This morning’s Ranch Q started10 hours earlier when I began building the weinkie. The first place I went to build my weinkie was to see what this month’s theme was. To my surprise, the theme is margin. But wait, what do we mean by margin? How does that apply to life? Go check it out here.

Monthly Theme: Margin

I couldn’t answer my own questions but reading our well written and always impactful guide I reflected and it hit me. It was right in the middle of the page:

“Margin is the time that is left over after the demands of life and it can be used intentionally or it can be squandered on selfish desires. “

“Do say no to many good things to say yes to the best things

We are pounded by many good requests and commitments. We want to do all of them but that drains our own capacity and leaves little to no margin to focus on the best things. The best things are those that only us as individuals can do most effectively (lead, give to the community, be there for our sons/daughters/wives) or also better known as our D2X.

So, as I built out my weinkie I made a commitment to focus on my margin. Building, creating, identifying capacity to use my margin intentionally and not squander it. To be an intentional father (see: A Voice That Carries: EMPOWER FATHERS TO BE POSITIVE INFLUENCES IN THEIR DAUGHTER’S LIVES ), intentional husband, intentional friend and simply to be intentional at those things I choose to do vs. those things I simply do.

My margin creation starts most days at 4:45 AM – posting with the pax is intentional and reminds me why we do what we do as HIM.

With that, my wienkie was built……

There were no FNGs and 3 of my favorite Pax to lead and we were off with an extremely brief disclaimer….
Headed down to the middle school drop off circle, which is the only lit area. We squared up (hard to make a circle with 4 pax) and began IC

25 SSH
15 Windmills
15 Imperial Walkers
10 Merkins
15 mountain climbers
20 Moroccan night clubs

Great thing about middle school off circle, besides being lit is that it has benches and about 0.25-.30 mile circle (someone fact check me). The weinke called for 2 rounds of…

15 Bench Jump ups, squat (on bench), jump down, jump backwards, burpee and repeat (mumble chatter called for a cadence count but that didn’t happen)
When done, mosey around the circle. I did say mosey, but with pax in attendance, it turned out to a mosey X10 pace.
15 IC knee tuck step ups on the benches(each leg)
Another lap around the circle
25 dips and 15 Derkins on the bench
Another lap around the circle
16 Curb Merkin Walk IC (8 to the right, 8 back to the left)
Another Lap
repeat sequence – By this time, we were feeling pretty spent due to the natural ISI each of us pushed on our pace and intensity.

Once the second round was done we headed back up to the main lot for some unconventional bear crawls.
We paired up and standing at the middle of three light poles, partner one bear crawl forward to their light poll while partner two bear crawled backwards towards the other light pole. Partner one did 15 LBCs, partner two did 10 box cutters. Mosey back to the middle light pole and then switch.

We literally ended at 6 AM and headed back to COT.

NMM
When I showed up, I almost threw the weinkie out as it was 5:12 AM and only spider man was there. I was ready to make it a 45 minute run around the country. Then rolled in Mainframe and of course, Deacon rolled in on two wheels ready to go.

The Fort is growing and we all forgot what its like to work out with just 4 pax. We liked it. We found that we pushed each other more as nobody could hide or phone it in.

Praise & Announcements
We talked about this month’s theme, margin. We all recognized how we struggle to find margin and when we do, what do we do with it. How do we make sure we’re intentional? I think we’ll find ourselves continuing to work on it.

Mark your calendar for 11/12. Empathy at Eternal Church: Empathy

I hear there is a Christmas party….sign up.

Pray for our families, marriages and all of our relationships.

As always, it’s an honor to lead leaders.

WhatDid