Today I set off for Colorado from my home near Mobile, Alabama. It’s nearly 1500 miles one way. About 24 hours of drive time (breaking around Springfield, Missouri to visit family).

Where am I going? To help lead an event for the Free Agent Academy. Check it out at http://woosleycoaching.com/faa. If you’ve ever wanted to be self-employed, or just find a better sense of your calling and gifts, FAA is the place to figure it out.

In fact, I’m the Roadmap Professor at FAA. Maybe now I’ll earn that nickname of Roadmap Warrior!

What will happen along the way? Who knows! But it’ll be fun and I’ll post along the way. Follow my Twitter stream: http://www.twitter.com/jameswoosley (@jameswoosley).

This past week has been incredible. I haven’t been writing here as much as I had hoped this year. I’ve been working on some new ideas and new initiatives in the background, plus taking care of some family things that needed my attention. Then all of a sudden everything seemed to hit this week.

As soon as the ceremony was over, I rushed back to my office to prepare for the Free Agent Underground show/podcast. I was helping Kevin Miller host the show and interview NASCAR racer Kenny Wallace. In spite of all the technological problems that could have happened with me in Alabama, Kenny in North Carolina and Kevin in Colorado, the show was perfectly produced. But even if we’d had a glitch, I don’t think it would have made a dent in the awesomeness of the interview.

Not only did I get to talk to one of my favorite drivers, but he shared things with us that he’d never shared before (early jobs, business and life advice, the importance of loving your spouse). If you want to hear it, go to the FAU blog or subscribe to the show in iTunes.

[As a side note, I also signed up to sponsor Kenny's race car at the Charlotte Nationwide race in October. You too can have your name on his car for just $20. Details at http://www.KennyWallace.com.]

It was the mayor of Satsuma, Bill Stewart, calling to congratulate me on having been selected to be a member of the Satsuma Board of Education! I felt that my chances were good based on my interviews, and I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t been chosen. But I was surprised at how surprised I felt! My exhaustion faded in a wave of adrenaline.

After calling my Heather (she was out with a friend who had just moved into her new Habitat for Humanity home that day), her mom and my parents, I posted the good news on Facebook and Twitter. My iPhone buzzed for the next two hours with congratulatory messages and encouragement. It was amazing!

Then I crashed for the night and woke up renewed to face the day Friday.

The kids were a bit better by Friday night so we went to see the Mobile BayBears with Heather’s mom (who got free tickets for being a teacher!). Ian won a slice of pizza in a dance contest between innings (the song was Cotton Eye Joe, Rednex version), we watched the fireworks after the BayBears lost to the Generals 4-2, and trudged home once again exhausted.

So it’s been quite a week. Lots of good stuff happening, which is the way I like it! Still, I’m hoping for a quiet Sunday so I can vegetate (recuperate) in front of the TV watching Formula One from Monaco, the Indy 500 and the Coke 600 from Charlotte. Lots and lots of laps…and a Memorial Day Monday to recover from my recovery day!

More news to come…June could be very interesting indeed!

Oh how I wish Free Agent Academy had existed ten years ago!

But it does exist today, and I’m not only a member but a professor. I’m teaching people how to build simple but strategic plans to accomplish their free agent dreams.

I’m still a big racing fan and tomorrow I get to mix the chocolate (NASCAR) with the peanut butter (free agency)!

Tomorrow on the Free Agent Underground show, I’ll be interviewing NASCAR driver Kenny Wallace with my friend/FAA founder Kevin Miller.

What do NASCAR and free agency have to do with each other? Find out on the show!

Join us live at 1 PM ET/12 PM CT or listen to the replay (which I’ll link to soon after the interview). Learn more by clicking here!

Who is Kenny Wallace? Kenny is a veteran driver of all three of NASCAR’s top series. A nine time winner in the Nationwide Series, Kenny recently make his 500th start in the series (2nd all time). Kenny also races his own dirt car at tracks across the country and is a host on Speed TV. Always entertaining on TV, Kenny is a race car driver who is serious behind the wheel. He’s also a dedicated husband and father.

A special thanks for my friend Dale Johnson for making the interview happen. Dale runs KennyWallace.com, and we became friends back in my PP.com days. Note: Photo is from Kenny’s Facebook Fan Page.

Zeno of Elea (great name!) was a Greek philosopher from the 5th century BC. He is famous for creating philosophical paradoxes documented by Aristotle. I first heard one of them in an algebra class in high school, and it’s stuck with me ever since. It basically goes like this:

Suppose I wish to shoot an arrow at a target ten feet away. In order for the arrow to hit the target, it must first travel half way, or five feet. But in order to travel the five feet to halfway, it must travel half of that distance, or two and a half feet. It must always travel half of the distance first, dividing in half to infinity. Therefore, the arrow can never reach the destination, and is in fact, motionless.

Of course, we all know that an arrow can travel the ten feet and hit the target. That’s what makes it a paradox. It can both hit and not hit the target based on logic and observation.

The answer lies in Calculus, a subject I never mastered. Basically it has to do with dividing an infinite distance with an infinite time to get a finite result or something. Try Google if you want a better explanation!

What I love about this paradox is not the paradox itself, but the concept of breaking any task into smaller tasks. If I have a major goal, I can move myself halfway to that goal. And before I can get halfway to that point, I can go halfway still. Eventually I get down not to infinitesimally small steps, but realistic and doable steps.

The division of the steps may be different to different people, depending on our skills, talents and abilities. But at some point, we look and say that the first step of our journey, not matter how small, is doable! And therefore, the big goal, no matter how big, is therefore also doable if we will only take each step on the path to achieving it.

Life is like a roller-coaster. Learn to sit back and enjoy the ride!

So far this year I’ve failed miserably as a blogger. Family illness and plenty of busyness. Sometimes it’s just plain been hard to find something worth writing about.

But in the background things have been hopping! Business is growing. Having fun being a husband and father. I’m coaching some amazing people through the Roadmap group at Free Agent Academy. And I’m being coached and finding greater personal clarity and satisfaction than I’ve ever had. I’m also seeking a seat on our town’s new school board and applying for an incredible 10 month leadership program. And there’s even been some incremental progress on one of my books!

Like I said, it’s busy (and there’s more than all of that)!

Still, my blog keeps calling to me. It says, “You want to write and here I am…come play with me!”. Okay, maybe that’s a little creepy. But it’s true.

So taking my own advice, I’m going to be putting a blogging schedule in place and plan to start writing regularly again by June 1st. Ping me if I don’t (part of that accountability thing I preach about).

I’ll see you here soon, but if you need me, just ask. I have to make time for you…you may be my only reader!

I love October. The heat and humidity of summer ends and the holiday season begins. Sadly, it’s also the time when people stop working and push everything important until “after the holidays”.

Last time I did the math, as of October 1st a full 25% of the year is remaining. What can you accomplish between now and when the ball drops in Times Square (or the Moon Pie drops in Mobile)?

You need a plan or you’ll be looking back regretting three months wasted.

But planning doesn’t need to be hard to be effective. Here are a few tips for developing a simple plan for the rest of the year:

1) Brainstorm
Write down everything you feel you need to do, but focus on a major project for personal or business development. Write everything down and don’t hold back. Crazy ideas may be the best!

2) Categorize and Prioritize
Analyze your thoughts and put them into buckets. Some are definitely more important than others. Keep the best, throw out the junk and put some on hold for the future.

3) Pick Five
Select five key objectives to accomplish by the end of the year. Pick the most impactful or profitable that can be done with effort (remember, no effort = no impact).

4) Breakdown
Break the five objectives into step by step actions and establish firm deadlines for each. Keep them specific and actionable.

5) Get to Work!
Do at least one thing every day to move yourself forward. Even on a bad day, taking one small step forward puts you closer to your goals. And on good days, knock out a few!

6) One Last Thing
Get an accountability partner or group. You’re going to need some people on your team…or at least a few cheerleaders! They must love/respect you enough to want to see you succeed, and to get in your face when you want to give up.

Now go out there and make something happen. Finish 2010 strong and repeat often for a successful new year!

Note: This article originally appeared in October 2010 issue of the Tri-City Review.

My friend and fellow Free Agent Academy Professor Justin Lukasavige offered an intriguing post last week that I just can’t get out of my head. Is it more important to have a compass or a map? As the FAA Professor for the Roadmap Group, I just couldn’t resist a hearty response. The comments on Justin’s post have been flying, and here’s my thoughts:

Bottom Line Up Front: You need both!

A compass is great for giving you an orientation to a fixed point. A physical compass always points north, which means you can always chart a course in any direction (east, west, south, etc.). In life and business, to me a compass represents your belief system and the principles you live your life by. My compass tells allows me to look at a situation or opportunity and decide it if fits who I am and who I want to be. It makes the decision to go forward or go back easier.

But a map…I love a good map! Not only can it show you where you’re at, but where you’ve been and where you could be. It shows you what’s over the hill and around the bend. The wisdom of those who’ve been there before drip off the edges of the map. Maps allow you to plot a course to where you want to be…helping you to see the biggest obstacles and sites before you get there.

Even more powerful is when you make your own map (read Seth Godin’s latest book Linchpin if you really want to understand the power in this concept). By plotting your journey–past, present and future–you create what only you can create. It’s personal and it’s experiential. It’s yours, and you own every wrong turn and successful breakthrough.

So if all you have is a compass, pick a direction and go forth! Just be sure to make your roadmap as you go. It makes everything more powerful!