I’ve learned over the years that “top of the line” can be way overrated. I’ve bought top of the line cars, electronics, and clothes, only to be disappointed that what I really bought was average stuff with a high price and an inflated marketing budget.

How has our world changed?  We’ve gone from “top of the line” to “top of the mind.”

With everything that calls for the attention of the people you’re there to serve, your promise for service needs to be more top of the mind than top of the line.  In these days of social media and all the other ways in which we’re able to push content out, it’s more important than ever to be top of the mind.

Is your church on the minds of those you exist to serve?  Is your company’s service on the top of the minds of those that you exist to help?  Does you family know that even though you are away from them that they are top of the mind in your heart and soul?

Seth Godin calls it being remarkable; the principle of the purple cow.  I call it being so interesting and compelling that people think about you even when they’re not thinking about you.

The interesting thing is where I am, looking at the sand and the water and the waves and all the people, you can’t see it.  On the first morning I did my beach run, I came back and looked down and realized that my feet were caked with sand.  When I looked at my feet they were brown and black and had that faint oil smell to it.

It’s amazing.  It couldn’t see it, couldn’t smell it, but it was there, and it stained my feet.  Each time,it took about an hour and a half to get it off.

I thought about how easy it is sometimes; the things that come into our lives and our relationships that we can’t see or smell, that shouldn’t be there; things that are corrosive over time. Not something that’s overt, big, and flashy, but something allowed to stay will ultimately destroy us.

What are the things that are going on right now in your life that you can’t see, but are there and need to be dealt with?

What I found is true for tires is true for life, true for marriage, true for any relationship.  We think our marriage is broke.  It isn’t.  We’re just in misalignment.  We’ve left the same page and there is friction being created by both of us pulling in different directions.

You want a quick fix?  Here’s how you do it.  Take what you believe and translate that into how you ought to behave, look at how you do behave, and the gap between those is your growth curve.  Bring your life into alignment with what you believe. In other words, believe and behave.  Do that until you feel the kind of feelings you want, and get the kind of results you desire.

Remember, you will not feel your way into acting.  But you can act your way into feeling.  And the first start is by believing  and aligning your life up behind what you believe.  Jesus said it this way, “Why call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?”

• I’m glad I started because starting was the hardest part.
• I’m glad I use WordPress because WordPress is easy to update.
• I’m glad I put my observations and thoughts down on paper.  Now I have them chronicled; not only for others to read and benefit by, but for me to remember what I was thinking four years ago, three years ago, or even two months ago.
• It’s allowed me to contribute to the conversation about life, love and relationships.
• It’s allowed me to dispel a lot of weirdness that goes on in the name of God by giving my take on spirituality.
• It’s allowed me to make contact with people I would have never known all across the country.
• It allows me to inspire others and extend my influence for good.
• It’s a discipline that causes me to think, crystallize my ideas, and put them down, and communicate.
• It allows me to be a part of the solution, not just curse the darkness and the problems.
• It may serve as a spark for an idea or creative solution to someone who reads it.
• It’s allowed me to consciously avoid being negative and attacking people in print, because there have been oh so many times that I’ve wanted to.

These are just a few of the ideas of why blogging in the past four years has been good for me.  I think I am a better person, and I’ve been fortunate to think and process information and ideas rather than just letting them be dismissed and pass on by.  My goal in the next four years is to continue blogging only those things that are helpful to my readers: things that help inspire; ideas and observations that may make life a little clearer, and choices a little easier.

What are you doing today that you are glad you started four years ago?  Or are you still “planning on” getting started?

We’re great at getting married.  As a matter of fact, television is filled with shows about picking out dresses, and getting married, and brides gone wild, and a thousand other variations on the whole “getting married” idea.  Few of us really understand what it takes to be married over a lifetime.

There are a lot of symptoms that people point to for the reasons marriages break up.  My good friend Dave Ramsey says that the number one reason marriages break up in America is over money fights and disagreements.  And with my experience counseling with couples I would tend to agree with that.

But I hear other experts talk about sexual infidelity, lack of communication, lack of shared values, and other important issues.

But if you take all of those symptoms (money fights, sexual infidelity, lack of communication) and really look at them closely, here is the conclusion, at least, I’ve come to.  The number one reason why marriages  in America break up is because you’re not on the same page.

Have you ever heard that phrase?  Maybe it’s at work and you say, “You know we’re really not on the same page here on this project.”  It’s true also in sports.  Football has a playbook.  You run the plays.  You have to be on the same page to run the same plays.  The truth of the matter is, that’s true in all  relationships.

The question is, how do you get on the same page and stay on the same page? That’s equally as important because once you get on the same page, it’s work to stay there over a lifetime.

Ask yourself these questions:  If you and your spouse were on the same page, would you be talking more?  Would you be laughing more?  Would you have more money if you were on the same page when it comes to your finances and particularly your philosophy of debt?

How about parenting?  Wouldn’t that be easier, better, more productive if you were on the same page?  We all know that children love dividing parents and pitting them against one another.  How can they do that?  You’re not on the same page.

One of the things Paula and I worked hard at on our “Making Marriage Fun Again” Live Event, is to help people get on the same page and know how to stay on the same page.  Really that’s the key to an amazing marriage: getting and staying on the same page.  Here is our promise for those who attend our “Making Marriage Fun Again” Live Events.  We guarantee that before you leave this event, you and your spouse will be on the same page. Staying on the same page afterward will be up to you.  But you will have new tools and motivations to make it happen.

So we talked about the importance of “making.”  We have been handed the resources of life, but we alone are responsible to make something of them.  Making marriage a covenant between two lovers that takes a lifetime to grow, not build.

The third word in that title is Making Marriage Fun.  And before you dismiss that as a silly idea, think about the different levels of success in life.

Anytime you hear someone interviewed about high achievement: business, sports, music, entertainment, one word continues to come up again and again.  “We were having fun.  It just felt like fun.”  And when you’re having fun, guess what?  Everyone else around you is having fun and there is something good going on at your core.

I will never forget last year when Coach Fisher, the coach of our Tennessee Titans, was asked to give an explanation of Vince Young’s performance.  He said, and I quote, “Vince was just out there having fun.”

Marriage should be fun.  That’s the highest level of human enjoyment and achievement – fun.  That’s when you learn to dance; when you learn the keys to growing relationships over time so well that they become natural, symbiotic, and intuitive.

I want my marriage to be fun. That doesn’t mean it’s frivolous.  But it means when my wife Paula and I are having fun, that we have the fundamentals covered.  We’ve got the strong foundation.  Our core beliefs and behaviors are strong.  We understand that our mission, vision, and goals are clear in our minds.  We have zero excuses for our behavior, particularly when it’s bad.  And we have absolute trust in our motives.  And when that happens, and you couple that with intelligent, high-octane, loving conversation and talk about the future, and add to that the philosophy of W.W.O.N.D.A. – win-win, or no deal always, when it comes to my marriage, you have two people who can do almost anything together.

When marriage goes wrong, it goes very wrong.  And the first sign is, we’re not having any fun – at all.  I’m the first to understand that life can be hard, but it also ought to be fun.  That’s one of the crusades that Paula and I are on for the rest of our lives.

The word again simply means that no one, I mean no one, marries a boring person not having fun.  We got there at one time, and we can get there again.

This is a passion, a mission, something that must be done. Help us.  If you know someone who could benefit from this live event on April 30th, whether they live in the Nashville area or even in the state, invite them.  At least give them the opportunity to make the decision on their own. We’re going to have plenty of room.  We’re going to be meeting at the Financial Peace Conference Center.  It’s going to be fun, you’ll laugh, and you’ll start on the road to something special.  This could be the night that your marriage and your relationship, that your children, your family, your career, and your future changes forever.

I am absolutely positive that Paula and I can help anyone save their marriage if they’ll show up and give us a chance.

In response to that, we’ve written a Live Event program that will be launching on April 30th here in Nashville.  You can check out the MakingMarriageFunAgain.com web site to find out information and sign up.

The point of this blog, though, is not to let you know about that Live Event, but to let you know about the name, “Making Marriage Fun Again.” As a writer and a copywriter, as a person who has ideas that he wants to communicate, help that he wants to offer, I’ve worked hard over the years at writing titles and copy for books and articles that create an essence of what I think people need.

“Making Marriage Fun Again” isn’t just a clever title.  And when you write titles to communicate your brand, your offering, your service, your organization’s mission, you need to understand that “cutesy” is not that important.  Communicating the essence of what you’re trying to do in the fewest words, is.  Creating energy and movement is important.  Let me give you an example of why each word was chosen.

The title begins with the word, “making.”  Making is important because that’s what we do.  That is our task on the earth.  That is what God has put us here to do; not to endure, but to make something of ourselves, make something of our lives.  And when two people come together in a covenant of marriage, they are making something new.  They are commencing on a brand new, not just venture, but a brand new family.  A new family is formed and it is not yet made; it is formed.  And there is a big difference between forming a thing and making a thing. “Making” is really important. So when you get married, you understand that’s a brief amount of time – courtship, dating, or whatever.  But the being married; that’s the years, and the decades.  That’s the ups and the downs, the apartments, the houses, and the moving across country.  It’s the children and sickness and illness and fights and making up, and anniversaries, and Christmases, and putting things together, and mowing yards, and hello’s and good-byes, and deaths and births.  That’s the making of the thing.

And maybe “making” is the most important word in this title.  It shows action and something to put your hands to.  Paula and I meet so many people who have just given up on making anything of their marriages
and even their own lives.  When you are in the “making” mode, creating, innovating, working, fashioning, forming, decorating, planting, growing, then you are about a good thing.

So let me just stop here in this blog post today and ask you, “What are you making of yourself? What are you making of your life, of your marriage, of your opportunities, of your education?  What are you making of the advantages that you’ve been given?  What are you making of the help that’s been offered?”

Remember, you have no control over what you confront in a 24-hour period.  But you are ultimately in control of what you make of it.  If you don’t like what you’ve made so far of your marriage, you can make a brand new start – today! It only takes one of you – the husband or the wife – to choose.

Remember, we call God our Maker.  We are the made. We were made by a Creator, so therefore we are creative; we’ve been commissioned to use the abilities and the life that we’ve been given. So make something beautiful.  Make something bold.  Make something that will endure and last.

Here is the point of the song: Oftentimes we avoid confrontation.  We avoid telling people what we want and what we really need until somewhere down the road, a switch gets thrown and we don’t care anymore.

Hey, if in your marriage you’re avoiding confronting the realities, you need to do it now, sooner than later while you still care.  If you’re not having sexual intimacy, good conversation, conflict resolution; if there’s an elephant in the room – the bedroom, the living room, or any other room in your house – avoiding it simply means that one day you’re going to wake up and one of you won’t care, and what was precious and sacred will have died.

It happens in marriages.  It happens between children and their parents, and between partners in business. I know you hate confrontation.  Any good person does.  But the sooner you deal with the conflict right before you, the unresolved expectation, or the hurt feeling while you still care, the more you’ll make sure that your give a damn is not busted.

In a recent commercial Valerie can be seen wearing a white lab coat, spouting off proof from a nationwide clinical study about how effective Jenny is.  If you haven’t seen the commercial, don’t worry, you never will.  You know why?  Somebody made them pull it.  Why?  Because it is a flat, outright lie; a big fat Jenny Craig lie, no study, all fabricated, and they got caught.

Dishonesty in advertising is epidemic.  Who can you believe?  With the Toyota recalls and all the rest that goes with that, the consumer is left wondering who’s telling the truth.

If it stopped there it would be ok.  But dishonesty and lying is epidemic in relationships as well.  Husbands lie to wives, wives lie to husbands, and ultimately the truth comes out.

In any relationship, especially a married relationship, absolute trust is essential.  It’s like oxygen in a room.  It’s essential.  If I don’t trust you, I can’t relate to you.  And if I can’t relate to you, I can’t live with you.  It’s just that simple.  So, if you’re tempted to shave the corners, wear a white lab coat and spout off what clinical studies prove, and you know you’re lying, just opt for the truth.  It’s that simple.

Let’s tell each other the truth.  Sometimes it’s painful, but trust me, it costs far less in the long run.  You can’t build a life, success, a career, or anything enduring on a lie.  Come out from behind the mask, get real,  become transparent,  and tell the truth.