Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Believe

As a kid I always wanted to believe that there was a better way of life and that anything was possible. The problem was that other people always tell you its hard or its not easy or yeah it would be great only if. And even though these statements aren’t outright negative comments, they diminish the dream life can be if you will let them.

Belief is something I can see and visualize how great it would be if I could just let myself go and have complete total faith in myself and god. Wouldn’t it be great if I could just relax into a state of confidence and move forward. Success helps to reinforce belief, but it is funny how many people even ones open to the discussion of developing faith and belief in themselves will allow negative or “Show me the money” skepticism to invade their psychology.

During these moments, when I have found myself in great struggle and internal conflict. It is during these times that it becomes imperative you push forward. Giving up and just staying in that job you hate will only temporarily make it go away or numb you to the dream that life is meant to be.

If you have a deep belief in yourself and get determined to push through you will develop and grow through the pain. Just like exercise we get stronger with practices and continuous effort. No, losing weight isn’t easy and requires real work. The same is true with faith and belief we must work at it especially in times when if feels so much like quitting or changing course is what makes the most sense. In these moments I have found that it helps to have one or all of the following tools available;
  • Exercise
  • Affirmations
  • Mentors
  • Clear vision of your goals
  • Breathing and Meditation skills
  • Perseverance

And if all else fails relax and step away for an hour or the rest of the day. Read a book or take a walk recharge yourself and examine your goals.

Then Get Back to Work. Nothing beats ACTION when building a belief system in yourself.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Are you a Shortcut King

It’s ok if you are because it’s just a path some of us take. A few of us have evolved to the point that we can look to those which have succeeded and trust that if we simply duplicate what they did we will succeed as well. These people are the ones that if you give them direction to a destination they will simply follow directions and arrive at the restaurant or city on time and with little effort, provided of course that the directions where good.

The Shortcut KING on the other hand is typically that individual who looks at the directions and can see that “Yes this does appear to be a feasible course to take”, HOWEVER (with a touch of haughtiness in their voice) if you turned here it might shave a little off the trip.

Sometimes the Shortcut King is the hero and indeed does improve or reduce the effort required to get to the destination and sometimes there are roadblocks which were unintended and set the trip back significantly.

Either way the Shortcut King will reach their destination, sometimes the victor and sometimes licking a few wounds. The points to walk away with are;

  • You can follow those before you to reach the destination and look back on the journey to see if it could be refined or improved.
  • You can follow the directions of those before you and be grateful the trip was so pleasant.
  • Finally, you can be the Shortcut King and do it your own way.

As long as you CONTINUE toward the destination it really doesn’t matter how you get there

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Money or Service?

Let's keep it short a sweet today.

Here is a question to ponder. Which would make you feel better making $5,000 per week, or teaching someone else to make $5,000 per week?

Which would you feel more proud of? Telling others you earn $5,000 per week or telling people I teach people to make $5,000 per week?

The answer to these questions may be very telling of the results you are getting out of life. If you have ever read any books on success then you will have surely come across Zig Ziglar and his one primary philosophy. "You can have what ever you want if you help enough other people get what they what".

That’s it for today. You would be wise to consider the quote above. Ask yourself what could you enjoy doing with your life? How could I use that to help others? What is a service I could give that would provide more to others than I expect to get in return?

Believe it or not, anyone who makes significant money and has a life they are proud of provides a service to others.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Wii a Wii my kingdom for a Wii

It took me a little time to figure out the life lesson here, but the whole time I was going through this experience I knew if I kept asking the right questions I would uncover some fundamental errors in my thinking.

Just a few short weeks ago I discovered that the primary gift my son wanted for Christmas was a Nintendo Wii. It is possible you don’t know what a Wii is. However, if you have or know someone with a child between 6 and 15 years old, you are probably all too well aware that a Wii is an extremely hard to find game system. Hang on a minute because that is not exactly true. You could find a Wii very simply if you were willing to pay the premium, just about double the price.

Where ever we looked, Ebay, Craigslist, it didn’t matter, Wii’s were available. The problem was they were being sold for about $400 to $500, when the retail price was $249.

Now instinctively I am a very, very cheap person. I just don’t like spending money needlessly when it just doesn’t seem necessary. This combined with the fact that “I’m a man and can do anything I set my mind too”, yeah right. Anyway my quest to find a Wii began with somewhat of a lack luster start. Before we were aware that these machines couldn’t be found in stores I went to a few Wal Mart’s, Target’s, Best Buy’s, Circuit City's, Comp USA's, Micro Center, and asked “do you have any Wii’s in stock?”. The answer was always “NO”, along with the peculiar look which seemed to say much more than “NO”. In fact if I didn’t know better these people were getting asked this question over a 100 times a day. We will probably be hearing about Wii syndrome, an affliction suffered by all the clerks working during Christmas of 2006.

I will try to keep this pretty simple. My wife and I began scouring the city about 3 weeks prior to Christmas looking for this machine. Being confident we had plenty of time I would casually look here and there. Then casual looking began to turn into a frenzied search. I camped out and literally drove over 100 miles one night going to every Wal Mart in the city.

No kidding I did some incredibly stupid things looking for this machine. The night I got up a 4:30am just to go camp out with the other Wii hopefuls I began to really think about this. I even opened my laptop and began reading an article on time vs. money. The more I thought about it I began to consider the thought that my time was not being very well spent. “I should be in bed” I kept thinking as I was sitting on the cold concrete sidewalk outside of Circuit City, hoping the 22nd place in line would be sufficient. The guy at the front of the line said this was his third week in a row camping out and the past few weeks they had 25 game systems.

The more I read this article on time vs. money it began to occur to me how much we will sacrifice in the form of time in lue of money.

Honestly consider how many times you have driven around and around an extra few blocks just to save a few dollars in parking, or how many times we insist upon fixing something our self rather than pay a professional, or search the net looking for that "FREE" secret to wealth.

Nothing is free and time or money must be spent on just about anything of value. Depending on your desired outcome or perceived value of time you will invest accordingly to your belief or perceived value of your time. My hope here is that you will begin to recognize, as I did that cold night waiting in line, that we sometimes waste our valuable time in exchange for little or no monetary gain. Proof of this is unlike the two weekends prior where the store had 25 Wii’s, this weekend the store only received 12. Remember I was in 22nd place in line, no Wii for me. I left completely empty handed with lost time and nothing to show for it except for this lesson.

Don't fret I got my Wii, but I didn't waste anymore time I spent money which is far less valuable to me. Consider this, I paid $400, and the guy I bought it from came to meet me a mile from my home. It literally took me less than 10 minutes. Yes I pad a premium of $150, but consider this. When I bought my Wii I was happy that I didn’t loose any more sleep and was able to enjoy the remaining weekends approaching Christmas.

I was even happier when this young man told me what he went through to purchase it. He is a student currently going to the same college I graduated from so we spoke for a little while. After hearing about what he and his friends went through to get these machines I was compelled to think about the weeks prior to my purchase.

You see this young man and his friends waited at times in the rain the cold and for up to 10 hours waiting for the store to open. “You have to get there early” he said and he was even kind enough to give me tips on web sites to use and places which were the most accommodating for purchasing a system. What makes this even more disturbing is when you consider the amount of time and effort he went through to get these machines; yes he sold more than one. I did a rough calculation based on what we talked about and I figure he was making a little less than $15 per hour. Wow when you think about it that way I really was a fool for giving up my sleep for $15 per hour.

The more I thought about this the more I realized that I would be disappointed in anyone I work with if they had done what I had done just being stubborn.

Like I said in the beginning though. I am determined and live my life with undaunted drive for improvement. With that said I may have “wasted” a few hours of my life driving around looking for a child’s toy. But the insight I have gained because of my willingness to look deep into the emotions will save me countless hours in the future.

If there is a next time I will sleep in and just buy it. And I will be thankful for the man or woman who so generously gave their time and effort to obtain the goods I needed.

Time is valuable use it wisely

Saturday, January 6, 2007

My Apologies

I have done the readers here a great disservice and I would like to formally apologize. In my zeal to get a great article out there for everyone to begin the New Year I forgot one of the most critical pieces to creating a great vision for yourself.

Hopefully you read last weeks articles, already doing so will prepare you for what I am about to tell you,

(If you’re an “A type” personality read last weeks articles first Vision, Happy New Year)

Like we discussed last week you must have a vision for the upcoming weeks, month and year. We also covered how important it is to create this vision in order to plan a roadmap for yourself. I even burnt your ear’s of preaching the importance of this new way of looking at things, BUT I forgot the one single tool.

I was looking over that article just to make sure I didn’t miss anything and wasn’t too long winded when all of the sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks. I forgot to tell you that 95% of the world can’t or simply won’t create a vision for themselves.

If you read the article and even finished it before this upcoming secret, be real honest with yourself right now. Did you create your vision? Did you write your eulogy for the year standing on 12/31/07? Did you really allow yourself to feel the joys and accomplishments of life you want to have this year?

Of course not, and why? Because I screwed up and put the cart before the horse, so to speak. You know how I know? Because when I began planning for 2007 I realized it is much easier to say what I don’t want. The sad part is, I knew this and do this everyday. It’s a technique called “Clarity through contrast” and is just a snippet of what you will learn from reading the “Laws of Attraction” by Michael Losier. By the way it is the book of the month because of this little gem.

So here is how it works. First of all you have to get out a sheet of paper or something you can take notes with, Yes I know it’s like going back to school so stop rolling your eyes with that disappointing sigh. I promise this time it will be worth it. Not to mention you will actually have a vision and a technique you can apply to anything you want in life.

Ok so create two headings with a line down the middle. Column one will be everything I want for this year. Column two will be everything I don’t want. Got it,… good.

Now begin writing down everything you don’t want. This is easy isn’t I don’t want this job, I don’t want this car. I can’t stand this noisy office.

Get the picture? Just start writing down the details you see for this coming year which you are unhappy with or don’t want. Isn’t this easy? Even if you are not writing I bet you are coming up with ideas already. If you are like me and about 99.9% of the rest of the world you can see this is very simple.

Funny thing the brain and our conditioning has no problem saying what we don’t want, but here is the beautiful thing. It’s all a trick. Yep a dirty low down trick. If you completed this task and wrote down everything you don’t want this year you have completed the best vision statement of your life.

Hopefully you think I have gone nuts at this point, but I also hope your still hanging in there with me. You see you still have one more column to complete. Remember that “What I do want this year” column? Now look at the right hand column and begin putting the opposite in the left hand column.

So when you said I don’t want to sit in rush our traffic anymore, put I want a pleasant commute to work. When you said I can’t stand rude clients, put I want all my clients to be pleasant and enjoyable. When you said I don’t want another boring vacation, put I am going to France.

Hopefully you see the value here. Yes it applies to anything in life. We are easily aware of what we don’t want by human nature. If you allow your self to focus on what you don’t want briefly you can instantly contrast that thought and become clear on what you do want, “Clarity through Contrast”

Now you know what you want read Michael Losier's book and go make it happen.



Monday, January 1, 2007

Happy New Year

I was sitting here tonight thinking about the New Year fast approaching and looking back on the things that I have accomplished this year. For the first time in my life I have actually accomplished goals that I set. I have realized the power of plotting a course and I know the value of planning for a new year. There is great semblance in a new year. We all have set goals for losing weight or to quit smoking or to go some place exotic or to fire your boss. What is painfully true as well is how many of us before the goals are even set have the internal knowing that we will never stick to our word. It is doubtful in two weeks you would be able to tell me what your resolutions were for 2007, shoot many of you will be lucky to make it to Tuesday before your resolutions are changed, modified or just simply broken.

It saddens me to see so many people looking at their life with such despair and lack of faith in themselves. It is even more disappointing how many people live without the knowledge of how to create luck and live with deliberate intention.

I was struck with the previous thought while I was watching the funeral of Gerald Ford and was listening to what the speakers had to say about him. It is quite impressive to hear all the great things that can be said about a man at their funeral. In particular Dick Chaney said that Gerald Ford always believed in the saying “…you create your own luck”. WOW, I was stuck with this and I found myself listening to his eulogy and feeling the compulsion to learn more about President Ford.

In my teenage years I was board with history believing it was something for old people. Well I guess I have finally become one of those old people at 37 I have finally realized how much can be learned from studying great men and women.

Listen, before I get to far off track and begin a lecture let me get to my point. We are in a new year with new possibility and new dreams. Let me suggest to you that you look at 2007 from 12/31/2007.

What will you be able to say you accomplished? How would it feel for the first time to actually keep your word with yourself? Can you actually picture yourself one year from now having lost that 10 pounds, finding that perfect mate, quitting that job, taking that trip?

You may not know it now, but this is an opportunity for you to fulfill your dreams. Take this time and write down those New Years resolutions. Except this time see them not as those hard to reach goals, but accomplishments you are looking back on in reflection of the year. This is an essential element for creating your own luck.

Many people will tell you how to write goals and I would agree with many of the goal setting techniques out there. FACT: you can’t accomplish a goal if one is never set. The big trick you almost never hear is to put yourself in a place of actually accomplishing your goal. Live each day this year as a person who already has what they are seeking. If you do this and take it seriously I promise you will be amazed at the eulogy you will give for your past year and the luck you created.