"Be a lifelong student. The more you learn, the more you earn and the more self-confidence you will have." – Brian Tracy

By my own thoughts I can become the man I choose. Nothing can stand in my way. I can choose to be, have, or do anything. This is what I was meant to be. A new life, a new opportunity for change.

I have not because I want not. I am not because I did not. I am who I am as a result of the decisions I made in response to the choices presented to me. I cannot choose every obstacle that enters my path, but I can choose my action(s) in response to the challenges presented to me.

“I think, therefore I am.”

Self-discipline is the key to self-control which can become self-mastery, and thus – resurrection.

“Cogito ergo sum.”

As I’m making changes to the layout/appearance of my website, maintaining multiple Twitter accounts, updating my status, etc., I thought it’d be important to share the logic behind what I’m doing. I’ll admit, at this point I haven’t offered much in the way of advice, help or ideas for ways to be/do better, but I’m working on it.

When I first became interested in the internet, way before Facebook, Twitter, even Google, I thought it would be neat to own the domain ‘stephenbruington.com’. It took many years before I accomplished this, and now that I’m the owner this site is becoming my central focus online. I also own ‘bruington.com’, but I use it as an email extension (stephen@bruington.com). I thought that by owning my name I could present a professional image to the world as I attempted to provide something worth remembering. (I don’t know exactly what I mean by that, but we’ll get to it.)

This site’s a work in progress. I’ll be updating all of my pages regularly as I build a base from which to work. I first want to share my story, who am I? I then think it’s important to share where I’ve come from, what work I’ve done/with whom I’ve worked, and what I plan to do with myself.

My life goal is to become a business owner in the area of business consultation. I think a lot. I consider myself an extremely analytical, deep thinker. I’m always looking for ways to improve…everything. I don’t always take action, but (especially at work) I’m always coming up with ideas for improvement. By maintaining this site and presenting my ideas online I hope to help others improve themselves, their work, maybe even the lives of those they come in contact with.

I often ask myself, “What are you going to write about Stephen?” I don’t always have the answer, in fact most of the time when I write my thoughts are rough draft/final in one fell swoop. I imagine as I post more my thoughts will be come clearer and better defined. In the future I will narrow my posts to more specific subject areas with target audiences. For now, you’ll have to deal with the “Ruminating” category on a regular basis; sorry.

If you’re here, I appreciate your visit. I encourage you to keep reading and ask me questions, about anything. I believe that I have a special gift, the ability to dissect a situation and think through a solution that works. If I can help you, in any way please let me know. I’d be happy to help in any way that I can.

As a final note, I love being married. I love my wife so much, and as a result I’ll be posting about our family here as well. Sarah and I have been married for almost 2 weeks and life has never been this wonderful! My daughter, Jennifer will be back with us next week, and will be celebrating Christmas with our family this year.

Brian Tracy wrote a book called ‘Maximum Achievement’ and in it he explains the power of saying, “I like myself”. This, and many other phrases are, or can be considered positive affirmation statements. I have to agree, there is real power in speaking these words out loud. I have decided to develop, and post my own list of positive affirmation statements:

I like myself.
I respond positively to negative situations, circumstances and information.
I am a successful father.
I am a caring husband.
I weight 170lb.
I run every day.
I play the piano.
I am financially independent.

The list is endless of words you could say to help boost your feelings of self-worth. These words, when spoken aloud will begin to work on/with your subconscious mind to create the ideal you. If you feel a little down about yourself, or would like to feel better about yourself, begin by saying, “I like myself” out loud, at least 10 – 20 times a day.

The point is to come up with a list, and read the list aloud, with conviction. You say these words, to yourself, with belief and purpose. In my example, above these are not all currently true. I’m not financially independent, but I plan to be. It’s not quite as effective if I were to say, “I will be financially independent”, or worse “I hope to be financially independent”. Your PSAs need to be present-tense, positive and they will work. Do not use negative words, like “don’t, not, wouldn’t, can’t”, etc.

Try it. Develop your own list, or (at the least) try saying “I like myself” every day. Post your comments below and be sure to tell how it’s been working for you in your life.

(I apologize for the implied explitives in the title of this post, they were, however, necessary.)

Admittedly, a better title might have been “Simplify, Simplify, Simplify”, but either way – my point is it’s time for me to rein in some things in my life and “trim off the fat”. I’m all over the place, so much so that a friend on Twitter made a comment about my far-reaching social networking appearance (not influence), and asked how I manage to maintain it all. The truth is, I don’t maintain much of anything, anymore, or ever have. I need to close a few accounts, delete a ton of email addresses and K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid).

At one point in time I had the grand idea of creating an email address, for every account, everywhere on the internet (the unnecessary commas have been added for an intentional…momentary, but rather obnoxiously…long…pause). I chose to use the prefix “i83.” to begin each address, for example: i83.facebook@gmail.com. This email, of course would be used as my login/contact email address for…you guessed it – Facebook! I also had, among others, i83.itunes, i83.redbox, etc. (You don’t even want to know how many there actually are…nearly 2 dozen.)

I admit, I’m a little OCD and I’m having a hard time coming to grips with actually deleting, and discontinuing the use of these email addresses. It feels “clean”, and it made sense to me when I did it, albeit I can’t remember why, but I’d like to think it was a reasonable idea. It is, however difficult to remember whether or not I’m using a custom address, or stephen@bruington.com, which is my personal, ‘everything else’ email address.

In order to simplify I feel it’s necessary to cut down on the number of accounts I have, but do not (for many reasons) maintain. I have written about, and even tried this before: http://blog.stephenbruington.com/tag/migration, but this time will be different, right? ;)

Here’s the thing, I have accounts at places I know nothing about. Yep, little old me has probably already been to your website and established a username/password, etc. I’ve been on, logged into and/or used these, and many more: blip.fm, last.fm, facebook.com, twitter.com, bebo.com, orkut,com, linkedin.com, friendfeed.com, posterous.com (Haha! Thanks for hosting my blog.), wordpress.com, tumblr.com, livejournal.com, typepad.com, typingweb.com, plaxo.com, rememberthemilk.com, stikkit.com (which, by the way was the BEST ever note, memo, sticky message website…ever), gmail.com, hotmail.com, yahoo.com, flickr.com, photoshop.com, gmx.com, meebo.com, AIM, Skype, ICQ, myspace.com, and many, many others. Wow!

Do I really need all that stuff? No, I don’t. I know I don’t, but I think I have a problem…an addiction. I would like to keep the following:

Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, tumblr, posterous, flickr, Skype, Photoshop.com, and maybe a few others. I could write a book about all these sites and why I’ve used them, but I don’t think anyone would read it. In fact, if you’ve made it this far you’re either my wife (thank you Sweetheart), or crazy!

C.Y.A. – yes, the ‘A’ stands for what you think it stands for. I don’t have a real good reason for using it as part of my title other than the fact that the internet is filled with identity-stealing goons and…quite frankly, I’m exposed. I need to CYA and get rid of a lot of these sites with my information. If you’ve made it *this far, please do not SPAM my email inbox. I realize I posted my email address to the world, but I don’t believe anyone will use it to contact me anyway, so what the heck.

That’s it. I need to consolidate and do away with a lot of useless accounts, and unused (by ME) websites. Thanks for reading, I’ll let you know, at a later date what I decide to do, and how the cleanup is going, and/or turns out.

I thought it might be important to give a quick re-cap on the past few weeks and months to identify the progress I’ve made. There have been so many changes in my life over the last weeks, months, years that it’s sometimes hard to keep track. I could spend hours writing about all the different areas of my life and the intimate details of each, but I decided to narrow it down to a select few: relationships, career, education and fitness.

Relationships
I can’t say that I’ve mastered this one, but I’ve learned enough to know that it’s easy to mess up without realizing it. I’ve had my fair share of challenges, frustrations, battles with pride and learning experiences. I’ve been up hill…and down…and up, again…and down, again. I finally feel like my “boat” is running an even course and the keel is finally fully inserted.

I’m engaged! I feel so lucky to have this girl in my life. After all I’ve been through I not only felt like giving up, but I was convinced that I wouldn’t find anyone to love me, care for me, trust me and open their arms, life and heart to my daughter. Well, I found her!

Sarah and I have been together for almost a year. We met a long time ago, in Richmond, but never really knew each other. We became re-acquainted on Facebook, I moved to Utah and spent 6 months with her out there, then she moved back to VA with me and the rest is history. We’ll be married on November 28, 2009 and neither of us has been so excited. She’s bought a dress, I’ve rented a tuxedo. We’ve had engagement pictures taken, invitations created, printed, put together and mailed; dinner reservations made, and to top it off – my Dad’s performing the ceremony. Ah, life is good! :)

Career
This has been a looong, difficult, exciting, motivating/depressing road that has taught me more than nearly any other area of my life. I’m currently working for UnitedHealthcare as a “Medicare Inside Sales Representative”, ie: I sell health insurance, via the phone (inbound calls) to Medicare-eligible beneficiaries across the entire US. I feel very blessed to have this job, it pays a base salary plus commission. I’ve become fairly proficient at this job and attribute my immediate success to the experiences and life lessons of all the other jobs I’ve had, combined.

At this point I’ve worked in such a variety of industries and positions I’m not sure what’s left. Waiter, check. Cashier, check. Manager, check. McDonald’s, check. Small business owner, check. Call center, check. IT support, check. Military, check. Sales, check. And the list goes on.

Education
This area still has work to be done, in fact quite a bit more, but the fact is I have a plan and I’m sticking to it. I’m 18 credit hours shy of an Associate’s degree in Business Administration from Virginia Western Community College. I’ll complete my degree in the Spring or Summer of 2010. Once graduated my current plan is to transfer to Virginia Tech’s Accounting program and finish my bachelor’s in the Spring of 2012. This goal may get bumped or skewed since I’m currently considering running for political office, at some point in my future, and may re-direct myself onto the attorney/politics track.

Fitness
Ah, the category of greatest need for improvement. :( I must say, it’s so much more depressing to lose weight and gain it back, than it is to lose weight. I spent most of my adult life around 180lb, but then ballooned to 230. I was then able to lose about 35 pounds and hovered under 200 for almost a year. I’m now back to 205lb and sad about the loss of progress over these past few months, but I digress.

I hope to run a marathon. I said, “hope” not “I have a goal” because I don’t know if my knees will carry me that far. The farthest I’ve ever ran is just over 13 miles and that was about all my poor little legs could take. I’d like to think I can complete a 1/2 marathon, but we’ll see. For now, I want to trim down to 170 – 175lb and be able to breeze through a 6 – 8 mile run, regularly.