Recommended Reading



One of my favorite things to do is read and/or listen to audio books. I love it because I don't think there is any better way to help your imagination run wild and your brain pop and fizzle with excitement and activity. I wanted to share my thoughts with one of the books that I read recently because it has totally changed to the way I see world. My goal is pretty simple, at the end of this post I hope to have inspired you enough to go over to amazon and pick up a copy of the book cause I think it will change the way you see the world as well! So the book is called The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. Tim is a maniac simply put... Here are a few of the roles he plays in his life...

* Princeton University guest lecturer in High-Tech Entrepreneurship and Electrical Engineering
* First American in history to hold a Guinness World Record in tango
* Advisor to more than 30 world record holders in professional and Olympic sports
* National Chinese kickboxing champion
* Glycemic Index (GI) researcher Political asylum researcher and activist
* MTV breakdancer in Taiwan
* Hurling competitor in Ireland
* Actor on hit TV series in mainland China and Hong Kong

And he is only 31 years old! Crazy!

In the book he talks about how he escaped the normal employee life and gives a formula for us to do the same (if you want) His formula is pretty simple he talks about 4 areas and he uses the acronym D.E.A.L. I will just give a super brief description of the book and hopefully you will fill in the rest. D is for deciding what you want... This is a question that I am continuously working on. What do I really want? If you had all the money and all the time in the world, what would you do? What would you have? Who would you be? These are all pretty tough questions but they are fun ones to think about:)
E is for eliminate. This one is especially important for employees and this section helped me a ton. Just focusing on the most important activities throughout the day and either eliminating or automating (the A part) the activities that take up tons of time but aren't necessarily productive.
Then L is for liberate, this section talks about how you can work from wherever you want either as an employee or a business owner, even overseas if you want!

The idea I enjoyed the most was the overall theme of doing what you want to do with your life today. Not in 30 or 40 years when you retire but today. I know I can't just wake up tomorrow and live life exactly how I want to right now but I certainly have the ability to make choices and decisions that could lead to enjoying the life I want to live in a year maybe two or three or maybe much less... it all depends on what your ideal life really looks like! So what does your ideal life look like? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Ok that was my quick little review I really could write mountains on all the ideas and thoughts I got from this book, I recommend it to almost everybody I talk to these days. Hopefully this sparked a little interest in the book and you'll pick it up:)

Catching Up

I can’t believe how fast the last couple of months have gone… Thanks to Carrie’s harassing message I am now writing on our blog to let peeps catch up on the Ashton Life.

Where to begin… I guess first I’ll let you all know about Gaven’s new craziness that I think is the coolest thing. So I’ve been working nights lately (Gaven has nights off) and he tends to do his running on some of these nights. Each night I come home excited to hear which new feat of running has taken place. Couple surprises within the last couple weeks have been running a 19 miler and then running outside in that big snow storm we had a week or two ago. Yup, my nice surprise at work was a soaking wet husband that ran pretty much all the way up steep hills to come visit me at work. I’m a proud wife, what can I say? We made sure to take some pictures of the after effect blisters that took place. Gross! I think we’ve geared him all up though with some special socks, tights and shirts that he can now run his endless miles wherever he chooses to go. We’ve both started up swimming and took our first complete official cycling class together too. Oh so fun… Now we just need to save up for some awesome bikes so we can ride outside.

Here is a picture of one of the many blisters Gaven got from his run.



Gaven has decided to “burn the ships” with his job. Meaning, he is going straight commission (I believe it’s starting next week). We both are excited because it will make both of us stretch ourselves. I think Gaven should have done it awhile ago… He hasn’t yet grasped the idea of what a ninja he is with his people skills and his ability to communicate and get people to see his ideas. He is an amazing companion, friend, lover, teacher, student… This list could go on and on. To put it simple I can’t imagine what my life would be like without him. (Oh so mushy… come on you love it)

Halloween was awesome. Actually, we didn’t do much then. I worked and then came home to Gaven having dinner ready for me (oh so wonderful). We did our Halloween celebrating a week beforehand at Garrett’s house (a friend, mentor and Gaven’s old boss). It was fun to go see everyone all dressed up. It has been years sense we’ve dressed up. Saturday (the day of the party) we ran down to a costume shop here in Salt Lake and picked out similar costumes. I guess you could call us Greek or Roman… who knows. That night we pigged out on delicious food and hung out with great company.

Here is a picture of us dressed up for Halloween


Can’t think of anything else too big right now besides that we are so excited for Mary and McKell’s homecomings. Its a couple months away but I’m already counting down…