June 30, 2014 Focus Point

Give a Compliment or Two!

"Everybody likes a compliment." ~Abraham Lincoln

"I can live for two months on a good compliment." ~Mark Twin

"The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer." ~Henry David Thoreau

Do you remember the last time someone gave you a compliment? It's like a shot of energy and motivation that can keep you going all day. In John Maxwell's book 25 Ways to Win With People he teaches on the 30 second rule, which is simply to practice saying something positive within the first 30 seconds of a conversation.

To practice is to repeat an exercise for the purpose of acquiring proficiency. It suggests that you will work with it and try it, with the intent to get better. Eventually enough practice will develop a natural habit and become a part of who you are.

What kind of affirmation, appreciation, and attention can you give someone today or this week? Practice giving more compliments to people. Make them real and sincere. Compliment people in front of other people. Compliments help other people feel like a million bucks and truly begin to help you and others win in a bigger way.

June 23, 2014 Focus Point

You Are Unique!

"No two men are just alike. Every new life is a new thing under the sun; there has never been anything like it before, and never will be again." ~Henry Ford

"Today you are YOU, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you." ~Dr. Seuss

I remember a quote I saw recently that said: "Be yourself, everyone else is already taken." I worked last week with almost 300 individuals in different training settings learning and understanding personality information with what we call the Model of Human Behavior. This information helps us begin to understand how everyone is wired with a different blend of the four main personality traits. This unique blend that each person has, when understood and developed become strengths that add value to any relationship, task, project, and to the world.

The society we live in tries to get us to conform and be the same; however it is our job to discover the unique gifts and talents we possess and develop them in the best ways in order to reach our full potential. Not someone else's potential. There is only one YOU and facts show that YOU can do at least one thing better than ten thousand other people. Think of what amazing things you can bring into this world by being the best you that you can be. Reaching your potential is not about being someone else, or being better than someone else, but being better than you were yesterday.

June 16, 2014 Focus Point

A Ship is Safe In The Harbor!

"Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer." ~William S. Burroughs

"Don't mistake activity with achievement." ~John Wooden

"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." ~John Lennon

"I feel like I'm too busy writing history to read it." ~Kanye West

"The time to relax is when you don't have time for it." ~Sydney J. Harris

A ship may be safe in the harbor but it is not built to sit in the harbor and it will never fulfill its purpose by sitting in the environment where it is safe. It must go out into the rough unprotected water in order to accomplish anything. But after a long voyage it also needs the harbor in order to get proper cleaning and maintenance. We to must go forward in order to move forward, success is yet to be found within our comfort zone. To make a good living or to reach higher and bigger goals, to fulfill more of our potential, it may take everything we can give. But in the process of all the work and giving, we must also receive. Not receive as in take away from someone else who we think "owes us" but rather receive as in give to ourselves the proper balance of rest along with all of the work.

Someone once asked Zig Ziglar which of all of the words is most important. Zig thought for a moment and he said "balance". The most important word is balance. In order for a ship to make use of its purpose it must leave the harbor, but what if it never came back in and got cleaned or maintained? I am sure you would agree that eventually without the proper care it would become less able to fulfill its purpose and begin to wear down and deteriorate. We to must take the time to reflect, recharge, reboot, and refresh. Most people would not think of going even a day without charging their smart phone, but do we charge our minds and bodies? 

This message is more for me than anyone else. I have always been of the opinion that you can accomplish just about anything with hard work and discipline. But I am becoming more aware of the growing body of evidence which shows that taking regular breaks from mental and physical tasks actually improves productivity and creativity and that skipping this kind of proper care can lead to stress and exhaustion. Just like a muscle is developed from hard work followed by proper rest, so it is in life. The key here is balance.

June 9, 2014 Focus Point

Doubt Your Doubts Before You Doubt Your Faith

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies." ~Mother Teresa

"Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe." ~Voltaire

"We are twice armed if we fight with faith." ~Plato

My 11 year old son inspired me with a quote that he came up with: "Have faith that it will be a good day. Have faith that there will be fun and easy times, but when there is a trial, God has not left you, he is simply teaching you life." I believe that there are circumstances in life that we cannot control, but I also believe that there are many things that we can control and working within the space of what we can control brings more freedom and success.

In 1952 Florence May Chadwick attempted a 26 mile rough water swim between Catalina Island and the California coastline. After about 15 hours of swimming, a thick fog set in. Florence began to doubt her ability and if she could complete the swim successfully and told her mother who was in a nearby boat that she didn't think she could make it. She swam for another hour but the fog was keeping her from seeing her destination and she asked to be pulled out. As she sat in the boat she found that she had stopped swimming only a mile away from her destination. Two months later Florence tried again, but this time was different. Several hours into the swim the same thick fog set in, but she made it this time because she kept a mental image of the shoreline in her mind while she swam. This mental visualization on her end goal helped her to doubt any doubts of being able to make it before she doubted her ability and faith that she could.

If visualizing the shoreline in a long distance swim can help a person make it, I am most confident that it will also help us achieve big things in life. I hope that this week we can believe in ourselves, that we can feed our faith and starve our fears. Whatever you are working to accomplish in your life just remember, you may be closer than you think.

June 2, 2014 Focus Point

2 Things That Will Ramp Up Your Success In Life!

"The greatest battles of life are fought out daily in the silent chamber of our own soul." ~Stephen R. Covey

"Every choice you make has an end result." ~Zig Ziglar

"The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read." ~Mark Twain

"Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress." ~Kofi Annan

Here they are, two powerful things that anyone can do and every successful person does do.

First, have a high willingness to learn new information. Information has such power and influence in your life and my life. The right information will actually start to give shape and direction to our daily circumstances. Information leads to knowledge, knowledge leads to wisdom, wisdom implies the proper use of knowledge. The right idea will change your life, if you let it. Success in life is a balance of holding on and letting go, the trick is knowing what things to hold on to and what things to let go of.

The question to consider is: What can you begin to do on a daily basis that will produce fresh ideas, more information, better skills, and higher knowledge? Maybe it is listen to positive audio messages from successful leaders in your field or industry. Maybe it is read good books that compliment your line of work or areas of interest. For some maybe it will require getting off the "plug in drug" such as TV and other electronics in order to buy back lost time for something more productive.

The second thing that will ramp up success in life is having a high willingness to accept change. Change will always be required in order to put new information into practice. Without changing aspects in life to grow in potential, we will most certainly stagnate and live life, maybe even live and die with untapped potential. Like the saying goes: "Don't die with your music still in you".

On a scale of 1-10 what is both your willingness to learn new information and your willingness to accept change? Most people are in a routine in life with many habits that do not serve them. Successful people are able to take a step back and examine what new information they need and what changes will move them forward. These two areas of willingness I call the training balance scale. We need to work in both areas and we need proper balance.