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!

Knowledge and Wisdom

Knowledge and insight that leads to wisdom accumulates over time!

We do not learn anything of value "all at once" but rather one piece at a time, a little bit here and another nugget there. Till after time we find that all of our accumulated learning and experiences begins to add up to wisdom in our lives.

A mentor of mine once told me that if I wasn't reading in the quest for new insights on a daily basis, that after a week or two, I wouldn't have anything of real value to contribute to a conversation.

That really caused me to think!

Hmmm... But what about all that stuff that I learned before?

The problem with not seeking new understanding daily is that we begin to rely on ourselves as our ultimate source of wisdom. The weakness in that approach is that we can never see above the level that we're at without someone else lifting us up to where we have a better "view".

Without the constant input from other sources not only can we not see any higher up the mountain, but we can't help but slide backwards. When we are not seeking wisdom and truth all the time, we begin to make judgements based on our emotions which are a very flimsy foundation to build on.

I believe that one of the reasons that so many screwy things come out of politics is that our politicians have stopped seeking wisdom and truth and are making their decisions based on the emotions of the moment.

If we're not constantly seeking wisdom and truth we just naturally fall victim to "Chicken Little Syndrome"!

The sky is always falling and we have to do something drastic about it now or something catastrophic will surely happen!

Look up! The sky is where it has always been!

What are the principles and truths that govern that constantness? Let's learn to live by them!

There is wisdom within you just waiting to be exposed to the great ideas of the ages! Start letting it in!

Have a great day!

Do All of the Steps

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Have a great day!

Ideas

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

"Small people talk about other people.

 Average people talk about things.

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

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

Where do the greatest ideas come from?

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

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

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

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

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

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

What's your great idea?

Have an awesome day!

Keep Learning

Combining a couple of old posts here.

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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


NEXT POST

Ahhh! Awesome weekend!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

Self Discipline

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

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

How about Self Discipline?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Price of Success

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

You can succeed at whatever you choose!

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

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

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

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

The Easy Way Out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

Have an awesome day!

Nature or Nuture

One of my friends asked the question this morning if I thought we are who we are by nature or by nurture? Decided I'd share my thoughts for what they're worth!

Funny you should ask the question about nature or nurture because I've actually done a lot of study and observation along those lines. Here's what I believe.

I'm absolutely convinced that most of who we are comes from our environment; family, friends, surroundings, teachers, neighbors, TV, etc...

Did you ever watch a little kid who has a really bad attitude just like his dad for no apparent reason? You just look at him and shake your head because it's a total nonsensical reaction to a situation. Then you realize, that this is exactly how his dad reacts in a similar situation...and it usually doesn't make any sense when he does it either.

I've watched my own kids experience a new situation and make a judgement call on a person that really had no basis in fact. But I could see an immediate connection to a comment or action they had just recently witnessed from an influential person in their life. (not me of course, being practically perfect in every way!)

However with all that being said, all of our "nurturing" gets superimposed over our innate inborn personality style. There are 4 different types of personalities and dozens of combinations. So it's like watching the same movie on 4 different colors of screens!

I'm not sure that our personality has anything to do with genetics (having 8 kids, I think I can speak with a bit of authority here!) But I believe it it a character trait we brought with us from heaven!

Well, that's the short version of my answer, the rest of it would probably require a lengthy phone call at minimum!

Have a great day my friends!

Try It, You'll Like It!

I am always amazed at the way that God can teach us the most incredible lessons from some of the most unlikely situations in our lives!

This past weekend Penny and I took a road trip to Arizona to participate in an "All School Reunion" at my Alma mater SSHS and to visit some relatives. As I was thinking about all of the interesting conversations that we had  experienced over the weekend and what I could learn from them, this thought came clearly and strongly into my mind:

THE RESULTS THAT WE HAVE IN EVERY AREA OF OUR LIVES ARE A DIRECT INDICATION OF THE LIMITS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE IN THAT AREA!

Please take time to ponder that thought and consider it's ramifications in your life! It is the clearest description of the lessons I have learned over my lifetime that I can come up with!

Why is this so pertinent to my mission with this blog, to help people Live A Great Life?

How did this "revelation" come about? Both of these questions are very closely related actually.

My mission here is to help people learn the truths of life that will enable them to overcome whatever their obstacles are to finding fulfillment in every area of their lives. The most important thing I can do in that endeavor is to lead them to the most significant sources of truths that I can find.

I have been talking about and promoting this 90 Day Mental Fitness Challenge recently on this blog because I love what it is teaching and how it is enabling so many people to change their lives for the better.

Since I knew we were going to have about 17 hours each way of CD listening time, I loaded all 16 of the MFC CDs onto my Ipod so we could listen to and ponder on them on the way.

WOW! Even with the thousands of talks that I have listened to over the years, there have never been any as powerful as the combination of those 16 together...period!

Sound like I'm giving you a sales pitch? Well I am! I'm trying to sell you on one of the most valuable things I've ever seen, no matter what your chosen direction in life is!

If you paid the $220 for the MFC and threw away everything but those 16 CDs (which would be ridiculous), you would find that by repeatedly listening to them and studying the principles that they are teaching, that you would almost immediately begin moving forward in areas of your life where you have been stalemated, maybe even for years!

Remember my previous statement? The results that we have in every area of our lives are a direct indication of the limits of our knowledge in that area. Start changing the limits of your knowledge right now with this Mental Fitness Challenge!

What was so impressive to me was that as I listened to those CDs as a group, I realized that I would gladly have paid $2200 for what I was learning! In fact, I can see how that over the rest of my lifetime, if you can put a dollar figure on the benefits of a better life in every area that they teach about, that they will ultimately be worth several hundred thousand if not even millions of dollars to me and my family!

I honestly don't think I can overstate the impact that they are already having in our family!

Now, why was this point driven home so deeply on this trip?

Because right as I had finished listening to this information that was impacting my life so deeply, I was getting reacquainted with family and friends who I had not seen for several years. In every case, as we visited, I noticed that each one of them had experienced some successes in some areas of their lives, but every single one also talked about some particular trial they were dealing with.

Like I said before, our trials are a wake-up call for us to realize that "Hey, here is an area where my existing knowledge is limiting my ability to progress in my life!"

So what can we do about it? We can either just keep dealing with whatever our trials are and knuckle under to them (because they aren't just going to go away), or we can acknowledge that we need more wisdom in that area and begin the search for it!

One of my favorite sayings is that "The lesson continues until the lesson is learned!"

God is trying to shape us and mold us into our highest potential and he does it by giving us trials and challenges to show us where our weaknesses are so that we can work on improving ourselves with his help. It all starts with learning new information and then applying it in our lives!

So no matter whether you feel wildly successful in your life or like an utter failure, the information in the 90 Day Mental Fitness Challenge will give you the tools to take your life to a whole new level! Try it! I challenge you! I am!

The link for it is right under our picture on the right hand side. Also be sure to read at least the next three blog posts here. They are all closely related!

Have a great day!

Ideas Have Consequences!

Ideas Do Have Consequences!

In every area of our lives, our relationships, our families, jobs, businesses, communities, and nation, etc, those consequences show up!

This has been driven home to me with great force over the last several years. Everything that we are and have become in our lives up to this point is a direct outcome of the ideas in our heads and how we chose to operate accordingly!

Our success or failure in every area of our lives is a direct result of the ideas that we have allowed to be put into our minds.

As an example, we are mentoring a couple of dear friends right now who are struggling in their marriage. They are two great people with good hearts, but as we work through the challenges they have, they all stem from having some incorrect ideas about how a relationship should function. Those ideas have produced a set of very undesirable consequences in their marriage.

Think about the economic mess that our country finds itself in right now. It can be traced directly back to the application of some faulty ideas of both personal and national economics.

Every painful mistake, trial or challenge in our lives is a result of a faulty idea applied somewhere along the line in our thinking process.

Conversely, every victory, success, or positive experience in our lives comes as a result of stringing together a succession of correct ideas and acting upon them.

We cannot get positive, pleasing results by trying to build upon faulty ideas. It's just not possible.

One of the greatest problems in our society today is our unwillingness to accept that there are basic truths or principles that are unchangeable. They always have been and always will be. If we either willingly or unknowingly attempt to obtain a desired result in violation of those principles, it cannot happen.

A human being cannot jump off a cliff unaided by some flying device and think that they are going to arrive safely and without injury at the bottom. It cannot happen. It will never be able to happen because it is a direct attempt to operate while ignoring the principle of gravity. We cannot change that, no matter how much we want to ignore it unless we employ another idea like the laws of aerodynamics and create some type of device to allow us to harness those laws so that they also work in harmony with the law of gravity.

It's a lengthy discussion I know, but this point is critical to our happiness and growth in this world!

All ideas do have consequences, either good or bad!

In 1764 there were 4 young men in the American colonies:
     Thomas Jefferson was a young college student just suffering through a broken heart from being dumped by his girlfriend.
     John Adams was a young teacher, happy to be teaching and leading a nice comfortable life doing what he loved.
     James Madison was just a 12 year old kid, showing promise in his studies but extremely shy.
     George Washington was a young man trying to establish himself as a businessman and farmer.

A decade later, these four were leading a group of others to write and sign the Declaration of Independence!

A decade after that, after being victorious in their revolution, they were penning and signing their names to what has been called, the single most significant document in the history of the world, The Constitution of the United States of America!

Why? What changed a simple group of ordinary young men just like you and me into some of the "Founding Fathers?"

It was ideas! The discovery of, discussion about, then choosing to act upon correct ideas led to the creation of something monumental!

What about you and I? What is our destiny? Is there a mission out there that awaits us? Were we sent here for a purpose? How will we find out? Will we just wander through life and see what happens? Or will we set out to discover the true ideas that may lead us to do our part in this world?

Maybe it will just take one great idea to fix some significant problem in your life.

Maybe you have a company or family to lead.

Maybe you were called to do something important in this life and you haven't even glimpsed it yet.

What ever your destiny, remember, Ideas Have Consequences!

Come join our "Challenge Group" where we discover and talk about relevant ideas because reaching for our potential requires us to learn and grow!

Learn how to come face to face with the greatest minds in history in a quest for the truths that govern every area of life. Learn how they accomplished excellence in their lives through the pursuit of personal resolutions.

Sacrifice is the production of sacred things! True excellence comes from the sacrifice required to learn and grow!

Come join what has been called "The Great Discussion" throughout history, the discovery of and discussion about great ideas!

Try out the 90 Day Mental Fitness Challenge by clicking on the icon beneath our picture in the right hand column. You will be amazed!

Remember, All Ideas Have Consequences!

Come join us!

Have a Great Day!

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