LegendaryLife Blog

Ask anybody who has accomplished a goal or vision they once had and the very first step they will say is that they STARTED. You can’t finish what you didn’t start… and each small step you take is that much closer towards the end of said goal or vision.

Starting is easy… follow-through isn’t

After you decided to take the first step and turn a dream into a reality… the next largest step is consistent steps forward, whether they happen daily or weekly… continual progress is a must because it create momentum that makes any distractions easier to deal with. Just like the body of a bodybuilder takes years of hard work, if he or she stops going to the gym… it’s always harder to start back up after a prolonged rest period than it is to continue through an injury.

Distractions are what you make them

It’s all too easy to get distracted from a goal, especially when it’s a difficult one or requires more effort than is ordinary. The mind is great at creating “outs” for you so that it can continue along the path of least resistance… the hard part is learning to scope and get back on track ASAP regardless of the distraction being present. You have to consciously decide each time you get distracted if it’s worth your attention or you are better off ignoring it.

What publishing has taught me… patience!

I’ve just published my forth book yesterday (WoodMarvels.com Volume 2) and the evolution in every respect is rather astonishing. I started this blog to improve my English skills and if you go back to the first article… it took me hours and it’s barely a paragraph and now, I’m editing my most ambitious effort… a science fiction book of over 240 pages! One thing that publishing has taught me is that no matter how much you have done in the past, there is always a better way of doing things, of telling a story, of laying the text out, of delivering key concepts and ideas to the reader. Patience is needed because just when you think you are done… you are NOT! I now fully appreciate why it sometimes takes a year or so between published books by the same author… and the pressure there must be when you have a publisher breathing down your neck to get things done ASAP! Luckily, I’m my own publisher so the pressure to get things done isn’t anything I put onto myself… things are done when they are done

The Bottom Line

First steps always require the momentum of a second!

I saw this video yesterday about what happens to male chickens (chicks) in the poultry industry as was thoroughly surprised to say the least. I had *assumed* (a very bad word and set of ideas) that, like cows and other animals, they were fattened-up for slaughter like their female counterparts. It still isn’t pretty, but this is how our food supply is grown. Nope, these baby male chicks, a few minutes after being “hatched” by a machine get their beaks cut and then are ground-up alive.

Does this video convince me to become a Vegan or Vegetarian? Nope, but I can’t say I eat much chicken anyhow as, although healthy, it just doesn’t taste good in my opinion. Salmon or tuna are far healthier in every way than chicken.

At least the females get to live right? Well, give this video to watch their fate. I’m not sure if it’s much better then that of male chickens. If I had a choice, I would ask to be born as a male chicken to be honest.

Symptom of a larger problem

Alright, that was disturbing wasn’t it! Well, this is nothing compared to what humans are doing on a daily basis across various fields, from open pit mining activities to the incredible waste involved with clear cutting entire forests or deep ocean trawling. The reason why our species has done so well on Earth is because we are very good at controlling information (preventing others from seeing the truth), gathering once a resource is found (exploiting it with little regard as to the consequences that may happen to others) and continuing this myth regarding the importance of ourselves above all other creatures.

We have a serious Napolean complex, species wide, when it comes to the rest of the natural world. I sure hope that if aliens ever come to visit us, they don’t treat us the same way we treated Earth or its other living citizens.

What is the solution?

I think videos like this, and there are no lack of them relating to just about every intensive industry out there, should be used as a warning. I don’t believe in God nor any type of higher being but I do believe that what you sow, you will reap. As such, treating life no different than if it was a rock has and will catch-up to us big time in the future. What can we do to solve this situation? I think the first is a return to community based farming practices. For instance, it makes no sense why eggs need to be shipped all around the country (or world for that matter)… setting-up small regional co-ops for plant and other nutritional requirements needs to go away from this industrial scale enterprise back into small ones where children can learn about the food they eat and the real work involved with traditional farming.

I have no problem eating chicken or other animals, I am not nor will I ever become a vegetarian, but this senseless, unnecessary cruelty we are so well at perpetrating really needs to stop.

Humans are worse!

Considering the trillions of dollars spent every year on technologies that are dedicated towards the destruction and killing of other people (the military), humans may treat other animals badly but we also invest in the capabilities of spreading this ability onto others of our own race! I don’t know of any other animal that, on a daily basis, tries to develop weapons that will more “easily” kill another of its species. Nature is cruel, but because of our evolved consciousness, instead of trying to reduce the amount happening around us, we seem hell-bent on bringing it up to a whole new level due to insecurities, failures and unfounded fears.

The Bottom Line

When humans lose touch with nature, industrial farming practices are able to thrive.

I believe in the philosophy of constant improvement, I wrote about this and how it applies to one of my businesses here:

http://blog.woodmarvels.com/cycle-of-constant-improvement

Doing a final review of the final proof for my life transforming book… so close! I can’t wait for it to be finished and released… it’s going to be awesome!

As you may or not be aware of, in addition to LegendaryLife.com (phase I is complete btw, working on phase II before launch), I am also the proud owner of a site called WoodMarvels.com. It is a site that sells blueprints, EPS files and even physical, laser cut kits!

The Beginning

When I first began WoodMarvels.com, I wanted to create a site that allowed people access to inexpensive blueprints to make wooden models unlike anything available on the marketplace. I wanted to create some really cool looking pieces of work and allow others to build it for their friends and family. Wood is an amazing material and I wanted to bring what is possible with it to a whole new level.

At first, the site only featured downloadable blueprints but about 5 or 6 months into it, I thought, “hey, not everybody has access to woodcutting tools, I wonder if I could sell kits!” About a week later after some research, I found a site that could do JUST THAT! Fantastic! I can now offer woodcrafters plans and those without a shop or cutting experience, laser cut kits which they can assemble with glue. I started gaining attention within various communities and got some designers to show their work on my site.

A full year later, I began to be approached to sell the models I created in EPS format, I ignored these calls initially… who would want EPS files I thought to myself? If you are not familiar with EPS files, they are a digital format that is used as a path reference for laser cutters and other machinery. If you put a line on an EPS file, the laser cutter will cut along that line. It took some convincing that there was a market for it but as usual, I came back around and decided to offer it on my site, a process that I am almost done doing. My biggest fear was that of control, giving-up your EPS files to the internet means that anybody can reproduce your work as many times as they want without any loss in quality or distinction from products bought from my site. It’s equal to releasing the files that make-up a car to the world and then waking-up the next day and everybody has your car but you never got compensated for this mass-produced copy.

The Middle

Well, just today, I realized at how much WoodMarvels.com has evolved, from an idea to a physical business that is making money for other designers and allowing people around the world access towards making some extra money on the side. How is that? Well, I am selling commercial production licenses of all my models in addition to many of the other designers who have joined with me in offering this. By sharing my expertise, others are able to find joy and challenges in their lives, able to find a different avenue to create additional confidence in themselves and most importantly, spreading the fun of wood as a very viable alternative to plastics for everyday household items, including toys!

The End

WoodMarvels.com is growing rather well, client lists keep expanding and so do the offerings. I am generating sales for designers and new opportunities are arising. We are also going to be written-up in a major magazine in a months time! How will it all end? Who knows, but for now, I am really enjoying the rid up and with a second volume being proofed right now for WoodMarvels.com along with the one I wrote for LegendaryLife.com, still a lot happening!

The Bottom Line

What you start with isn’t always what you end-up with.

Buzvia: WoodMarvels.com

A designer whom I worked with on the site WoodMarvels.com (he designed the great looking planes on my site), Jerry, just had a heart attack and here is what he wrote so that this doesn’t happen to you.

Buzvia: Jerry’s Msg