Now, his message is not to pay your professionals less money so they’ll be more productive but to allow them to concentrate on their passion of what they do without the thought of money or any type of reward. People in my line of profession want to be passionate about what they’re doing and allowed to accomplish their job without someone standing on their feet about it. We want to concentrate on our work and enjoy it. That is our reward. That’s why we do what we do.

“Pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table.”

Autonomy, Mastery and Performance!!! What an awesome concept. I love being able to manage myself. I’m not the type of person that wants to be told when to get to work and when to leave work. Some days I feel like putting in 12 to 15 hours of work and can be pretty productive during that time. My creativity is flowing and my mind is on point. Then there are days where my mind is blank and I am not productive at all. I’m just there wasting time. I’d be better off doing something else where my head is not on my job.

The ideal situation for me would be to let me work at those times that I’m feeling most productive. Let me manage myself. Thing is, I am a lot more productive in the evenings. I’m just not a morning person. And at the age of 30 I pretty much know that I will never be a morning person. If I could, I would work from mid morning, maybe even noon, to early evenings or even late into the evenings.

I’ll use a day out of my week from last week. I was at my day job from 8:00 am in the morning till around 5:30 pm. During that time I was tired and not as productive as I could have been. My head and my thoughts were clouded and I really couldn’t concentrate. After that I went home, caught an hour nap and got up to work on a contract website. During that time until around 2:30 AM in the morning I was a lot more productive. Some of my best work came during that time. I felt refreshed and energized. I could think clearly and productively.

I love Dans concepts and the information he’s including. I think what he speaks about would be a great business model. I think allowing your employees to control and express themselves is ideal. Let them be autonomous, especially in a creative environment.

My favorite part of the entire lecture is when Dan touches on the open-source industry. I’m a HUGE advocate of the open-source business model and I can understand his thoughts on why it’s been so successful and how it relates to his subject matter. Creative and IT professionals don’t do what we do for monetary benefit – not entirely anyway. We do need money. Its all about “Autonomy, Mastery and Performance.”

Anyway, I loved this video. The icing on the cake was the illustrations. Great stuff and I hope you enjoyed it as well.

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Anyhow, the coolest part of the night was just hangin’ out with my uncle. He’s been a rock in my life and it’s good to chill out with him and “shoot the shit.” He’s definitely someone I’ve looked up to throughout my life.

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I just read this in a quote by Steven King and it made me think a little bit. It made me think back to all the things or situations where I avoided saying something important and meaningful to someone. The things that meant the most to me but I was afraid of someone else’s perception of me. You know those moments where you felt like the situation was immense and way too big for you. You were afraid of the reaction.

Whether it’s simply voicing your opinion or getting your true feelings off your chest, revealing oneself can be a difficult thing to contend with. The thought of rejection and humiliation can be too much for a person to deal with especially in a moment of weakness.

The entire quote:

“The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings – words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.”

If you’ve ever been in a moment where you felt like no matter what you say to someone your true feelings could never be truly understood then you can understand what King meant by, “words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.”

Think about that for a moment. How many times have you wanted someone to know how you felt about them but didn’t have the words to define your true sentiment. Or you just got so nervous that you weren’t even sure if you really made any sense at all. Now compile that moment with that person having a less-than-desirable response. It can hurt A LOT. We’ve all been there and know it’s not fun.

If there’s one thing age is good for, it definitely makes you wiser, but it also makes you more tolerant of how people perceive you. After a while, you really don’t give a shit. As I’ve gotten older I’ve gained a confidence that definitely wasn’t there when I was a teenager or even in my early 20′s.

I’ve always had confidence in my abilities and my talents but I was extremely conscience of how others perceived me. If I could send a message to my youthful self it would be to, “Just let it all hang out, bro! Rock out with your cock out, hold nothing back, and enjoy the ride.”

I look back to moments when I put myself out there, was rejected, and in this space and time it has no affect on me. If anything, those rejections made me a stronger and more presumptuous. The truth is, within time, you’re going to forget it all anyway.

My message: Don’t be afraid of rejection so much so that you would let it interfere with letting someone know how you feel about them. This includes family members, friends, love interests, etc. I’d be more afraid of of not knowing what would happen if I didn’t tell someone how I felt.

Hell, I recently put myself out there and I feel a lot better for it. That person knows how I feel about them and what I think about them. I went out on a limb. I feel better about that than if I had kept those thoughts and feelings to myself. Something may or may not come of it but at least the proposition is out there and declared to them.

Say what you need to say and let the rest iron itself out later. Life is way too short to hold back and every once and a while you might just be surprised at the outcome.

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Change Is Good…

In light of spring and the changing of the seasons I’ve put together some minor updates to the theme of my website. Although I wasn’t exactly going for any “look” in particular, I like the metallic feel and the burnt-in oriental flower background in the header. I think it came out really cool. I usually like dark colors as I think it’s a little easier to read off of, but maybe that’s just me.

With that in mind I stuck with a darker gray and light font as apposed to the black that overwhelmed the design before. I changed the colors of headings to stand out more and added an underline to them to separate content throughout my blogs.

These changes took only a few hours and to me that is the beauty of a website that is theme or template based. Making major look and feel changes can be applied site wide extremely easily. I hope this inspires some of you all to refresh your websites and keep things fresh.

Back In School

So after a five week break from school due to “technical difficulties” with my account, I’m back. Today was my first day being back in and it felt good. Everyone likes to feel like they’re being responsible with their future. I’m taking a Sociology class and I’m looking forward to it. Not because of the work but because it makes me feel constructive; I feel like I’m accomplishing something. It’s a self-serving feeling but hey, in the end, I’m better for it and I just may finish that degree.

Latest Photos Uploaded Gallery

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I’m also in school and it’s going pretty well. I started off going for a software engineering degree but because of the time constraint (not wanting to be in school for the next three years), I decided to stick to a business management course. Then after getting my BA in Business Management I can go for my masters in Information Technology Management which is where I want to concentrate on eventually.

I’ve also been working on a lot of pretty cool projects with a few friends that I hope will pay off soon and provide an avenue to expand myself on a professional level. These projects may soon be released and talked about here. For now, they’re under wraps.

Anyway, I’m excited about the future and some of the things I’m looking forward to accomplishing. I’m looking forward to watching my son grow and become a little boy. Stay tuned and drop some comments or friend me on Facebook.

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It’s so cool how life progresses and everyone and everything changes. You literally never know how things are going to end up. So stop stressing and worrying and enjoy life. It’s not that bad. Be optimistic and smile.

We all go through tough times but it’s how you survive them that counts.

Enjoy the video… and yes, wear sunscreen.

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Word to the wise: Be Cautious

I’m a huge Twitter advocate and believe that it’s a great resource but by my own fault I’ve become consumed by being “followed” by as many people as I can and as fast as I can. I mean, who doesn’t want the world to hear what you have to say, right?

It’s easy to get a lot of followers mostly because a lot of MLM and gimmick people are on twitter to sell a product. You follow them and they’ll follow you along with all their affiliate cronies. Take heed with that approach because that’s where I got confused and led astray. 500 plus followers is useless if they don’t give a shit about what your tweeting. There’s no personal interaction there.  If you’re not clicking their links, they don’t care.

Personally, I have lost touch with the intent of my twittering: resourceful and usable information. Getting tweets about the things that I’m interested in. I have let the “follow me, I’ll follow you” mantra lead me astray.

In light of that. I need to re-evaluate my position on following people. I can’t keep track of shit because every time I refresh Twitter, I get 50 new tweets from people I don’t know what the fuck their talking about. “Get 1000 followers a day by clicking here”. Spam anyone?

I’m on twitter for one reason, and that’s to connect with people who share my same interests and are able to provide some sort of resource to that interest. Be that a link, opinion, blog, tutorial or an open-source application. Do yourself a favor and take the minimalistic approach. It’s easy to get caught up in the “follow” hype but bottom line, it’s not worth it and it’ll burn out the Twitter hype, FAST.

Happy Tweeting.

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First off, I’m so proud to be your dad and I can’t wait to see your face and meet you. I have tried very hard to be there while you were growing in your mommas belly but the circumstances have not allowed me that privilege. I really hope you can understand that later in life when you can make your own judgments. You yourself will see my heart and how much I care about you and your mom.

I want you to know that I love you and no matter what hardships your mother and I go through, you mean the world to me. No one can take my feelings for you away from me. I wish things could have been different and the three of us – your mom, you and I – could have been a family but that was taken from me. I just wanted a happy family to raise you.

Son, you are my heart. You are the center of my life and I miss you so much. I didn’t get to see you grow and that has hurt me very deeply. That has tortured me to the point of crying and not being able to sleep. I miss rubbing lotion on your mommas belly every night and getting to see you move and kick. I wish I could hear your heart beat. I just wish I could feel you for a second of my life. Just a small kick or a small bump. I miss you so much…

Even without you being a complete person yet, I can’t believe how much I care about you. You’re so small and don’t know the complications of life yet. You won’t understand things for a really long time but I hope your mom and I can make everything comfortable for you as you grow up. I hope you know that I have tried for you and I have loved every step of your life. I will always care about what you go through and are dealing with. I’m always there for you, son.

When things seem hard and so complicated, I’m there for you no matter what. These are the things I have not been privileged to yet but want to offer to you as a dad and a friend. I want to be your “rock.” When your so down and need someone to love you and understand you, I will be there. I’m attached to you forever. I’m forever your man of understanding and unconditional love. I look forward to seeing you grow and becoming a person of your own. Watching you be a man of your own and having a son of your own that you can raise like I raised you.

I can’t wait to see you and meet you. I can’t wait to take you fishing, hunting and camping. I can’t wait to see your face when you catch your first baseball or football or score your first basket. I can’t wait till you grow up and experience the pleasures of being a father and a man. I will be there by your side through it all.

I will be your dad no matter what and when it matters the most, I love you and will be there for you.

Through all my recent hardships I have the thought of you to keep me going on. You are my “rock” like I wish to be yours.

Your dad,

Robert B. Yardman

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All too often we let the state our happiness depend on how others treat us. We become consumed with the littlest things and we forget to look at the bigger picture. We let these “things” in our daily lives drag us down. Things that usually we have no control over, or sometimes really don’t matter much at all.

My grandmother gave me some of the best advice when I was a teenager and dealing with the pressures of life, “don’t sweat the small stuff.” Don’t be burdened by the things you can’t control and don’t dwell on these things either. It’s waisted energy and in the end, life will play itself out anyway. Keep a good attitude and take care of the things you can control.

The past few weeks I’ve been faced with some things that have really brought me down. They’ve changed my life and caused me to lose a lot of sleep. When I evaluated the situation and reflected on it I realized that although I love someone and care for them deeply; I can’t control their actions, intentions or feelings. I’m going to live my life to my principles and do everything in my control to be a good person. I’m making the personal decision to be happy. I’ve had to do a lot of soul searching and self reflection to finally be content. You can too.

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Lately my fiancée, Kacy and I have been busier than usual. Me with trying to get a handle on WordPress and rope in some new clientèle. Along with that I’m expanding my role at work as a programmer first and foremost and a designer/developer second. There’s a lot of pressure in that and not so easy to cut off sometimes. Kacy has been pretty busy herself. Her work schedule has become somewhat hectic and she’s had to work her normal off days. She’s also spent some time hanging out with family while I do my usual nerd stuff.

Tonight, we’ve decided to forget about the rest of the world and spend some time together. It’s going to be nice to just kick back and relax with eachother. Laugh a little and cuddle a lot.

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