A New Dance Step?

Sometimes when I talk to people about their progress in achieving their goals they will say that they seem to take two steps forward and one step back. If you are one of those people it is time for you to learn a new way of moving, like say two steps forward and no steps back.

How do you do that? I know that this will sound funny to some of you  but you do that by discontinuing your practice of blaming anyone or anything for what happens to you, including yourself. Blaming only causes anger, anger causes you to move backward-it’s that simple.

Monitor yourself for a day or two; are you impatient? Do you have a ‘short fuse’? How many times do you feel frustration, anger or upset in a typical day? No matter how much personal development you are doing in a day, if you are holding onto anger nothing else matters.

When I tell this to people they sometimes say, ‘You don’t understand who I have to deal with’ or “It’s not my fault the economy is bad’  or ‘Well, you don’t know what he/she did!’ I don’t have to know because it doesn’t matter, anger even justified anger hurts you not who or what you are angry about. This doesn’t mean that you never allow yourself to feel anger, it means you limit the time you feel angry, you forgive, let it go and move on. You don’t do it for others, you do it for yourself. It doesn’t mean you forget but it does mean that you let the passion around the incident fade until it doesn’t burn you because it is never going to burn anyone or anything except you. And I am certain that you are not taking the time to read, listen to or watch personal development material and then not put any of it into practice-what would be the point?

Praise!

Today I spoke with a friend of mine that recently moved into a new apartment and she was happy to report that a method that I shared with her had worked ‘a charm’.

I learned this method from one of my audios and have found it to work just about every time I have used it and it is all about praise.

When you want something to work out to your benefit in any area of your life before you approach that situation you must praise the person you will be dealing with.

If you are at work and about to deal with a difficult person, praise that person mentally before you even speak with them. If you have a problem with a company, praise that company and the person that is representing the company before you call or go into the business. If you want to buy something and want great service or a bargain, praise the salesperson. Whatever opportunity to have to praise someone, do so, before you even start to interact with him or her. You will be amazed by your results.

So what constitutes praise? Mentally thanking the universe for sending you such a pleasant, helpful person to bend over backward to make you happy. Being grateful that the company has such great integrity and wonderful representatives that make your life so much easier. That sort of thing.

My friend, praised her landlord, who has a reputation for not wanting to invest any money in his properties even when there are necessary repairs required. But she praised him mentally before she called him and she also praised him verbally during their conversation by pointing out that he is a man who understands the long term benefits of rental properties that are well maintained. She told him that she was happy to live in one of his apartments because he is a great landlord. Yes, he was flattered but what she was doing was creating in him a desire to be the man she was admiring. People do that, they try to live up to the image they see that you have for them. The only caveat is that you must not step too far out of the zone, don’t say things that you know are lies but all the same create a space for them to fill that elevates them.

Give this the thirty day test and you will see it really works. And oh yeah, the repairs that her apartment needs? He has already scheduled the work to be done.

$86,400

Today I want to share another email I got that really gave me something to think about and I imagine will do the same for you;

Something To Think About!
Imagine that you had won the following prize in a contest:
Each morning your bank would deposit $86,400.00 in
your private account for your use.
However, this prize has rules, just as any game has certain rules.
The first set of rules would be:
Everything that you didn't spend during each day
would be taken away from you.
You may not simply transfer money into some other account.
You may only spend it.
Each morning upon awakening, the bank opens your account with another $86,400.00 for that day.
The second set of rules:
The bank can end the game without warning; at any
time it can say, Its over, the game is over!
It can close the account and you will not receive a new one.
What would you personally do?
You would buy anything and everything you wanted, right?
Not only for yourself, but for all people you love, right?
Even for people you don't know, because you couldn't possibly spend it all on yourself, right?
You would try to spend every cent, and use it all, right?

ACTUALLY, this GAME is REALITY!
Each of us is in possession of such a magical bank.  We just can't seem to see it.
The MAGICAL BANK is TIME!
Each morning we awaken to receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life, and when we go to sleep at night, any remaining time is NOT credited to us. 
What we haven't lived up that day is forever lost.
Yesterday is forever gone.
Each morning the account is refilled, but the bank can dissolve your account at any time....WITHOUT WARNING.
SO, what will YOU do with your 86,400 seconds?
Aren't they worth so much more than the same amount in dollars?
Think about that, and always think of this:
Enjoy every second of your life, because time races by so much quicker than you think.

What will you do with your 86,400 today?

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley

I hope that you agree with me that this is a great poem but that poetry is like beauty-in the eye of the beholder. One can interpret the poem in several different ways. I personally think that what he is saying is that he didn’t understand that his thoughts created his reality and ended up with lack & limitation but then someone turned on the lights and he saw the promise, the possibility and the prosperity so he says ‘bring it’ because I’ve got this whipped!

So even if you don’t see what I see in this poem you still have to agree with the last two lines-you are completely and solely responsible for who and what you are.

A Good Lesson

Someone sent me an email today and I want to share it with you because the lesson is so valuable;

Clay  Balls        
A man was exploring caves by the Seashore.  In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of hardened clay balls.  It was like someone had rolled clay balls and left them out in the sun to bake.   They didn't look like much, but they intrigued the man, so he took the bag out of the cave with him.  As he strolled along the beach, he would throw the clay balls one at a time out into
the ocean as far as he could.   
He thought little about it, until he dropped one of the clay balls and it cracked open on a rock .  Inside was a beautiful, precious stone! 
Excited, the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls.  Each contained a similar treasure.  He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20 or so clay balls he had left.   
Then it struck him.  He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves.
Instead of thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have taken home tens of thousands, but he had just thrown it away!   
It's like that with people.  We look at someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel.  It doesn't look like much from the outside..  It isn't always beautiful or sparkling, so we discount it.   
We see that person as less important than someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy.  But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that person.   
There is a treasure in each and every one of us.  If we take the time to get to know that person, and if we ask God to show us that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth. 
May we not come to the end of our lives and find out that we have thrown away a fortune in friendships because the gems were hidden in bits of clay. May we see the people in our world as God sees them. 

The only thing I want to add to this lesson is that it seems people overlook the treasure inside our own selves as well. I have found that one way to test if you are one of them is to pay attention the next time someone compliments you; do you accept it & graciously say thank you or do you find a way to discount or deny that you deserve it? And that test is good for others, if you compliment someone and they have a challenge accepting it then you know they need lots more compliments or someone to straight up tell them that they are worthy!

Take a Deep Breath

Ever have one of those days? You know, one of those days that is full of set backs or disappointments? Yes, I know that  I have told you to look for the opportunities in adversity but I also want you to understand that when these things happen you have choices even when you don’t see any silver linings.

In every situation you have a choice between responding and reacting. Reacting is primal and has no thought behind it. Responding requires thought separated from emotion so you may need to take a deep breath or two or maybe even several while you think it through.

What does taking a deep breath do for you? It gives you a pause that allows that inner voice to be heard, that one that you should listen to more often, that one that knows that every thing will work out exactly the way it is supposed to.  The one that knows the answer to every question ever asked if you just listen. Call it intuition, call it spirit, call it divine guidance-it doesn’t matter-that part of you will bring you peace and harmony if you just take a deep breath and listen for it.

Value for Value

Many people in the world today have little or no self esteem and you may be one of them. Most of the people who have low self esteem have let others decide what or who they are and what they are ‘worth’. Why is that? Usually it’s because they have never realized that they can decide their own value, their own worth.

So how does one do that? By letting go of all the labels that others may have given, by taking a good look at what is on the inside. There is just nobody that is more valuable than everyone else as a person. Sure, a person may have developed a skill or talent that gives them more value in the marketplace but we are not talking about the marketplace today. Anyone can bring more value to the marketplace at any time they choose to develop a skill or talent-at any point in their life, but who you are as a person is who you were born, its who you choose to be and its who you decide you are.

So you have a choice at any time to see yourself as worthy just because you exist. Worth the time and investment to grow as a person, to develop skills and talents and to go after the things that you truly want out of life.

Just remember there are no limits that are not self imposed.

The Strangest Secret

Yesterday I was listening to a recording by Earl Nightingale called ‘the Strangest Secret’ and if you haven’t heard it before I highly recommend you get it and listen to it ASAP. It’s forty minutes of Earl telling you why it is that we become what we think about in a way that makes people understand how important what you think about is.

I’m not going to go over everything Earl says but one of the things I will share is that he says though I am modifying it a bit;  if you ask one hundred young people (say 21 years old) if they want to be wealthy and successful, one hundred young people will say yes. If you catch up with them when they turn sixty-five you will find that the majority of these people are not only not wealthy and successful, they will rely on the government to support them when they retire. Only five of the one hundred will be financially ‘comfortable’ and only one of the one hundred will be wealthy. Why is that? Earl says its because we conform and I agree with him.

We let others, our media, our peers, our employers, our society tell us what value we bring to the marketplace. We settle for less than we should because we fear to fail, we fear others will mock us and/or we fear we don’t have what it takes. The sad part is that none of that is true but you can’t win the race if you don’t even get on the track.

Tending Your Garden

Today I want to talk a little about results; what you have in your life is a result of your actions which come from your beliefs and all of these things are just a habit.

Say that you decided to plant a garden; you would start by deciding where to have the garden. Then you would prepare the soil and then planting the seeds. Would your ‘job’ stop there? No, you would need to tend that garden, plucking any weeds, watering and feeding the plants and then harvesting at the proper time.

Your life is no different; you decide who and what you want to be, you cultivate that and you tend to it, tossing out any weed-like thoughts that could derail you. You develop the habits or thought and action that move you toward what you want and let go of anything to would take you away from what you want.

Sounds easy but you think its really not right? The reality is that it is only as hard as you decide it is and the bottom line is that you create your life with your thoughts and only you control your thoughts.