February 24, 2014 Focus Point

The Right Idea Will Change Your Life. If You Let It!

"Live fully, love openly, and make a difference today!" ~Brendon Burchard

"The best ideas can hit you at anytime, keep a pen handy." ~Robert Rohm

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~Eleanor Roosevelt

"You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I've only ever had one." ~Albert Einstein

Have you noticed that an idea can come to you out of nowhere? Maybe at the most unusual time and when you least expect it? This concept has been quite amazing to me in my life. There have been times when ideas have come and I was able to write them down, capture the right kind of thoughts, and have benefited a great deal by doing so. And yet other times when I have missed the opportunity altogether.

FedEx Corporation headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee and founded by Frederick W. Smith is an American global courier delivery services company and started with just an idea. In fact in the beginning the name "FedEx" was a noun. But after more than 40 years and because of the exceptional service that it provides as a part of daily life, it has actually become an action word and a verb. And it all started with an idea. Whether on your smart phone or a pen and small notebook, I am a firm believer that recording ideas will pay huge dividends.

Keep a pen handy, you never know when that next great idea will hit you.

February 17, 2014 Focus Point

I Love America!

"We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone." ~Ronald Reagan

"If you want to make enemies, try to change something." ~Woodrow Wilson

"It is better to be alone than in bad company." ~George Washington

"Believe you can and you're halfway there." ~Theodore Roosevelt 

"Promising too much can be as cruel as caring too little." ~William J. Clinton

I love America, how about you? I love that there have been so many tremendous leaders who have helped build people as well as build the most free of all countries in the world. Now regardless of your or my political view point, I am certain of one thing. We can learn something from everyone. No matter who it is, or what the situation, I believe this statement is true. There is a popular saying: "Experience is the best teacher." But I maintain that: "Someone else's experience is the best teacher, our own experience is the next best teacher." If we take opportunity to learn from people who have gone before us, I think that we can save an amazing amount of frustration in the area of mistakes and pitfalls. And the bookshelves in America are loaded with this grand information.

What can you learn from who this week?

February 2014 Leadership Connect

Reclaim Lost Margin and Restore Your Sanity

"The fear of being left out or missing an opportunity sometimes drives us to do more than we should." ~Michael Hyatt

"Margin is the space between our load and our limits, the gap between rest and exhaustion, breathing freely and suffocation." ~Richard Swenson

"The calendar was made for man, and not man for the calendar." ~Michael Hyatt

“We all yearn for what we have lost. But sometimes, we forget what we have.” ~Mitch Albom, The Time Keeper

Do you feel you are running low on Margin? If so what do you do about it? Is Your current work load sustainable? Do you enjoy what you do everyday?

This is not a message about doing less in life and saying no to great opportunities. It is a message about making the highest priorities the ones that actually get priority and get done first. It's about taking care of yourself so that you can live a longer and happier life, and at the end of the day do more and be more productive. 

We are in a microwave society, but life works best from a bit of careful planning and choosing the very best things to pursue. What do you enjoy? What are you good at? Do you have the chance to do what you're good at everyday?

Be proactive and take control of your life. Take inventory of external causes, but remember that if you ever feel overwhelmed or over committed, it comes from within. It is difficult to say no to someone or something, but the choice is yours which really means it is an inside job. There is great power in saying NO.

Keep within your proper and healthy margins, live life with an abundance mindset and control how much you take on at once. If you are overwhelmed and overworked you will not be as effective. It is better to do less and be more productive and efficient with less, than to do so much it can't possibly get done.

Take responsibility, take control and start today!

February 10, 2014 Focus Point

Just Do The Next Thing!

"Stop focusing on what you can't be and start celebrating who you are." ~Denise Ryan

"Remember, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent." ~Eleanor Roosevelt

"If you don't change the direction you are going, then you're likely to end up where you are heading." ~John C. Maxwell

"I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself." ~Robert E. Lee

Of all things, take action. It is in the doing that you will accomplish your desires in life. It is knowing who you are when you look in the mirror and adding value to that person to become the more accomplished person you know you can be. It's ignoring the negative pressures in life and giving attention only to the positive.

Successful people don't accept their life, they choose the life they want and lead their life in that direction. They are able to see a bigger picture of who they can become. To me, success is really knowing who you are and working to become that. And leadership of self is the very foundation of leading anyone else.

February 3, 2014 Focus Point

Your Environment Can Make or Break You!

"Choice is your greatest power." ~Caroline Myss

"Take an honest inventory of your friends.  Identify who makes you happy and spend more time with them." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The environment is everything that isn't me." ~Albert Einstein

"The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings." ~Henri Frederic Amiel

Circumstance is what happens to us. It is life. Most people however accept their circumstances as their life story. "I have to" "they made me" and so forth. What we can control however, is our attitude and what we will do with the circumstances in front of us, for positive or for negative. Then we can begin to make our own circumstances, working towards changing them and being in control of our environment. Determine your priorities and lead your life. It is not so much how life treats you, it is how you respond to it that makes the difference. This week live on the higher level, control your environment, shape your own circumstances, and do something big and important.