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Day 5 of 365 Zen and The Art of Happiness

A friend, for whom I hold a great deal of respect, recommended a book called ZEN and the Art of Happiness by Chris Prentiss. It’s not a book that I would have ever sought out, but because it came highly recommended, I ordered it without much thought or expectation.  

If I were to describe it in one word, I would say, “Wow.”

This book is not for everyone. 

Some will find it stupid or ridiculous (I almost did, but I’m glad I kept going) because the ideas and solutions the author provides are surprisingly simple, which I believe is part of its genius. 

It’s a fast read. You can get it on Audible if you don’t read much. 

I can’t easily sum up all of the wisdom in this book, but I will say this… if you find yourself, more often than not, in a state of stress, frustration, or disappointment, this book might offer you some perspective that helps alleviate those feelings. 

From the back cover: “You’ll learn how to adapt to life’s inevitable changes, how to deal with stress in a healthy way, and how to nurture a mindful happiness in your daily life.”

And if you approach this book with an open AND curious mind, I believe you can quickly achieve much greater levels of happiness in your life.  

It did for me, and for that, I labeled it a “Wow” book. 

Until Tomorrow,

Cheers to you and yours.

Mike T.

P.S. If you are wondering why I put DAY 5 of 365, my birthday was on Jan 6th, and I committed to writing a daily journal for a year (and publishing it to hold myself accountable). I plan to use this challenge to share my journey to reach some ambitious goals this year. I won’t always publish on social media, so if you want to follow along in my journey, you can subscribe to my email list here: turner.ck.page/mikes-journal

 

Do You Have a Young Reader

Do You Have a Young Reader

This morning my husband and I mentioned to our daughters how much less we see them reading these days.

When it comes to our 12-year-old, the reason is clear. She’s addicted to screens. The girl who used to tear through a dozen giant novels per week has tapered off significantly. She still reads at night, when she’s not allowed to have any sort of screen in her room, but it’s become apparent to us that we need to further curb her screen use during the day. And I’m reluctant to let her keep reading e-books on her phone, because the temptation to click over to something else is too great. She needs good old-fashioned pages in her hand.

My 10-year-old is a different story. She has yet to discover the same love of reading that her sister and I share. When Mike and I mention that we’d like to see her invest more time in reading, she comes back with the maddening response: “I can’t find any books that I like.”

Keep in mind that we’ve spent hours in libraries with her. We’ve suggested every genre you can imagine. Checked out dozens of books for various age groups and on varying topics. At times we’ve made suggestions; at other times we encourage her to explore on her own. No luck. There are a few graphic novels she’ll read repeatedly, but not much beyond that. It’s pulling teeth to get her to crack the cover and at least read the first page of something new.

Mike made a good point this morning when he told her that it’s like food. There are a million wonderful foods out there, but you’ll never know if you won’t even give them a try. “It’s the same with books, Ivy,” he said. “You’ll never know if you’ll like a book because you won’t even try it.”

She is almost always willing to try new foods, so I’m hoping this comparison gets through to her.

When she says that she can’t find any books that she likes, or worse, that there AREN’T any books out there that interest her, a little piece of my inner nerd core shrivels up and dies.

There are so many wonderful books out there. Book addicts don’t despair about the adventures they might not complete in their lifetimes, they fret over the books they’ll never get to read.

For the time being, we’ll keep trying. We’ll make suggestions and let her choose on her own. We’ll explore both the public library and the shelves in our home. And yes, we’ll keep letting her reread those graphic novels until she’s ready to branch out. And if you have any suggestions, we’d love to hear them.

Join The Community!

Join our Facebook GroupJoin the quest for “The Sweet Life.”  Request access to our Facebook Group.  Let’s learn from each other!  GO HERE

Free Audio Book Download

Full Unabridged Audio Book “Vagabonding With Kids” by AK Turner!  GO HERE

Take The SWEET LIFE Assessment

See how you score? Identify your strengths. Discover areas in your life you want to improve. GO HERE.

Giving Back

Amanda and Mike launched an Impact Club in their hometown of Boise, Idaho in 2017, and have had a blast gathering like-minded individuals, families, and organizations to make significant impact in our community, raising over $200,000 locally and over $1.5 million nationally.  

Join Our Next Monthly CHALLENGE

Every month Amanda and Mike pick a month-long challenge that pushes us out of our comfort zone so we can grow, learn, and become better versions of ourselves.  Sometimes we design our own unique challenge and other times we join pre-established challenges. Email us to find out about our next upcoming challenge. Us@BusinessofUs.com

About Us

Our Story | Mike and Amanda TurnerWe are Mike and Amanda Turner, founders of “The Business of Us.” We are fierce advocates of helping entrepreneurial couples and families improve their lives, livelihoods, and legacies… READ MORE

Little Changes

Little Changes

“It’s kind of weird how I spend most of my childhood at school.” Ivy made note of this one morning while checking the clock to be sure she wouldn’t be late for choir practice.

It’s true. Kids spend a huge amount of time at school.

When we embark on our family travels, we’re together 24/7 (and yes, that gets to be a little much after a while). But back home the kids reenter the school system and we quickly fall back into our home base routines.

Sometimes, in the course of these routines, I get too focused on checking a task off of my to-do list and not on the person in front of me. A week or so back from our most recent trip, I began to notice that while my daughters got ready for school, I’d have half-hearted conversations with them, but with my focus largely on my laptop.

It didn’t sit well with me, so I don’t do that anymore. That laptop stays closed.

The same was true in the evenings. The girls would be home but more of my attention would be on my computer screen than on them.

(Granted, this can be a gray area, because my daughters are often both home by 3:30 and I’m usually not ready to stop working that early. But still, Mike and I have both been known to keep our computers up and running well into the evening hours.)

I don’t do that anymore, either.

When they’re here, I’m trying not to check my email or worry about my to-do list. Instead we have conversations, play cards, cook together.

Time moved at a snail’s pace when they were young and we were sleep deprived. But that’s not the case anymore. It’s true; it goes fast.

Emilia’s about to turn 13. I’m hoping to do better at making the most of our time together. I want to be present with her. That doesn’t always mean being off on an international adventure. Sometimes it just means having time together before she leaves for school. And yes, she’s perfectly capable of getting herself ready; that’s not the point. I like to have a little bit of time with her. We’ll pack her lunch together or sometimes she’ll ask me to curl her hair.

I work a lot. I’m very productive. There’s no reason why I can’t put the phone down and close the laptop when my kids, whether they’ll admit it or not, would really like some attention.

Join The Community!

Join our Facebook GroupJoin the quest for “The Sweet Life.”  Request access to our Facebook Group.  Let’s learn from each other!  GO HERE

Free Audio Book Download

Full Unabridged Audio Book “Vagabonding With Kids” by AK Turner!  GO HERE

Take The SWEET LIFE Assessment

See how you score? Identify your strengths. Discover areas in your life you want to improve. GO HERE.

Giving Back

Amanda and Mike launched an Impact Club in their hometown of Boise, Idaho in 2017, and have had a blast gathering like-minded individuals, families, and organizations to make significant impact in our community, raising over $200,000 locally and over $1.5 million nationally.  

Join Our Next Monthly CHALLENGE

Every month Amanda and Mike pick a month-long challenge that pushes us out of our comfort zone so we can grow, learn, and become better versions of ourselves.  Sometimes we design our own unique challenge and other times we join pre-established challenges. Email us to find out about our next upcoming challenge. Us@BusinessofUs.com

About Us

Our Story | Mike and Amanda TurnerWe are Mike and Amanda Turner, founders of “The Business of Us.” We are fierce advocates of helping entrepreneurial couples and families improve their lives, livelihoods, and legacies… READ MORE

Adult(ish)

Adult(ish)

When I was a kid, I used to think that being an adult involved having lots of plans. Because adults always seemed to know what was going to happen next. Adults fill kids on the plans as it’s time to put them into action. Plans just seemed very adultish.

So when I eased into adulthood (I’m still working on it… it’s a work-in-progress), I figured I’d better plan things.

What we don’t realize as kids, however, is that the adults around us are constantly having to adapt the plans. Or sometimes the plans aren’t even really plans, they’re just events that come up. To a kid, it all seems so orchestrated.

I love plans. I think calendars are totally sexy.

But the more adultish I get, I realize that plans are just really loose guidelines.

A casual discussion yesterday (okay, it was casual for me, but I see in hindsight that my husband had been “planning” this discussion in his mind for quite some time) added three additional trips to our schedule for 2020. Not to mention three substantial physical endeavors that go along with those trips – but those are details for a later post.

This year’s travels are shaping up to be more than double what I anticipated just one month ago. I had plans, but now I have new plans. That’s completely okay. With a few deep breaths and some time to wrap my mind around what’s to come, I remember that adaptability is more important than having set plans in place.

Reminding myself of this makes me feel like I just might have a handle on what it is to be adult(ish).

Join The Community!

Join our Facebook GroupJoin the quest for “The Sweet Life.”  Request access to our Facebook Group.  Let’s learn from each other!  GO HERE

Free Audio Book Download

Full Unabridged Audio Book “Vagabonding With Kids” by AK Turner!  GO HERE

Take The SWEET LIFE Assessment

See how you score? Identify your strengths. Discover areas in your life you want to improve. GO HERE.

Giving Back

Amanda and Mike launched an Impact Club in their hometown of Boise, Idaho in 2017, and have had a blast gathering like-minded individuals, families, and organizations to make significant impact in our community, raising over $200,000 locally and over $1.5 million nationally.  

Join Our Next Monthly CHALLENGE

Every month Amanda and Mike pick a month-long challenge that pushes us out of our comfort zone so we can grow, learn, and become better versions of ourselves.  Sometimes we design our own unique challenge and other times we join pre-established challenges. Email us to find out about our next upcoming challenge. Us@BusinessofUs.com

About Us

Our Story | Mike and Amanda TurnerWe are Mike and Amanda Turner, founders of “The Business of Us.” We are fierce advocates of helping entrepreneurial couples and families improve their lives, livelihoods, and legacies… READ MORE

We’re Going to Camp

We’re Going to Camp

​Mike and I are four days back from our four weeks in Mexico. We were there, in part, for warmth and to escape the Idaho winter. Our main objective was to visit friends and family – and to celebrate my mother-in-law’s birthday (Jesus wasn’t the only one born on December 25th, you know).

We were also there for work. One of our primary goals in launching The Business of Us and The Sweet Life is to organize a series of Mastermind retreats. We visited a number of venues, from hotels to vacation rentals to spaces that fall somewhere in between.

We signed two contracts for two retreats. The first contract we signed the day before we left and the second one on the DAY we left, right before heading to the airport.

Some of our friends were surprised to learn that we booked two different venues. Why not simplify things and have everything at one place? But we have two different groups in mind. The first retreat will be for writers and the second for couples.

We found the perfect place for the writers’ retreat – beautiful, tranquil, unique, inspiring.

And…

We found the perfect place for the couples’ retreat – luxurious, romantic, 5-star, and small enough that we’ll only have 7 couples in attendance.

The first place was almost too calm for the couples, but perfect for writers.

And the second place was almost too romantic for the writers, but perfect for couples.

Both retreats take place in June which is a perfect time to visit Todos Santos. Not too hot like August, not too buggy as it is later in the year, or too busy as it can be over the holidays.

So we started thinking… June… school is out… it’s time to go to camp! The kids get to go to camp, why not the adults?

Writers Camp and Couples Camp.

We’re structuring each so that people just have to get themselves to the airport, we take care of the rest. Everything from transportation to sunscreen to drinks and gourmet meals. And we fully recognize that this needs to be something special. We need to give people more than just an opportunity to have a drink by the pool.

That got the wheels turning faster. Salsa lessons, art classes, writing exercises, beach walks, yoga, relationship building, massages. Different activities for the different groups. We’re walking that line of building the perfect itinerary – enjoyable, inspiring, enlightening, shared experiences of a lifetime – without totally running people ragged.

So now the work begins. We’ve invested a lot in this because we believe in it. Now we have to make a go of it. We’re building websites, compiling footage, and working to be the living proof that the systems we’ve developed and the principles we live by work. They work for writers. They work for couples. In both aspects of our lives, we strive to look forward, to be our best, and to continue to learn and grow.

Chances are we haven’t yet met most of our attendees. We might have a few friends interested, but for the most part I suspect we’ll be making new connections. In any case, we’re super excited about this new adventure, so we’ll continue to share the journey.

Join The Community!

Join our Facebook GroupJoin the quest for “The Sweet Life.”  Request access to our Facebook Group.  Let’s learn from each other!  GO HERE

Free Audio Book Download

Full Unabridged Audio Book “Vagabonding With Kids” by AK Turner!  GO HERE

Take The SWEET LIFE Assessment

See how you score? Identify your strengths. Discover areas in your life you want to improve. GO HERE.

Giving Back

Amanda and Mike launched an Impact Club in their hometown of Boise, Idaho in 2017, and have had a blast gathering like-minded individuals, families, and organizations to make significant impact in our community, raising over $200,000 locally and over $1.5 million nationally.  

Join Our Next Monthly CHALLENGE

Every month Amanda and Mike pick a month-long challenge that pushes us out of our comfort zone so we can grow, learn, and become better versions of ourselves.  Sometimes we design our own unique challenge and other times we join pre-established challenges. Email us to find out about our next upcoming challenge. Us@BusinessofUs.com

About Us

Our Story | Mike and Amanda TurnerWe are Mike and Amanda Turner, founders of “The Business of Us.” We are fierce advocates of helping entrepreneurial couples and families improve their lives, livelihoods, and legacies… READ MORE

The Sweet Life Retreats

The Sweet Life Retreats

When we decided to organize killer retreats, one for couples and one for writers (but both designed for positive, growth mindset-type people), we knew what we were getting into.

Sort of.

We know how to exceed expectations.
We know the town of Todos Santos and how best to experience it.
We know what makes a great itinerary – just the right balance of awesome & downtime.

What we didn’t know was if people would sign up.

I’ve written before about how “If you build it, they will come” is not a good business strategy. We’d do well to remember that it’s really just a cheesy line from a Kevin Costner movie.

When it comes to what we’re building, in the first iteration of The Sweet Life retreats, we have Couples Camp and Writers Camp coming up in June.

Within 24 hours of emailing our contacts that registration was live, we had a couple sign up for Couples Camp. These are long-time friends of ours and I couldn’t imagine better people to spend a getaway with. But they weren’t prospects by any means. We never tried to sell them or even contacted them directly about it. But they receive our emails and they raised their hands. It came out of the blue.

Having one couple sign up might not seem like much, but it is when you consider that at this retreat we can only accommodate a max of 7 couples. So now we’re down to 6 spots.

Within 48 hours of that email that went out to our contacts, we had two writers commit to Writers Camp. One was unexpected, but a very good friend. The other was someone I approached directly as I knew she was looking for this very thing (an acquaintance and client whom I’ve never met in person).

We haven’t started running ad campaigns yet or really even announced publicly – beyond that one email – that registration is open (by the way, registration is open), though I’ve sent the link to a few who’ve expressed interest.

It is both exciting and nerve-wracking to see how this plays out. We know we have killer retreats lined up and again, we know we’ll exceed expectations. Now we just have to focus on filling registration to be sure we at least break even.

Advertising has never been my strong suit. I can create (books, presentations, retreats, you name it), but dear lord don’t ask me to sell it! In the coming months I’m going to have to change that – interact with people I don’t know (gasp!), and communicate the value of what we’ve created: an off-the-beaten-path, unique, luxury experience of a lifetime. This may not be my comfort zone, but I’ve also never been one to shy away from a challenge.

Wish us luck. And if you’re interested in checking out an off-the-beaten-path, unique, luxury experience of a lifetime before we take this out into the world, I’m posting the link here.

Join The Community!

Join our Facebook GroupJoin the quest for “The Sweet Life.”  Request access to our Facebook Group.  Let’s learn from each other!  GO HERE

Free Audio Book Download

Full Unabridged Audio Book “Vagabonding With Kids” by AK Turner!  GO HERE

Take The SWEET LIFE Assessment

See how you score? Identify your strengths. Discover areas in your life you want to improve. GO HERE.

Giving Back

Amanda and Mike launched an Impact Club in their hometown of Boise, Idaho in 2017, and have had a blast gathering like-minded individuals, families, and organizations to make significant impact in our community, raising over $200,000 locally and over $1.5 million nationally.  

Join Our Next Monthly CHALLENGE

Every month Amanda and Mike pick a month-long challenge that pushes us out of our comfort zone so we can grow, learn, and become better versions of ourselves.  Sometimes we design our own unique challenge and other times we join pre-established challenges. Email us to find out about our next upcoming challenge. Us@BusinessofUs.com

About Us

Our Story | Mike and Amanda TurnerWe are Mike and Amanda Turner, founders of “The Business of Us.” We are fierce advocates of helping entrepreneurial couples and families improve their lives, livelihoods, and legacies… READ MORE

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