Lonnie Pacelli's Blog, page 54

Free 1/4-5 Only: 12 Reasons not to Start Your Own Small Business

Free 1/4-5 Only: 12 Reasons not to Start Your Own Small Business. Get it at https://amzn.to/2OSqG36 .

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Free on Kindle 12/28-29: Six-Word Lessons for Project Managers

Free 12/28-29 Only: Six-Word Lessons for Project Managers. Get it at https://amzn.to/2Kibc7U

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Free on Kindle 12/21-22: Six-Word Lessons for Autism-Friendly Workplaces

#Free 12/21-22 Only: Six-Word Lessons for Autism Friendly Workplaces. Get it at https://amzn.to/2OUOK5A


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Done and Done - Promoting Disability Inclusion by Helping Our Autistic Son Transition from College to Workforce

In December 2015 our son Trevor, who was diagnosed with autism at age 5, graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in Film and Media Studies.  Despite the challenges and all of the change Trevor endured in his college experience, he graduated with a 3.5 GPA with very little assistance.  He also experienced living by himself, living with nice and not-so-nice roommates, internships, and a summer job as a photographer at a boys camp in North Carolina.  He gained a tremendous amount of life experience and learned a ton about himself as a person.  His graduation in December put an exclamation point on a very rich college experience.  But college is only one race in the marathon called life; his next race - employment - was yet to start.  Read more

Free on Kindle 12/14-15: Six-Word Lessons for Dads With Autistic Kids

Free December 14-15: Six-Word Lessons for Dads with Autistic Kids. Get it at Https://amzn.to/2S5ifne. 

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Free on Kindle 12/7-8, Six-Word Lessons on Growing Up Autistic

Free on Kindle December 7-8, Six-Word Lessons on Growing Up Autistic. Get it at https://amzn.to/2DNCxyt

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My new book! The Lawless One and the End of Time

Just finished my latest book (and my first fiction piece) The Lawless One and the End of Time. It's about four teenagers who meet at an academy for exceptional students in Naples, Italy. Each of them becomes highly successful. One becomes a cutthroat scientist who discovers a cure for cancer. One becomes a high-tech genius who creates a hologram social network. One becomes a charismatic lawyer who prosecutes abusive Catholic clergy. One becomes an acclaimed professor who uses his Autism to give millions affected by it hope.

...and one of these four is the Antichrist.

Check it out on Amazon, or read a sample chapter.

Eight Drivers of Contentment

Recently Patty and I met up with our financial advisor to walk through our long-term finances.  A key component of that discussion was about our net worth, defined as assets minus liabilities.  While we had a very fruitful discussion that resulted in some great take-aways, it got me to thinking about how easy it is to focus on a single aspect of one's life and derive how good (or bad) one might be doing based on that aspect.  Don't get me wrong; one's net worth is certainly an important measure that needs to be tended to.  My point is that there is more to life than net worth when looking at your overall contentment.   This hit home for me with the suicides of famous figures Robin Williams, Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, and others.  These are people who appeared to have it all but to them something was so missing that it caused them to commit a horribly sad act.  Lives ended too early; my prayers go to their loved ones.

In thinking about contentment, I looked hard at what, to me, are the most important driving factors behind contentment.  Keep in mind my analysis is not from a point of scientific expertise; rather it is from a point of practicality as to what I think are the most important drivers.  I've honed my list to 8:
Professional Contentment - How content you are in your current and future career potential
Financial Contentment - How content you are in your current and future financial status
Family Contentment - How content you are in your family relationships
Health Contentment - How content you are in your physical and mental health
Leisure Contentment - How content you are with quality time spent on leisurely activities
Legacy Contentment - How content you are with the legacy you are leaving behind should you die today
Relational Contentment - How content you are with relationships built and maintained with friends and loved ones
Spiritual Contentment - How content you are with your spiritual life.
Now I completely realize that some of these above drivers are extremely important to some or not at all important.  My point is not to second guess your importance level; what I do believe necessary is to decide how important each of the above drivers are to you.  If something is not at all important to you then that is certainly your choice.  Just be mindful of avoiding something that could adversely impact you later.  As example, if you say financial contentment is not at all important and you decide not to financially plan for the future then you might be creating a problem for yourself later in life.

So what now?  I put together a simple excel spreadsheet which allows you to assess, for each of the contentment drivers, how important it is to you, what makes you content, and how you could be more content.  I think it's important to articulate both what makes you content and how you could be more content for a couple of reasons.  First, it allows you to celebrate things you are already happy with.  Second, it enables you to improve on some things which you may already be doing well. 
If you find this helpful, you can download the excel template to help you self-assess yourself based on the 8 drivers.  Download it here. 

As always, would love to hear what you think.  let me know your thoughts in below comments.

Six-Word Lessons for Dads Daily Calendar

Colleagues - I just created a daily calendar for dads using our Six-Word Lessons format.  Each month I focus on a specific topic, such as "Planning for the Future", "Balancing it All",  "Managing Your Career", etc.  Every day I send out a Six-Word Lesson for that topic (see samples above).  To avoid flooding inboxes with daily emails, I am doing only through social media.  If you would like to get these lessons in your social media feed click on one of the below social media buttons and follow me.  I also appreciate you sharing the lessons in your social media feed :-).
As always would love your feedback.  Please feel free to share your thoughts with me. 

Write Great Articles in Four Easy Steps

When I wrote my first book in 2004 my publicist told me, "you've got to write articles to get your message out and sell books!"  Being a good soldier I saluted and contemplated how I was going to get it done.   My publicist turned me on to a ghost writer who wrote an article under my guidance.  After paying way too much for the article and seeing the finished product, I vowed never again to have someone else write for me.  I decided that if I had crappy articles it was going to be because I was the one who wrote them, not because I paid someone to write crappy articles for me. 
When I wrote my first article, I decided on the topic and just started writing.  It was a disaster.  The content was disjointed, lacked focus, and made no sense.  It also took me hours and hours to produce a piece of garbage.  There had to be a better way.  Fortunately I found it after a lot of trial and error.

Fast forward to today.  I've written hundreds of articles and locked down on a methodology to writing articles which stay on topic, aren't disjointed, and are easy to create.  Here's what I do:

Every article I write has four sections, as follows:Opening storyCore message, or "meat" of the articleTake-awaysCloseIf you look at my articles you'll be able to pick up on this structure.  The secret sauce comes in not the sections themselves, but the order in which the sections are written.  I write the article in the following sequence:Take-awaysCore message, or "meat" of the articleCloseOpening story

Here's why I do it in this sequence.  I start first with take-aways because that is what I want my readers to get out of my article.  By starting with the take-aways, I ensure that I am putting the reader first and writing for the reader's benefit.  Next I construct the core message, or "meat" of the article.  The core message has to support the take-aways; if I've constructed the take-aways first then I better ensure the core message aligns to the take-aways.  Next I decide how I want to close the article, which is typically a one to two-sentence statement that underscores my core message.  The close leaves the last impression which needs to align to the core message.  Last, I write the opening story.  By writing the opening story last, I ensure that there is a relevant and seamless transition into the core message and that the opening story grabs the attention of the reader. 

When I use this structure, I not only get a better quality article, but can produce an article much faster than using the old method of "start at the beginning."  If you want to see an example go here. See if you can pick up on the article flow.  Happy writing!