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!

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!

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!

Patience and Action

I came across a great thought this morning!

"I learned that patience was far more than simply waiting for something to happen - patience required actively working toward worthwhile goals and not getting discouraged when results didn't appear instantly or without effort."

That's exceptionally pertinent to our day!

Our tendency is to just sit back and wait for the situation to right itself. What we really need are goals and a direction coupled with action!

Another of my favorite sayings is that "God can't steer a parked car!"


Did it ever occur to you that patience is an action word?

It just did to me!

Usually we think of patience as a passive thing, but the more I ponder it, the more I realize that patience requires action and perseverance not just sitting and waiting for something to happen!

In football I've heard it said that one of the differences between a good quarterback and a great one is the ability to allow a play to develop to it's full effectiveness rather than just trying to cram it through by sheer brute strength!

That requires patience, experience and trust in your team member's ability to do their job correctly.

Most often our most important teammate is God!

If we are doing our part we need to give him time in his deeper wisdom to put all the pieces together in the proper order and time frame!

We can either have a jumbled mess of paint splotches or we can keep paddling and let Him guide us to a masterpiece!

I think I'll be watching for the masterpiece to develop while I keep on paddling! How about you?

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!

The 90 Day Mental Fitness Challenge!

After years of studying leadership and personal development, I've come to the conclusion that it really boils down to being in constant pursuit of PERSONAL EXCELLENCE!

To some people that might sound stressful but it really isn't! It's simply a matter of developing a few new habits, like reading and listening to some positive input on a consistent basis.

If you do nothing more than those two things consistently, you will automatically begin to grow and change simply because what your mind takes in begins to affect your thought processes and thereby begins to produce better, more positive results!

It can be just that simple or become a much more involved process of study, discovery and implementation.

Either way the end result is progress!

So how do you know where to start, how to keep yourself motivated to continue the process and where do you find the best materials?

That's where I have to introduce you to The 90 Day Mental Fitness Challenge!

Top 15 Leadership Gurus, Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady, have finally created a program that's really designed for the way that we adults actually learn and retain info the best!

I highly encourage you to click on the RED CHECK MARK link under our photo on the right side of this page and watch their video intro to the Mental Fitness Challenge! 

No matter where you already are in your personal development journey, take this challenge with me and I promise you that your life will never be the same...in a very good way!

Live A Great Life!
Eldon

The Search For Truth!

Finishing up the single best book I have ever read! (outside of the scriptures) It's called L.I.F.E. Living Intentionally For Excellence by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady.

It is designed to make you think and man is it ever working! I've been reading it for several weeks now and literally every day, it gets me looking at my life from another direction and asking myself some significant questions.

Today it's got me thinking about how adverse we are sometimes to wanting to know and learn to apply truth in our lives!

I don't think that's even what I was specifically reading about but you know how one thought leads to another...

Why is it that we are so unwilling to listen to truth at times?

Usually because it upsets our carefully constructed little "comfort zone". Or as Orrin and Chris say, it's not really a "comfort" zone as much as it is a "familiar" zone because it usually isn't really all that comfortable, just familiar!

It really has more to do with our innate resistance to the principle of change than almost anything else!

That, for most people is probably the need to feel "right" about what we think in our own little inner sphere of who we are.

We are attacked so often from the outside world telling us that we are making mistakes or beating us down for one reason or another that we feel compelled to jealously guard our own little inner self image of who we are. That image is largely created out of our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us.

After all, how many of us just naturally think that everything we believe is wrong? Naahh...I don't think so!

So how does that play into the search for truth? Why can't we just operate from our current perception of things and be just fine?

The glaringly simple answer to that is...because there is truth in this world in all it's many different facets.

Isn't this obsession we have with "victim-hood" (and complaining about everything under the sun) in our world today a classic example of being unwilling to accept truth and adjust our actions to deal with it properly?

How many of us are looking around us and listening to the news and deploring the current state of affairs but are doing nothing but talking about it?

Isn't that exactly the same thing as any other form of "victim-hood" that we see in the world today?

Another example; here in Idaho (and many other places too) one of our favorite pastimes is complaining about the weather! Isn't that another form of "victim-hood"?

If we would really embrace a full picture of the truth...Don't like the weather? Then quit being a victim and...move to somewhere you do like it!!!

I know, I'm as guilty as the next person! I think I'll work on that one!

Let's explore another example. Suppose I was born with the genes to become 7'10" tall. Remember that the standard door height all across America is 6'8". So all of my life I would be required to duck my head every time I walked through a door or walk around with a permanent bruise on it!

At this point I can either accept the truth and learn to use it to propel myself forward and upward with my unique gift or I can continually proclaim my "victim-hood" and spend the rest of my life complaining about the unfairness and mistreatment I am required to endure because millions of thoughtless people refuse to change their doorways to accommodate me.

I can become a martyr to my cause by refusing to accept the truth of the situation around me . I can proudly refuse to duck my head when attempting to negotiate conventional doorways. I can proclaim my bruised forehead as a symbol of the injustices of the rest of the human race against me. I can seek to legally make the entire rest of the world conform to my particular set of circumstances.

OR...

I can accept truth! I was blessed with my own unique set of talents, abilities and circumstances from which to build my life. I can use my uniqueness to bless the rest of the world by my contributions to it. I can build on the truths I've been given and make my life a continual search for more and more truth to build upon!

When we learn to build with building blocks of truth, our walls will never crumble because of the cracks of imperfections in them.

The quality of our lives has a direct correlation to our willingness to seek out, recognize and act upon complete truths in the world around us.

Our lives and the world around us are full of partial truths that hamper our ability to excel in every important area of our lives.

Many of our problems arise from partial truths or even outright untruths in our view of the world around us.

Many of those mistaken ideas come from some of the most seemingly benign places. Our peers, our education, our family or ethnic or cultural traditions, our political or even our religious backgrounds can all be sources of some partial truths that are maybe even almost right...but not quite.

If you build an entire castle of belief and action on a foundation that has an occasional faulty block in it, can you begin to see how the integrity of the entire structure can be at risk of failure?

I challenge each of us to become avid seekers after real truth.

Learn to apply the same standard across the board to all of your beliefs. Often we hold different beliefs about different subjects that if we were to stack them up side by side we would find that we were applying an entirely different and sometimes even opposite set of standards to come to our conclusions!

Those are the hidden places that cause us problems in our lives!

You've got a left foot and a right foot that are similar yet different. It's like trying to run a marathon with a nice comfortable running shoe (truth) on the one foot and a fancy, 4 inch, spiked heeled, formal, dress shoe (partial truth, it's still a shoe) on the other!

It's going to cause you a lot of pain and discomfort because of the lack of wisdom in applying complete truth in both cases!

So here's the reality! Until we begin pulling the weeds of untruth out of our own lives and begin banding together as a community of people all dedicated to the pursuit of truth and right, we will never be able to fix our society today!

As long as the forces of untruth can keep us divided and grumbling among ourselves while they shout their untruths in organized unison long enough, they will win. It's that simple.

We need to be united in our pursuit of personal excellence based on truth.

Striving for excellence in every area of our lives is what allows us to begin avoiding the pain that comes from taking action on a faulty assumption.

Excellence in ourselves builds excellence in our families, which builds excellence in our communities, which builds excellence in our states, which leads to excellence in our country, which...I think you get the picture!

Learn more about the LIFE book by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady on our Products page!

Have an awesome day!

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!