Family Priorities

As I was pondering what to share this morning and the saying, "No other success can compensate for failure in the home" keeps coming to mind!

Maybe someone needs to hear about this today! Don't feel condemned if you haven't exactly gotten an "A" in this class so far! You can always retake the class with some extra wisdom under your belt!

Most of us would say that our priorities stack up something like this; God, Family, Country, Work, etc...right?

But if we graphed out the way we spend our time everyday on a pie chart, I'll bet it wouldn't match up with what we just said our priorities were would it? Especially when we throw in things like electronic entertainment and sports right!

So here are a couple of hints that have blessed our lives!

Your relationship with your spouse is the single most important relationship in your life!

It's way too easy to let our kids take priority over our spouse.

Here are 3 books (besides mine!) that have had a major positive impact on Penny and my relationship:

Personality Plus by Florence Littauer, 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs.

All of these come as highly, highly, highly recommended reading for every married couple in the world as well as those wanting to learn to deal with people better!

With the kids, this principle from the bible has helped us weather many storms: "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it!"

In our society today, it seems like the standard is to send them to school and involve them in as many extracurricular activities as possible.

While neither of those things is bad in and of themselves, I believe what we miss way too often is taking time to teach our kids the true principles that this world operates under.

When they understand truth, they tend to choose truth as a lifestyle.

But when their perceived truth comes from a source that either ignorantly or purposefully teaches false ideas as truth they end up living a messed up life!

They never seem to figure out that you can not live a truly successful life based on false principles, no matter how much you want to believe them!

If we say our family is a priority in our lives, then lets let our actions prove it!

Have a great day!!!

3 Key Principles

Here are three of the key principles that we teach as vital to understand for a great relationship of any kind!

Principle #1

One  of the most powerful things that I have learned in all of my leadership training over the years is the concept of personality styles. I believe that not understanding this idea is at the core of 90% of our interpersonal relationship problems.

Most of us are aware of the concept but have never taken the time to understand it properly. Therein lies the problem. Understanding it is life changing!

I've got 4 friends who perfectly illustrate the challenge.

 #1 is the get it done at all costs, ready, fire, aim type. #2 is an organization is everything type. #3 is the if it's not fun and exciting why do it type. #4 is a peace maker.

Here's the problem. Each one views the others as having some character defects. The truth is that there is no one best personality type! All are important to accomplish anything worthwhile.

The take home principle is to allow others to magnify their own strengths instead of trying to make them become like you! (Round peg, square hole?)

The best leader is the person who works to understand all of the types and implement their strengths into their own personality!

Principle #2

A while back a friend of mine mentioned a book called "The 5 Love Languages". That book was a key turning point in improving our relationship. It helped me understand a strange experience that had happened to us a few years earlier. I'll bet many of you can relate to this!

Penny was having a rough day getting the house ready for company or something like that and she sent me to the store after something. While I was there I walked past the flower stand and in one of my rare moments of brilliance I decided to get her some flowers to tell her that I loved her and appreciated her!

Here's where it gets crazy. When I walked in the door, she took one look at me and my "stupid flowers", gave me the evil eye and told me if I didn't want them to rot, to take care of them myself! Yikes!

Now if you know her, that was totally out of character, so what did I do wrong?

I was trying to use the wrong love language to communicate my feelings to her!

Her Love Language has always been "Acts of Service" not "Gifts"! She really would have felt very loved if I would have helped her get the house ready instead!

Plus, it would have meant even more to her because she knows that I don't like to do that!

Reading that book has sure has saved me a lot of money on flowers since that time! LOL! And my sweetheart feels much more loved now-a-days!

Principle #3

Another turning point in our marriage came when we learned this simple truth. A woman's #1 need in her marriage is to hear and feel loved! A man's #1 need in his marriage is to hear and feel respected!

They are closely related but not the same. Love and Respect are Sister and Brother!

Remember guys, for the ladies, knowing they are respected is nice, but feeling loved makes their heart go Pitter-Patter!

For us men, it's nice to know you're loved, but feeling her respect is everything!!!

We just really want to "Be your Man!"

It really is the little things in life that make a difference. Here's the magic. All of these are easy to do...but they're also easy not to do!

If you just do that one little thing every day, how much farther ahead will you be after, say 10 years, than you would have been had you not?

What's your "Little Thing?"

For more info on all of these principles see our store front for the books and audios about them!

Flying in a Bad Economy

A wealthy friend of mine recently taught me a great analogy that is really pertinent to our economic situation today!

He's also a private pilot and talked about how in pilot training one of the most critical lessons you have to learn is how to pull out of a stall. That's where your plane slows down to the point where the wings no longer create enough lift to hold it up and it starts to fall out of the sky.

The natural reaction for someone who doesn't understand the physics of flying is to pull back on the stick with all their might to try to get the nose of the plane to go back up. However that is exactly the wrong thing to do! It will result in a dangerous crash every time!

The real answer is to overcome your fear and push the stick forward to point your nose down so that you can begin diving to pick up enough speed to get the laws of aerodynamics working for you again!

Wow! How interesting that our natural reaction to a dangerous situation is to do exactly the wrong thing and make the situation a lot worse!

His analogy was that this is exactly the way that most people react to a bad economy.

We pull back on our financial stick. We quit spending our money and get ultra conservative with our finances and just try to wait it out. He said he wasn't advocating wasteful spending and not learning to be more wise with our money. But he was talking about our natural tendency to pull back or pull inward instead of shoving the stick forward and chasing the tremendous opportunity that a bad economy represents!

What??? Hmmm...

What is business all about? Filling a need that we find and being fairly compensated for it right? When do we find a greater need than in a bad economy???

His point was that people who understand wealth and finances find a way to fill THAT need and they prosper even in a bad economy!

They are busy shoving forward on that stick and gaining speed and momentum because they understand the true principles involved!

That really got my brain to churning! How about you?

Have a great day!!!

Kiyosaki's 3 Principles

Robert Kiyosaki a prominent author on success listed 3 things that were absolutely critical to achieving whatever is important to you!

#1 Long term vision. #2 Delayed gratification. #3 The power of compounding.

My observation proves to me that there is a 4th one that holds most of us back. So I'm adding #4 The power of association.

Simple sounding list right? The problem is that most of us don't take time to fully ponder the ramifications of each of those points and why it made this list!

Take long term vision for instance; It's pretty easy to look into the future and say "this is what I want to accomplish." But that's not long term vision. That's only daydreaming.

Long term vision goes way beyond that. It involves answering questions like, Why?, What's important in my life?, What do I want my life to stand for?, etc...

Long term vision means understanding that you are not going to accomplish anything worthwhile overnight. You need to develop the vision of where you are going so that you can keep getting back up and charging for your goal every time you get knocked down! Long term vision makes you unstoppable, regardless of critics, situations, or obstacles!

In the end, if you develop the endurance to succeed, you will find that the greater reward is not just what you achieved, but who you became in the process! There is something truly powerful in that!

Success key #2 Delayed gratification!

Boy has our society ever convenienced that one right out of us!

One of the biggest obstacles to success that I see today is the attitude that I will give it 3-6 months and see if it works!

Every "overnight success" is a result of 20 years of sacrifice, personal development and hard work! Success is always on the other side of inconvenience!

One of the reasons that success doesn't just "happen" is because it almost always requires personal development! If not, you would have succeeded already! Hmmm... there's that word "change" again!

So #1 You have to decide what you REALLY want! Then #2 We have to commit to pay the price, whatever it is, for as long as it takes until IT IS DONE! Then #3...

Kiyosaki's 3rd trait of successful people was that they utilize the power of compounding!

Hmmm...At first glance, I was thinking "compound interest".

But the more I have read and pondered on this subject, the more I came to understand that he is talking about the power of compounding your efforts!

Think about this; you can only succeed so far by helping one person. But if you can figure out a way to serve hundreds or even thousands of people, how much more successful could you be at whatever you are trying to achieve?

I need to look at my life and ask myself, how many people am I impacting on a daily basis? 0? 10? 25? 10K? If I'm only impacting a few and I'm doing a valuable work, how can I "Compound" the number of people I affect?

If you're not sure how, think about all of the new technology today! 20 years ago, there was no way I could have connected with as many of you as I do everyday now!

How could that apply to what's important to you?

Stewardship

Did you ever think about the word Stewardship?

I hadn't very much until I read a great book about finances lately.

We are given things with the trust that we will magnify and multiply them and use them for a good purpose. What are we doing with the gifts we've been given? Our time, talents, skills, money, life, family, positions, influence, etc...

If we don't show our gratitude by guarding, controlling, developing and increasing those resources, why should we ever expect to receive more of them?

I think that's what Stewardship means! When you're a good steward over what's been entrusted to you, you will be trusted with more!

What's interesting is that each of those areas have certain principles that govern them. The crazy thing is that way too often we try to live the principles of one area and expect them to automatically fix another area.

It doesn't work that way! We have to live the principles that govern what we are trying to fix!

Example; Just trying to live the principles that make us a good person doesn't mean we are living the principles that will fix our financial problems!

It's making me take a harder look at the things I've been given a stewardship over!

Think about it!

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!

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?