his wife saying, “Honey, what if there’s a terrible snow storm, and we have to get milk for the children, and the only way we could make it would be in a four-wheel-drive truck!” Teasingly the wife responded, “If we buy a truck, we won’t be able to afford milk, in stormy or fair weather!”

After further counseling together, they decided to buy the truck. Wanting to show his wife how useful and manly the truck was, he drove up to the mountains to chop and bring home some firewood. Though it hadn’t snowed down in town, there was a considerable amount of snow up in the mountains. The truck responded well in four-wheel-drive, but the man pressed his luck a little too far down the rough trail and got stuck in the snow on the side of the road and was unable to get himself out.

He thought while he was there, he might as well chop and stack the firewood into the back of his truck as he had planned. After completely filling his truck with the heavy load, he tried once more to unstick his truck. This time as he gently eased down on his gas pedal, the truck moved slowly forward through the snow and eventually back onto the road.

Quoting Elder Bednar as he draws the conclusion from the story:

It was the load. It was the load of wood that provided the traction necessary for him to get out of the snow, to get back on the road, and to move forward. It was the load that enabled him to return to his family and his home.

Reflecting on this story makes me think about the loads and burdens that I have in my life right now--my trials, my weaknesses, my responsibilities with work, school, family, and church. And while I often feel like I’ve got too much on my plate and a to-do list with items dating back from more than a year ago, it’s this load that helps us to move forward and progress.

Now think about what truly brings us happiness. Not the fleeting bursts of dopamine that our brains get when we bite into a candy bar or when we get a notification that someone “likes” our witty comment on Facebook. If happiness were just a balance of chemicals in the brain, then it seems like the most efficient way to happiness would be to simply keep a steady drip of heroin at a non-lethal dosage. That would keep the happy juice flowing through the brain, right? But it would be vain and empty feeling with no real satisfaction. (side note: drugs are icky and bad and don't do them, like evah, k?)

No, the only way to get meaningful satisfaction and happiness out of life is through personal progression. The making and keeping of goals. Accomplishing tasks even though they’re hard and solving problems without looking at the answers in the back of the book. Fulfilling our responsibilities and serving others brings true fulfillment to our lives. If I were a little more prepared, I could probably cite some kind of study that links happiness to people who accomplished things when compared to people who played video games and updated their Facebook status too much.

But none of these things come freely. They all require effort. They all require the "pulling of a load." But like the story of the man in his 4x4 hauling firewood, the load provides the traction necessary for progression. Without the load, we’d just be spinning our tires unable to make any progress which brings true satisfaction and happiness. Without the load, we might as well check into psych wing at the hospital and ask for the happy pills. (side note again: drugs are still icky and don't do them).

Even though trials and work are necessary for our growth, sometimes the responsibilities of life pile on and push us to the breaking point. Our regular responsibilities get to be too much when combined with trials, personal weaknesses we have to overcome, perhaps personal tragedy, or other life events. At these times, we need to realize that we don’t have to pull the load alone. We only need look to the Savior, Jesus Christ.

In the New Testament he invites:

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).

Quoting again from Elder Bednar’s conference talk:

In essence, the Savior is beckoning us to rely upon and pull together with Him, even though our best efforts are not equal to and cannot be compared with His. As we trust in and pull our load with Him during the journey of mortality, truly His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

We are not and never need be alone. We can press forward in our daily lives with heavenly help. Through the Savior’s Atonement we can receive capacity and “strength beyond [our] own” (“Lord, I Would Follow Thee,” Hymns, no. 220). As the Lord declared, “Therefore, continue your journey and let your hearts rejoice; for behold, and lo, I am with you even unto the end” (D&C 100:12).

When we’re pulling with the Lord and Master of all earth and skies, we’ll never stumble and fall. If we rely upon his grace and do our best to follow his commandments, He’ll never let our loads become more than we can shoulder. He may not take the burdens away, because like I mentioned above, we need those burdens to provide growth, progress, satisfaction, and in the end happiness. But we can take comfort that the load, at least with His help, will always move us forward towards our end goal, back to Him.

TMT010 - Oh Life, how can I record you?

Listen to Episode 10 of The Matt Trick in the player above or download it.

Oliver and Camilla pulling a Matt Trick

Oliver assisting in T-Shirt design

The Matt Trick

OhLife.com is a great way to get an email every day, or every week, or whenever you want to remind you to write in your journal. To create a journal entry, simply reply to the email. Super simple and convenient. No more excuses for not doing it! You can even attach pictures. Totally free, and totally awesome.

The Five Minute Journal provides some excellent prompts for what to fill your OhLife journal with. Or you can pony up and buy a nice looking hard cover journal from them too, I guess.

Goal Line

I've set OhLife to send me an email every day this week. I want to respond to it and create a journal entry every day this week. I'll probably bring it back down to once every week (which I've been doing for the past few years) but this one week, I'll try every day. I'll write using the prompts in the Five Minute Journal, or the prompt I reference in the Matt-spirational Moment below.

Matt-spiration Moment

Right now, up at Thunder Mountain near Provo, UT, my extended family is all together at the Bert N. Whitney Annual Family Reunion. These reunions have been happening longer than I have been alive and they've been regularly up at Thunder Mountain for about twenty years now. One thing my Aunts have helped us keep at high priority is Family History. And much of that family history comes from personal journals and accounts of our ancestors. And when I say ancestors, it's not just people from 20 generations back boarding the Mayflower or something far removed that I might have trouble relating to, but stories from my parents' and grandparents' lives. I'm grateful to have these stories and this history from my family to enjoy and reread and share with my children throughout my life.

One such story that my kids have enjoyed hearing is about an outing that my grandpa, Bert Whitney, took his five older children on one June in 1960. My grandma, Ann Whitney who was pregnant, stayed home with the baby and toddler. The outing was to Red Rock Canyon to climb a mountain and catch a glimpse of "Hidden Lake." This being the Mojave Desert in Southern Nevada, seeing water must have been a special treat for the family. During the hike, my dad, age 9, and his brother Clark, age 7, went on ahead of the pack. Even with careful warnings and instructions from my Grandpa, the boys didn't find the right spot, so they started climb back down. But the descent was steep and the sandstone was slippery. My dad stepped on a rock ledge that crumbled and broke, and as he tumbled down the side of the mountain, he yelled, "This is the end of meeeee."

Everything turned out alright in the end and my dad was helicoptered away to get his broken leg patched up. My poor grandma was left in the dark wondering where her family was, since even though my grandpa asked the sheriff to contact her, somehow the task was overlooked, but she eventually learned about the incident on the evening news. But my dad came out okay. His picture appeared in the paper and he was even the centerpiece of a parade with his cast later that summer.

So what if there was no record of this? The only thing I knew about this story before I read about it in one of the books my Aunts put together is that my dad would jokingly talk about “the time I fell off the cliff.”

Henry B. Eyering, an apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, tells of a habit he acquired when his children were young. One time his father rendered a significant service to his young family, though he easily could have left it undone, or even at least had it delegated to someone else. In Elder Eyering’s own words:

“...thinking of what he was doing for us, and just as I got to the door, I heard in my mind—not in my own voice—these words: 'I’m not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down.'  

Continuing on he says,

“I wrote down a few lines every day for years. I never missed a day no matter how tired I was or how early I would have to start the next day. Before I would write, I would ponder this question: ‘Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?’ As I kept at it, something began to happen. As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done.”

He taught that as he continued in this habit of journal writing, he grew an attitude of gratitude and was ever able to see God blessing his family and that their prayers were always heard and answered. As his children grew, he continued writing without missing a day. And to show from it, he was able to publish a copy of the journal for each of his children who, now as adults, will surprise him by saying things like, “Dad, I was reading the journal and remember that time…”

The experiences we have in this life are meant to test us, teach us, and help us grow. But the experiences are not just for us. By writing them down in a habit of daily journaling, we are creating a record that can be cherished by our families, perhaps even for generations to come.

Most of us spend plenty of time writing down silly things on Facebook for our “friends” to see like, “LOL, feel fat after eating bacon samwhich, #omnomnom”. Doesn’t it make more sense to record things of a little bit more significance in a medium slightly more enduring? And as you take time to reflect and write, thinking along the lines of prompts such as, “How has the hand of God touched my life today?” or any of the other prompts in the Five Minute Journal, you’ll feel a deeper sense of gratitude and love for life. That life will be better and more richly lived, and your family will benefit from your experiences as well.

TMT009 - Cut Your Phone Bill and Stay Charged

Listen to Episode 9 of The Matt Trick in the player above or download it.

I've got some new Amazon links on the side. If you buy anything or sign up for anything on Amazon after clicking through one of my links, I'll get referral credit for it, so you can support The Matt Trick that way! Also, I found a referral link for YNAB from a few weeks ago podcast, so if you wish to buy it, you can get a discount and you'll support The Matt Trick at the same time.

If you've been enjoying this podcast, please recommend it to someone! If you've learned something from a Matt Trick episode, tell someone about it so they can pull a Matt Trick too! Also, if you feel so inclined, please rate my podcast favorably and leave me some nice words in iTunes to help me get discovered.

Just Swinging Around

The Matt Trick

Yeah, you really can have a cell phone plan this cheap

I interview my friend from school, Cody Diehl, about the phone service Republic Wireless. After buying either the Moto X for $300 or the Moto G for $150 (both very capable and slick Android phones) you can sign up for one of the plans above. Seriously. Unlimited for $10. Add data for a total of $25. Cody tells me in the interview how great they are. I've been using it for less than a week, but I've been coveting this for far longer.

If you do sign up, you can get $20 off by using my referral link and it will also throw me a referral credit to help support The Matt Trick podcast. I think you can also get a free Chromecast for a limited time, so now's the time to jump on it for sure.

Here's the uncut video of our interview. I didn't do a good job setting up the video call, so it's just a video of Cody, but he's a good looking guy, easy on the eyes.

Goal Line

The Goal Line page is up, which makes last week's goal complete. For this week, I want to focus on early to rise and early to bed, which have been my biggest failures here at the Goal Line so far. So every night this week (um, except for Sunday which I'm staying up late finishing the podcast) I want to be in bed by 10pm, and every morning I want to wake up by 5:30. No excuses! I'm focusing on it and I have the personalized Goal Line page to prove it!

Matt-spiration Moment

If you’re like most people, you plug your phone in everyday, sometimes multiple times a day. Perhaps you have to juggle the charging of several devices besides your phone, like tablets, kindles, ipads, laptops, and the like. Making sure our devices are well charged has become such a part of our culture that there are entire product lines of devices to make charging more convenient or more portable. At airports, there are charging stations with travelers crowded around waiting their turn to plug in.

We’re slaves to low battery alert! And yet, what would happen if we ignored it? Our expensive hand-held, pocket-sized computer which normally has the capability to know the whole of human knowledge and history or communicate with anyone anywhere on the entire planet would turn into a very shiny doorstop. And heck with the whole of human knowledge, we need that fancy device to argue with strangers and watch videos of cats! It must remain charged, and darn it, I’ll divert my daily schedule to sit at my desk and plug it in for an hour if I have to!

But what about ourselves? What about our bodies, or our minds, or spirits? How often do we take the time for ourselves to recharge? Randall L Ridd in April 2014 LDS General Conference makes this observation:

...if you don’t regularly recharge your cell phone, it is useless, and you feel lost and out of touch. You wouldn’t think of going a single day without charging your battery.

As important as it is to leave home every day with a full charge on your cell phone, it is far more important to be fully charged spiritually. Every time you plug in your phone, use it as a reminder to ask yourself if you have plugged in to the most important source of spiritual power—prayer and scripture study, which will charge you with inspiration …

Taking time for yourself to allow for a recharge should be much higher on our priority list than any of our devices, but if you don’t make the time out of your busy schedule to do these important, yet seemingly non-urgent things, you’ll suffer in the long run.

Taking the time to stay active is necessary to recharge your body, especially if you’re a lazy engineer like me who is inclined to compulsively play video games and watch The Simpsons and Doctor Who if left to my own devices. Regularly scheduled times with long and short term goals can be the commitment devices you need to overcome the inertia. Friends are great too.

Keeping your mind sharp is important too for keeping charged. It’s easy to fill your unwinding time in the evenings with “veging out” sort of activities. That’s what my smart phone is best at! But filling my spare time with good hobbies, though a bit more difficult, is far more satisfying. For me, I’ve enjoyed reading the books for the Summer Bingo Challenge, grabbing the guitar and singing with Megan, or recording podcasts that few people will ever listen to. Sure there is a time and a place to snuggle in bed and watch Sherlock, but keeping the mind charged with better hobbies should take priority.

And of course, as with the Randall L Ridd quote I read before, charging your spirit is of utmost importance. Take time for personal introspection, think inwardly on yourself on how to improve. Put yourself in daily scripture study or self-improvement reading as well as personal prayer and meditation. Use your cell phone as a reminder. When you plug in to charge, ask yourself when you last took the time to plug in and charge yourself. When was the last time you plugged into the real source of power to keep your personal batteries charged, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

TMT008 - Parent Like An Economist

Listen to Episode 8 of The Matt Trick in the player above or download it.

If you've been enjoying this podcast, please recommend it to someone! If you've learned something from a Matt Trick episode, tell someone about it so they can pull a Matt Trick too! Also, if you feel so inclined, please rate my podcast favorably and leave me some nice words in iTunes to help me get discovered.

That's one big zucchini, baby!

The Matt Trick

Kids aren't as bad as everyone says they right?
I mean, I see cute kids on Facebook everyday!

For the Matt Trick, I introduce a few points from economics on parenting. I know when you seek advice on parenting, you probably don't think about asking an economist. In fact, you probably run from any economists in the vicinity. By I really enjoyed many of the points Bryan Caplan makes in his book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids.

He gave a great interview about the above book a few years ago on Econtalk. Check it out the next time you have an hour's worth of yard work to do. It will help pass the time in between pulling weeds and finding infant-sized zucchinis.

Caplan, as well as many other parent-economists, can also be heard in an episode of the Freakonomics podcast aptly called The Economist's Guide to Parenting.

My biggest take away? Parenting doesn't have to be as expensive (in terms of money, time, and energy) as the world makes it seem. Studies show that it's not what you do to your kids, like spending lots of money on expensive schools, summer camps, violin lessons, and the like, but it's who you are that largely determines how your kids will turn out. Also, the biggest way to positively impact your children for years to come is to build a strong loving relationship with them.

Goal Line

It's not done yet, but I will have a page up by next week that shows different goals I've made and their status of how I'm doing. This way I can be better held accountable and more focused. Also, setting a new goal every week is becoming too much. I'll use this Goal Line page to determine where to expend my energy, which goals to drop, and if I even need a new goal in a coming week.

Matt-spiration Moment

Let me tell you a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it. Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.  

Sometimes we have expectations. These expectations can be for ourselves, or they can be for what we expect others to do. Other people can have expectations also--expectations for what we will achieve or what they think we would have them achieve. And if there is not effective communication, no one will meet anybody’s expectations and we’ll all end up with Everybody blaming Somebody with Nobody doing what Anybody could do.

Megan has been reading and listening to a man named Larry Kerby on parenting. He’s an author and speaker with a small following on Facebook and YouTube. In one of his videos that Megan had me watch the other day, he talks about the “definition of done.” This is something we’ve become frustrated over with Oliver and Camilla. When we ask them to clean up the blocks, our expectation is that the blocks are picked up, in their bin with the lid on, and the bin gets placed on the shelf. Their expectation, however, is that they pick up most of the blocks from the center of the room and then go and eat a cheese stick. These expectation do not match, and somebody is inevitably going to be disappointed. But we found that by communicating our expectations ahead of time and asking them questions like, “What will the room look like when your job is done?" "Where will the blocks be when they’re put away?" "What is your definition of complete?” we can come to equal expectations and get better results with less fighting.

But this isn’t just a parenting technique. This is a communication skill. Communication which is necessary for any relationship, with a spouse, within professional environments, church, society, politics, etc. If others know what we expect, and equally we know what they expect, then together we can all move towards a common goal and know what it will look like when we arrive there. 

In the Gospel, Christ makes it clear repeatedly what is we are supposed to do in this life. He gives us His commandments, He shows us His example, gives us numerous stories and parables to teach us to love one another, love God and our neighbor as ourselves, search the scriptures, pray always, share the gospel with those around us, repent often, and become our best selves by working our hardest towards the goal of perfection everyday. And even better than communicating his expectations with us, he lets us know what we can expect from Him: if we do our part, His atonement will fill in our shortcomings and we can be forgiven and become perfected in Him. He is constant, consistent, and perfectly clear in His expectations. There is never any question of which part is ours and which part is His.

Let’s try harder to build stronger relationships by clear communication and consistency with expectations. All of our relationships stand to benefit: our families, our social circles, our employment relationships, and most importantly, our relationship with the Savior, Jesus Christ.

TMT007 - When Things Get Scarce

Listen to Episode 7 of The Matt Trick in the player above or download it.

If you've been enjoying this podcast, please recommend it to someone! If you've learned something from a Matt Trick episode, tell someone about it so they can pull a Matt Trick too! Everyone loves shameless plugs on Facebook, right? ;)

*UPDATE* If you purchase YNAB on my recommendation, support The Matt Trick by using my referral link for a $6 discount!

The Matt Trick

You Need A Budget
(who doesn't, right?)

For the Matt Trick, I introduce the budgeting tool Megan and I use called You Need A Budget, or YNAB for short. I go through the four rules that make YNAB so great:

1. Give every dollar a job.
2. Plan for bigger less frequent expenses.
3. Roll with the punches.
4. Learn to live on last month's income (stop living paycheck to paycheck). 

I am not affiliated in any way shape or form with YNAB (beyond referral credit) and I don't personally know Jesse Mecham, the founder and president of YNAB. I just really like his software. You can learn the basics of how to use it by watching the videos on his YouTube channel, get some other good tips listening to the YNAB podcast, and download a 34 day free trial at the YNAB website.

If you purchase YNAB on my recommendation, support The Matt Trick by using my referral link for a $6 discount!

Also checkout the YNAB apps for iPhone and Android.

Goal Line

In order to effectively use YNAB, you have to regularly input your purchases and check your categories. Lately I've been getting to YNAB and syncing things about once a month...maybe. So my goal this month is to visit the budget at least once a week on my phone and check the budget categories before making purchases to avoid overspending.

Matt-spiration Moment

I’ve gotten into economics as a hobby over the past few years. And not so much economics as in GDP, labor and money in a nation, you know, economics of how an economy works. But in a more personal, behavioral way. And generalized from not just money, but the ways we allocate all kinds of resources. And this is, at its heart, what interests me about econ. It is understanding the underlying incentives of how people behave in a world of infinite human wants but only a finite amount of resources. And economics is how we rationally prioritize those resources and wants so that we get the most net fulfillment out of life.

This idea of limited resources in economics is called scarcity. Scarcity has the connotation of being a bad thing. It sounds like we’re going to run out of something like in a food shortage or energy crisis. Or that something is difficult to find like the spotted purple wood finch needs to be on the protected species list. But really, the idea of something being limited and finite is not a bad thing. In fact, it makes us more efficient and innovative in the use of our resources. Think about your kids, or when you were a kid. Because they don’t pay the electric or water bills, they leave the lights on and the water running. To them, the resources are never ending without limit or price. And I was the same way. Until I went to college and had to pay my own bills and my money was very scarce. Then I very much learned to make wasting electricity in my college apartment scarce as well.

Speaking of money, scarcity is what make rule #1 work in YNAB, giving every dollar a job. When you first get your paycheck deposited, there’s a ton of money in your account and it seems as though it were unlimited. So you do the shopping, go out to dinner, maybe make a few splurges. But then when it comes time to pay rent, light, heat, and whatever else, the paycheck just doesn't cover it. By giving every incoming dollar a job in your budget before you spend it, you know exactly how much money you have to spend on each item, including fun stuff. And when the money for a category is running low, that scarcity drives you to innovate and get creative to make things work, or realize that you can go without. And by doing so, you aren’t left eating dog food to help you make it the next paycheck, or worse, racking up credit card debt.

Debt can be a scarcity trap of its own. When you have the so-called “freedom” to spend on credit, the spending can seem unlimited with the time for payment due too far away to seem real. Similarly student loan debt continues to rise as universities have figured out that they can charge whatever they want without innovation or cuts to keep their operations efficient, because students will simply borrow more money from a seemingly endless supply of student loans. But the money is not in endless supply and it must be paid back over time, along with interest.

Perhaps the most interesting personal resource of all we have to allocate in this life is our time. I say interesting because each person in this life, rich or poor, has the same 24 hours in a day. But we each choose how to spend that time. When the deadline of a big project is far away in time, why is it so hard to get started? Perhaps because the seemingly limitless amount of time makes it easy to push off to another day, while we can spend today looking at Facebook and videos of cats. But you can bet that when time becomes scarce, we are suddenly able to complete an amazing amount in the last minute. After all, if it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would ever get done, right?

To avoid this scarcity trap with time, we need to do something similar to what we did with our You Need A Budget budget. That is, give every dollar a job, or make a plan to do the things you need to get done. In Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he presents a four quadrant diagram of Urgent vs Important activities. The four quadrants of the diagram are urgent and important, not urgent but still important, urgent but not important, and not urgent nor important. Our activities can fit into these four quadrants. Urgent and important things might be something like a looming deadline, a crying baby, or some other crisis. Important non-urgent activities could be personal improvement, exercise, long term projects or goals, financial planning, or recreation. Non-important urgencies are interruptions like text-messages, phone calls, facebook updates, emails, and other time wasters that give an illusion of us getting things done, but really don’t move us toward any of our goals. I have to be careful not to trick myself with these, because it feels really good to compulsively get these things done. And then the non-important, non-urgent brain vegetating activities like television, video games, YouTube, The Simpsons, Mega Man, Doctor Who reruns, etc.

If we have the impression that time is not scarce, we’ll spend too much of it in those non-important quadrants and only get to the important things as they fall into the urgent category, getting them done at the last minute. Our goal should be to schedule time (or give those minutes a job) to get those non-urgent yet important things done. I mean, that personal memoir of yours isn’t going to write itself, right? I’m finding this especially true with my miracle mornings and my long runs. If I don’t wake up early to make time for my personal time  to pray, meditate, read, and write, it’s not getting done. And if I don’t schedule my long runs for 4:30 on a Saturday morning and tell my wife and running friends about it (you see what I did there with the commitment device) that’s certainly not going to make time for itself. By creating scarcity for the non-urgent activities, or setting up a finite time where we can focus on them without distraction, we’ll find ourselves more productive, happier, and running around less like a chicken with its head cut off.

The time we have in this life is precious and finite. Don’t we want to fill it with the best things possible? By utilizing scarcity to our advantage, we can be better stewards of our resources-- of our money, our time, and our energy. We can obtain the greatest amount of utility from what we have, that’s econ speak for get the biggest bang for our buck. And in our lives where it seems like time is only ever speeding up, this should be our ultimate goal: to do the most good and to get the most out of our time here on earth.

TMT006 - Lucky Love

Listen to the Episode 6 of The Matt Trick or download it.

Because of the holiday week (too much fun, not enough time) and because today is my and Megan's 7th anniversary, here is a special edition of the Matt Trick. Last week a friend of ours asked us to perform Lucky I'm In Love by Jason Mraz for her wedding. It went well enough that we thought it'd be fun to record it. Here is our (less than professional) performance. Enjoy!

TMT005 - Fatness Without the Muumuu

Listen to Episode 5 of The Matt Trick in the player above or download it.

If you've been enjoying this podcast, please recommend it to someone! If you've learned something from a Matt Trick episode, tell someone about it so they can pull a Matt Trick too! Everyone loves shameless plugs on Facebook, right? ;)

The Matt Trick

Free your endorphins!

For the Matt Trick, I do a field review of my favorite running app (heavy breathing included). They have a free version, a paid version, a monthly subscription version. I don't pay the monthly subscription, but I've owned the Pro version of the app for about three years now.


I've continued to use it over time because of the great statistics that are available from the web interface. They also have excellent social tools. If you start using Endomondo, you should add me as a friend so we can give each other running motivation. Just make sure you tweak the privacy settings to suit your needs as you can share a map of your runs with your friends.

Goal Line

Going to bed by 10:00 pm. With or without underpants on my head.

Hal Elrod's podcast where he rehashes some of the fundamentals of the Miracle Morning.

The Marathon Training Academy where I recently purchased a Marathon Training plan to guide me on my way to upping my mileage.

In order to help me with my Miracle Morning and also with my marathon training, I want to be in bed every night for the next two weeks by 10:00 pm. Exceptions being when I'm out with the family or on a date with Megan.

Matt-spiration Moment

Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy...feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness. 

2 Nephi 2: 51 from the Book of Mormon.

Last week I spoke about good habits, how even if they are simple and small things, when performed regularly over long periods of time, can amount to a meaningful result. Just like Albus Dumberdore’s long hair and silvery beard which are truly magnificent, but took ages and ages to grow. I want to continue this train of thought for the Mattspiration today.

Growing up, throughout high school, middle school, and probably elementary too, I didn’t have much spendable cash like most kids. But I did have plenty of spendable time. And the two things that I spent my time on more than anything else were playing Nintendo and watching reruns of the Simpsons.

Now like I said last week, small and simple things everyday can amount to great things over time. Well, by the time I graduated high school, I could recall pretty much recall any episode of the Simpsons up to season 10 (because after season 10 it just wasn’t the same anymore). I also realized the fruit of my time investment one afternoon post graduation. I was killing time with a friend in my parents basement playing my favorite old Nintendo game, Mega Man 2. As I directed Mega Man from platform to platform perfectly avoiding every obstacle, I eliminated every bad guy as I predicted their every move from the many hours I’d invested into my favorite game. My friend dropped his jaw in amazement and said, “Wow, you’re really good at this game.” I kind of sighed and replied, “Yes I am, but it’s not something I’m proud of, all those wasted hours it took to become this good.”

In the end, the ability to quote a decade of Simpsons or beat Mega Man in under an hour did not help in any useful way in my life. You could say I’d spent my time and labor on something that couldn’t satisfy me. I still struggle with harmful compulsive tendencies that claw for my time and attention but add no net worth to my life, like compulsively checking Facebook, or since I started this podcast compulsively checking to see if I have any new subscribers, or religiously reading politics websites and polls for how the next election might turn out, or checking out new features on a super expensive phone that just came out that I might be able to afford used on ebay in a year...but like filling my life with Mega Man and Homer Simpson, these things will only leave me unsatisfied and wanting something more real.

So what do we do? How do we “delight in fatness” as the scripture says, without needing to go out and buy and Homer sized muumuu? Evaluate how you spend your time --if it is on things that are building you up and making you the person that you want to become, or if they are simply thoughtless habits that cannot satisfy. Make personal time for personal prayer and meditation to nourish your soul. Make time for good reading that feeds your mind and commit to lifelong learning and self-improvement. You could always join the Summer Reading Bingo Facebook group I set up in the second episode or make a commitment device like I mentioned in the last episode to commit yourself to something new, if you’re looking for more good things to fill your life with. But most importantly, I think, is to invest in serving those around you and building stronger personal relationships with those people in your life that you love.

In Matthew in the New Testament, Christ says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also” (Matthew 6:21). I think a good indication of what you regard as your “treasure” is how you spend your time. And I decided a while back that I didn’t want my heart to be held by any Japanese video game or a fat guy cartoon character, but that I would rather feast on the things that make this life good and delight in the fatness of a life well spent.

The Matt Trick Episode 4 - The $500 Diet

Listen to Episode 4 of The Matt Trick in the player above or download it.

Make sure and check out the poll in the sidebar---------->

Here is a PDF of The Miracle Morning for Kids that I made for Oliver and Camilla.

Your hair grows everyday. Oliver's curly hair is proof.

The Matt Trick

Ian Ayers website - Here you can see all kinds of information about his research, including a 40 minute presentation he gave about incentives to keep your goals.

Stickk.com - Ian's website where you can setup a contract with Future You.

The $500 Diet by Ian Ayers on Amazon.

Carrots and Sticks by Ian Ayers on Amazon.

Commitment Devices on the Freakonomics Podcast.

Goal Line

I was thinking of using the $500 Diet to commit myself to get out and do my long runs each week. It’s been difficult to find the time (and energy) on my weekends to go run for 2 hours, and then to be physically drained for the rest of the weekend after my long run. These long runs are necessary though if I want to run a marathon this fall, which has been a tentative goal of mine.

But I think I’ve come up with a more practical commitment device for me this week though. I up and registered for the New Hampshire Marathon on October 4th in Bristol, NH. The registration cost about $60 after fees, so there’s financial incentive to make it to race day. I don’t need a referee because the money is spent and is non-refundable. I’ll post the news all over Facebook and in my Running Group on FB, I’ll tell all my friends at church and work so that it will add the cost of embarrassment if I bow out. And I’m telling all of you so you can hold me to my goal.

http://www.nhmarathon.com/ - if you feel so inclined to come and run with me.

Matt-spiration Moment

It is our choices that show what
we truly are, far more than our abilities.

By small and simple things are great things brought to pass. Alma 37:26

You’re hair grows every day, though you can’t see it happen, nor are the effects noticeable from day to day. If you’re like my four-year-old son Oliver, that growth is very evident by his crazy beautiful curly hair. In that same respect, our actions, even small, if repeated daily over a significant time period can yield a meaningful result.

Each of my sisters is an excellent and accomplished musician. I took up the trombone from my sister Melanie, and growing up, I would often go to bed at night to either Martha on the piano or Becca on the harp practices for long hours. (My brother McKay was also a musician, but he played the drums and we would all get mad at him if he practiced for long hours into the night). The secret to their success wasn’t necessarily the “long hours” part, but the “often” part. No one wakes up one morning with a mastery of anything.

Throughout my life, I am amazed at the mastery and experience of people that I get to rub shoulders with. Whether it be how some of my coworkers have a suggestion for any kind of engineering problem, or how some of my friends at church are able to recall scriptures from memory for any gospel topic, or some of my running friends who are twice my age can kick my butt on their “slow days”. None of these things happened overnight, and certainly none of them happened by accident either, but through constant, simple, effort over time.

Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said, “We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day” (Scott). If you want to be the kind of person who is great at music, put yourself in it everyday. If you want a close relationship with Christ, put yourself in prayer and scripture study every day. Not a huge chunks of time, but consistent effort will yield results. The same goes for anything-- running, math, relationships-- each of these things require an investment over time. (By the way if you’re having trouble committing to an everyday sort of habit, you might try a commitment device like the $500 diet!)

Unfortunately, this idea can work negatively too. Life destroying addictions begin with bad habits which had to have begun with a first bad decision. No married person decides in a day, “Marriage has been nice, but I think I’m having adultery today.” When married people claim to have fallen “out of love” it may be that they have simply failed to give their their spouse the regular and everyday sort of love and nurturing that such a relationship requires. Or maybe the marriage was poisoned slowly by pornography, unfair judgements, hurtful words, and pride. Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles observed, “An old proverb says that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, so watch your step” (Holland).

Be the kind of person you want to be by being that person everyday. Spend more time building good character traits and forming strong relationships with the people you love. Beware of spending too much time in trivial matters and stay away from bad habits that can tie you down with addiction and destroy you. Over time, the choices you make will make you the person you will become. As Albus Dumbledore said, “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” and if there’s anyone who understands how your hair grows long over time, it’s Albus Dumbledore.

The Matt Trick Episode 3 - Happy Father's Beard!

Listen to Episode 3 of The Matt Trick in the player above or download it.

The Matt Trick

Good Miracle Morning!

The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. His whole story, the Miracle Morning, and his plan to get you on it.

"Yo Pal" Hal Elrod's website about the Miracle Morning. Here he gives you enough freebies to get started on his technique to "change your life before 8AM!"

Here is Hal's interview on the Run Run Live! podcast. It's where I heard about him. The interview outlines his program and what motivated it.

Goal Line

I've been putting my toes in the water with the Miracle Morning this past month, and I have seen some results, but nothing too drastic. It's during these morning hours that I've had the time to put together this podcast, as well as do other studying and writing. However, I haven't fully committed myself and I haven't taken seriously the affirmations from the program. I've let myself slip about 40% of the mornings, mostly because of Baby Lillian waking me up in the night giving me an excuse to stay in bed when the alarm goes off :p

My goal this week is to commit to the Miracle Morning for two weeks straight. This includes the affirmations, even if I think they are a little cheesy. But we'll see who's the skeptic after two weeks straight of the miracle morning. I'll report back and let you know my results. Email me or post a comment to make a Miracle Morning goal for yourself!

Matt-spiration Moment

My dad in his bearded glory.

Since today is Father's Day, let me tell you about my dad’s beard. He’s worn it pretty much all his life and it’s part of the image that comes to mind when you think of my dad. It’s grey now but it used to be Scandinavian red, so much so that even though the hair on the top of his head used to be brown, people would refer to him as "that guy with red hair and a beard". As far as I can tell from pictures and stories, my dad has only shaved a handful of times in his life: when he served as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints, when he got married to my mom, and then about 10 years ago when I was about to graduate from High School.

At that time 10 years ago, the Stake President of the Church in my hometown (Stake President is the leader over a group of congregations in an area) called my dad into his office to extend to him an important calling to serve in the Church. From how my dad tells the story, the conversation went like this:

Stake President: Ken, do you love the Lord?
Dad: Yes of course I do.
SP: Ken, how much do you love the Lord?
D: With all my heart, with all my might, all my strength and my life. He’s given me everything and I’d do anything for Him.
SP: Ken, do you love the Lord...more than your beard?
D: Wait, huh, now hold on, who said anything about my beard, let’s not get too hasty here…

This is a cute exaggerated story, but it is true that my dad was willing to give up his beard to serve. I believe, in fact, that my dad would be willing to sacrifice anything necessary in order to serve the Lord and further his progression. (As a side note, after 5 years, my dad was released from that calling at which point he stopped shaving and grew his full beard back overnight).

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ tells two parables, first is about a man who finds a treasure in a field, sells what he has in order to go buy the field and get the treasure. Second is another man who finds and sells pearls, finds the Pearl of Great Price, and sells everything he has to get the pearl (Matthew 13:44-46).

It doesn’t matter what the price is, the cost of the Pearl or the treasure was everything--everything the way of progressing. On my first episode, I mentioned the young rich man who wasn't willing to sell his stuff to follow the Lord. His riches were in the way of his progression and he couldn't let go of them. So do we really have to give up everything? Like the seller of pearls, do we really have to sell all of what we have to obtain our Pearl of Great Price?

In the Book of Mormon, there is a missionary account from Ammon, one of the sons of Mosiah, that illustrates the idea well. Ammon is teaching the King of the Lamanites who has recently been touched by the Holy Ghost and wants to convert to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The king says, “What shall I do that I may have this eternal life of which thou hast spoken? Yea, what shall I do that I may be born of God having this wicked spirit rooted out of my breast, and receive his Spirit, that I may be filled with joy, that I may not be cast off at the last day? Behold I will give up all that I possesss, yea I will forsake my kingdom that I may receive this great joy." (Alma 22:15-16 , emphasis added).

Ammon responded that he didn't have to do that, but only had to give up his sins, "call upon God in faith believing that [he should] receive," then he would receive everything that he was hoping for.

We don’t have to give up everything for the Lord, just anything that’s in our way from progressing. Our sins, addictions, and pride. We can also give up our sorrows and pains as the atonement of Christ can take all of these from us. And like the man seeking the Pearl of Great Price, we have to be willing to sacrifice it all if we are to progress to our fullest potential.

The Matt Trick Episode 2 - Summer Reading

Listen to Episode 2 of The Matt Trick in the player above or download it.

Get the bingo card here, join the Summer Reading facebook group here.

Princess Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!

The Matt Trick

http://www.thekindlechronicles.com/, The Friday Podcast all about your Kindle, by Len Edgerly
http://www.ereaderiq.com/, A website for tracking ebook prices
I mentioned Send to Kindle, Readability, Instapaper, and Read it Later (or Pocket) all which have features for sending webpages to your kindle. I think they all have Android or Iphone versions too.

Here's some links on how I rooted my Kindle Fire HD 7". PLEASE NOTE that when you mess with this stuff you void the warranty and can potentially permanently damage your device. So don't say I didn't warn you. I got all of the instructions from androidcowboy.com.

Root
Load Google Play
Load Alternative Launcher

Android Cowboy has pretty easy guides but I still got hung up getting all of the Google Apps to work right, especially Gmail. In the end I got it to work acceptably well.

Other Links:
Download a kindle app for most any phone or tablet.

My favorite reader, the Kindle Paperwhite, to read books.

Goal Line

Join the Matt Trick Summer Reading Group! Print out a bingo card provided by Books on the Nightstand. Print out the bingo card, join the facebook group, and find something to read! Prizes to anyone who completes a bingo, special prizes to the first three bingos, and EXTRA special prizes to anyone who gets blackout. You must post your bingos on the facebook group to win.

Matt-spiration Moment

Let me tell you about my favorite pen. This pen isn’t expensive or fancy. It doesn’t have multicolored ink or gelly grips or other bells and whistles that would make it stand out. In fact, I got this pen for free from a TD Bank. I used to grab a couple of pens every time I would go in there. A few months ago, I closed my checking account at TD because I didn’t like the fees they were charging, but on the way out, I was sure to fill my pockets with many of these amazing pens.

You know what’s spectacular about this pen? It works. Every time I put this pen to paper, it writes. Even on the annoying special clean room approved paper that I have to use at work, it writes. And it writes consistently and accurately. I don’t have to scribble for a few seconds every time. It doesn’t pool or puddle ink in blobs at the beginning of words. It doesn’t whine, complain, or talk back. It doesn’t first give me its opinion on what it thinks I should be writing, but it writes down what I want written every time I touch the page.

Let me contrast that with my four-year old, Oliver. Oliver, though he is brilliant, picks up things amazingly quick, reads like a first-grader, and sings like an angel, he is no TD Bank pen. When the New England snow had receded this Spring, I went out to do some cleaning in the yard. Oliver got really excited to come and help me. Great I thought! He could do some of the easier stuff like picking up leaves and sticks or finding little weeds and pulling them up. So I explained to him what I wanted him to do and demonstrated how to do it. Then I went to dethatch the lawn. When I began my work, he immediately dropped his first leaf that he picked up and ran over to take the thatcher out of my hands! “No,” I said, “I’m going to thatch. I want you to pick up leaves and sticks.”

So he picked up two or three leaves, then started dancing around, picked up a stick, tried to sword fight me with the thatcher in my hand, stood right in the way of where I was to be working, and proceeded to jabber at me until my head spun! No amount of reminding, prodding, or threatening could get him to pick up more than a few leaves at a time before not only becoming distracted from his own work, but keeping me from my work with his light saber sticks or his dance moves. Knowing that my yard work time was limited, I thanked him for the help and told him to go play somewhere else!

I obviously don’t want a pen for a son, but there’s something to be learned from these examples. In the Book of Mormon, there are some fantastic accounts of missionary work from the sons of King Mosiah. It describes these men as having sought the Spirit of the Lord through fasting and prayer “that they might be an instrument in the hands of the Lord” (Alma 17:9). As instruments of the Lord, they converted the better part of a nation that was otherwise hostile towards them, to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The sons of King Mosiah were less like my preschooler Oliver and more like my TD Bank pen. When the Lord needed them to serve they went immediately and obediently without question or complaint.

President Thomas S. Monson of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints often talks of times when he acted on a prompting, an impression, or a thought and he found himself able to be the answer to someone else’s prayer. On one such occasion while he was exercising, he felt impressed to visit a friend at the hospital who was confined to a wheelchair. He immediately got dressed and went. When he arrived at his friend’s room, his friend wasn’t there but the nurse directed him to the hospital swimming pool. There he found his friend alone in his wheelchair by the edge of the pool.  They had an enjoyable visit and President Monson escorted his friend back to his room. He later learned from his friend that he had been in a deep depression from his illness and had been considering taking his life that day. President Monson had arrived at a critical moment in response to the Heaven-sent inspiration. His friend later recovered and lived many more happy years. (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/10/consider-the-blessings?lang=eng)

If we are to be an instrument in the Lord’s hand, like the sons of King Mosiah or President Monson, we need to be more like my TD Bank pen and just do what the Lord expects of us, relying on His spirit to direct us. I think about how often I’ve been directed in my life, and still, like my son Oliver when asked to pick up leaves in the yard, I just dance around procrastinating and making a distraction of myself instead of getting to work. We can do the great work Heavenly Father would have us do, and perhaps even be the answer to someone else’s prayer, being directed like an instrument in his hand, if we are willing to obey His commandments and respond to the call when it comes.