When I turned 16 I took my newly minted driver’s license and boogied ten miles up the road to attend church in a town bigger than mine. (They had about 1000 people, compared to 350 in the town where I grew up, so naturally their church was somewhat larger, and a whole lot healthier.) My pastor at the First Baptist Church of Crane, Missouri was a man named Hubert Fugitt.

Hubert seemed old, to a 16 year old. I’m guessing he was 60. He and Jessie had children my age, and my parents age!

I only remember one line, from one sermon that Hubert preached, but that one has stuck with me now for over a generation; some 32 years. It was an important lesson I have never forgotten. It was a simple verse from Proverbs 17:22 which says “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine but a wicked spirit drieth the bones.”

Pastor Hubert exemplified a merry heart, and that simple sermon is still yielding fruit all these years later as the foundation for my teaching on how the act of rejoicing produces the emotion of joy.

That’s good medicine!

What’s the most memorable sermon from your youth? Tell me about it.

I started the year with optimism. Not everything I set out to accomplish has been achieved, or is even on pace for achievement. However, its been six months worth of accomplishment that I feel good about.

Like most of my readers, in addition to work life,  I’ve been busy being a spouse and a parent this year. There has seemed to be an unending parade of track meets, band concerts, and award ceremonies. Unexpected travel, extra prayer meetings, and a harder than normal winter on the farm sometimes felt as if it was slowing progress.  Meanwhile, the country is  in a recession and real estate (the field where I do alot of my work—even my financial work) may actually be in a depression. That’s contributed to making 2011, in some sense, the most difficult year I’ve ever experienced in business.

2011 has also been a year of great accomplishment. Here’s just a sample of what I’ve / we’ve accomplished so far this year in addition to churning out everyday work:

1. We broke the profit centers of our company into individual operating companies established with their own identities and operating autonomously from one another. That is one of the best business decisions I’ve ever made. It’s has grossly simplified management of each of our profit centers.
2. We’ve reduced the vacancy rate in our rental portfolio by more than 80%; down to a manageable level. (I’d say “acceptable” but I won’t rest until we have 100% occupancy. So for now I’ll call it “manageable.”)
3. Our new retail real estate sales organization got off the ground after a false start with a major franchisor in late 2010. The company is operational, has closings under its belt, a website up and running with daily updates….it’s a real real estate company. Check out Greater Springfield Realtors.
4. Outlined my book and wrote six chapters of it.
5. Traveled to Nicaragua and taught the first six chapters of my book.
6. Spent a week in Nicaragua (missions), a week in Costa Rica (vacation), a week in Louisville (education), and ten days in Hawaii (trip with my daughter’s high school band plus a few days of vacation), plus a few overnight business trips.
7. Finished my graduate degree, 26 years after I started it. (This was arduous, painful and to ALOT of time. But I got all A’s in the final year and a half.)
8. Completed a certification that took about 120 hours of study (separate from the graduate degree but similarly painful.)
9. Had a major intellectual capital breakthrough designing what my bigger future looks like. I’m excited about what’s coming up next in in the new release of JBW version III.
10. Conducted four investment seminars.

Despite the fact that there are some things I have not accomplished, and I’m behind on a few things, I’d have to call the first six months of this year a success. The best thing is that as I look forward to the rest of the year, I’ve cleaned the decks of MANY things that have been standing in my way and hanging over my head. My future is very clear, and very focused. I’m really excited about what the next six months holds for me, my family and our companies.

I’m expecting to prosper!

How about you? What’d you accomplish this six months. Type it out and send me the list. I’d love to hear how you are progressing and growing into the person you want to become.

I’ve converted. I believe the Fair Tax—a tax on consumption—is a good idea. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton wrote in his Federalist Papers #21 “It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess.”

There it is: A natural security against excess. Moderation is all the rage these days, and the fair tax would serve to moderate individual consumption and to moderate our government.

Those who argue against the fair tax do so on the basis that it is not fair to the poorer among us. There was no concession to poverty in Hamilton’s America. There was no expectation that anyone would be poor, but rather that everyone would work and prosper as they worked. Its a funny thing. Prosperity and work seem to go hand in hand.

Dr. Kevin Crosby, a prominent black pastor in the South said recently that the modern welfare state has created a culture of dependence that disabled black self-determinism.

Though it fit his context, I’d say the only thing Crosby got wrong is his use of the term “black.” The modern welfare state has created dependence across all of society, not just among blacks.

The fair tax, is fair. You don’t pay a tax on what you don’t spend. It would encourage saving instead of spending. Saving could produce investing, which then produces economic development and jobs which in turn lift America back to its former glory as the economic engine of the world.

It’s an idea whose time has come.

Today is the last day, of the first half of 2011.

My guess is that back on January 1, you had goals for this year. At this point, you ought to be half-way toward accomplishing those goals. So, this is a good time for you to sit down and evaluate your progress.Undoubtedly some of your goals will be nearer achievement than others. Some may have dropped of the radar of importance. Other new goals may have arisen since January 1. The important thing is for you to look at your goals and analyze your progress.

I hope you’ll sit down today or tomorrow and consider the type of forward progress you are making and make the necessary adjustments so that 2011 is a year of great accomplishment.

I’m going to write about what what I’ve accomplished in the first half of the year, but I’ll save that post until next week, AFTER the monthly training session at which all my team are going to go through this exercise together.

If joy is produced by the act of rejoicing, it is important for us to know what rejoicing looks like; how we do it.

Rejoicing starts in your attitude and will. Its a decision to display the manifestations of joy without reference to how you actually feel at that moment. I don’t bounce out of bed full of pep and energy when I wake up. Often I have a heavy and groggy feeling of “Oh God! Another day. I’m still tired from the last one.” That’s what I felt when I awoke this morning having not gotten home last night until midnight and not getting to sleep until nearly 1:00 a.m. I woke in a predictable fog. But this morning when I awoke in the fog of “Oh my…” the thought that came to my mind is one that often does: “This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” (There’s that technical misquote you read about in the last post.)

So despite the hang over from too much yesterday, I immediately reset my mind. I begin to think of God, that this is His day, that He made it (and only He can make it great) and I’m gonna be happy in it. And somehow I find that thought energizing.

When my wife awakens she always grins at me. It is one of the most precious things in my life. I told her today it was a grin like our little girls used to give us when they saw us first thing in the morning when we went to get them out of their cribs and they burst into that toothless happy-to-see-you-baby-smile.  Over the years I’ve trained myself to always smile and wink at her. That’s kinda how our day begins, and it sets us off on a good path. That’s an act of rejoicing.

Most days—-but not always—one of the first things that happens in my day is that I spend some time with God. I read a Proverb or a few chapters from scripture, go through some memory verses, and pray. It’s not scripted. Some days I do more of one or another, and not everything happens every day. But those are the components to my time with God.  On the short end it might be 10 minutes, and some days its an hour. I’m not legalistic about it. In fact, I’d say that the regimented Daily Quiet Time approach into which I was discipled was damaging to me because I felt guilty that I couldn’t maintain the discipline to awaken every morning at 5:00 a.m. to pray for an hour. PRAISE GOD I am released from the guilt of that silly requirement! My time with God is grace-filled whether it is a few minutes or an hour. But I digress.

During my time with God, invariable there will be worship—a sense of “You are God and I am not. You are big and I am little. You sit on the throne and I don’t. You are worthy of praise and I am not.” That recalibration of my mind of who I am and who He is sets the tone for the day and seems to automatically come out of me with a sense of with rejoicing. I say to God things like “Hallelujah! I honor your name and I worship you. I praise your name. I give you glory and honor. You alone are worthy of my praise. You created the Heavens and the Earth by your spoken word. You are marvelous.” Those expressions of praise are wrapped in an attitude and atmosphere of rejoicing. When you know God well and understand Him intimately, you can’t be in His presence and not feel a sense of happiness about it. God is good!

I’m not always good at it, but I try to remember that in my first encounter with people in the morning, they may feel just like I do—hungover from a big yesterday—so I try to take control of the situation and be a thermostat; control the temperature. So I try to greet them with cheer. I always greet my daughters in a way that lets them know I am glad to see them. In my first phone calls of the day I try to communicate something positive or joyful, even if its just a sound of energy in my voice, in our first conversation.

I’m not perfect at rejoicing. These are just some tricks and tools that I use and that work for me. Being perfect isn’t the point, rejoicing is. Because it is the act of rejoicing that produces joy in our hearts.

How do you practice rejoicing? Reply below and tell me about it.

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Next up: A tribute to Happy Hubert.