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Good Stuff Saturday - Zen Parenting Edition

Rob Orr — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 18:32:05 +0000

Wow! What a week. So much stuff got done and so many good things coming. Are you ready for the weekend? Yeah, me too. My daughter was on spring break this week, and she had a blast.

I just wish I would have been able to spend more time with her, as I had to work all week.

This week's collection of good stuff is rather eclectic. Stories about art, parenting and productivity cover all corners of the spectrum. My favorite is a post by Leo Babauta about parenting. It's just flat awesome.

Dig in, and let me know what you found this week that was awesome in the comments.

Friday Afternoon Inspiration Spring Baseball Edition

Rob Orr — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:55:48 +0000

Two things that you need to be to enjoy this post: A Seminole fan, and a baseball fan. You don't have to be both, but it would probably help.

My favorite time of year - bar none - is springtime, and one of the things that make it great is spring baseball. Pitchers and catchers reporting early, fresch baseball diamonds and spring weather just can't be beat.

This video is from when the Seminole baseball team played their annual exhibition game against the Phillies and it's an awesome behind-the-scenes look. I played baseball growing up, but was never as good as these guys.

Love Talk | Speak Each Other's Language Like You Never Have Before

Rob Orr — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:46:58 +0000

If you're married you know that there are few factors bigger or more essential to success in your marriage than good communication. It affects every area of your relationship. Everyone is wired differently. It's usually one of the things that brought you together, and sparked your relationship with your spouse. But it's can also be an area where you have a lot opportunity grow.

It's no secret that it takes work and you need to learn how your spouse communicates. Enter Love Talk.

Love Talk is a book about learning how to speak your spouse's language, communicate better, and go deeper in your communication in your relationship. The goal is to get past the things that we fear, and the things that hang us up so that we can move to more meaningful conversation and communication.

The Parrot's say, "We set off to crack the code for meaninfful converstaion. We were in pursuit of a plan that would move our communication from good to great. We wouldn't settle for a mere handful of golden nuggets; we were in search of the moter lode... the secret that would unlock a full supply of the very lifeblood of a meaningful relationship."

Friday Afternoon Inpsiration - Virtual Sistine Chapel

Rob Orr — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:58:31 +0000

My first semester in college I took an art history class that cemented my love of renaissance architecture and art. I've had the opportunity to go to the Louvre in Paris, stood in front of the Mona Lisa, The Virgin of the Rocks, both by Leonardo Da Vinci, among a multitude of other amazing works of art.

I've been able to go the British Museum and have seen the Rosetta Stone, and a tons more of awesome artifacts, and even had the opportunity when I was young to be able to go to Greece and have been to the Acropolis.

I was one of those kids that actually loved all the museum tours when I was a kid and one place I've always wanted to go was to Rome. The Vatican has made it possible, at least virtually.

The Pursuit of God - A.W. Tozer

Rob Orr — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 11:42:53 +0000

Prepare to be challenged, encouraged and enlightened, by A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God. There is a good reason that this is considered a modern classic and simply put, it's a deeply rewarding and challenging book. It's one of those books that you can go back and re-read over and over again and always get something new and would be an asset to anyone's library.

The Pursuit of God is for believers who hunger and thirst for an intimate, deep personal - and very real - relationship with God. It's not a book for the timid, Tozer's primary concern is satisfying "the soul athirst for God," and to feed hungry believers with deep truths and help them to find the object of their affections which he does remarkably well.

Real pursuit of God is something with which Tozer was intimately familiar. Tozer is completely at home with the great mystical writers of Christian history and it's evident throughout his work. It's both practical in a sense that there are solid take-aways in each chapter, but also very rich and robust in its depiction of the essence of what the pursuit of God actually means.

The depth of insight and content in this book are incredibly rewarding. Tozer was quite clearly a man who was deeply in touch with God. He was a deep man who clearly was in touch with the things he wrote about. He writes with the benefit of experience of the things on which he writes and it comes through clearly when he discusses " Following Hard After God," "Restoring the Creator-creature Relationship," and "The Sacrament of Living."

Professor Horner's Bible Reading System

Rob Orr — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:20:59 +0000

The first bible reading plan that I had was on a sheet of paper that I kept in the back of my bible. I picked it up at the tape table after church one Sunday and diligently checked off next to each section after I completed the day's reading eager to move on to the next one. It quickly became rather worn and ragged and is long since gone, but I remember how much that reading plan helped and caused me to dig deeper in to my bible.

I learned early on that it was important to be methodical and disciplined in my approach to reading the bible regularly, even though I've not always been good at doing it. A couple years back I came across this reading plan and it's pretty amazing.

Professor Grant Horner from The Master's College created an in-depth plan to really get you deep in to the scriptures in a way that will challenge you. I'm reminded of Luke's commendation of the Bereans in Acts 17 that they were of more noble character than the Thessalonians because they, not only "received the message with great eagerness" but they also "examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." I'm firmly convinced if we spent more time imitating the character of the Bereans we'd be better off for it.

Good Stuff Saturday - Motivation Edition

Rob Orr — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:01:09 +0000

Good morning, and welcome back! It's been a fantastic week of getting things done, moving projects forward, and creating content. The Orracle Media Podcast has returned, the blogs are cranking out new content, and I'm getting stuff done.

This week has been a good one for cool stuff to catch up on. Julien Smith recently posted a quick 140 character summary of the books that he's read over the last 5 years, Pinterest continues to generate a little bit of controversy, and my friend, Andy Traub absolutely nailed it with a post about distraction and lack of focus.

Friday Afternoon Inpsiration - King of the Mountain

Rob Orr — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 05:00:00 +0000

King of the mountain from No Fly Zone on Vimeo.

Wow. Watch this video. This is amazing. These guys are landing on those stove-pipe rock formations and then jumping again! How else would they get down?

Today Matters - John C. Maxwell - Leap Year Book Review

Rob Orr — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 14:47:56 +0000

So far this morning, February 29th, 2012, it's been a common theme on Twitter and Facebook. Today is an extra day that only comes around once every four years. What are you going to do today to make the most of today's opportunities?

It's definitely one of those things, that when you notice it, will cause you to stop and think about it. I'm all about maximizing opportunity and seizing opportunity when it arises, so today is just the kind of day to talk about a book like this.

Today Matters - 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow's Success is a really practical guide on making the most of "today." It's inspiring, and challenging, and filled with great examples and practical advice to help you on the road of living by principle on purpose.

The premise of this book is that you can't really worry too much about the past because we tend to exagerate successes and failures, and we often have unrealistic expectations of the future due to the fact that we're not usually doing much "today" to prepare for success. But "today", well, that's a different story. We underestimate the value of today and what can be done today alone to set us on a new course for success and it's today where we need to be focusing.

To become the person you want to be in the future, to enjoy the success you hope for, doing something today is vitally important. This work by John Maxwell is a fantastic road map to help put you on the path.

Blogging Days Revisited - the New Blog Schedule

Rob Orr — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:39:40 +0000

I wrestle with creating content just like anybody else. It's certainly a problem that's common to anyone who is publishing anything online. But when you have a strategy and a plan, along with a solid list of topics to post, it becomes so much easier.

I'll write more about why those things are important in the future, but for now this post is about what you can expect to see in upcoming posts, and when you can expect them.

The first thing I had to do was make my commitment to myself that I'd actually take some time to do this daily. It's not easy, especially when you have as many different things going on as I do. But I also know that there are a lot of other people who are far busier than I that are able to stick to their commitment so I will be no different.

This has actually been a really refreshing exercise! And now I've found myself with a full calendar of upcoming posts on my editorial calendar and I can feel the excitement about writing about upcoming topics.

So here is what the schedule will look like. New posts will be published Monday, Wednesday, Friday & Saturday. I've got another blog over at Orracle Media that will run on opposite days than this blog - Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and one day on the weekend, with the occasional random post on both.

So here is the new schedule this blog.