Focus

I have very happy memories of spending time in the summers with my Grandpa when I was young. I remember walking through the tall prairie grass from one farm pond to another. In the morning, when the dew was heavy, I would look back at our tracks through the grass. I commented to Grandpa one time how I didn't walk in a straight line but how he always did. I remember him telling me his secret. I kept my head down when we walked, looking at my feet and all the grasshoppers that were jumping all around me. Grandpa didn't look at his feet. He looked far off into the distance. He focused his eyes on a point on the horizon and walked towards it. Since Grandpa was focused he didn't waste time zig-zagging through the field.

That lesson of focus my Grandpa taught me has stuck with me. There is incredible power when we focus our minds on something. A great example of focus is setting a goal for yourself. The more specific we get in our focus, the more apt we are to achieving what we have our minds set on. And the less likely we are to get distracted by trivial things. Things that can avert our attention elsewhere.

One tip I learned about goals is to be specific. I heard one man say that he used to say he wanted to get in shape. . . . after a while he realized he was in shape, the shape of a pear. He should have been more specific!

Growth

I'm sure you have heard people say that "if you take care of me, then I'll take care of you." You can probably think about people that have that as an actual personal philosophy. Well here is a small twist on that thinking:

"I'll take care of me for you ... will you take care of you for me?"

Think about your relationships and how adopting this philosophy helps you and those closest to you. I knew a guy that was too stubborn to see the doctor when he was sick. His family begged him to go, but for some reason he refused. Yeah, he's dead now. Leaving the family with bills and regrets. How sad!

We should always want to grow and improve not only for ourselves but for those around us. If we aren't adding new knowledge, health practices and experiences in our lives then we aren't taking care of those that mean the most to us.

Move

"Draw near to God and he will draw near to you." - James 4:8

One translation I have heard for this simple yet profound scripture is, "You don't move, I don't move." This concept of moving is true for so many other things in life. If you are moving towards improving yourself then helpful people will appear in your path. Things will begin opening up for you. Those that move towards getting psychically fit will soon find new information, techniques, people, etc. that will help them to achieve this goal.

What are you moving towards? Whatever it is, the quicker you move the quicker it will come to you!

Correction

Here are seven steps to correcting ones behavior that I just read in the book, Maximum Achievement by Brian Tracy. These steps can be used with your children, friends, or people at work.

Step 1: Protect the individuals self-esteem at all costs. Treat it like a balloon with your words as potential needles.

Step 2: Focus on the future, not the past. Talk about "What do we do from here?"

Step 3: Focus on the behavior or the performance, not the person. Replace the word "you" with a description of the problem.

Step 4: Use "I" messages to retain ownership of your feelings.

Step 5: Get clear agreement on what is to change, and when and by how much. Be specific as well as future-oriented and solution-oriented.

Step 6: Offer to help. Ask them "What can I do to help you in this situation?".

Step 7: Assume that the other person wants to do a good job and that, if he or she has done a poor job or made a mistake, it was not deliberate.

Nature

I was talking with my mom the other day about some wood rot we had noticed on our house. If you live in Johnson County, you know that wood rot is about as common as breast implants and mini-vans. My mom made a statement that stuck with me. She said that nature is always trying to reclaim the land.

Just moving into a brand new house, with brand new grass, brand new windows and brand new bills . . . it is easy to fool myself into thinking that I don't have to do anything to keep everything looking nice and new. But nature is there, and slowly but surely picking away at my precious house and land. My house will need constant maintenance as long as I remain here. Some mowing, painting, cleaning, replacing, and protecting.

More important than houses, our minds need constant maintenance as well. Nature and those elements around us all want a piece of our minds. And if we trick ourselves into thinking that's not a big deal, then where will we be? Broke? Probably. Depressed? Maybe. Sorry? I believe so.

My challenge then is to stay sharp! Do the required maintenance! Read the book, see the movie, spend the time with family, give the hugs, tell someone how you feel, make time for friends, take the pictures, give to your church ... Do the things that are easy to put off. Do the maintenance necessary to ward off nature so that you can experience a fulfilled life.

Idea

Most everything we surround ourselves with; houses, books, technology, styles, etc. .... had the same beginning. The same starting point. They all started with an idea.

There can be a lot of power behind an idea. Enough power to develop something new. Choose a new path in life. Even enough power to put countries at war.

Victor Hugo remarked, "All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come."

I challenge you to not only come up with ideas but be open to new ones. If the time has come in your life for a new idea . . . look out! You could be on a new path to something far better.

Books

Here is a list of the top 25 books to read that will change your life, according to Success Magazine:

How to Win Friends and Influence People
The Richest Man in Babylon
Think and Grow Rich
9 Steps to Financial Freedom
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
The Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That
Changes Lives
Laws of Success
Acres of Diamonds
As a Man Thinketh
Maximum Achievement
The Seasons of Life
See You at the Top
The Magic of Thinking Big
The Power of Positive Thinking
Awaken the Giant Within
Developing the Leader Within You
The One Minute Manager
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...
and Others Don't
The Automatic Millionaire
Rich Dad Poor Dad
The Greatest Salesman in the World
The Sales Bible
Who Moved My Cheese?
Chicken Soup for the Soul series
Success through a Positive Mental Attitude

Formula

If you want to fail in life or if you want to succeed in life, I've got two simple formulas for you.

Failure formula: A few errors in judgment repeated every day.

Success formula: A few simple disciplines practiced every day.

Actions

The other day I was on a plane and I saw a lady spill a drink all over the groin of another passenger. About 30 minutes after we reached our cruising altitude when the pilot told us we could tilt our seats back to enjoy the ride....and about 5 minutes after our complimentary beverages were served, I witnessed the lady quickly tilt her chair back. The man sitting behind her had his drink resting on the tray table. The sudden jerk of the lady's seat caused this guy's drink to spill all over his lap.

The man was irritated with what happened and quickly began scrounging for napkins to absorb the liquid. I handed him the napkins, because I'm a nice guy. I didn't help him clean up however, I'm not that nice of a guy.

What was interesting about this little incident is that the woman that caused the wet groin had no idea what she had done. She just rested her tired little head and tired little eyes and was able to nap the rest of the flight. She had no worries in the world. Totally unaware of they mayhem she had caused. In fact, she will go her whole life not knowing what happened on that plane ride.

This made me realize that our actions do have an affect to those around us. What we say, how we act, what we do . . . it all matters to those we come into contact with. It even matters to those we may never meet again. The challenge for me is to positively affect those around me. Make it such a part of my personality that I don't even have to think about it.

Success

The Success Symposium in Dallas was incredible! The magazine SUCCESS is relaunching on March 4th and this Symposium was the first kickoff to celebrate. One of the speakers was John Maxwell who is known around the world for his books (45 and counting) on leadership. Below are the notes I took on his talk about success:

Success is 3 things -

1. Knowing your purpose in life - Successful people have figured out why they are here. There are two great moments in ones life - The day we were born and the day we understood why we were born. In order to find your purpose, you need to follow things you are passionate about. Passionate people have energy and are exciting to be around.

2. Knowing what your strengths are - What is your talent, what uniqueness do you have that sets you apart from the pack? From this moment on, stop working on your weaknesses. Quit focusing on things that you are no good at! This advice is freeing for a lot of people! Instead, grow your strengths and grow them everyday.

"The secret of success is determined by your daily agenda." If someone followed you around for an entire day, they would be able to tell how successful you will become by where you spend your time.

3. Sow good seed - Be a river, not a reservoir. Let information flow through you like a river. Always look for opportunities to add value to others. Highly successful people get over themselves so they can reach over and make other people successful.

Time

Below are some quotes from internationally known business philosopher Jim Rohn. I'm going to see him, John Maxwell, and Robert Kiyosaki this Saturday in Dallas.

"Don't mistake movement for achievement. It's easy to get faked out by being busy. The question is: Busy doing what?"

"We can no more afford to spend major time on minor things than we can to spend minor time on major things."

"Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time."

"Learn how to say no. Don't let your mouth overload your back."

"Time is the best-kept secret of the rich."

Winning

In reading the book The Psychology of Winning, the author gave one definition of winning that I thought I would share with you:

"Winning is taking the talent or potential you were born with, and have since developed, and using it fully toward a goal or purpose that makes you happy."

Question

Any fans of "The Office" out there? Dwight Schrute always starting a conversation with the single word . . . ."Question".

There can be a lot of power behind the right question. Here's one of the best questions that I have come across in regards to getting more done and more out of life. It's the million dollar question.
"How can I do what I do for more people with less time?"

And a question for all you business owners out there, there is a modified version:

"How can I do what I do for more people with less time and for a better price?"

Coming up with some really good answers for this question could revolutionize your life.

Wii!

When I first heard about Nintendo's new gaming system I thought it would be a miserable flop. The Xbox 360 just came out and there were rumors about the new Playstation 3 which was supposed to revolutionize the gaming industry.

The name of the new Nintendo system was a secret but the concept involved the gamer moving their arms to interact with the game they were playing. I thought this would be the death of Nintendo, because no self-respecting gamer wants to move around like an idiot in front of his T.V. The whole idea of playing a video game is to sit your butt on a comfy couch and zone out in another reality.

Here I am 2 years later and I continue to be amazed at the popularity of the Nintendo Wii. You can't hardly buy it anywhere and after playing it just once I understood the appeal. All age groups can play the system and really enjoy themselves. It's awesome!

If the Wii is so awesome then why didn't I know 2 years ago how popular that it would be? I think it's because I couldn't fit such a new idea into my own reality. I was trying to mush a square idea into my circular reality.

This is just another lesson for me to make my reality bigger. Instead of just poop-pooing an idea. Stop and process it. Thinking hard about not only the idea, but why I have the type of reaction to love it or hate it.

Our own reality is not set in stone and unchangeable. It is fluid and can be reshaped at any time in our lives.

Life

If you aren't getting what you want in life it's because of at least one of these three things:

1. How you think

2. How you feel

3. The choices you make

Simple stuff!

Seeds

There is an interesting portion in in the book "As a Man Thinketh" that talks about our minds. The entire book is very deep and thought provoking. Now that I have this book on my iPod, I can listen to it over and over and get the information to sink in a little deeper each time.

One part that is really jumping out at me right now is the part about mind "seed". Our minds are like a garden. It says that seed is always being planted in the garden all the time. If we are putting good things (ideas, knowledge, information, etc.) or seeds in our mind then those seeds will eventually sprout and grow into good plants in our minds.

On the flip-side, if we aren't planting anything in our minds, then weed seed will be planted. And eventually that weed seed will sprout and grow into bigger weeds.

This is a challenge for me to always be aware of what is being planted in my mind. If I'm not planting anything, then rest assured the weeds are going to move in.

Value

If you ask someone how much they make, they will say something like, "I make $15 an hour". This isn't totally true however, because if they made $15 and hour they could just stay home and collect the $15 every hour. They don't get paid by the time they get paid by the value they are providing to the marketplace. The marketplace has determined that $15 every hour is a fair price to pay for that particular level of work.

Here's the really cool thing. . . are you ready for this? If you want to make more money then you need to become more valuable. That's it! The more valuable we become, the more tools we have in our toolbox. These tools will help the marketplace expand and make more money, consequently the marketplace will want to pay you more money. Wal-aaa!

We all know people that want to make more money, but they typically just focus on their boss not handing them more money. A lot of times, people expect more money for doing the same level of work (creating the same value). They think that the company "owes" them this for their loyalty. Or since other companies are paying more, they should get more. Putting this responsibility of making more money on everyone but themselves.

The next time a friend complains to you about making more money, ask them what they are doing to increase their skills. How are they improving themselves? What additional tools are they gathering so that they can add those to the marketplace?

The new federal minimum wage is $5.85 per hour which equates to $12,200 a year for a full-time employee. Any guess on the highest pay last year? Try a cool $40 million. That works out to be over $19,000 an hour!

A lot of people think "that's not fair". There is too much disparity between the lowest paid people in our society and our highest paid. If this is your thought, then move to a communist country. You would fit in much better there. The reason we have such a disparity in the lowest paid people in the country and the highest paid is that they highest paid provide the most value. There is a huge difference between $19,000 and hour and $5.85 an hour but the beauty of America is that it's a ladder with several rungs. Anyone can climb these rungs up from $5.85 and the way that they do this is by working on themselves. One by one adding tools to their toolbox. Little by little creating more value to the marketplace. And little by little increasing their pay. That's empowering!