It starts out with a friend or an acquaintance something like this…

“Hey Eddie, I haven’t seen you in a while, how is your business going?”

“It’s going great, it’s really thriving. God has been good to me.”

“Awesome. You want to grab coffee and catch up?”

Me, being the social person I am is always quick to agree to coffee and conversation.

“I’d love that.”

We then setup a time and meet and sometimes we come around to the real reason why they wanted to meet in the first meeting, but sometimes they wait until the second meeting, or even the third.

The first time this happened I was probably 18. The product was Excel Communications phone service. It was like any other direct marketing scheme where you sign up, IT’s A GREAT DEAL! and you sign up all your friends and then they sign up their friends and EVERYONE GETS RICH! You CANNOT Lose. YOU’D BE AN IDIOT not to sign up now!!!

The offers always sound great and you have to get in RIGHT NOW because it is growing like wildfire.

The second scheme I was hoodwinked into was Advocare. It was the same spiel. Lots of money. Products flying off the shelves. Groundbreaking. The adjectives were always superlative, there were always amazing studies to back up their claims and if that’s not enough there is always an article on CNN, Forbes, MSNBC or some other highly accredited news team that is backing up their product. I have since determined that each of these sources somehow is getting a cut of the money and so they’ll basically plug you or put you on the cover of their mag as long as they get a kickback.

The third product was Stream Energy and then of all things, me, a man, I was suckered and lured by the siren song of the pretty gals at Mary Kay. Yes. I said MARY KAY. These women fawned all over me at the first meeting saying things like “You’ll be great” “Wonderful Personality!” “Instant Sales” “Money in the Bank!!!” Flattery is indeed my greatest weakness and I succumbed to their wooing. $1000 dollars down the drain and lots of shame later… I finally walked away from Mary Kay.

In each of the aforementioned scenarios the person who invited me was a trusted friend and often the pretense was, “This will help YOUR business” or “Your business can help me in MY business!” – Which I misunderstood as a need for a new Web Design or DJ services or maybe even both.

Then if all of those schemes weren’t lesson enough, THREE TIMES I was invited to dinner, had my dinner paid for and then was pretty much sold Life Insurance Policies after a few meetings that were touted as “Financial Planning”. Ugh. SUCH LIES!  The truth was these people needed my business and my contacts. Life Insurance is a need and great for many people with families, but as a single man it is a poor investment – especially, and this is something they don’t tell you, your first couple years of paying on those policies the money all goes to PREMIUMS which means if you cancel your policy after two years you get NOTHING. Zilch. I was literally under the impression that my money was going into a savings account that was growing interest at a higher rate and that while canceling my policy would come with a penalty, I had no idea it meant that penalty would mean I would not even get PENNIES from that investment – nor could I transfer that policy to a new and better policy. Basically I was STUCK. After two years of paying $150 a month I canceled my policy and lost $3600.

So yesterday I met with a gal for lunch and while I sensed some warning flags because she was so persistent, I really thought that she was going to be LEGIT – too legit to quit even. But alas, I was BAMBOOZLED AGAIN. Someone shake me, wake me from this bad dream!!

I get to lunch and her “Friend Janet is going to join us!” – I’m still an idiot thinking that she is really just bringing a friend along and it is 3 people getting to know each other for mutual business networking. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. Janet literally came equipped with a 118 page Power Point slide. Did you miss that number ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN PAGES. CHRISTMAS ON A CRACKER!!!!!

So I had my entire afternoon disrupted – which when you are self-employed means LOSS OF INCOME – because I literally always have work to do that makes me money – and it was MISERABlE. This lady literally started talking and didn’t stop for an HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES. Inside I was hating life and hating myself for once again getting stuck in this situation. While here Janet thought that she was DOING ME A FAVOR! In reality I’d rather have been WATERBOARDED than to sit through lunch and have someone sell me some direct marketing Travel Business plan where if I “JUST SIGN UP 10 FRIENDS” and then it pretty much takes on a life of it’s own – type of product. The ONLY positive from this meeting was my lunch was delicious even if I didn’t really get to enjoy it, and at the end of the presentation there was a slide that had a little bit of honesty on it and it pretty much said that if you don’t work hard at it, then you won’t make any money.

So my message to all my friends who sell these types of products is this:

1. People are WEARY/LEARY/SICKANDTIRED of being sucked in by some scheme where they have to sell all their friends in order to make the plan work.
2. Is it really so hard to be up front with someone and TELL THEM what you are selling?
3. Don’t invite someone to lunch or coffee to hang out and then BLINDSIDE them with a product – RUDE.
4. Stop making false promises.

Truth – Direct Marketing works – if you work really hard and pretty much sell out to it. That means possibly losing all your friends and eventually making this job that is supposedly just side income – a 20-40 hour a week job. Any time you work 20-40 hours a week at something and really work it correctly, it is most likely going to succeed – it just takes time. But the same can be said for any business. You don’t start bringing in mad amounts of clients when you first start a business. iPods weren’t flying off the shelf when they were first launched, but over time a business will pick up traction and it will become less of a hassle finding new clients – especially if your product really is great. So why don’t these direct marketers just come out and say that? Do they really just enjoy spending hours signing up people only to have them drop out 6 months down the road?

In all of these scenarios I was asked “Do you have some friends that you can tell about this product or tell their names so I can sign them up?” – and normally this happened BEFORE I had a chance to try out the product. Word of Mouth sales work best when someone has had a GOOD EXPERIENCE and they genuinely boast about the service or product they received, not because they are trying to twist someone’s arm into trying something.

So there’s my rant for the week. My intention isn’t to hurt anyone with this post but to educate. I’ve lost good friends because of their attempts to sell me on something and eventually I felt like they cared more about their own product/service/cash intake than they cared about me and what kind of client relationship is that?

If you are up front with people then I think that goes a long way. If each of these people had straight up asked me “Do you want this?” I probably would have told them I wasn’t interested, but, if they had given me an outline of the facts, the amount of work involved, and the realistic return of the investment for me to review BEFORE I met with them, then I would have felt like I had an opportunity to really think through the product/service and then if I had questions or more interest then I could meet with them for coffee. This is something I could appreciate and respect.

So there it is. Be warned. I don’t want to park you out on front street for being a bad business person… but park you I will if it comes to that.

The Beginning of My Addiction

I was probably 8 years old the first time I saw pornography. This wasn’t just pictures of nude women in Playboy, but the real deal. It belonged to a relative and one of my cousins found the stash and showed it to me. It was frightening and made me feel sick to my stomach.

Fast-forward to 6th grade. I was only 10 years old in the 6th grade. My classmates snuck Playboy mags into the locker room. Guys would huddle around and look as one boy flipped pages. It would last for all of 5 minutes, no harm done right?

A couple years later I worked at a horse ranch at the age of 12. My boss always treated me like an adult. He let me drive his car. He gave me big responsibilities. He left stacks of porn on his doorstep.

Over the years porn would not be something that I would search for, but something that would pretty much be dropped into my lap, however, my addiction to it didn’t really begin until I was about 24. By this time I was no longer living at home or too busy with college and friends. I had settled into a job. I had an apartment by myself and I had access to the internet as well as years of insecurity and repressed desire. As a christian I knew online pornography was wrong, but hey, at least I wasn’t having sex right?

That’s what you do with porn as a christian – you rationalize and justify the sin down until it almost becomes a good thing. It is the lesser of two evils. For married men they probably tell themselves “Well, at least I’m not cheating”. There is always a reason, a justification and now it has become mainstream. When I was a kid people were ashamed to admit to masturbating. Not so anymore. Movies like “Hall Pass” talk about taking mental pictures and storing them in a “Spank Bank”. Magazines for men and women often discuss the best sites for free porn and even tips on masturbation. In an article I read in Details magazine it stated that 1 in 4 had herpes and while the article made it sound like it was a pretty horrific sexually transmitted disease, that in reality the question was not if you’d get it, but when. Porn, Sex, Masturbation STD’s – they are all no big deal… at least that is the lie we’ve been sold.

There is this constant message in our media that seems to suggest that everyone is having sex and that if you aren’t, something is wrong with you. We use sex to sell everything from cheeseburgers to shampoo and there seems to be very little understanding of romance or real intimacy. Instead the guy that shows any sort of sensitivity or romantic feelings for his wife or girlfriend is considered “whipped” – not chivalrous or masculine.

For me I justified my online pornography use even further because I wasn’t looking at “airbrushed perfection” but instead real people. I liked to go into chat rooms. I thought that there was little harm in this despite the intense shame I felt for hiding this dirty secret and even going online to seek out that type of gratification.

This issue plagued me for years. No one really tells you the consequences of porn or that it is addictive like a drug and that it wreaks havoc on your relationships and your mental health. While as kids we are often told not to do something, we aren’t always educated on the real reason as to why not. The simple answer? Because it is freaking dangerous. Online porn will MESS. YOU. UP. Don’t believe me? Read this article. Kids are becoming registered sex offenders at the age of 13 and even younger. There is an epidemic of children under the age of 17 becoming addicted to viewing online porn.

So what do we do? For starters you need to educate your children – boys and girls – at an early age. Make them aware of the dangers and let them know that it is not right and that it is like a drug. The aforementioned article says this:

‘Our research at the clinic has found that although the internet doesn’t create these problems, it can release interests which would never have surfaced otherwise.’

Meaning that when people of any age are exposed to something like meth, cocaine, heroine, pornography – we don’t know what issues and interests will surface. Will everyone that views online porn have an overwhelming addiction or want to rape and maim? No. But there are some that will.

What do you do if you are already addicted to online porn? GET HELP.

I remember going to a friend and telling him “I’m addicted. I’m almost manic with desire and temptation. I’m going to really mess up.” I had even planned an anonymous rendezvous in a hotel that I never followed through with it – less out of heart conviction and more out of a fear of STD’s. Fortunately my friend told me to go and see a counselor and so I did.

How did I overcome my addiction? 

I think that for me I have to remain extremely humble in this area. As someone who was literally shattered by this sin and failed so many times I truly started to believe that it was something that was impossible to give up. I sort of loved my addiction. It was something that I craved when things got tough. Upset because I didn’t get a job? Look at porn. Just got dumped by a girl? Look at porn. Parental problems? Porn. For me porn was always my answer. It was my drug of choice followed closely by food and spending money.

Jesus is the Answer?

For me Jesus was never the answer to my problems, instead I liked to think that he was the cause. I blamed God for so many things in my life (Being Fat, Losing my Hair, Not being born rich, My skin color, Not being cool enough or smart enough…) and while I preached to others about loving Christ and trusting in him, in my own heart this wasn’t the case. I had all these ill feelings and resentments in my life and I was unwilling to truly trust God to provide for me in the areas that I was coming up short – and in case you haven’t noticed from this article I was coming up short in just about every possible area.

Finally after literally years of trying to fix this problem on my own I got help from a counselor and then later a group of guys that kept me accountable. Yeah, I’d had accountability partners in the past but I mostly just lied to them, but this time it was different. This group of guys were quality with a a capital Q. Solid men who were grounded in truth and were willing to actually listen and care. Through them I found the intimacy in my Christian faith that I had been missing for most of my Christian life. God used these guys to show me that Jesus truly was the answer to my problems, I just wasn’t willing to to let go long enough for him to step in and clean up the mess.

It Wasn’t Easy

So how did I overcome this issue? First of all I had to confess my gross past to these dudes and ask for prayer. Then I had to admit to them when I messed up. I lied a few times at the beginning, but they loved me and were so sincere that eventually I came clean 100%. I let them know when I stumbled and over time the allure of online pornography became less and less – but, the desire to masturbate, the biological need was and is still there. I’ll admit it. I’m a dude. We like sex. Duh. But is there a way to just stop masturbating and to forever go this primal urge? To that I have to say I have no idea. What I do know is that I don’t spend 10 hours a month viewing online porn and masturbating every other day. Over time I realized that my desire to self-gratify came more from the desire to escape from how I was feeling and less about sex. I find that when I have a healthy relationship with the Lord as well as my finances, diet and relationships that there isn’t a great need to compulsively masturbate.

Pressing On

Being a single man of integrity is not easy, but being a single man who is addicted to internet porn isn’t so great either. Eventually my desire to escape from reality to internet porn diminished entirely. This I believe is a sweet, sweet gift that I received from the Holy Spirit and is something I never want to take credit for or take for granted. Like a serial dieter I had become a serial quitter when it came to pornography and each time I gave back in to my temptation it was pure bliss… and then suddenly it wasn’t. It was strange really. I went from being constantly plagued with these desires to suddenly having this feeling of “What are you doing? You aren’t even enjoying this…” Something in me literally clicked. Like a key turning in the lock to release my chains. For the first time I truly felt free. Now in the past I have had these little breakthroughs where I feel like I’ve overcome a big addiction. I’ve lost 20-30 pounds on a diet and vowed never to return to Dr. Pepper only to give in 30, 60, or even 90 days down the road. Normally during these periods of “Break Through” I would still have a craving but I would have willpower or this great feeling of pride in my self and what I had accomplished. My Facebook status would tout my abstinence or achievement and I’d feel good about myself for my amazing willpower. That wasn’t the case this time. For me I had a Romans 12:2 moment where I literally understood first-hand what it meant to no longer be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I understood the verse in John 8:32 about the truth and how it will set you free and finally I had a new confidence, not in myself, but in Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit and how Paul said in Philippians 1:6 that he who began a good work in me would carry it out until completion. I’m still being worked on. I’m a big fat work in progress, but now I’ve truly decided to take the easy way out and the easy way is trusting in Jesus. Before everyone told me “Oh, that’s the easy way out” when it came to porn, but in reality porn carries a heavy price with it. It traps your mind and warps your thinking. It holds you in bondage so tightly that eventually the sick strain becomes comfortable and you no longer hunger and thirst for the things that will satisfy you, but instead you have an insatiable appetite for something that is destroying you.

Continued Growth

For me the next steps are to continue in deep prayer and connection to the Holy Spirit. I have to constantly guard my eyes and resist even minuscule temptations. In the past I allowed my mind to wander and even invited mental images that would arouse and even justify them as being “not that big of a deal”. Now I know different.  2 Corinthians says “⁵ We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” I love that word “Demolish”. I love the idea of obliterating evil thoughts that come into my mind. The same thoughts that would have me believe that this world and all it’s shiny trappings can somehow take the place of Jesus Christ in my life. Those thoughts that I once welcome with open arms I know want to punch in the face. “LIES!” I want to shout in the face of temptation.

Now each day I live with gratitude that my eyes have been opened to see the path of destruction that I was headed down. I am so thankful every day to the 5 men in my accountability group that have walked this final leg of my looong journey through recovery and continue to walk by my side each day in prayer and support.

Finally, I pray that you are not where I was – standing on a precipice waiting for the inevitable fall – and if you are slipping, I hope that you have someone in your life that is reaching out a hand of hope and salvation and if you don’t have that, then please shout for help.

Other Resources and Articles that I Found Helpful

How Jesus Overcame my Porn Addiction

There’s no Such Thing as Free Porn

I used Eddie Traughber as a counselor for a year, he was the first step in my recovery process.

Download or Read online Porn-Again Christian

Feel free to contact me directly if you need to talk or want some help.

At least in life we can always hope for death. We know that no matter what there is a way to end our pain and sorrow, but the idea of a never-ending suffering seems daunting to me. The weight of that alone, of knowing that you will spend forever in darkness and intense agony, that frightens me.

As a Christian we are assured eternal life through our salvation in Jesus Christ. This truth is where I cling. However, I have friends that I want to share this truth with, but they don’t want to hear it. They are distracted by the things of this world, caught up in the lie that there is either no afterlife or no hell. That there are no consequences for their actions and when you die, that’s it. While that may be true, I think the evidence shows otherwise. And if there is life after death, then wouldn’t you want to be sure that you had really given this some serious thought instead of just wasting your life away chasing after money and pleasure?

Revelation 20:11-15 says this:

¹¹ Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. ¹² And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. ¹³ The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. ¹⁴ Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. ¹⁵ Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

So no only is there death and hell, but there is a second death and a lake of fire and those people who are not saved will be cast into the lake of fire along with all of hell.

If you are not a Christian, I pray that you will take a moment to seek after truth. Don’t just accept this worlds lies or what your parents believe. Don’t just float through life, but be intentional with it. Make the search for truth your lifelong purpose, your unending journey. At the end of that search you will find one thing that remains constant, the Love of God and the unwavering truth found in the Bible.

When it comes to faith and religion you need to know that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. It’s a free gift. All you have to do is believe and trust in your heart and you will be saved. Such a simple thing to do and it comes with so many rewards – not requirements and responsibilities. Christianity is more about enjoying the Love of God and the blessings he has to offer than following a list of commands and laws.

Finally, to my atheists friends, I wish I had your confidence, but I do not. Since God cannot be proven to exist or not exist then I will spend the rest of my life with the knowledge that has come from experience – not emotion or intellect or infinite reasoning and possibilities. I will continue to search for truth.  Atheism to me seems the easy and lazy way out. Life becomes nothing more than a quest for material gain and comfort. What is the point of helping your fellow man? Why is there a need for taking care of old people? If life is nothing more than the survival of the fittest then why bother with the weak? Shouldn’t we just euthanize people once they reach an age where they become a drain to society? Shouldn’t we do the same to hand-capped or disabled? Who decides what is moral? What is this concept of right and wrong? I’ve heard all of the non-believers answers to these questions, you can spend forever arguing, but in the end the same questions still arise – where did we come from? You cannot make something from nothing.

Another great video from Jeff Bethke. So much truth in such a short amount of time.

Marriage today is struggling. Divorces, adultery, misconceptions, etc are plaguing not only the marriage itself but products of those marriages (my generation and the next). My hope in this poem is to highlight the most frequent and problematic issues marriages face today while also pointing to Jesus as the ultimate healer, redeemer, and restorer of every marriage. Whether single or married, my intention would be that this poem would allow you to look more deeply to Jesus to either better your current marriage, or prepare for your future marriage.

Poem inspiration: http://realmarriagetour.com/

Book that inspired the poem: http://amzn.to/zdxCFv

Jeff’s INFO:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jeffersonbethkepage
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jeffuhsonbethke
website: http://www.jeffbethke.com

After 3 years of being self-employed I’ve started to get used to this roller coaster but I’d like to get into a rhythm where I learn to ride the coaster and it becomes a joy instead of a nightmare.

Right now I’m working on 3 websites, one that has a logo project attached to it. Two PowerPoint projects. A mega tour launch for one client which requires a boat load of graphics and a plethora of new page designs. In total I have booked around 250 hours of work this month. But, around 50 hours of that will be unpaid hours going to and from clients offices, phone calls to take initial requests for projects and back and forth emails from prospective clients as well as day-to-day maintenance of running two businesses. Booking clients for DJ events and making out invoices and doing taxes.

Being self-employed is not easy – but I’m really not complaining. I don’t have to set an alarm in the mornings. I get to set my own hours – which translates to me working all the time – and I don’t have a boss, I have clients and that is much different than having a boss – even though I always had great bosses when I worked in the corporate world.

Anywho, I better get back to work, I just thought I’d make a quick post while waiting for some files to upload.

Cheers!

This recipe has no flour or artificial sweeteners.

Ingredients

• 3 Large Onions Diced
• 2 Green Peppers Diced
• 12 Large Tomatoes seeded and cut up into chunks
• 2 Jalepeno peppers – seed and chop one finely
• 1 large mango diced
• 2 Pounds Ground Beef
• 4 Table Spoons of Chili Powder (I use the kind that comes in a bag. It’s normally with all the Mexican/Spanish spices)
• 3 Table Spoons Onion Powder
• 3 Table Spoons Garlic Powder
• 4 Cloves fresh Garlic – Minced
• 1 Tablespoon of Mediterranean Sea Salt
• 2 Tablespoon of course ground pepper – (Any pepper will do)
• Cayenne Pepper – only use a dash or else it will be really hot.
• Handful of cilantro, rinsed and chopped
• 4 Tablespoons of Olive Oil

Directions

In a large pan pour olive oil in until it coats the bottom of the pan. Not too much, but enough to sauté a large quantity of vegetables.

Add all veggies and mango –  except tomatoes

Add all seasonings

Cook for about 30-45 minutes on almost medium heat stirring often. You want your onions and green pepper to be translucent. This base is what give the chili it’s sweetness.

Add in the tomatoes and let simmer for another 30 minutes or until the tomatoes really start to break down.

Put in your two pounds of lean high quality beef – like Laura’s lean 92/8 beef or Nolan Ryan’s 90/10 and stir the meat thoroughly into the vegetable mixture.

Cook on a low heat for about 30 minutes until meat is browned and then let simmer at the lowest heat setting for another hour to allow the flavors to marry. If possible, store overnight and eat the next day – that’s when it’s best and thicker.

Serve fresh diced onions and avocado.

My friend Jes asked me to post my daily menu which has proved harder than I expected cause I’ve been so busy, but, my days consist mostly of this:

Breakfast:

3-4 Eggs scrambled with onions
Snack – Cashews and Pineapple

Lunch:

Grilled chicken breast
Avocado
Mixed veggies – squash and zucchini

Dinner:

Fajita meat, brisket or some type of beef. I love beef. It’s what’s for dinner.
Vegetables – broccoli and cauliflower

I have not been weighing every day. In the past I have found that to be detrimental. If I see no progress I get very discouraged instead of just digging in and realizing that it is going to take time. I plan to weigh once a week and be happy with whatever weight loss I have. Loss is loss.

What do I miss most? McAlister’s Sweet Tea. I used to drink 4-5 glasses a week. I would order it half sweet half unsweet and I plan to get some on Superbowl Sunday. That will be my first “cheat” day after this 30 day challenge is up.

But… this “diet” is supposed to become a lifestyle. I’m still trying to mentally wrap my head around never having dairy or sugar or bread or anything artificial again for the rest of my life, but maybe I can cut those things back to like 10% of what I used to eat. So the occasional half-and-half and cup of coffee instead of 2-3 cups every morning. I’ve spent 36 years learning how to eat poorly, it’s going to take some time for me to figure out how to enjoy eating like this. Variety is the spice of life and right now mine is lacking variety for sure – but part of that has been because I have been really watching my carb intake as well. The fruits that I have eaten have been in moderation just so that I don’t get too many carbs and I burn the fat a little faster.

For now, wish me luck, I need to get below 300 pounds this year. It’s been too long that I’ve put this off… too, too long.

When I look back over 2011 it is a jumble of work, school and more work. I started the year with the goal to lose some weight, but I only stayed the same for the entire year. I got a personal trainer for 3 months and realized that personal training is worthless without a serious diet change – and I changed my diet, just not enough and not consistently enough.

Work was a nightmare. I worked for Denton Bible Church for the first 8 months of the year and was self-employed running both http://www.eddierenz.com my web design business and http://www.soundandshow.com – my DJ Business all while juggling the financial responsibility of Dallas Theological Seminary – which cost me about $5000 out of pocket which might not seem like a lot, but when you have to pay $600 a month on a self-employed/part-time church worker budget it can be a real burden.

As far as actual income for 2011 I did pretty good. I made almost the same Salary that I made with Texas Instruments but I still don’t have health insurance and I sometimes miss the security of that weekly paycheck, but, there is nothing like being your own boss. There is a thrill that comes with not knowing if you are going to make any money for the next month and literally living by faith and watching God provide week after week, month after month. I live a very nice life and the challenges that I face are mostly self-induced.

Some of the Highlights from 2011

1. Found Author Harlan Coben and have enjoyed reading his books.

2. Re-Branded my Web Design business to Chemist Creative.

3. Started going to The Village Church and I LOVE it.

4. Started my Masters in Media and Communication at DTS

5. Started Crossfit

So, what’s in store for 2012?

I plan to kick off the New Year with a 30 Day Paleo Diet challenge. This year I’m doing it with friends and we have consequences for cheating. How do you stick to a plan? Accountability with consequences. Our consequences is 30 burpees for every cheating incident. If you don’t know what a burpee is you can check it out here:

I’m also doing Crossfit which is definitely a challenge for me. Well, I think it is a challenge for everyone that does it and the real challenge is being mentally tough and pushing yourself beyond your limits. Here is a quick video so you can get the idea of the ridiculousness of these workouts:

While personal training pushed me to my limits I don’t think it pushed me like these Crossfit workouts have pushed me. Plus, you are doing the workouts with other people and so there is a community aspect to the workouts.

By the end of 2012 I’d like to look like Alistair Overeem… who by the way defeated Brock Lesnar pretty effortlessly last night in UFC 141.

Big Goals for 2012

1. Reach a Goal weight of 300
2. Pay off all miscellaneous debt
3. Visit Jimmy in Shang Hai
4. Run the 8 Mile at the Turkey Trot

Special-Edition iPad 2

The Real Marriage Tour kicks off this February with 7 tour stops, starting in Corona, California. To celebrate, we’ll be giving away a special-edition, Real Marriage iPad 2 preloaded withPastor Mark’s entire sermon archive, thanks to Logos Bible Software, as well as the following ebooks, courtesy of Vyrso:

Preloaded Books by Mark Driscoll

• Real Marriage
• Doctrine
• Religion Saves
• Disciple
• Death by Love
• Vintage Church
• Vintage Jesus
• Church Leadership
• Who Is God?
• The New Testament
• The Power of Words and the Wonder of God

How To Win

To be entered to win you can fill out the Giveaway form over on the Real Marriage Tour Facebook page  (you’re one-stop shop for all the updates on the RM Tour).

Here’s the best part: you have 7 chances to win, and the more you share, the more chances you’ll have to win. Each winner will be announced the Monday before each event. So, tell your friends on Twitter and Facebook about the contest and the Real Marriage Tour to up your changes for a free iPad 2.

If you haven’t already, make sure to check out the Real Marriage event nearest to you, or visit our Real Marriage Tour page to find out info on times and locations.

Get a Free Autographed Copy of Real Marriage

If you are planning on coming to the conference, round up a group of friends, purchase 10 tickets or more and you’ll receive a free autographed copy of Mark and Grace Driscoll’s book Real Marriage.

How to Get Your Free Book

When buying your group tickets of 10 or more, please enter promo code FREEBOOK at checkout.  When you arrive at the registration desk on the day of your event, just give them your name and your autographed copy will be given to you then.