http://www.douggale.com Impacting the World, 1 Person at a Time! Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:00:20 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en  One exercise I did year at year end was to take an inventory of all the books that I had read for 2011. When I was young, I was not the reader that I am now. Being outside and active was my life, not in reading books. Over the past ... http://www.douggale.com/general/beautiful-outlaw-by-john-eldredge-my-book-of-the-year.html When I was young I loved to watch mystery shows on TV, read mystery books, and always enjoyed the Ellery Queen mystery minute that one of the local radio stations would play every morning. I enjoyed the suspense, the intrigue and really trying to figure out  "who dun it". My favorite ... http://www.douggale.com/general/the-mystery-of-god.html When I graduated college we were in the midst of the "Wall Street" movie years. Gordon Gecko was telling us that greed was good. Get a degree, work hard for a bunch of years, tow the company line, and work your way up the corporate ladder. It really got me ... http://www.douggale.com/general/whats-at-the-top-of-the-ladder.html When I was 7 or 8 my family and I would take trips up to my Grandma's house in Green Bay. It was chance to get away and explore. I would welcome the chance to venture into the attic to find hidden treasure. I never really found any hidden gems, ... http://www.douggale.com/general/a-trip-to-the-attic.html My morning walk always provides me with a great chance to clear my mind, clear my heart and really set the table for the day. I delight in the clearing that provides my heart and mind to fill my soul with thoughts and inspiration. Yesterday days walk give me a really ... http://www.douggale.com/general/99.html I recently had a chance to read John and Stasi Eldredge's new book "Love and War". If you're not familiar with John's books I highly recommend picking up any of them. His books have made a huge impact on my life and my life 's journey. Love and war is ... http://www.douggale.com/general/recommendation-love-and-war-youre-marriage-will-thank-you.html I was trying to come up with something profound to say...but then I heard the song "He Is" by Mark Schultz and his words are so perfect for my walk at this point... Father, let the world just fade away Let me feel your presence in this place Lord, I’ve never ... http://www.douggale.com/general/92.html I was thinking this evening about what it means to be a believer and follower of Jesus. We all hear the stories in Sunday school and sometimes really feel and understand what they mean. It got me thinking me thinking about the grace that I was given, by Jesus going ... http://www.douggale.com/general/what-if-we-got-what-we-deserved.html As I was out for my morning walk this morning I started to think about change and how we as people handle change. I was listening to a sermon by Pastor MacDonald about how God uses circumstances and events in our lives to transform us, to bring about true character ... http://www.douggale.com/general/what-am-i-holding-on-to.html Four years ago this past February my family and I moved into our new house. It was so fun to walk into a brand new house. Nothing had been used or touched. Everything was so clean, like walking into a 5 star hotel in Manhattan. I thought to myself, wow ... http://www.douggale.com/general/happiness-or-joy.html I believe that much of life is about facing things that happen to us, good and bad. It's inevitable that events or circumstances will happen to us that will shape our lives, impact who we are and will sometimes shake us to the core. We can't avoid them. But we ... http://www.douggale.com/general/look-and-see-what-god-is-doing.html As I was out exercising the other day I was looking around our neighborhood and really started to think about what life was like here. I read a blog post awhile back by Jim Finwick and he talked about how people measure themselves against other people and that we should ... http://www.douggale.com/general/what-is-happening-to-the-spirit-of-men.html These days so many people are looking for answers, looking for the whys and for the where. There seem to be so many unanswered questions. I guess I could lump my self in with the masses. But isn't that part of the decision making that God has given us? Doesn't ... http://www.douggale.com/general/when-the-answers-dont-come.html Wow, this is my first post for 2010. It's amazing to look back at the last 10 years. We somehow escaped y2k, but we did get the movie "Office Space", which I never really knew was so many until...another post, another time. There are so many zany things that happened ... http://www.douggale.com/general/looking-back-is-showing-me-the-future.html Sometimes you have those moments in your life when things just click. Those ah-ha moments, or prompting moments as Cody Bateman would say. My awesome wife and I have had some of those moments lately, well, quite a few of them. I was very fortunate to connect via twitter with a ... http://www.douggale.com/general/now-i-know-what-curly-meant.html These past 6 months have really been a real learning time in my life. No, it's not that mid-life crisis thing, no red sports car. But this time has given me a real chance to learn about myself, and really learn what I want my life to be...from a spiritual, ... http://www.douggale.com/general/as-captain-jack-says-its-all-about-leverage.html I really do... As men, we rarely take the time to truly appreciate what we have in our lives. Society and the Madison Avenue marketing machine tells us what we should have and what we deserve. Society doesn't teach us to be happy with what we have...ah yes, contentment. You deserve ... http://www.douggale.com/general/i-have-a-awesome-wife.html Well maybe not. I was walking this morning with my big, floppy golden retriever named Copper and I realized that there is something that we as humans can learn from our furry friends. They take life just as it comes. They don't worry about all of the little things that might ... http://www.douggale.com/general/i-want-to-live-like-my-dog.html As some of you may know I really enjoying walking for exercise. I used to bike a lot, but my back fought that immensely and now I walk. Our block here in Wisconsin is exactly 1 mile around so I can do 3 or 4 or 5 laps with not ... http://www.douggale.com/general/oh-my-i-am-hearing-voices.html At first when I made the decision to add fuel to my awesome wife's passion I really wasn't sure what I was getting into. I knew what social meant, and I knew what media  meant, but I had NO clue what they meant together. I had heard web 2.0 passed ... http://www.douggale.com/general/i-tipped-over-the-wine-bottle-and-gold-came-out.html Today I had the privilege of reading Ben Settle's recent post regarding old school marketers and what they did to bring their products to their audiences. It got me thinking about how things are these days. It seems as though everyone has a system that will hit home runs every time. ... http://www.douggale.com/general/we-dont-need-more-systems.html The one thing I learned this week, but something I probably already knew, was that as a Father there isn't anything that I won't do for my daughter. I love doing things with her as much as a can.  From a bike ride after dinner to our monthly "dates", which ... http://www.douggale.com/general/as-a-father-i-am-going-down-the-drain.html Yeah, today was another super fun day to be working from home. Commute was easy, about 12 steps from upstairs to downstairs, the coffee was fresh, should be, I made it myself, and my awesome wife was at my side. This days task was to get a marketing brochure started. ... http://www.douggale.com/general/god-is-patient-with-me-i-guess-i-will-be-patient-and-wait-for-him.html Sometimes things happen in your life and you can just feel the hand of God working. Yeah, I wish that I had better vision in that aspect but I keep looking and looking. Yesterday was one of those days. During our 12 week "visit" to Colorado last fall I had the ... http://www.douggale.com/general/meeting-steve-forbes-and-the-value-of-a-pencil.html As many of you know my family and I had to return from our move to Colorado last fall. We truly loved being in the west. Colorado Springs is a town that Patty and I enjoyed. The constant views of Pike's Peak put nature in an awe that was so ... http://www.douggale.com/general/god-and-my-awesome-daughter.html