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!

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 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!

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!

The Power of Relationship Skills!

I'm going to start a series of posts here focused on how the principles that I'm learning and teaching can impact us in our business dealings with other people as well as in our everyday interactions with those around us.

I'm running into so many situations in the business world lately where a lack of understanding of what makes people tick is creating friction between people who should be working together to reach a mutually beneficial result. This results in things like lost sales, damaged relationships, no return customers, low referral business, etc in the business world. In personal relationships, it is at the root of most of our problems too.

The ultimate solution lies in realizing that people can be understood. There are principles that govern how we act, react and interact with others. Those principles can be learned and even ultimately mastered by ANY person who is willing to delve into the learning process.

So far I have not seen a single book that covers all of the principles in one shot. However, there are a certain few, that if read and studied together, will cover most of the bases and give you a great foundation to build off of.

The best part of this whole picture is that if you will trust someone with some experience to point you at the right books, this study will actually be fun and entertaining at the same time. Reading doesn't have to be a dull boring experience like many of us learned in school. There are some great teachers out there who know how to teach with stories and funny experiences of their own that help to illustrate their points.

So from time to time on here, I am going to include a few book recommendations and reviews to resources that I feel will be universally helpful to anyone who may be reading this blog.

Learning to interact well with people can have a very positive effect on the bottom line of our businesses as well as in our relationships with every person around us. We will bring in more sales at work and actually be able to understand our spouses when we come home! Sound like a pretty good combination?

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?

Today's The Day!

I was reminded this morning of the power of persistence!

We hear so many stories about just going one more day or one more yard or trying one more time, making all the difference.

My favorite though is about the guy who was a scuba instructor and set a goal to find the richest Spanish treasure galleon that had ever been sunk off the coast of Florida.

It's an amazing true life story that rivals the movie "National Treasure"!

To keep it short, he spent 17 years of his life and literally sunk everything he had into the search.

People called him crazy, a liar, a fraud, sued him, etc... but everyday he would gather his crew at the dock, give them instructions and tell them,

"Today's The Day"!

Finally after 17 years of searching everyday for it, one of his diver's surfaced and said, "Put away the maps. We found it!"

Over $400 million in old coins alone! Plus hundreds of silver bars, Columbian emeralds, and on and on!

This was over 20 years ago and they are still bringing up more stuff from that wreck even today!

What if he had quit somewhere along the line and just said, this dream's not worth it?

I'm tired of people laughing at me, etc. What if he had just called it off at 16 years, 364 days?

What are you chasing?

Are you giving it your all, every day...until it's done?

I did some math.

Because he went one more day...every one of those years of frustration and heartache became worth over 21 million dollars to him!!!

Was it worth it?

Just for fun, Google the name of the ship, "Nuestra Senora de Atocha"!

You need to hear the whole story!

It's amazing!

Final Update - 1000 Miles!!! & Life Lessons

It's June 1, 2011 and one of the biggest physical goals of my life is in the bag!

I ended my running year yesterday with a nice easy 5 miles to finish off the past year with a grand total of 1016 miles! Mission accomplished!

The real crowning victory came on Monday May 16,2011 when I put myself over the 1000 mile mark with my 2nd ever full marathon! It was pretty pathetic as marathons go because I hadn't done a full training program to prepare for it. But I got it done and even beat my previous time by over 7 minutes!

The feeling of passing that 1000 mile mark at mile #21 was exhilarating! I've known for a couple of weeks that I was going to make it. But still, you never know what might come up that could stop you. So actually being able to cross that finish line left me with a huge sense of accomplishment!

Be sure to read the series of posts immediately following this one for the full story.

As I've mentioned elsewhere the most important thing about this personal victory is not even the physical accomplishment itself, but the incredible life lessons that I have learned in the process!

I have to add one more important piece of the puzzle that I learned just this last week! That is, that one important piece of the goal setting process is that you MUST give yourself the reward that you promised yourself at the end.

Lest you think that this is my own personal wisdom, relax, it's not! I learned this important principle from a gentleman named Dan Hawkins.

If you set a goal and attached a reward to it for when you actually achieve it, absolutely do not deny yourself that reward for any reason.

Even if it sounds honorable, (i.e. we really can't afford to do that right now and besides the goal got done anyway...etc) the reality is that ultimately, you will have lied to yourself!

More importantly, you will have lied to your subconscious self.

The problem is that your subconscious will have gone out of it's way to help you achieve the goal only to ultimately find out that you tricked it.

The next time you go to set another big goal, a big part of you will be reluctant to get involved and push for it because, after all we really don't like being lied to, right!

Sounds crazy, but this is a powerful point! Build your own inner honor and integrity so that all parts of you will be in harmony and willing to give 100% to whatever it is that you deem worthy of your efforts!

For me it was a brand new pair of nice running shoes! That ended up being the perfect exclamation point to a great personal achievement!

It has left me now looking forward to the next big life changing personal goal!

After all, I've heard it said over and over that the real glory of reaching a goal is not what you accomplish so much as it is who you become along the way! Amen to that!

Running 1000 miles, while it has been good for me, is not nearly so important as the life lessons that I have learned along the way and that will impact everything that I do for the rest of my life!

What's on your "Bucket List"? What great life lessons can you learn from the pursuit of your dreams?

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Inspiration From Past Victories!

So last spring I was talking with another friend who was kind of a casual runner too and they suggested that we start training more seriously and do a half marathon at the end of the summer.

That sounded interesting, but I didn't think it would be much of a challenge. I figured there was a pretty good chance I could run one right then if I wanted to.

So the next day being a Saturday, I decided to give it a try. I made it 14 miles, slightly more than the 13.1 required for a half marathon, but it took everything I had!

As I was recovering from that, I was still being driven by the desire to set some kind of a big fitness goal for the next year to push myself towards.

With my construction business falling apart, I really needed a win in my life right now.

It was then that I remembered my grade school P.E. teacher Mr. Ken Harris and a contest that he created for all the kids in school from 5th through 12th grades. He called it the Mullinville 500!

The object was to start tracking our running and walking mileage and see if we could accumulate 500 miles, no matter how long it took. No pressure. You could totally do it at your own pace.

The funny thing was, I was one of the first 10 kids to finish out of the whole school! I also held the record for several years of being the youngest one to finish by more than a year.

It took me 2 years to do it back then as a fifth and sixth grader.

So fast-forward to 2010, almost 40 years later. Could I, at 49-50 years old possibly do it again, but this time in only 1 year?

As I started calculating what it would take, I realized that if I'd just do a 4 mile run with a half mile warm-up and a half mile cool down walk 3 times a week, I'd easily get it done in a year. That would even allow for several bad weather days in the winter and spring!

Hmmm... so why not?

Plus, by being consistent, maybe I'd be able to get in good enough shape to do a half marathon a little easier. Then the big one! Wouldn't it be cool if I could actually finish a full marathon? That would be a big check mark off of the ole "bucket list" for me!

So I created for myself what I called the IPFC 500! The International Personal Fitness Challenge!

As part of my goal I created several different charts and then some award certificates with my IPFC 500 logo on them, that I could earn for reaching certain milestones along the way.

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What Is The Price Of Your Victory?

But... How bad did I want that goal? Apparently, pretty bad!

I found myself drawn to be out running the roads no matter how bad the weather got. I remember one day trying to go 14 miles on a cold, windy, rainy day. I just couldn't make it. I totally ran out of gas at 12 miles and had to call home for a ride. But two days later, I was back out running again!

Then towards the middle of April and beginning of May I realized that I really was going to make it!

I finished another 100+ mile month in April and that left me less than 75 miles to go in May! That should be a piece of cake!

Plus, by now my body was fully recovered and back in great shape again! On my second run in May, despite the cold weather, I completely obliterated my best 6 mile time ever by almost a full minute. The funny thing was I didn't set out to do that. I just realized at about the 3 mile mark that I was ahead of my fastest pace ever!

So here it is May 12th. Yesterday I did a 6 miler that put me at 979 miles! That leaves me almost 3 weeks left to either run a marathon or put in less than an average week of running! I'll finish up what's probably the biggest, toughest physical goal that I've ever set for myself!

Now, I realize that a lot of big-time marathon runners probably put in a lot more miles than that every year to keep themselves in shape.

But I am just an average guy who took up running for fun and has done something that most people can't even fathom! Almost everyone I talked to about it just shakes their head in disbelief. It's one of those things that allows me the sense of accomplishment of having done something that most people aren't even willing to try!

Those are the kinds of victories that change your life!

Not necessarily that you were the best that ever lived at something, but that you proved to yourself that through a lot of discipline and hard work, that you could accomplish something you never thought possible!

(Continued Below)

Urgent vs. Important

I've been thinking today about what's important vs what's urgent!

I talk to people all the time who are just too busy doing this or that to do something that might be really important in their lives.

Ever feel frenzied, frazzled, or realize that you're just busy being busy? Join the crowd!

I have a few suggestions.

First; Stop and smell the roses! Even dandelions will work! Just stop and smell something (beautiful of course)! Taking time out to ponder and wonder at this amazing world we live in is a great way to help us see our priorities more clearly! Busyness is really just a distraction.

In fact a mentor of mine told me recently that he considered Busyness and Laziness as two different symptoms of the same disease, Lack of Focus!

Second; Take some time out to examine your priorities. Figure out what is really important in your life and what is just urgent.

If you graphed out how you spend your time each day on a pie chart, would it reflect your priorities or someone elses?

Most of the urgent things will pass without any significant consequences.

Third: Spend your time (Your most valuable gift) only on things that really matter to your priorities and your life will begin to fill up with value and meaning!

Nobody on this earth is unimportant except as they allow themselves to be! No matter who you are, your life has meaning and it's up to you to find it and open the door!

Your life really is important in the grand scheme of things! If it doesn't feel that way, start looking at what you're spending your time on! Find out what your purpose is and pursue it with a passion!

Have an awesome day my friends!

The Know-It-All

What's your reaction when you run into a "Know-It-All" or a so-called "Intellectual"?

I would hope that it's a mixture of amusement and pity rather than anger or something like that. I am amused and somewhat saddened when I run into someone who is such an "expert" in some field that they think it makes them an authority on everything!

The learned who THINK they are wise or who are ever learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the TRUTH present an interesting oxymoron of sorts.

One of the ancient Greek philosophers, I think it was Socrates, when asked if he was really the wisest man in all of Greece, gave an interesting reply. (paraphrasing)

"The more I learn, the more I realize how little I actually know!"

The more we seek for and find true knowledge, the more we see how much more is really out there for us to learn!

For instance, how often do we see someone reject religious truth on the grounds of some scientific theory or discovery? If God really did create this world, then every bit of scientific fact that we find has to fit in somewhere! If we don't see how it does, does that make God wrong? Or does it really reveal how little we really understand about absolute truth?

If your "Line of reasoning" leads you to a faulty conclusion, what happened? Somewhere back along that line, one of the "facts" or premises that it was built upon will prove to be faulty on closer examination.

Hopefully we are all wise enough to remain hungry students in pursuit of knowledge that will lead us to more wisdom. Then when our eyes are opened to a wonderful newpiece of knowledge that we will use it as a more powerful telescope to see even further out into the realm of possibilities!

I don't know about you, but the more I learn, instead of feeling like an expert, I am humbled by how much broader the truth is than what I would have ever imagined!