I was sitting in the airport last Friday, waiting on a much-delayed plane to Michigan, when Mark texted me something about the “most expensive 1/2 tank of gas ever.”

He followed it a moment later with a pic of the a letter that had come from Hertz regarding my rental in Colorado two weeks ago.

Um, yeah, I don’t think so.

Granted, the gas station was a little farther from the airport than I would have liked. It’s always a constant guessing game of whether or not their is a gas station right by the airport. But 9.73 gallons? Not on your life.

Can you say “JOYRIDE?”

Or perhaps a reservation mix-up the customer service rep replied when I promptly called to inform him that I had filled up the tank 17.9 miles from the airport (yes, I Google mapped the distance).

Thankfully, I can send a copy of the receipt and get the matter cleared up – hopefully quickly.

But thank you for the heart attack Hertz – both mine and hubbies.

Plus, can I just say that it’s ridiculous to charge people $10 a gallon for gas. That should be illegal.

I’ve talked before about how much Dave Ramsey influenced a large portion of the last 12 years of our life. It all started with Mark listening to his radio show on the way home from work, and walking in the house saying “Dave Ramsey says….”

Well these days I’m the one going around saying “Jon Acuff says…” He started out as the funny guy who writes the satirical blog “Stuff Christians Like,” but now he’s a dream-encouraging, hope-making, fear-busting author and speaker. Of course he’s still funny too 🙂

Outside of close friends, family and God, Acuff has probably been the biggest influence in my life the last two-years. I read “Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Dream Job and Your Day Job” two summers ago right after my book came out and I realized that this writing/speaking thing was my dream. It helped shape how I spent the next year.

Now his newest book “Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters ” is here. The official description:

Over the last 100 years, the road to success for most everyone has been divided into predictable stages. But three things have changed the path to success:

• Boomers are realizing that a lot of the things they were promised aren’t going to materialize, and they have started second and third careers.
• Technology has given access to an unprecedented number of people who are building online empires and changing their lives in ways that would have been impossible years ago.
• The days of “success first, significance later,” have ended.

While none of the stages can be skipped, they can be shortened and accelerated. There are only two paths in life: average and awesome. The average path is easy because all you have to do is nothing. The awesome path is more challenging, because things like fear only bother you when you do work that matters. The good news is Start gives readers practical, actionable insights to be more awesome, more often.

I was excited to get an early copy and I devoured it and highlighted the heck out of it. Now that I’m done I’m going to turn back around and read it again. There is so much wisdom and PRACTICAL application to put in motion.

The “Road to Awesome” that Jon describes involves 5 stages –  Learning, Editing, Mastering, Harvesting and Guiding. These steps are the same no matter what dream you’re working on and want to be awesome at – writing, starting your own business, being a mom, saving the world.

Of course his biggest point is that we all need to do one thing – START! As Jon says “The starting line is the only line you completely control.” Don’t worry about the finish – it’s impossible to predict and may change half a dozen times by the time you get there. If you had told me 15 years ago that I’d get to travel around and speak, I would have checked your forehead for a fever. I never could have predicted this.

The book also includes a whole section at the end titled “What Now? Action Always Beats Intention” that gives very practical, tactical steps you can take. It’s so great and I’ve started working through them already.

“Start” comes out this Monday. But don’t wait til then to order it. If you Pre-Order you get a whole bundle of goodies worth over $250, including the audio of Jon’s Quitter Conference that I got to attend last Sept.

Not sure? You can download the first chapter for free here. It will convince you.

So me? What am I STARTING? I’m going to be more intentional about my writing. Sometimes I feel like if I don’t have a 4-hour block of time to write I might as well not do it. Course that’s ridiculous. So my goal is to just START writing each day – even if I only get 30 minutes, I have to start.

Once you’ve read it, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

P.S. For  a limited time you can download the audio version of “Quitter” for free here.