HOW IMPORTANT IS YOUR CONSCIENCE TODAY?

Voting Your Conscience - The Right Answer?

I've been pondering this concept of "voting your conscience" for a long time now. I am one who has been completely disgusted with the results of our national political process for many years now. As a nation we are allowing ourselves to be "hi-jacked" by an entire generation of political corruption masquerading as "progress" and "change". This progress and change are actually destroying our nation and the freedoms that we supposedly hold so dear.

Why is it happening?

Because very few of us are actually willing to study and learn the true principles that govern obtaining and maintaining true liberty and freedom in this world. This world and in fact our entire universe is governed by unchangeable principles or laws of nature that say, if you take this action, then this will always be the result. Those things are real. We cannot change them. The concept that there is no such thing as absolute truth, is one of the biggest falsehoods that has ever been perpetrated upon mankind. It is so misguided that it holds within itself the obvious truths of its own foolishness!

We can either learn to live in harmony with these true principles and bring great results upon ourselves or we can play with fire and loudly proclaim that they do not exist and that we can act any way that we want to and still get the results that we think will happen just because we say so. The only possible outcome of the second choice is a loss of our freedoms and our liberty.

So why this discussion on the eve of this election? Because I am still hearing so many of my friends loudly proclaiming that they are going to "vote their conscience" rather than vote for either of the two major candidates. Is that a legitimate, principle-based position to take? Many, many people think so. I happen to disagree.

Here's why.

At my age, I have had the distinct misfortune of living through two of the worst presidencies in the history of this country. Why were they so bad? Because they have managed to do more damage to the principles that this nation was founded on, which have produced an absolutely unprecedented amount of freedom at every level of society than ever before in the history of the earth. In their combined years in office they have introduced measures and violated powers that have set in motion forces that will ultimately destroy our nation and wipe true freedom from the face of the earth.

All of their misguided actions have been tolerated because they were done in the name of greater freedoms for one specific group or another or to protect us from ourselves. Both of these concepts are in direct violation of the true principles that govern real liberty.

Again, back to why I am so opposed to "voting your conscience"... Both of these presidents were handed the office because we had a major chunk of our voting population who were philosophically opposed to that candidate and would never vote for them. However they also didn't like the other major party opposing candidate either and couldn't "morally" bring themselves to vote for that one either.

Unfortunately both of these races were close enough that  when a large enough block of the potential supporters of the "lesser of two evils" candidate were distracted by the misguided notion of "voting their conscience" for a third party candidate who may have been a "morally" stronger person but who had no statistical chance of winning,...we effectively handed the most powerful office in the world to the worst possible person we could have put there.

I see that exact scenario developing again today.

Now anybody that knows me knows that morals are deeply important to me. What we must never fail to understand is that we must carefully watch ourselves to see that our "morals" are actually built upon a foundation of true principles and that they (our morals) actually bring about a correct result when we apply them. If when we follow our beliefs (morals) and they bring about a result that we really didn't want, then we must question whether we really acted upon a true principle or just upon our own personal belief system which, by its very nature, has the inherent potential to be flawed because we may not have taken the time to evaluate it properly.

If our "morals" lead us by default to place the person who is most dangerous to our freedoms into office because we pulled our vote away from the one candidate who had any chance of defeating them, then our "morals" and our "conscience" failed us!

The sad reality is that one of the two major party candidates WILL BE our next president, period...end of story. Like you, and almost everyone else I talk with, I am deeply disgusted with our choices.

In my never to be too humble opinion, one of them has a distinct agenda that will destroy this nation and the freedoms and liberties that its principles have created. The other, no matter how misguided and morally bankrupt they may be, at least believes that they are going to strengthen our nation.

That is a fundamental, philosophical difference that matters a tremendous amount to our future. 

The race is close enough that you can put the worst possible choice of the two into the most powerful office in the world by either voting directly for them or by "voting your conscience" for somebody who has no possible chance of winning and thereby drawing away your vote from the only person who could defeat them. It is as simple as that...period.

Now, I've got to address two critical arguments here.

First, the "lesser of two evils" - Many of my friends are attributing this comment to a certain person whom we all have a great deal of respect for. From everything I have been able to ascertain, this is a misquote. Besides that, I think I have made a reasonable argument to support that it is a principally flawed concept in the first place. Voting for the lesser of two evils still being a vote for evil, doesn't really hold water in the first place because many, many of our political choices boil down to that same scenario whether we know it or not.

The bigger answer lies in the real truth behind "voting your conscience".

The real place for exercising our "conscience" is in what we do in the next four years leading up to the next election. We as a nation should be working together to prepare a candidate who would be worthy of our vote because they actually understand the principles that govern true freedom and liberty. We also, if we truly have a conscience, should be doing everything that we can to educate ourselves, our friends and neighbors more on the true foundational principles of freedom and liberty.

Our founding fathers clearly stated that the freedoms and liberties that they put into motion for us could never be maintained by an ignorant people. Why? Because ignorance leads to selfishness, and selfishness opens you up to being manipulated by a more powerful group of people with an agenda that could destroy everyone's freedoms by deciet and false promises.

I hope you will ponder this thoughtfully and that it has an impact on what you do at the polls.

Besides that, I hope that you have an awesome day!

STOP HONORING YOUR FEARS!

Stop Honoring Your Fears!

What?

What do you mean HONORING my fears?

Yep! It's a real problem in our society. We have taught ourselves to honor our fears and put them on a pedestal to allow them to control our lives instead of doing everything in our power to rip them off of that pedestal and crush them under our feet!

I was reminded of this again last night as I was talking to some new friends and experienced an oft repeated scenario in my career of trying to inspire people to chase after excellence and their passions in their lives.

So often when I talk with someone about chasing after some great desire or dream in their life, I find them reluctant to do so. While the object of their desire, be it a thing or a purpose, is something that they really want to obtain or accomplish, they allow themselves to be held back from its attainment by some type of a fear.

These fears don't always manifest themselves as some big scarey obstacle that could easily be identified as a fearful thing or consequence. Sometimes it is a weakness, a lack of talent or skills, a lack of financial means or some other thing that impedes or holds us back from attempting to do something great or wonderful.

Still deep down at the heart of the matter, the solution to each of these problems is for us to push ourselves out of our comfort zone to develop a new skill. Or maybe to simply do the hard thing long enough so that we develop the ability to do it well enough and without fear and trepidation so that it finally becomes second nature to us and eventually becomes a new habit that begins to produce the desired results.

So often when I talk with someone about overcoming a challenge with their finances, I hear things like, "I just don't have time", or "I'm not a salesman", or "I don't like to talk to people".

Sometimes it's someone who really has a passion to serve the world or share some message, but they will bow to a "fear" of public speaking or a lack of money.

Other times it's someone with health or weight issues who says, "I'm just not the type who likes to exercise", or "I don't want someone to see me out trying to walk, run or ride my bike looking like this."

All of these things and many other excuses that we give ourselves and willingly accept from ourselves are literally fears or are based on things that we are choosing to say are more important to us than our desires or dreams.

We are literally sacrificing some of these these deepest desires at the altar that we have built to our fears.

We are giving those fears so much power in our lives that we allow them to become more important and powerful to us than the things which  are our hearts deepest desires. We are literally giving more honor or value to the obstacle than to our desired outcomes.

I challenge each of us to look around our lives right now and ask ourselves, "What are the things that are holding me back from accomplishing something great in my life?" "What fears or obstacles in my life have I given more honor to than what I am giving to my deepest dreams, goals and desires?" "Am I bowing at the feet of a fear or obstacle in my life rather than standing up and smacking it in the teeth and taking control of my destiny?"

Why do I ask these crazy questions? Because I am facing them just like you and every other human being is too. Our world today has truly unlimited potential and yet our society has taught us to cower before fear instead of standing up and confronting it head on until it gives up and goes away!

Smash the idol of your fear and the pedestal that it rests on! Stop honoring the unimportant things in your life and begin to give honor and allegiance to the dreams, desires and purposes that were placed within your heart by the Divine Hand that created you! Live your life the way you were designed to and never stop believing in your Divine Destiny!

LIVE A GREAT LIFE!

AMAZING KIDS!

Ten Keys To Amazing Kids!

Lately, Penny and I have been getting lots of comments about how much people love our kids and the positive influence that they are having on the families of their friends and neighbors. That is something that is deeply gratifying to a parent and has caused me to try to share some of my thoughts on how this has come to be.

First of all, lest anyone should think that I am assuming a "better than thou" attitude here, I hope that you will understand that we still have plenty of flaws and meltdowns! Just about the time when you think you are really something special, Heavenly Father has a way of gently reminding you that you're still not perfect!

Fortunately for us, most of our challenges happen within the walls of our own home where we can deal with them, hopefully, properly. We have found over the years that if we are willing to put up with the molding and shaping in the private moments of our own home, then when they go out into the world, they tend to actually perform in the way we have been trying to teach them. 

One thing that I will share about us is that we haven't just lucked out. We have been on a search from very early on in our marriage to find out if there really are some true principles that would govern raising great kids. Fortunately, over the years we have come across a piece here and a piece there and those ideas have all come together and born the kind of fruit that we were searching for.

So what are our Ten Keys To Amazing Kids?

I think you will notice quickly that we couldn't narrow the list down to just 10! The second thing that you will quickly note are that a huge percentage of these principles aren't really things to teach your kids to do, but instead, things that you need to work on becoming and doing yourself! Ouch!

Lastly, if you don't agree with something I say, think about this; if you are not getting the results that you want with what  you are already doing and someone else is, maybe it's time to really ponder why their thinking process is so different from yours? That could mean that maybe, it's time to let go of some long held paradigms of what we think is proper parenting. We have definitely had to do that ourselves on a couple of topics!

I promise you that very few of these principles were arrived at without some serious thought and searching and also some trial and error. Several of these ideas are even a vastly different direction from the one we started in. But we came up with them by trying one course of action and finding out that it didn't produce the results that we were looking for, so we changed... sometimes completely! 

So in no particular order and with very little explanation, (that would require a seminar!) these are some of the most important principles we have found.

First, get your priorities in the right order: God first, SPOUSE next, Kids third! Not kids before spouse except in very rare instances where the spouse is dangerous to the kids. In that case, find a new spouse! Be on the same team as your spouse!

Teach them Who and What God is, Who they are in relation to Him, and Why He went to all of the trouble to create this earth. Teach them what their ultimate potential to become is! If you don't know, find out! It's important! This one concept alone probably has more power to change the behaviors and outcomes of your family than any other single principle all by itself!

Understand your true relationship to your children. They are not your property, they are your spirit brothers and sisters and we have a stewardship to help them grow up learning how to become like our Father!

Get rid of all of your "Victim Mentality" thinking and teach them the same thing. Take total responsibility for all outcomes in your life. No matter who might do something else to you, the only positive solution is for you to own the problem and take responsibility for fixing it. No one else will ever fix it for you!

Examine your traditions and your paradigms about life and raising kids with a critical eye. Know WHY you do and believe WHAT you do and believe. Be willing to change when you find more truth.

Expect the best out of them, not the worst. They will rise to the level of your expectations. (Or Fall) Accept, Approve and Appreciate instead of Criticize, Condemn, and Complain! Be the Sunshine in their lives instead of the Rain-cloud! 

You can't teach self-discipline and obedience by teaching obedience and harshly disciplining them. What? The only way to truly teach them these things is by Inspiring, Teaching, Mentoring, Encouraging, Praising and Leading by Example. The way to teach obedience is to teach them WHY they would want to be obedient...to God! (It has an amazing upside!) They will obey you when they love and respect you and feel valued, not when they are taught to be obedient. Obedience is a gift that is given to one who has won your heart!

One of the most important chunks of parenting information that we have ever learned and applied has been "Personality Styles", "Love Languages" and "Love and Respect". These are vastly important! They are taught in 3 of our favorite books. ("Personality Plus", "5 Love Languages", "Love and Respect") Don't just read about them, STUDY them in detail! Repeatedly!

You can't have Quality Time without Quantity Time! Quality Time is and out growth of Quantity Time - Not a replacement for it!

Inspire curiosity in the world around them! Teach them to ask Why, What, How, Where types of questions about their surroundings.

Inspire them to READ, LISTEN, and ASSOCIATE to learn to grow. Read to them from inspiring stories not just entertainment books. Constantly read, learn and work on improving yourself! Consider paying them to read good books, (your list) instead of doing chores. Chores are a part of being a family not work.

Help them to associate with people who are pursuing excellence in their lives.

They need to see you pursuing a passion instead of arm-chair quarterbacking the world around you and them. Include them in a family goal and vision instead of just being the "soccer mom" to their every whim. It's okay for them to understand that the whole world doesn't revolve around them. (Nicely)

Find ways to work together on projects and make work fun and rewarding instead of drudgery. Teach them the joy of creating and becoming!

Make sure that their goals are really THEIR goals! Not just yours for them.

Teach them how to choose, set, pursue and accomplish goals. Start small. Teach them to be a finisher. Sometimes a goal requires course correction, but adjust and push through to the finish. Teach them to chase passion and purpose and let things be rewards instead of the main issue. What you become is more important than what you get. 

Teach them to be active, healthy and physically fit whether they do a sport or not.

As teenagers, teach them that great privileges come when they choose to Teach You To Trust Them.

When looking for more great parenting principles, only look to and listen to those who have fruit on the tree AND KNOW EXACTLY WHY they do! Choose to learn principles over strategies!

Like I said earlier, this subject could require a full seminar to really even begin discussing this subject adequately. Actually we could arrange to do that if it was important to you! Most importantly, don't take any piece of new info at face value until you have examined it carefully to see if it really is a true principle instead of just someone's pet theory!

Have an awesome day and Happy Parenting!

WHAT IS YOUR FAMILY'S LEGACY?

Within the last year I have attended the funerals of two of my Dad's brothers. Both of these have been wonderful men who, with their wives, have raised great families. Because we have lived several states away for nearly 30 years, our contact with the family has been rather sporadic. However, every time I get the opportunity to be with my cousins, (there are 24 of us) I am deeply impressed with the caliber of people who God has sent to this family!

All of us can trace our roots back to Edmund and Lucille Tapp and their ranch out north of Boise City, Oklahoma. Our memories of those times spent together as kids getting to know each other and forming lifelong friendships almost always go back to "The Ranch".  It is such a powerful memory that it seems like anytime we gather in Boise City, it almost always involves a trip back out to the ranch. It's like a time machine for us.

Why?

 Many of us, especially the older ones can remember many Christmases, Thanksgivings and summers spent there with Grandad, Grandma and each other. We rode horses, hiked the hills, and went on "cattle inspection" tours with Grandad in his trusty Scout to see the sights on this wonderful corner of our little world.

What was it about our experiences there that had such a lasting impact on so many of us?

While Grandad and Grandma might have had a few minor flaws, they were special people who did everything they could to create the foundations of something wonderful, and I believe potentially, very powerful there. They raised a family of 8 sons who have each turned out to be truly amazing men in their own rights. They also inspired in their 24 grandchildren a love for the land we live in and a driving sense of character that has created some truly amazing people as a personal legacy.

 Over the years, as I have visited with these cousins at various family functions, I never leave without feeling a deep sense of connection with them. In the last several years, this has grown within me to the point that I frequently ask myself the question, what amazing things could this family accomplish if we could all come together in a common purpose? The more I ponder that question, the more incredible that potential becomes!

That thinking process has inspired me to try to lead my own family in such a way so that we might build upon the foundation of the legacy that was handed to us and create something even greater with our generation. I have heard it described as having been born on third base and all that is left for us to do is to run home to accomplish something great!

All too often I see people who place no value on the legacy that they have been given. They live their lives without any real sense of purpose and when their lives are done they have either camped out on third base or even slipped backwards to second, first or even all the way back to the dugout!  They ultimately waste the legacy that was passed to them.

One of the driving, fundamental motivations in my life is to take this foundation that I have been given and to build upon it. I want to get better myself, to raise a great generation of offspring who are prepared to take this legacy to an even higher level, and to influence other people to begin to do the same with themselves and their families. I want to leave this world a better place for my having been here.

Almost our entire world seems to be so caught up in the struggle of just existing, that by far the largest percentage of us, end up settling for mediocrity in most areas of our lives, when, if we could just see it, excellence is actually available to us.

Over the last year I have begun having this discussion with some of my extended family and I am finding that I am not the only one sensing this. I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest that I believe that God put our family together here on this earth, at this time, for a purpose! He has laid a foundation through our ancestors that would raise up a generation of people with the character and faith to go out and have such a positive impact on this world that this legacy will resonate throughout the next several hundred years!

Alone, I see each of us impacting the lives of some of those around us in significant ways. That is why I believe that together, the compounded effects of our efforts could be exponentially greater.

What could be the Tapp Family Legacy of this generation? Could we, together, have an even more profound effect on this world around us? Could we become a powerful force for good by combining our talents, gifts and efforts in a common cause?

 Too often when we try to find companions for our causes we have to go out searching among the community and the world around us. Why not start with this group of people who already share a common foundational bond?

I would like to have this discussion with more members of my family. I believe that we have a mission here. If we would band together around the right principles, and gather the ability to influence more and more people around us, then the power of who we are and what we stand for could begin to radiate out from this core group to influence hundreds and even thousands of people in this world. I believe that we could ultimately reach literally millions! This world could be a much better place with the right influences. Why not us?

Every time I stand on that lonely, windswept hillside in northwestern Oklahoma at the Garrett Cemetery looking out at the amazing group of people gathered there to celebrate another great life, and I ponder the paths of those already laid to rest there, I can't help but ask myself the question...What If...? What could We Together accomplish?

Anybody up for a challenge?

I put that challenge out there to my own family, but what about yours? What legacy have you been given? Are you consciously looking to improve upon it? Maybe the legacy you have been handed is not one that you are proud of. Who's going to break the cycle and start something new and wonderful? Why not you?

Tell me what you think!

LEAD WHERE YOU ARE AT!

On Saturday I had the privilege to attend one of the most powerful leadership seminars I've ever been to! So often you come away from something like this inspired, but Dan Hawkins really shared a vision about why leadership is so important in every area of our lives and how you and I have the power to begin implementing positive change where it matters. I am sharing my notes here in the hopes that they will be a useful starting point for anyone who believes that their results in some area of their life could be much better.

Hope you find this as valuable as I did.

Are you Leading Where You Are At?


Notes: DAN HAWKINS Seminar

LIFE Leadership Talk:

Is there anything more obvious than the lack of leadership throughout our society today?

All you have to do is look at our score board in many different areas to see that principle-based leadership is sorely lacking.

We are seeing too much of a management mindset (trying to manage everything from the top down) instead of a true leadership mindset everywhere.

Empower individuals to lead right where they are at today. (Empowering individuals brings infinitely greater results to the entire organization than just relying on one individual to lead.)

A Leadership mindset is not just working on the top guys in the organization (that's a management mindset), true leadership permeates all the way through the organization to teach every single member of the team to be able to lead right where they are at.

I love the term which best illustrates this concept: Replacement Driven Leadership!

5 Key Steps to build Leadership with in your organization:

1) Build Competence - ("I don't know what to do" becomes a non-issue)
     Teach principles
     Learning requires humility - If you are not hungry to learn...It's because you are too full of yourself!
     True leadership means building leaders in your organization who may be more competent than you.
          That's how your organization can begin to function without you - leaving you free to do other things.

2) Encourage your people to take ownership
     Teach them to think and make decisions based on what you have taught them.
     Allow them the leeway to fail and learn from it.
     Seek feedback and ideas.

3) Inspire confidence
     Put your people into environments and opportunities to learn and grow.
     Create an environment where failure is ok - after all it is the pathway to success if you learn from it.
     Don't repeat the same failure over and over - If you are not learning from it, then you are not on the  path  to success, you are only on the path to more failure.
     Overcoming problems builds confidence and ability.

4) Create a climate and culture of learning -
     Your only competitive advantage is your (entire) organization's ability to out learn the competition.
     Don't pay me $30k to come speak to you for only a small blip on your radar screen - instead, create a     culture of learning within your organization. It will be much more effective and much less expensive.
     How? - Read and listen to the same material and share with your team 3 things you learned. Then share 3 things you can apply it to today
     This creates a culture of discussion, brain storming and positive competition among groups.
     You can't just buy training materials from someone like us and give them to your people. You have to lead out in creating the culture of using them and discussing ways to apply them for the betterment of the organization.

5) Foster mutual responsibility - Everybody acting like a leader within their own stewardship.

Ways To Implement This Culture:

A) Stop Making All The Decisions From The Top
     Avoid a "Chain Of Command" mentality where every decision has to be made or ratified from the top.
     Give your people leeway to make decisions, fail and make mistakes.
     Teach them to act to solve problems - That is what makes them the most valuable to your organization!
     Who is more likely to come up with the right solution to a problem? The guy at the top who is somewhat  removed from the scene of the action or the person who is right there in the middle of it every day?
     In politics, bring the decision making down to the local level where the problems actually exist.

B) Stop talking at staff meetings (if you're the boss).
     If you are talking, you can't be listening.
     Would you rather have 100% of your own abilities running the organization or a smaller percentage of all of your people's abilities running your organization?

C) Set up coaching opportunities - Opportunities to perform and then be mentored (not criticized)
     Opportunities to teach PDCA (Plan Do Check Adjust)
 
D) Invite your people to assume responsibility -
     If you are "The Guy" you severely limit your potential!

E) Give every person a customer to serve - Or someone to lead

F) Share the Big Picture - Make your actions match your vision statement
     Share it and Live it

G) Use modeling to teach these competencies - Set the example in every area.

Think of your organization's effectiveness and even profits in terms of a score board.

Let's say you are leading an organization of 100 people; yourself, 4 "managers", and 95 other employees. If you naturally produce let's say 50 points yourself, your managers naturally produce 25 points, and your employees naturally produce 10 points.Your total score would be...1100 points.

If you could maximize yourself and your leadership abilities, giving it everything you've got, let's give you a score of 100 points. That means that you raised your total score to 1150 points. But you were working your fanny off! How long can you maintain that pace and what happens when you back off a little?

Now lets say that you work really hard with your 4 managers and get them to double their effectiveness along with your full effort. So you at 100, them at 50 points average. How does that look? Total score... 1250!

Third scenerio: Let's say you work at implementing the principles Dan was teaching above. You develop a culture of learning and growth and teach everyone of your employees how to lead where they are at. Let's say that you help every individual in your organization including yourself and your managers to only improve themselves an average of 10 points. Now what happens? Total score... 2200 points! You doubled your original score!

Plus you are developing a natural culture of leadership and growth that doesn't require your constant attention and oversight. Your organization becomes a well spring of ideas, innovation and progress.

Then what happens if 10 of your people actually catch the vision and add another 30 points to their own performance? That's another 300 points.

Do you see how this culture of teaching people to lead where they are at can produce far better results than just trying to maximize the effectiveness of a very few people in the organization?

WHAT IF WE TAKE ONE MILLION PEOPLE AND GET THEM TO START LEADING RIGHT WHERE THEY ARE AT RIGHT NOW?

COULD THAT BEGIN TO CHANGE OUR COUNTRY?



Obviously these are just my notes, but if the general gist of what he was teaching resonates with you, contact me so I can get you more of the details.

Have an awesome week!

THE INSTITUTE FOR FAMILY LEADERSHIP

DO I NEED TO BE A LEADER IN MY FAMILY?

Most of us have invested a large portion of our lives and a considerable amount of money in learning how to be effective in a career or business.

Many of us have also spent thousands of dollars and untold hours on our children for sports programs, music training, dance, riding lessons, etc.

But, how much have we invested in learning the tried and proven principles that build successful marriages and family relationships? Are we hungry to learn what makes a great relationship work or are we just living by the seat of our pants?

Did you know that there are specific principles that you can apply that will make any relationship work more smoothly? It doesn't matter whether it is already good or bordering on disastrous, learning what makes each other tick and acting accordingly can change everything!

Remember the familiar saying; No other success can compensate for failure in the home.

Here is a timeless formula that governs every aspect of our lives:

Information -> Thinking -> Actions -> Results

Look at any area of your life.  Are you satisfied? If not the answer lies in working backwards through this formula and finding which piece is missing! Most of the time the answer is correct information.

Shouldn’t leadership in our families involve making sure that we learn, practice and pass on to our posterity a legacy of the solid principles required to have a great marriage and lead a family of their own?

Why does our society not do this? The answer is that while the principles are out there and have been for ages, very few people have taken the time to learn them and teach them to others.

We believe that just teaching correct principles could literally cut the divorce rate in half in our country as well as greatly improve most parent's  ability to interact with their children effectively. We do not have to find ourselves stuck in dysfunctional family situations. 

We were not meant to fail! But just like in a career or any other endeavor, we cannot succeed in ignorance! We need to know the rules of the game!

I invite you to come learn and apply the timeless principles that will build the foundation for a strong and successful family that you can pass on to generations yet to come.

 These principles are like having the correct set of tools to work on a project. 

Wrong Tools - Poor Results! Right Tools - Successful Outcome!

Invest in that which matters most in life, the people closest to you, your family!

Need some direction? Just ask!

The Power of a Self Directed Education

Whether in the business world, leading a family or serving in a great cause, if you don't commit yourself to an ongoing program of personal education, you are leaving a giant gaping hole in the fabric of your potential!

When I am speaking of a self directed education, I'm not talking about continuing on towards another college degree. While that is admirable and sometimes even of great value, it is also very costly and time intensive.

No, I am talking about the power of developing the habit of reading from a great book for a certain amount of time each day and looking for other sources of relevant teaching such as audio recordings to incorporate into your daily routine.

Why?

Because if we are not having a constant input of new ideas and principles into our minds, how can we expect to ever have an improvement in our level of creativity, problem solving, or results of any sort?

Leadership Guru Orrin Woodward puts it this way, When you have worked for thirty years, will you have 30 years of accumulated experience and expertise or will you have one years experience repeated 30 times?

Sobering thought?

Einstein said (paraphrasing), That we can not solve the significant problems in our lives at the same level of thinking with which we created them! Meaning that if we don't actively pursue more and more new knowledge, we will constantly be stuck trying to solve problems with the same limited knowledge base for our entire lives!

Why would we want to willingly limit ourselves that way?

Way too many people get locked into the flawed mindset that when they finished their formal education, there would never be a need to do any more reading, studying or learning. How sad when you realize that we are living in a world today with
an inexhaustible supply of knowledge to be had by simply applying some effort.

Some of us are prone to be the deep-thinking types. But are we stuck with utilizing only the limited supply of knowledge that was input into our brains during our school years like floating around in our tiny glass bubble surrounded by a literal untapped ocean of new knowledge? Or are we instead, constantly sending our feelers out into that vast ocean looking for the next valuable piece of information that could change our limited paradigm forever?

I love the principle of "The Slight Edge"as taught in the book of that same name by author Jeff Olson. It is that there are so many important and valuable things in our lives that are actually easy to do. The flip side of the coin is that they are also very easy not to do! Are we going to discipline ourselves to do them so that we can gain the prize we seek?

Also, that the cumulative difference that can be made by doing one simple little action repeatedly day after day, may not seem like much in the short term. But multiplied out over 5 or 10 years will be enormous! Not because of the simple multiplication of the small act but because of the compounding effect it has combined with other positive actions in our lives!

So what is important to you right now? More profit, a better paying job, a more successful company or organization, a successful family, a stronger more productive relationship? All of these things can be greatly enhanced by seeking for new knowledge and principles to apply.

Interestingly, very often multiple problems in different areas of our lives can actually be solved by learning one new principle! All too often one missing piece of information is causing us problems in several different areas of our lives at the same time!

So what do we do? Get hungry!

Discipline yourself to develop the habit of reading from a book recommended by someone you trust for 15 - 30 minutes a day. If you do that simple little thing, you will end up averaging 1 - 2 books a month and put yourself in the upper echelons of our society!

Don't think you can find the time? Start using your "Cracks of Time". Keep a book in your purse or brief case, your desk, the car, the bathroom, etc. There's nothing wrong with having several different ones going at the same time, one in each of these places. In fact, if you do, you are more likely to have a thought in one book stir a deeper understanding of what you are reading in another!

Not sure where to start? Contact me for some of my favorite recommendations!

Have an awesome day everyone!

Personality Styles - A Foundational Principle

As I read and listen to people teach about how to learn the skills of dealing with people in an optimum manner, I always end up coming back around to how foundational it is to understand that there are different personality styles.

Why is that so important?

Because no matter what other principle you are teaching or attempting to apply, if you don't understand that different personality styles react differently to different inputs, then you are constantly stuck in the mode of trying to fit round pegs into square holes!

Your new principle works great sometimes. At other times it seems to work fairly well, and at yet other times it doesn't seem to work at all. Why? I thought principles worked all of the time.

They do! But often the application of the principle requires a tweak here and there to apply it properly to the individual's personality.

I have a situation going on in my life right now where I am working on a project with a friend who doesn't understand this concept. I know his heart is in the right place and that he is a great person, but there is a lot of friction going on because this principle is being violated each time we sit down to work together.

If we want to get optimum results in anything that involves dealing with other people, we absolutely must understand that there are core, fundamental differences in the ways people think, act and perceive the world around them.

As I speak with many different people about this concept of personality styles, I find that probably 75% of them have been exposed to the idea in one form or another. However, the more I learn about it and watch people try to apply it in their interactions, the more I become aware how important it is to delve into it more deeply.

Probably the most common mistake that I see is that we tend to view all of the other personalities from the perspective of our own style instead of trying to understand them from a more neutral perspective. That might sound complicated, but it is really at the core of applying this principle.

So where do we start? I always begin by recommending the book, "Personality Plus" by Florence Littauer. However this is such a deep subject that I believe it is important to dig into 2 or 3 other books to be able to learn more from different perspectives. Robert Rohm has another great one called "Positive Personality Profiles" that I really like.

Another great way to learn about it is to listen to as many audio recordings of people teaching about it as you can. They allow you to learn from yet another perspective of someone who is trying to apply the principle in their everyday life.

Dig into this concept and you will begin to see your interactions with other people in your life make a lot more sense!

Good luck and have an awesome day!

Book Recommendation: Confidence and Power...

I just finished re-reading a truly great book. It was so timely to me that I decided that I would go through it again this week even one more time!

What is amazing to me is that, often with a really good book, even though you may have read it multiple times, it all seems like fresh material again. I know that I have read this one at least twice before within the last several years, and yet so many things that he was teaching really struck me as though they were completely new this time around!

The book is titled: How To Have Confidence And Power In Dealing With People by Les Giblin.

When you have a group of widely read multi-millionaires like the Policy Council at TEAM/LIFE who recommend a book like this as one of their Top 5 books of all time for you to read and reread, I think that speaks volumes for the caliber of what it contains! That's how I came to be curious about it several years ago.

In my opinion, this is probably one of the most comprehensive books on how develop human relationships that I have ever read! It only lacks one key principle as far as I'm concerned. That is that I believe that a serious study of Personality Styles is a critical prerequisite to anyone who wants to learn how to be more effective with people.

Other than that concept you could literally spend a whole year in a serious study of the concepts in this book. Each chapter addresses a specific topic and is broken down into several different ideas and illustrations of how to apply it.

One of the key things that makes a truly great book is its readability. This one has it over the top! He has a simple writing style. He avoids using big, hard to understand words and illustrates his principles with stories and anecdotes instead of facts and figures.

One of the key principles that stood out to me this time was the concept of Accept, Approve, Appreciate. Learning to give away these gifts to other people is one of the most powerful and empowering skills that you can learn in your lifetime!

Go pick up a copy at your local bookstore, Amazon or contact me!

Have an awesome day!

A Tale of Two Lumberyards

I want to illustrate my point about the power of great customer relations with a personal story here.

In a past life I was a building and remodeling contractor in our town of about 60k people for over 25 years! Obviously that entailed purchasing a lot of material from the local lumberyards over the years. I've learned that there can be a huge difference in the way different companies approach relating to their customers.

What should be the goals of the interactions with your customers? If understood correctly, great customer relations can maximize sales per visit, and by increasing customer satisfaction, can lead to more repeat visits and more referrals to other potential customers. Aren't those critical components to increasing your bottom line? I thought so too. That's why this story makes such a great point.

For many years, if my memory serves correctly there were basically three lumberyards in my town from which to choose from. Each one presented a different face to the public.

The first one that I began patronizing was the one nearest to my home and had been used by one of my former employers. Their customer relations face to me, the public, consisted of the guy behind the counter who always came across as arrogant, condescending, and bothered that he had to deal with me. Then when I would get out into the yard, I was constantly hassled and even insulted when I tried to pick a straight 2X4 out of the pile instead of taking the crooked ones on top.

When you are a concerned craftsman who is trying to deliver a quality product to your own client, you can imagine how that caliber of service went over with me. Needless to say, I literally have not been back to that store in over 15 years.

The second yard that I tried, developed a great reputation with me in that they almost never had what I was looking for in stock. So after almost 10 years of trying, I gave up on them too.

That left me with the third yard in town which was actually the biggest of the three. My results there weren't much better. I would go in one morning and have to track down somebody to help me, explain what I was doing and get the necessary supplies and go off to my job site. Later in the same day (or maybe the next), I would need something else and run back in. After tracking down the very same salesman, you would think that there would be some friendly recognition and continuing on from where we had left off. But no, I was always amazed that they acted as if they had never seen me before and that my trying to get them to remember what we had talked about earlier was an inconvenience.

Even today, after 25 years of going in there to purchase hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of supplies, you would think that I'd be on a first name basis with many of their employees. Not so!

After 25 years of using their business, there are literally 2 people there who know me by name. One of them is my assigned lumber rep and another is someone who I originally met somewhere else. I've never been introduced to the local manager and none of the other employees who have been asked to help me from time to time has ever acknowledged me again after our business was completed. Even though I was in there often, none of the sales people ever greeted me with any sense of recognition.

Now, I know that I am not one of the big name contractors in the area and this is not about me crying out for attention. This is simply to illustrate a point. A couple of more stories will drive it home even further.

At one time I was partnered up with a friend for awhile. When he started to go out on his own more, he went in to this store one day to place an order for some $60,000 worth of material. At the time that was the equivalent of the typical order for 2 average sized houses worth of lumber. After finally getting one of the contractor reps to sit down with him, the guy got up and left and went over to visit with one of his buddies for 10-15 minutes, leaving my partner hanging. How do you imagine that went over? Yep, Somebody else got the business!

Another perfect illustration happened at a so-called "Contractor Appreciation Day". The company invited all of the local builders in for lunch one day. They had a caterer in to serve a great hamburger lunch to all of us. Now you would think that this would be a great time for all of the company employees and managers to be out mingling and building friendships and connections with all of us. Again, I don't believe I ever saw the manager out there at all and the only real conversations I was engaged in were by the outside sales reps they had brought in to tell us about certain lines of products that hey offered.

Now why do I go to all of this length to tell you these rather negative sounding stories? To make a contrast!

One day my partner and I got involved in a project in a little town about 10 miles down the road. We had known about the smaller lumberyard in this town but had never taken the time to check it out, believing that because of its location that they would be low on inventory and high in cost. But since we were working only a couple of blocks away, we decided to check it out.

What we found amazed us! When they found out that we were contractors, the owner of the company came out to meet us and visit with us about our project and learn what other types of stuff we did. Before we left, we were introduced to all of the floor salesmen, the guy that ran the door shop, and the ones in charge of the yard. We walked out that day with a line of credit big enough to cover anything we needed on our projects and a rep who was to be personally in charge of getting us anything that we might need. It was a whole new experience.

Every time we would come in after that, we would be greeted by name and know that they had a very good handle on what we were working on and actually cared. If we needed to hurry, they were right on top of helping us get out of the door quickly. If we needed suggestions on something we were unfamiliar with, they were all over it. If we had time, they were all about developing  a friendship with us. We were always welcome in the owner's office and often he would personally drop what he was doing and help us out. We were free to sort through lumber if needed and often helped to do so.

Do you see the contrast? What do you think the result was?

For 10 years after that, almost 100% of our business went to this store! If I was working on the far side of town and needed anything significant, I would drive past all 3 of the previous yards plus another 10 miles to patronize these guys instead. It continued that way until many years later when the big box yards came to town and the owner decided to retire.

Why? One word...SERVICE!

If we want to set ourselves apart from the competition, we can do it in two ways, better selection but even more importantly, BETTER SERVICE!

Even today, if I need something for a project, I'll go to one of the big box stores (the one with the best customer service), before I finally run over to the one big lumberyard with the poor service that I was describing earlier.

Here's the bottom line, over the 25 years that I was in business here, the store with the poor customer service, even though they always had the best selection of supplies on hand, probably conservatively lost a million and a half dollars worth of my business because they just didn't seem to care whether they got it or not!

Is that significant? You tell me!

Then multiply that by how many other guys like me might have been loyal and faithful customers over all these years if they had felt valued. That number is likely to soar well into the several millions of dollars!

Is it worth the time and investment to develop a culture of great customer service? I think we just proved that point pretty clearly!

Are these principles only natural in some people or can you teach them to anybody?

In answer to that, some of the salesmen at the great yard were anything but charismatic. But they had learned how to make the customer feel appreciated and valued!

Those are the principles that we teach here! Contact me if you would like to learn more!

Hope you have a great day!

Vision

Do you have a vision for your life or are you just letting life happen to you and dealing with it as it comes!

When you get a vision of what you want your life to be and then go out and start putting the pieces of that vision in place, it changes everything!

It keeps you young and focused. It gives you perspective to judge your priorities from. It lets you live a life that really matters, no matter who you are now or where you are starting from!

Nobody can determine who you will be or what you will become or what your ultimate legacy will be except you! No matter who you are today, with a vision locked in your heart, you can become anything you can dream of!

Don't let other people's negative opinions of you have anything to do with what you set out to become!

Chasing a vision involves learning, change and growth! Too often we fear those things, but that is where life's greatest feelings of exhilaration come from, learning, growing, overcoming challenges and seeing the world from a new, elevated perspective!

Doesn't that sound more fun than just dealing with whatever the world throws at you everyday?

Self Respect

I've been thinking about self respect this morning.

In my opinion there is way too much emphasis on self esteem these days.

Self esteem ought to be a natural out growth of self respect instead of a cheap substitute for it.

Self respect is like a fortress you build around your inner self, one block at a time! That fortress gives you strength and protection when the world throws challenges your way!

The building blocks of your fortress come from proving to yourself that you are a person worthy of your own respect!

That only comes from proving to yourself that you can make wise choices and take responsible action.

 For instance, there's no way that you can respect yourself for choosing to do something that you know is wrong. On the other hand, standing up and defending what is right and good even when it's unpopular takes strength and adds blocks to your fortress quickly!

Your fortress doesn't have to be perfect to have value to you. All of us have weak spots in our character, they are just there to show us what we need to work on more!

Even if your fortress is a shambles today, you can start rebuilding it right now by starting to make one good decision at a time! Self respect comes from hundreds of little good decisions and acts of character and self discipline all added together!

Have you ever had a hole blown in your fortress wall? I have!

What do you do? Start building again and focus on making your self respect even stronger by fixing the problems that created the original weakness.

Think of the power that comes from being able to say, "I overcame a major obstacle in my life!"

So do something that adds value to the world today!

Go make it an awesome day!


Self respect is far more valuable than self esteem! Self esteem can be artificial. Self respect comes from building a life around doing right and good things. Don't feel much respect for yourself? Start today! Go do something good, preferably for someone else and lay the first block in your fortress of self respect.

Figure out how to put another block in that wall every day. You will find that other people can't take your self respect from you if you have built it on the right principles. That's far more valuable than the percieved picture of yourself that is self esteem! This is real!

In Pursuit of Excellence!

 I'm so grateful for Mondays!

 Am I crazy?

 If I didn't have Mondays my life would be 1/7 less fulfilling! That's unacceptable! After a great weekend of charging my batteries I can hit the ground running! Yeah I probably am crazy but that's a personal problem.

No need for you to get involved!!!

Had a great thought on Saturday!

EXCELLENCE!

What do you want to be great at?

I didn't say greater than anyone else. I just said what do YOU want to be great at?

Happiness comes in the pursuit of excellence!

You don't have to be excellent at everything. (In fact you can't) But find your talents and magnify and expand on them! It's even more effective if you can serve someone else in the process.

Pursuing excellence in serving others with your God given talents is living your purpose. There is nothing more exhilarating than that!

It's like that feeling of standing at the top of a mountain that you have just climbed with the wind in your face taking in an incredible vista that can be seen from nowhere else!

Whew, was that philosophical or what???

Learn to hold the bar high on yourself!

That thought just keeps bouncing around in my head since I read it this morning!

It's something that I want to remind myself of constantly! It's way too easy to slip back into the rut of just doing what it takes to get by. Become a person who pursues excellence in everything that is important to you!

Raise the bar on yourself and when you reach that level, bump it up another notch! Never become content with what you have achieved in the past.

Be pleased with your successes but use them as building blocks towards the next level of accomplishment! We will never be perfect at everything here, but why not pick something that matters and strive for excellence at it?

Thanks to those around me who set the example of excellence in their lives!

Do All of the Steps

I've been thinking, why is it human nature to want to know how to become like someone we admire, but then belittle or ignore their advice when they offer it?

When someone has or is something that I aspire to gain or become, and they offer to teach me, why do I look at what they tell me to do and in my infinitely greater wisdom, pick and choose which parts of their gameplan, I want to follow?

If I'm so smart, wouldn't I already have the object of my aspirations? But the reason that I don't is obviously because I am missing some pieces of the puzzle! 

In my experience, often the pieces that I have been missing, have been relatively small seeming things that I might have either thought were foolish or too difficult or insignificant.

It took my submitting myself to someone else's greater experience or wisdom and following it to a "T" to obtain what I sought!

All of my greatest accomplishments in life have come from finding someone who had the fruit on the tree that I was looking for and doing exactly what they told me to do to obtain it! Too often that fruit came from following advice that, because I was lacking in proper perspective, I judged to be weird or even stupid!


Seek for correct knowledge and apply it even if you don't clearly understand it! Sometimes you have to step out into the darkness or the fog before you can even see the next step!

Ridiculing others and their choice of actions usually, ultimately ends up backfiring on you and leaving you the one looking foolish instead!

Often wisdom and solutions come from the most unexpected places! Don't make the mistake of closing your mind based on your current knowledge!

When a mentor speaks, I have learned to listen carefully and seek to understand!

Here's to a lifetime of learning and growing for each of us!

Have a great day!

Ideas

I was reminded of an idea yesterday that I need to keep at the front of my mind. Might help you too.

"Small people talk about other people.

 Average people talk about things.

Leaders (which is what I want to be) talk about ideas!!!"

I think most of us realize this in the back of our minds, but if you're like me, you need to be reminded every so often.

Where do the greatest ideas come from?

They are a combination of the books we read, the people we associate with and the inspiration that comes from pondering on the previous two!

The other piece of the equation is that we need to speak positively about ideas instead of always talking negatively about them.

Interestingly enough, whose ideas do we usually speak negatively about, other peoples ideas right? When was the last time you were negative and critical about your own great idea?

I'll bet that this is related to the "small people talking about other people" idea!

We can only change the part of the world that we have influence over by talking about positive ideas instead of criticizing someone else's idea!

I'll never forget something Mother Teresa said when asked to join an anti-abortion group, (paraphrasing) I'm not interested in being "anti-" anything, only in being "Pro-" something".

What's your great idea?

Have an awesome day!

Keep Learning

Combining a couple of old posts here.

How many of us quit educating ourselves when we got out of school?

 "I haven't read a book since I graduated from..."

That's one of the saddest things that I hear, all too often, when talking with older people. I think it stems from a lot of the stuff that they make us read in school. We get so much totally uninteresting junk thrown at us, that we seem to develop the idea that all reading is a waste of time.

What many of us don't realize is that there is a literal wealth of knowledge out there just waiting for us to find it!

It has been called, "joining the great conversation of the ages!"

Where else can you figuratively rub shoulders with the greatest minds from all of history?



Where else can you find all of the wisdom that someone else has accumulated in their lifetime crammed into a format where you can absorb it in 2-3 hours? Is that a bargain or what?

Remember, one of the few things you can take with you when you leave this life is what you learn while you're here!

Don't like to read but are hungry to learn and grow? Ask somebody who has similar interests to recommend their favorite book. Borrow it and sit down and make yourself work through it. Pick a favorite subject that you're interested in and start expanding your mind. You will soon find yourself drawn into "The Great Conversation!"


NEXT POST

Ahhh! Awesome weekend!

Did you ever hear the phrase "Endure to the end"?

I think all too often we misunderstand what that really means. Just enduring for the rest of my life, especially if you plan to live to be 125 like me, can sure sound like drudgery.

After all you can't just endure at the same level for the rest of your life!

You can never just stop and stay at the same level. You will automatically begin to slide backwards! Life is like walking up a "Down" escalator! You have to keep moving and progressing or you lose ground!

I believe "Enduring to the end" means to never stop learning and trying to better yourself!

If you ever think you have "Arrived", pick up a book and read a little while! If you're reading the right kinds of books, you'll always find something new that you didn't know before to begin working on! Or you might just see more clearly a place where you were slipping up but hadn't realized it!

Remember, we don't know what we don't know!



Put yourself on a constant, never ending quest to become the very best person you can! You will never run out of things to do! Even a totally bedridden invalid can improve their mind!

So I challenge you to develop the endurance of an ultra-marathon runner in climbing up life's down escalator! Become a life long learner!

Have an awesome day! Not because we deserve it but because we can make it happen!

Self Discipline

I was asked to teach a lesson in church this next Sunday. As I started to study and prepare for it this week, I realized it was something that I really needed to ponder on myself, which probably means there are some others out there who it could help too.

If we could narrow down to one character trait that marks the true transition from youth to adulthood, what would it be?

How about Self Discipline?

If you're like me, you tend to exercise only about as much self discipline as is absolutely necessary!

At a some point in our lives the world begins to require a certain amount of discipline of us. If we choose not to comply, we end up unhappy, hurt, broke, in jail, etc...

We either learn to discipline ourselves or someone else will do it for us and we will probably not enjoy it very much!

The whole point of the story of Peter Pan and his Never-Never Land was the complete and total freedom from self discipline that represents childhood. To do all of the fun things in life without doing any of the more mundane things that really make life go around.

So the real measurement of adulthood is when you realize that you have to discipline yourself to do the important things that allow you to have those times when it is OK to let go and have some Peter Pan fun once in a while!

When we really realize that true happiness comes not from having as much fun as we can cram into our lives, but in choosing to do and become what is important, then we are firmly on the path to becoming true adults.

Character and integrity bring us dignity and peace and they come from disciplining ourselves to choose to do what is right in our lives! All of these things are a choice that is completely up to us, not to the whims of fate or some accident!

I'm thinking that I have a lot to learn here. How about you?

The Price of Success

How many of us are looking for more success in some area of our lives?

We usually think that means money and that may be it in your case or it may be in some other area.

What is it for you? Do you really want it? Are you willing to pay a price for it?

Do you realize that you can't determine that price? If you try to bargain with the price of success, you will end up with an inferior product!

The trick is, to find out the price required for the full reward you are seeking and pay it! ASAP!


I've heard a lot of teaching on this topic over the years but only very recently have I learned what all of it really means!

It's very easy to talk in broad generalities about success. I've always known that I need to change myself or learn how to think differently. But change into what or think what?

I'll attempt to share an insight I've gained recently. Maybe it will help you gain some more clarity too!

You can succeed at whatever you choose!

 Absolutely! But step #1...and you can't bargain with this one, is that you must be willing and even eager to change!

What we have done in the past has brought us to where we are today! It absolutely requires us to learn new ways of thinking that will change our actions!

We can't keep doing the same things and expecting life to turn out differently!

That's Crazy!!! In fact Albert Einstein called it "the definition of insanity!"

The Easy Way Out

I actually read two different thoughts this morning that really struck me! The first one was a quote that said, "Easy is the comrade of the timid!"

The second thought is that we are who we are, where we are and what we are today because of only two things, our thoughts and our choices!

It's too "easy" to blame all of those things on circumstances, other people, discrimination, our parents, the president, the list goes on and on. But the reality is that we are where we are today because of a series of thought patterns and choices that we have made that brought us here.

If we see our opportunities as limited, we need to look within ourselves for the solution rather than blame the world!
I read the story this morning of twin brothers whose father was an alcoholic. One became a drunk, the other became a highly successful businessman.

When asked why, each gave exactly the same answer, "Because my father was a drunk!"

What was the difference? Each one had a very different set of thoughts and choices towards exactly the same set of circumstances! Their thought patterns governed the ultimate outcomes in their lives based upon how they chose to view their circumstances.

One said, "See my heritage... I have no choice here."

The others response was, "Now I know exactly what I don't want to be like!"


I'll wrap up with this thought. If we always strive to take the easy path, our life will get more and more difficult over the years! But should we choose the more difficult path now with all of it's obstacles and challenges, our life will get easier and more rewarding as the years go by! Not that the nature of things will change, but that our ability to master the situations will increase dramatically!

Success in any endeavor always has a price that cannot be bargained! Happiness comes from finding out what that price is and willingly paying it ASAP!

Have an awesome day!

Life Lessons From My "Career" In Sports!

This recent focus of mine to run 1000 miles in a year has had me thinking a lot about my "career" in sports!

I've often pondered some of the great life lessons that I've learned from all of my years of playing sports competitively and for fun.

I thought it would be fun to share a series of posts here on some of my personal victories and defeats and some of the principles that they have driven home to me over the years!

It could sound like a lot of boasting (and honestly there is probably a little bit of that) but I hope you will listen for the lessons I've learned and forgive an old guy a few trips down memory lane for the sake of a teaching moment!

First of all, I'm well aware that I'm no Michael Jordan or Jerry Rice etc! I was probably only a little above average as a high school kid and I never did make the college sports scene.

I grew up loving football and in elementary school I was introduced to track and field and did pretty well at it. I never was any good at baseball and eventually found that basketball neatly filled the empty time in the winter between my other two favorites.

I was good enough to letter in 3 sports for 3 or 4 years in high school and to start on the football and basketball teams 3 of those years but that's about it. There were lots of personal victories and defeats along the way and those are what I want to share with you and see if I can convey what they have taught me.

I'll start with what I have always considered my greatest personal victory in sports.
Interestingly, it came in a team event in what is normally a sport dedicated to individual performances.

I've won many ribbons, medals and awards over the years including a medal at the state track meet, but the one that has always stood out to me happened in 8th grade in a tiny little town called Bowie, Az. Why, because I learned more about myself in one minute there than maybe at any other time in my life!

It was towards the end of my first year in a new school. We had a track meet at our neighboring rivals with 5 or 6 different schools there. I actually had a good day there, I think I won 4 blue ribbons in all now that I think about it. But I don't have any memories of the other events.

One of those blue ribbons though still occupies an honored place in my office even today.

One of the last events of the day was the 4 X 440 yd relay. It's a race where a team of 4 guys each runs a full lap around the 1/4 mile track before handing off the baton to the next teammate. First team to complete 4 laps wins!

I think I was the only one of the four on our team who had much experience running this race. The other guys were more accustomed to the shorter sprints or other events. So I was the one whose job it was to run the final, or anchor leg.

Normally, in high school, the 440 is almost an all-out sprint for the entire lap and is strategically a very difficult race. However in junior high it requires an even more disciplined approach. You have to figure out how to run as hard as you can but still have enough energy left to finish at a full sprint. Finding that balance is the real challenge!

I had the opportunity to run a lot of relays through the years with some really talented athletes. But this one taught me a personal lesson about "how bad do you want it"!

My teammates performed admirably, but when my turn came to take the baton for the final lap, there was one team that had pulled ahead of us by some 10-15 yards.

Now that doesn't seem like a lot until you realize that you only have one lap to make it up in and you are trying to do it against the other school's best runner who has his heart set on maintaining that lead for his team.

On top of that it just happened to be our arch rivals who we had to catch!

As my teammate was racing towards me, I realized that I had a split second decision to make. I could either run my normal race strategy and hope for the best at the end, which would probably result in a second place finish or I had to think of something quickly!

With a lead like they had, nobody was going to be angry at me if I couldn't overcome it. But it's at times like that when you need to learn to ask yourself one of life's defining questions...

What If?

Are you willing to "leave it all on the field" for the chance at a victory? Or will you allow yourself to be content with second place?

I knew second place was in the bag, but...What If...I could catch him???

The chances of having enough gas left to overtake him at the finish line were slim and risky at best.

So I made the decision that if we had any chance at all at winning, I had to catch him right now and hope to out-last him to the finish line.

With a successful hand-off from my teammates who had given it their all to put us in a position to have any chance at all...I took off at a dead sprint as hard as I could go!

I actually caught him at about the 100 yard mark and in my young junior high mind, I thought I had him beat! I thought that when he saw me catch him so fast, it would be so demoralizing that he would just give up and I'd breeze right on by to a victory!

But I had forgotten to count on his own intense competitive spirit! There was no give in this guy! He wanted to win as badly as I did!

So rather than settle into a nice easy reserved pace until the final 100 yard sprint for the finish, he took my challenge! It immediately escalated into an all-out sprint with over 300 yards still to go!

This was the part that I hadn't counted on! I had not prepared myself for this obstacle! I had thought that my initial sprint from a fresh start would assure me a victory.

Isn't that how life usually works? We sprint off after a new victory, thinking that we will get it done in the initial rush of effort, only to find that almost anything worth while requires real time, effort and perseverance!

Back to the race. I now found myself locked in one of the defining battles of my life!

We were both good sprinters so nobody could gain any significant advantage for the next 250+ yards. It really settled down to a contest of who could hold on to this killing pace for the longest.

You're running all-out, lungs screaming for air, legs beginning to turn to rubber, brain telling you to STOP torturing yourself, it's only a stupid junior high track meet for heaven's sake! Can I keep going longer than him? Is he going to give up first or am I?

But something deep down in the human spirit is programmed to win! To become the best we possibly can! To give our all to something we deem worthy of our efforts! Can we endure to the end? Can we win at what's important to us no matter what the naysayers and competition may throw at us?

On that day I learned that if I could hold on long enough, if I wanted it bad enough, if I could keep going even when it seemed impossible, I could win at what was important to me!

We came into the final 100 yard straight-a-way neck and neck, then somewhere about the 50 yard mark, I saw him begin to fade. Somehow I had been blessed with a little bit more stamina or a little bit more adrenalin that allowed me to keep going just a little bit longer than my challenger!

I don't know how much we won by that day because that was not what was important. The victory was what was important for our team. I don't know if any of my teammates or my opponents even remember that day because in the grand scheme of things it was really almost irrelevant.

It was an obscure little junior high track meet at an out-of-the-way little school somewhere in the Arizona desert. But for me it was a day that will probably live forever in my memory, not necessarily for the victory in the race, but definitely for the lessons that I'm reminded of every time I see that little blue ribbon on the wall in my office!

I can win! I can persevere even when it's extremely difficult! You have to keep going UNTIL IT'S DONE! If it's worthy of your time, never, never, never give up!