Last year I was smacked with inspiration to pen a Christmas story.  Like most inspiration, the idea for the theme, characters and plot came in an instant.  If I didn’t begin work immediately, I would have lost the story.  So, I did start writing on the spot.

I wrote most of it while my family made the yearly pilgrimage to Williamsburg, Virginia last year.  Here’s what I had to say about it back then:

I remember touring Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia and seeing Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in one of the shops.  And I thought, that’s it!  I need to write my own Christmas story.  It needs to be timeless and reflective.  One that makes you think.  And I want it to inspire joy and a Christmas spirit for those who read it.

I wrote it over the period of 3 weekends mostly from the passenger seat of our family mini-van as Kim drove us to some getaway locations.  The story was easy, the ending was hard.  Editing was tougher than everything else.  But it’s here, at last. 

A few comments made about it online and off:

Nice writing Brad. I like the powerful imagery. – A. Lange

Wow, that’s quite possibly the darkest Christmas story I’ve ever read, but I loved it. – Gary

I am going to lose sleep thinking about the note – Kerri

So if you are ever curious about what might be tumbling around in this head of mine, this story is a good place to start.

You can download a copy by right clicking the link and choosing “Save Link As” or by reading it in your browser:

The Woman on the Mountain

Comments or criticisms about the story are appreciated in the comments below.

I won a contest.

One of my favorite applications/sites Text2Go was holding a contest last month. I didn’t realize they were, but I won anyway. 

The rules were the person who used their new speech correction feature to correct the most words in the shared database won a prize.

You see, the new version of Text2Go has a cool new utility where you can correct the pronunciation of words for the TTS voices you use. It’s very fast and shares your corrections automatically.  This is very important if you want to understand the words that the speech engine is reading.

In my normal day-to-day use of the software, I compiled and corrected my own list of words all the time – I simply wanted better pronunciation from the voices.  Text2Go also allows you to upload your corrections to their server – it will also sync other people’s corrections to your library… which is an awesome enhancement.  Low and behold, I had more corrections than anyone.

So what did I win?

the prize was a pair of nice Sennheiser CX300 headphones that I can used with my iPod to listen to spoken word but  the music on my iPod. Here’s a picture FYI:

These are Bass enhanced noise isolating headphones. I did try them out this morning and they sound great. Also, they are very comfortable. 

So thank you Text2Go for not only a nice pair of phones but for a great product as well!

I feel honored this morning.

I woke up, and had a Google alert reporting another blog linked to my essay Woody Allen’s Success Secret. I like to check these alerts to make sure it’s not spam. But I wasn’t quite prepared for what I found.

My jaw dropped when I saw who sent the link…

The Tom Peters.

I couldn’t believe my eyes.

You see, I’ve been a fan of Tom’s work since the 1980s when I was still in high school. His insights into work and human behavior are phenomenal. I remember driving my old and raggedy Datsun B210 (what a beauty!) to and from my job (washing dishes) with the audio cassette version of In Search of Excellence playing full blast. As I absorbed his wisdom, I’d think, “yes, life is going to be better one day.”

What I didn’t realize at the time was I was already applying his wisdom. Just a little bit at a time. I was understanding more about the way the people who succeeded behaved vs. the people who just got by. My actions were shaping me more into a successful person – one step at a time!

So you’ll see what an honor it to have him see my work and to find it valuable.

I’d like to welcome everyone from tompeters! I hope you’ll find your stay valuable.

I’m both proud, giddy and a bit lightheaded to announce the latest Beta of Achieve-IT! goal software for Windows OS machines.

This is version 2.92.3047 which has the following enhancements:

1. New systray icon located next to the clock
2. Minimize Achieve-IT! to the systray or Maximize back out of it
3. Quick entry of goals by right clicking the systray and choosing Add
4. Exit from systray (right click and choose exit)
5. Quick entry bar on the main screen of Achieve-IT!  (Enter your goal and hit the enter key)

Logic:  The systray feature will become more important as syncing is introduced in the coming builds.  I’ll need part of A.I. running if you want to sync at any time.

This beta also fixes the following issues:

1. Repaired Top Menus
2. Fixed completed goals screen for display issues
3. Fixed a display issue on the home screen where the Home button disappeared.
4. Repaired a display issue on the Manage screen where the buttons were not aligning properly in certain circumstances.
5. Repaired a refresh issue when using quick entry from the Home screen
6. Fixed an issue where multiple systray icons would appear during quick entry.

How To:

This Beta requires the freeware Microsoft .NET framework 2.0 installed.  And a Windows OS machine Vista, XP, Server 2000+, etc.  Please install that before running Achieve-IT! software.

1.  Back up your Achieve-IT! desktop database by making a copy of A.I.mdb in the Achieve-IT! program directory.  This is especially important for registered users who are doing real goal management in the Beta versions.

2.  Download and install the freeware Microsoft .NET framework 2.0 (you may already have this installed)

3.  Download and install the new Achieve-IT! beta.

4.  UK and European users will want to delete the A.I.mdb in the install folder and rename the file A.I_Euro_dates.mdb to A.I.mdb.  Otherwise, the program will error out on launch.  What the A.I._Euro_dates file does is compensates for regional differences in how dates are handled by your computer vs. mine.

5.  Try and break it.

6.  Have fun.

As always, I appreciate your comments and bug reports in the comments field below.

Thanks for playing!

It is hereby deemed necessary that consistent inputs yield consistent outputs.   Thus, all things heretofore on this be consistent…

Ok, now that my sad attempt at legalese is done, I wanted to mention the new logo on the site.  

Peter and friends over at Pixellogo made it for me.     I have to re-scale it though because it’s a tad blurry when compared to the pristine original in Photoshop.

Also, I reset the image so it would be on the left side of the site.

And, changed the name to reflect the domain url.   I’ve gotten feedback that it was confusing to have a URL say persistenceunlimited.com and a site name Achieve-IT! so the site name change will make everything consistent.

What do you think?     Better?   Worse?   Hungry?

- Brad

A lot of people are emailing and posting comments about the missing parts of 101 Goal Setting Breakthroughs: A 31 Day Blog Series That Will Make 2008 Your Best Year Ever!  

If you feel you are missing parts there are two reasons:

1   I used a template that posted the wrong numbers to some of the tips.
2.  I wasn’t clear to you about how the tips would be presented and counted.

I still have the rest to post (I know, I know I’m late!)  I am usually slammed, but this has been the busiest January of my entire life.  Regretfully I am running 2 or 3 days behind on the posts.

How the series changed…

Quality:  When I first embarked on this journey, I figured I’d do two to four posts a day consisting of one paragraph tips.  Instead, when I started getting into it, I started having a great time.  Most of the posts exceed 500 words.  And I feel that many of them are some of the best in this blog’s history. 

Reader response has born this out and inspired me keep with quality over quickness. 

I understand some of you, because of shyness or fear of public scrutiny, decided to email me directly instead of posting your comments.  I especially enjoyed hearing stories of how one of the breakthroughs came just at the perfect moment and you were able to solve a problem in the nick of time. 

More emails revealed the confused sadness over the loss of a love and how one of the articles “turned on all the lights” for you.  Candidly, I am not sure which post you are speaking of, but that’s ok.   I often enter a state of “writing flow” where the words race onto the page as if I am transcribing them from some other source.  I believe the flow state involves sensory memory, which is fleeting and gone.   I’ve learned to trust this state of streamwriting. 

Without trying to sound like a complete nut job, some of the posts were so completely inspired, I can’t necessarily remember what I said.  However, I am happy the posts have helped you.  That is, after all, the whole point of this blog.

So although I am disappointed it’s talking longer than I thought, the results are much better than I had hoped for. 

Compiling all the information…

When I am done I’ll compile them all into one humongous post.  it won’t contain all the content from the posts in the series.  Instead it will have the title of the tip, a short blurb and a link to the larger posting. That way we’ll all be on the same page  

Thanks for reading, I am glad you are here!

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear…

This month was historic in this blog’s traffic. Due to a Stumble of my The 26 Major Advantages to Reading More Books and Why 3 in 4 People Are Being Shut Out of Success post being voted up to the front page, some 100,000 new visitors stopped by to read. There were so many comments posted, I couldn’t keep up. All the new visitors stopping by and commenting was a great Christmas gift!

I get lots of enjoyment out of writing on the blog, and reading all the comments, but I’m not the only one who benefits. Readers who read daily have told me they get a burst of motivation with top-notch goal setting advice every day. It’s like having a personal coach – without having to pay!

Additionally, here are 8 excellent reasons to subscribe to my free blog RSS feed right away:

1. Get answers to YOUR personal self-development questions – Have you ever wished you had a personal coach? How many times have you wished you had someone you could ask for advice? Well now you can ask and get an answer. My door is always open. I answer your emails via blog post every time I get a request for help. This is open to new readers too. Just ask.

2. Save time and money with honest, real product reviews - When you are considering a purchase of an expensive product, you want to know the truth. The truth saves you money and it saves you time. If I review a product here, I answer all your questions without the hype or salesmanship of other “review sites”. An example: When the entire Internet was posting positive “reviews” of Day Job Killer, I was posting the truth about how bad it is – I also refused to put in an affiliate link to the product because I consider it just plain wrong to recommend someone NOT buy something and then give that same reader a link to buy it.

3. Think Like A Genius – For over 20 years, I’ve been a student of mind sciences. I believe there is a creative problem solving genius within every one of us. Whatever your problem might be, you can solve it if you learn to better use your mind in new and exciting ways. Tapping into this natural genius brings greatness into our lives. Tip: As computers and electronic distractions consume the minds of the masses, harnessing this creative genius is all the more important. You can get ahead while others are spinning. I’ll show you the proven methods for generating endless creative breakthroughs.

4. No mystical or occult nonsense – Feel weird about wearing a pyramid on your head? Want to avoid recommendations that are reminiscent of voodoo, snake oil or downright weird? So do I! You won’t find any occult or freaky-deeky on this site. I am someone who believes success isn’t something strange or mysterious, but applying two simple principals: Using your mind efficiently and working smart to apply your natural talents. What you get from reading this blog arefundamentals for getting where you are to where you want to be. You’ll feel more motivated, do better work and start achieving what you never believed possible.

5. No ads in the feed – When you subscribe to the RSS Feed, you get full articles without ads. So you can read all the great content, without being distracted by ads.

6. Written by someone who walks the walk – Have you ever heard someone recommend a tip, but by looking at them you knew they weren’t taking their own advise? We’ve all had that happen. For me, it’s not in my makeup to do it. I’d feel bad recommending you do something I don’t do. So if you see a tip here, you’ll know I use it or have tried it in the past.

7. RSS comes to you – You don’t have to remember to browse to this site. Your RSS reader will pick up the latest articles and deliver them to you – automatically!

8. Free & Unique Productivity Software – Many of my longtime subscribers use Taskblaze to time their tasks and export them to Outlook calendar. I am still building updated versions of that software as well as many others. You’ll be surprised as a kid on Christmas to find some new software ready for download.

These reasons are just a few of the advantages of subscribing to my free RSS feed. As you’ll find out soon enough when you make reading this blog an exciting new habit in your life.

So why not take a second or two and bookmark this blog? Subscribe to my RSS feeder if you haven’t. You can always unbookmark it at any time – but after a week or two of regular reading, I doubt you will.

Best wishes,
Brad Isaac

Friends, This is coming a bit late because I’ve been under the weather. But still, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and happy holidays. I’m going back to bed in a few minutes, but I did want to log in and wish you a happy!

Another month has come and gone here at the Achieve-IT! blog. Here are the most popular posts from November:

• Take Consistent Action

• The Criminal Who Stole 1,000,000 Inventions!

• Two Old Men

• The Dumbest Explanation of Terminal Server Vs. Go To My PC Ever!

My buddy Phil Gerbyshak tagged me to share 8 Random Facts about myself. I decided I’d put my own spin on the game by revealing not just 8 facts, but 8 dark facts. So here is a rare, glare into the dark abyss of my soul. Beware, there are no nightlights available

1. I am a true crime buff. I like seeing how detectives weed through a case, gather evidence and break down a perp for a case-making confession.

2. During high-school, I bagged groceries for a local Kroger where my boss was the infamous “Black Widow” serial killer Blanch Taylor Moore. Within a few weeks of starting that job, she hysterically quit to sue Kroger and then manager Kevin Denton for sexual harassment. Years later, I discovered I worked with one of the jurors who sat her sexual harassment case.

3. I personally feel that 1970-1979 was the worst decade in human history.

4. My home office is messy.

5. I often annoy telemarketers in the spirit of Tom Mabe when they call.

6. I owned a 94 Lexus LS400 at the time my grandmother accused me of stealing her 1983 Chevrolet Caprice.

7. My favorite movie is The Usual Suspects
8. Having worked in several restaurants, I will never, EVER return a dish to the kitchen for a do-over. (If you don’t know why, you should!)

I am going to tag friends Chris Brogan, Michel Fortin, Ricky Spears and Leo Babauta. C’mon guys, share your 8 random facts.