Charlois

Easter!  He is risen!  Easter!

What does Easter and Holy week mean to you?  Is it the easter bunny and all his treats?  Or maybe getting all dressed up and going to church to show your finest?  Or maybe you’re real religious, and you’re celebrating the fact that Jesus was crucified, spent three days in a tomb, and on the third day rose from the dead?

Different people have different ideas of what it means.  In reality, it doesn’t matter what it means to you and me if it doesn’t bring about a change in how we live our lives.

Period!

Meditate on that for a while,

Go in God’s grace.

Pastor Yancy

In 2010, Laura Vanderkam wrote, “168 Hours, you have more time than you think.”  I consider it one of the best Time Management books I’ve read.  While it doesn’t follow the typical format, it does get the point across; with 168 hours in a week, we have enough time to do what’s important to us.

One of the first things she does is have us keep a time log for one week.  She believes we can’t plan our time if we don’t know where we’re spending it.  For me, this was an eye-opening experience.  I knew I wasted a lot of time, but now I know the culprits.

From there she asks for us to write a list of 100 of our hopes and dreams.  This list is used later in the book when we start allocating time.  By having the list, we know what is important to us and thus what should be first on the calendar.

This book is fun to read, and very practical; which goes with Charlois’s practical philosophy.

Get it, read it, and begin the journey to the life you desire.

This is a new installment of this blog.  It will cover items pertaining to the nonprofit arm of Charlois, the Fellowship of ALL God’s Children.  As of right now we are in a state of flux.  We do have a facebook page, and now this blog column.  However the rest is still up in the air.

Please check in often as things can change quickly.  We are looking forward to serving you.  God bless.

The Charlois Philosophy team

The Charlois Co. is getting close to being a legal entity.  However, as I think about where we are at and where we are headed, I realize, I may have jumped the gun.  While the vision is there, the start-up is less than clear.  Originally, we were hoping to set up the non-profit, but that would involve more than what we are ready for.  So, I asked our lawyer to go ahead and set up an LLC for-profit.

While she is working on the project, we don’t know what the final outcome is going to be.  She believes getting it done by the end of the week is doable.  Once it’s complete we can start figuring out next steps.

Keep the whole process in your thoughts and prayers as I believe that with God’s help we’ll figure it out.

Robert A. Charlois III

Even living, or trying to, I sometimes get off track.  The past couple of weeks is one example.  There has been much happening, what with the book, ‘The Charlois Manifesto,” the non-profit, Fellowship of ALL God’s Children, The For-profit, The Charlois Co., my mental health therapy, and yes even this Blog.  I should have plenty to keep me busy, but I suffer from too much activity.

Sometimes we have to take a step back, evaluate what’s going on, and devise a plan to take it one step at a time.  This is where I’m at right now; evaluating my options and direction.  I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I’m committed to working it out.

That is a characteristic of the Charlois Life.  Stick with it until you get past the difficult phase.  So hang in there and as the Bible says, “And it came to pass.”

Robert A. Charlois III

Over recent weeks I’ve written about the Charlois Principles.  I wrote a piece about each one of the 13.  Now it’s time to expand the discussion.

The 13 Principles are short statements about steps, that if followed, will help people become the best version of themselves, thus leading to an abundant life.

While each principle can be taken in turn, it is not required.  In fact, working on them all concurrently may be a more realistic approach.  The reason for this is that they feed off of each other.

Therefore, while addressing one you are simultaneously approaching the others.  In other words, say you are working on the one about reaching into your spiritual nature; that takes the personal discipline taught in principle 3.

So, I feel it is wise to scan the complete list and fit them together in a way that makes sense to you.

Just some information to consider while reading the Charlois Manifesto.

Mark 11:1-11 The telling of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  Although I was not there, I believe it was more low key than the movies make it.  While I don’t doubt there was celebrating; I don’t believe it was the masses.  People had their own agendas for being in town on this Passover week.  Only his closest followers anticipated something victorious.

According to verse 11, it was late when He entered the temple and there wasn’t much going on.  No one had a clue about what would transpire on this holiest week of the year.

Because the church has expanded the view of what was happening, we really don’t realize the magnitude of this week for the Jews of the time.  We have highjacked it for our own purposes, ignoring those who have a different understanding.  I feel that in order to make it truly a Judeo-Christian event, we need to acknowledge that there was more to it than just about Jesus.

This has been a trend in the life of the church.  People of the Christian faith have trampled other people’s expressions of faith, all in the desire to propagate this new faith as the only way to God.  This is a travesty.

The God I believe in, and the one the Charlois Philosophy promotes is an all loving, all encompassing, God of the whole universe.  If we want to exclude other’s just because they don’t believe the same way we do, well then, I think we need to take a long hard look at ourselves.

Meditate on that for a while,

Go in God’s grace.

Pastor Yancy

In 2020, BJ Fogg, PHD. Wrote a book called “Tiny Habits, The Small Changes That Change Everything.”  Written after 25 years of research, with 40,000 people it is a groundbreaking treatise on habit formation.

The body of the work is 8 chapters of instruction in the skill of habit formation.  He postulates that there is a system to changing habits.  Working with the equation of Behavior = Motivation, Ability, Prompt; he says, any habit can be formed quicky and enjoyably.  He proves his point by giving the process, and then sharing examples from his work with others, through the “Tiny Habits Course.”

The book is a straight forward explanation of the steps; one per chapter that, when followed leads to the desired behavior.  He says, beginning with small steps to establish a habit, the expanding it over time, we can build the identity we are striving for.

At 306 pages, this is the best resource I’ve found to elicit change in our personal lives, plus it can carry over into other areas as well.  I encourage you to get a copy.  You can do as I did and check it out for yourself, or just go ahead and buy a copy right away.  Although I was introduced via the library, I’m definitely going to buy my own copy.

Get it, read it, and begin the journey to the life you desire.

With the Charlois Philosophy, the goal is to become the best version of yourself possible so that you can live abundantly.  With that abundance we are free to share our bounty with others, thereby completing the cycle of reciprocity.

In order to be our best selves, we need to focus on continual self-improvement.  That begins with an honest self-assessment, where our strengths and weaknesses are brought to our awareness.  We can’t fix ourselves if we don’t know where we stand.

Once we have the self-assessment completed, we can devise a plan on how to proceed.  It is our belief that we should find a balance between working on our strengths and our weaknesses.  By giving attention to our strengths, we increase our effectiveness in changing things.  Working on our weaknesses, on the other hand reduces the likelihood that we’ll create more problems for ourselves.

Finishing up this process calls for a periodic review of our progress.  By doing this self-evaluation we can be prepared to make corrections along the way, thus increasing our success rate.

It is that simple; Assess, adapt, succeed.  That is the formula for becoming your best self.  Now, begin the process.

Recently I’ve been having some problems; failing to view my successes, not sure of myself, and just an overall malaise.  So, I’ve started troubleshooting the problem.  What I have discovered is this; with all I have going on I’m not seeing progress in any one area.  It’s there, just hidden from sight.  So, the next step is to celebrate the past victories and see how far I’ve come.

Once I get my feet back under me it’ll be time to assess the current status of all my projects.  There will be some, the Non-profit for example, that are currently in the hands of others.  If that is the case, I need to put it on the back burner until it’s returned to my care.

That leaves those items that I’m still directly in charge of; of which there are two.  I need to focus solely on those at the moment and let the rest be cared for by their responsible parties.

If I am to accomplish my goals, I need to stay focused on those items that are currently on my plate.  There is no need to spend valuable energy on things that other people are working on.  I just need to trust that I have the best team to handle my projects.

Once I let the externals go, and start focusing on those items that are still my sole responsibility, I will find I have more creative energy to work on my stuff.  This post is a good example.  I’m currently the only one writing these so it makes sense that I give it my best shot.

These are lessons I wish I had learned a long time ago but I’m just glad I’ve got it now.

Don’t give up.  You will find the answers if you work at it.