I hope to see you over at the new community. As always, feel free to leave comments or send me an e-mail at tad@growingintoyou.com. You are the one that makes the community better! I hope to hear from you soon.

Every person has something that motivates them, something that drives them to succeed. Without it, people would become complacent and the economy, and people in general, would become stagnant. Wanting more, whether that be a better car or just a nicer job constitutes greed, but greed is not ALWAYS a bad concept.

I believe there are two types of greed: motivational and detrimental. The difference between these two types of greed are the measures taken to reach what you desire. What you desire can be to give your family a swimming pool for example, but if the route taken causes you to take important time away from your family, or putting your health in danger by working long hours, the greed is detrimental.

Motivational greed stems from controlled and planned action. Being able to go after a goal passionately is very important. But just as importantly as passion is being able to go after a goal without hurting yourself, your family, friends, or other people around you. If you want to succeed in a job, it is important to work hard. However, if you work 24 hours a day and never spend any time with your family, you are hurting them as much as you are helping them. The money that you will make from that successful job will never be able to make up for all of the time lost with your family.

So, the main point of this whole article is, no matter what motivates you, if you lose focus on everything but the end result, you could be inadvertently hurting people you care about. Keeping a good schedule and making sure to add in time for your family and relaxing time for yourself is very important, but that is for another post.

I am the best man in my friend’s wedding on June 7th. Sometime before May 24th, I have to be fitted for my tux. Problem is, I do not want to wear a tux weighing 210 pounds. So here lies my goal. By May 20th, my goal is to be under 180 pounds. Along with the weight, I want to be more physically fit than I am now. I would like to have the kind of shape I had when I was in game condition for baseball.

So here is my plan:

1. Tell you about it so you can keep me on the track
2. Write down EVERYTHING I eat in order to keep track of my amounts.
3. Begin upping my physical activity every week. Currently, I am unable to lift weights because I am still rehabbing from my second shoulder surgery. I plan on using the running program located on the Runner’s World website.
4. Stretch for 10 minutes when I get up in the morning and 10 minutes before I begin settling down for bed. I believe stretching is a great way to keep my blood circulating well, keep my joints and muscles flexible, and a way to relieve a lot of daily stress from my body.
5. Finally, I am going to be making weekly posts updating you with how my plan is working out, my current weight, and if I tweak my plan at all.

So, I have 57 days to lose 30 pounds. Who wants to place bets against me?

This is a picture of my family. My weight in this picture is 210 lbs. I will try to post pictures weekly to show my progress.

I believe from the time she was born, I was beginning to build her trust. She may not be able to remember anything from her first year or two as she gets older, but if I do not build her trust now, I do not feel I will have it in the future.
I believe that she already trusts us. Whenever she is lying in her crib, she begins to cry, but as soon as she sees us reaching for her, she stops crying. She knows that we sense what she wants, and will give it to her, no matter what time in the morning it is.

I have been reading a lot about whether or not you should let your child cry in his or her crib at night. I know that many of you have MUCH more experience at raising children than me, but I believe that you shouldn’t just leave your child to cry for long periods of time. I don’t think you can spoil your kids by holding them when they are crying. Allowing them to cry adds stress to you and your child. I know that when my child cries, it breaks my heart. By holding them, you are comforting them, telling them that you are there for them. I feel like if you let them cry, you are sending a signal that they are on their own.

Babies cry for a reason. They are usually either hungry, need changed, have gas, or are in general just fussy. From what I have learned, some babies cry at the same time every night, as a way to let off stress. I do believe that babies relieve their daily emotional stress this way. However, leaving them to cry alone for long periods of time is not the answer.

If you don’t have anything to do, hold your child while he or she cries. It is comforting for both you and your child, and is a great way to bond and build trust.

So, on this Easter day, I hope everybody has time to tell people in their lives what they mean to them and truly be thankful for everything they have been given!

1. To stay motivated: In order to maintain a blog, I have to constantly be thinking about things to write about. The content of which I plan to write will help me reach my goals by focusing on practicing what I am trying to preach. The longer I write, the longer I will keep on the path to becoming a better person.

2. To be held accountable: If I am writing to an audience, I will have to not only continue writing, but also strive to reach my goals. If other people know what I want to do, there is added pressure for me to reach those goals. If I fail, it is not just me who knows about it!

3. To try something new: Never before in my life have I been one to just write for “nothing.” Starting this blog allows me to continue to polish my writing skills, and also forces me to continually brainstorm new ideas to write about. This will keep me sharp and able to come up with more ideas in my everyday life.

4. To motivate others: After I graduate, I plan on either coaching college baseball or opening my own baseball academy. Either way, my job will be to motivate other athletes to work hard and achieving their goals. Through this blog and my site, hopefully I will be able to help motivate others to reach their goals, whether it be weight loss, starting new habits, or getting rid of old habits. If I am able to help you stay on the right path, my ultimate goal for this blog will have been met.

5. As a way to learn: Writing this blog on a daily basis will force me to learn, or in some cases, relearn self-improvement skills. When I was an athlete, I continuously researched how to properly train myself to become a better athlete. Over the last year, however, much of what I have learned has slipped my mind because I failed to write it down and take notes. This blog will allow me to take notes on subjects, and then publish my ideas for all of you to read. Hopefully this will benefit everybody!

6. Getting out of my comfort zone: Finally, writing this blog forces me to get out of my comfort zone. I am the type of person that has a lot of good ideas, but I fail to express my ideas because the thought of looking stupid scares me. With this blog, I will put all of my ideas out there for you to read, take in, and critique.

As you can see, I have a few reasons to continue to write this blog. I hope you will become an active member in my community. Being active helps both you and me improve. It allows you to really understand what I am saying and respond to posts, and it allows me to receive feedback, whether positive or negative, about how you are benefiting from my ideas.

A simple explanation of the title of my blog is that a lot of times men do not have a place to go to discuss how to make themselves better. I just wanted men to know that there are other men out there who care about their health, their parenting ability, and about other things in life, and give them somewhere where they can improve themselves.

So, in short, I would love for women to join in on the discussion and read the tips and do everything that the site allows you to do. Your input is important to ALL of the readers. Nothing on the site is “just for men.”

I decided to set out on a self-improvement adventure.  I did this for both myself and my family.  After reading many blogs, books, and as much material I could find on the internet, I decided to start my own website in order to help both myself and all the other men out there who are going to be in my position soon, are currently in my position, or have been in my position in the past.  I feel that the best possible way to learn is by trying to start discussions and putting my views/opinions out there so they can be viewed and critiqued by others.  With your help, I feel we all can improve and make not only our lives better, but the lives of people around us better.

So here it is, “A Man’s Place.”  Please feel free to post discussion topics in the forum at www.freewebs.com/mansplace about whatever comes to your mind.  The more input from you, the better this place will be.