Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm

Men are nothing until they are excited
-Michael De Montaigne-

We have all obviously seen those people that seem like they are just always happy and enthusiastic. You can just sense them, bubbling with excitement, ready to take on the world as it comes. I love those kinds of people and the thing is that they are the types of people most of us want to be around because their enthusiasm and love for life! It’s contagious! The more you think about being positive and enthusiastic, the more you will be able to implement that in your life. I was thinking about how we as human beings build character and how we can improve any quality or situation in our life. Here are some of my thoughts on this matter: I thought about what we practice in our daily lives becomes something that we master. And what we master becomes a substance of our character which defines who we are. It won’t matter if they are good things or bad things that I practice to master, what I practice is what I master and overall defines who I am. So if I practice procrastination, I will master procrastination and that will become a substance of my character or who I truly am. If I practice being honest at all times, I will be a master at being honest and that is me. If I practice being enthusiastic each day, I will eventually master being able to be enthusiastic and that will show in my character. This is why self-awareness is so important. If we don’t realize what we practice we might not be going in the right direction! Ask yourself questions, find out what you are practicing, and start working on those things you want to master in your life. One of the questions I ask myself to find what I truly care about mastering is “how do I want people to remember me by?” and by that question alone you will see many qualities you can start practicing today or at least be aware of now.

Wake up each day with a new commitment in your heart to have enthusiasm pumping through your veins. To get up with goals, ambitions, and dreams of doing something more meaningful. Live life to the fullest and remember that the level of enthusiasm you have is often times directly proportional to your level of success that you will achieve. Live this day like it is your last, with enthusiasm and passion.

Here are some great quotes on Enthusiasm:

Enthusiasm will take you further than talent, title or skill.
-Robin Crow-

If you’re not fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.
-Vince Lombardi-

Enthusiasm is at the bottom of all progress. With it there is accomplishment. Without it there are only excuses.
-Henry Ford-

Relentless Optimism
Look at it this way..make the decision to be enthusiastic..not only will it put you in a positive state…you will have a positive impact on all those around you. Make the decision to be enthusiastic and you’ll achieve every goal with greater ease, people will stick with you through thick and thin and most importantly, everyone will have more fun.
-Robin Crow-

Every man is enthusiastic at times. One man has enthusiasm for thirty minutes, another man has it for thirty days. But it is the man who has it for thirty years who makes a success in life.
-Edward B. Butler-

Discipline, Drive, and Determination

Discipline, Drive, and Determination

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.

-Harry Emerson Fosdick, D.D.-

The real key to success is self discipline. Well if we should have this quality to be successful we probably should know what it is. So what is discipline?

Discipline is the ability to focus on something in a consistent manner, nothing wavering. If you are disciplined you have trained your mind and body to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior.

Scott Peck, in his book The Road Less Traveled, breaks discipline into four areas: delaying of gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to the truth, and belonging. He goes on to say that without discipline we can solve nothing. And with discipline we can solve anything! Its training our minds and bodies to do what we want.

People always talk about paying the price to be successful but what does that mean really??? There are so many textbook terms of what people say but lets go into depth to understand what this means and I hope to shed some light on this topic. We as human beings being carnal men have many impulsive desires. We want to drink soda, watch TV, eat out at McDonalds, play nintendo games, and be entertained in general. All of these things if analyzed well show that we are carnal men, giving into the temptations of all these different activities. They all trigger impulsive desires that make our brains think “yeah thats good for me, I’ll take that,” or “yeah thats what I need to be happy.” But really this isn’t the case.

So after careful analysis we find that our human nature is to find the path of least resistance, or the easiest path to follow. Our bodies screams “save energy!” Because of this feeling of saving energy we feel like doing whats the easiest for us! Years ago we use to have to work hard to make sure basic needs were met. People had to go out on the farm and work to make sure they could survive. Can you imagine, waking up today and thought…if I don’t get up today to plow the fields and make sure everything is ready, I probably won’t survive..can you imagine that feeling?? Well now, in our time and age, we can pop in some food in the microwave it and nuke it and we are good to go! We almost don’t have to work for anything anymore, its unbelievable! We have cars that get us to A to B so quickly when it use to take days for people to travel by horse or foot. Things are a lot easier to come by now. So we have become very complacent with ourselves because our basic needs are taken care of. Is this not correct??

So how can we battle this and what does it mean to pay the price? There is one word that sums it up for me and that is sacrifice. We have to sacrifice this carnal nature for higher meaning and create healthy habits. An example would be sacrificing the impulsive desire to go out and eat. We first need to have higher meaning in this endeavor and that of course is to be healthier, look better, be skinnier, fit better in clothes, save more money, etc. You start thinking about all the good things this does for you and its almost a no-brainer right? Now at first it will be hard to sacrifice because you have bad habits! You need to make a goal to create a healthy habit and when you sacrifice that impulsive desire you need to have something replace it or you’ll never get over your destructive habits.

Sometimes when our body is screaming “save energy, conserve energy!” we need to remember that we need to sacrifice this impulsive desire and push forward putting one foot in front of the other and just keep on going! This is what pay the price really means.. Sacrificing your impulsive desires for higher meaning in your life. Study any great person in history and thats what it comes down to. They sacrificed. They worked. They pushed forward. And succeeded. They paid the price and were disciplined in that endeavor to be consistent in their attempts. Thats how you become unstoppable.

The price that must be paid for mastery is discipline. Discipline is all about cultivating powerful habits that become part of your lifestyle.

Take a look at this:

I am your constant companion.
I am the your greatest asset or heaviest burden.
I will push you up to success or down to disappointment
I am at your command.
Half the things you do might just as well be turned over to me.
For I can do them quickly, correctly and profitably.
I am easily managed; just be firm with me.
Those who are great, I have made great.
Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine, though I work with the precision of a machine and the intelligence of a person.
You can run me for profit, or you can run me for ruin.
Show me how you want it done. Educate me. Train me. Lead me. Reward me.
And I will then do it automatically.
I am your servant.
Who am I?
I am a habit.

Wake up every morning with a burning desire in your heart to make a difference in this world that you live in. Every person can make a difference and its like a ripple effect. Sometimes we don’t see our success but its happening.

Wake up committed to living a better life and not letting your bad habits and impulsive desires get the best of you. Have the discipline, the drive, and the determination to change your path and not always walk down the path of least resistance. Rather, live your life sacrificing for higher meaning and you will leave a legacy that cannot be forgotten.

Here are some great quotes about discipline, drive, and determination

You never will be the person you can be, if pressure, tension and discipline are taken out of your life.
-Herbert Bayard Swope-

The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we can become.
-Charles DuBois-

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
-Thomas Edison-

Advanced Planning

Advanced Planning

The executive of the future will be rated by his ability to anticipate his problems rather than to meet them as they come.
-Howard Coonly-

Advanced planning I like to think is the breath you take before going underneath the water. You take a few deep breaths preparing yourself for what is to come. And then you plunge into the water. ..   What preparation you had before hand will show considerably on how long you can stay underneath.

Planning is also like the calmness before a huge storm coming your way. You have the time and ability while it is calm, to prepare yourself for what is to come establishing and insuring success.

In order to achieve excellence, it is important to plan. So what is excellence? Excellence is exceeding expectations and doing all in your power to go beyond. Planning is the first step to exceed expectations and is vital to do in order to achieve such a high recognition of one being excellent in the arena they spend their time.

A leader will research and research and research before taking action, because they do not, at anytime, leave anything to chance. Thane Yost said, “The will to win is worthless if you do not have the will to prepare.”

Leaders are aware and know how important and absolutely essential it is to analyze and inspect the situation and detail their strategy beforehand.

So questions are what matter most. Especially asking the right ones that will lead us to discovery. This is the key to staying on course. So why do people ignore the importance of advanced planning?? Ask yourself this question and find out whats making you successful or whats stopping you from reaching the next level in your life. Here is a few things that I have come up with when I asked myself the same question:

-I don’t have a focused plan of where I am going and how can I plan something in the future if its not clear!? Instead, theres been a blanket of darkness and confusion hanging over me.
-I don’t quite understand the power of asking myself questions to discover what I truly want in my life. Because of my lack of question-asking I wasn’t completely honest with myself of where I am at in my life. Its a true act of courage to be honest with yourself and try to make changes. I didn’t know or realize the importance of advanced planning. I have spent little time researching and creating strategy. Not only did I do this but I spent countless hours of work, time, energy, effort, and other resources going back and forth in my undertakings because the lack of proper planning. Never again! I will be an expert in advanced planning to exceed expectations and achieve excellence in my life and in all my doings. I will not follow the the ideology of ready, aim, fire! Because how can I hit my target if I have no clue what I’m aiming for? All successful people can focus their energy the proper way because they have this one thing in common–they know exactly what they want and know what direction they are going to get there. Plan to fail, fail to plan!

S9 what are the things that I should do?
Slow down to view the situation accurately, develop a strategic plan that I’m confident with because of extensive research, and go forward with passion, faith, and enthusiasm that everything will turn toward my benefit. Some of the aspects that I can work on in the planning process is to focus on the outcome, prioritize whats most important, write it down on the calendar, and delegate to maximize effectiveness.

Here are some great quotes about advanced planning:

Make your plans as fantastic as you like, because 25 years from now, they will seem mediocre. Make your plans ten times as great as you first planned, and 25 years from now you will wonder why you did not make them 50 times as great.
-Henry Curtis-

An intelligent plan is the first step to success. The man who plans, who knows where he is going, knows what progress he is making and has a pretty good where he will arrive. Planning is the open road to your destination. If you don’t know where you are going, how can you expect to get there?
-Basil S. Walsh-

My Last Lecture

My Last Lecture

The most important things in life are invisible.

The most important things to many people are the things that are visible to the eye such as the car they are driving, what clothes they are wearing, or what they have compared to their friends and neighbors.  People might think that if you have more money than another that you are better or if you have something someone else doesn’t have you are better.  This isn’t true at all in fact we have been drawn to think that way because of what we see on TV and what we read in magazines.  Corporate America has done well in trying to make us think like them to buy their products and have us act a certain way.

But the most important things in life are invisible.  If you think of someone right now that you admire, why do you think you admire that person?  There is a guy that I met who could work harder than anyone that I ever me.  It was like he was a machine that didn’t have an off button.  He just blew my mind how hard he worked in anything that he did.  He had the capacity of doing as much as two or three people’s work. It was amazing.  I noticed that I admired him because of that and I wondered why that was and I realized the qualities that I wished I had, reflected in who I admired.  And I remembered just sitting back and thinking “whoa that’s cool, that’s not money, or anything I could buy with cash either, but a quality,  a substance of their character that defined who they were as a person.  Then, at that moment I realized that the most important things in life are things you cannot buy with money but things that you have to work for and they aren’t even visible to the human eye.  It is not by strength in your arm that gets you to go places in life but the internal strength within that pushes you to the limits.  Patience, love, virtue, hope, faith, diligence, persistence, humility, and many other qualities make up your internal strength and they aren’t visible at all.

Pretty cool huh?

With this in mind there are three things that every person needs and that is something to do, something to hope for, and something to love.  It is vital to work in life and to do something in pursuit of a good cause.  I have a friend that has fallen in a state of depression.   He is naturally a good person and wants to do good of course.  Who doesn’t?  But he has fallen in a state of depression and whenever I try to help him out and ask him if wants to do this or that.  He’ll tell me that he is too tired, or that he doesn’t wan to do anything right now.  He seems like he doesn’t want to move at all!  I asked him what he was passionate about and he couldn’t tell me!  No wonder why you’re depressed and you feel stuck!  You have nothing to do in your life worthwhile and you feel like just laying around!  It is important to find out your strengths and things that you like to do and are passionate about.  Your passion will kindle a fire that will keep growing and help you get through hard times in your life otherwise maybe you wouldn’t be able to get through.

Then, you need something to hope for.  I believe that faith and hope are very much alike except for a few things.  Having hope in something more such as having a better life, a better situation.  Hope helps us carry on when otherwise we wouldn’t want to.  We have faith that this can happen and act in accordance to what we hope for.  I am blown away when people tell me that they feel like there is no hope for them to get out of debt or have a better relationship with their spouse or find a job that will suit them.   Well how can there be hope today, if you are living the same as you did yesterday??  If you’re not learning something new each day and acting on those things you learned or doing something to better your position in life.  What are you doing?  Are you going anywhere?  Are you stepping forward or are you stepping backward or are you just stagnating in place being controlled more by your environment, waiting for things to happen that you hope would?  I tell you what, most things that you are just sitting back for hoping will happen, won’t!  You have to go get those good things in life.  Your dreams aren’t going to be chasing you.  You have to chase your dreams, so put on your running shoes!

If I didn’t do something to better my position today I’d be disappointed too!  If I didn’t learn something unique or something I could apply, would my meaning in life  be not as strong?  Would my passion dwindle just a bit?  You better believe it would. Because I’m not going anywhere!

The last thing and I believe it is the most important thing is something or someone to love.  Many people love God, their families, their friends, people in general, and themselves.  How can someone love you if you don’t love yourself right?  Why would you want to help your family, serve God, be with your friends if you didn’t love them??  Love is key in anything that you do.  If you love your work, you will do better at it.  If you love your family you will want to serve them and care for them.  If you love your friends you’ll want to be around them and spend time with them.  And the list goes on.  If there were a few things that you could remember from me let this be one: if you don’t love, you don’t have a message.  Think about that!  If you don’t love, you don’t have a message.  We all have unique talents and abilities that we can exercise to bless people’s lives, but if you don’t care for them and love them, you really have nothing to say.

I hope that we will all strive for internal strength and excellence in our lives that we may know what the most important things are in life.

 

The most important things in life are invisible.

Better Decision-Making

Better decision making cannot be taught, but can be self-taught. The reason being is that you must become conscious of your decision-making processes, and with practice they will improve your intuition and unconscious performance where you will become unconsciously competent in your decision-making.

We at first are unconsciously incompetent in an activity that we have never done before because obviously we haven’t put much thought or effort in making it a strength yet.  Then, we start thinking more about what we are trying to improve on and we become consciously incompetent in that arena where we are conscious about the activity but not good at it.  Lets say that we are learning how to drive a car that is a stick shift and we have never done it before, in fact we have never even thought about it till now. Now we want to drive so we consciously think about letting go of the clutch with our left foot while giving some gas to the pedal with our right foot and we feel the car die, lunge forward, or jerk back and forth forward getting into the correct gear and we receive direct feedback and learn how to correctly put the car into first gear. After much practice we become consciously competent at this activity where we are thinking obviously about the steps but we got it down now and we are pretty confident that we can get ourselves around without much to oppose. Later, you are in a hurry and late to an important appointment and you hop into your car and blast off to your meeting and you go through all the shifts and get there without even thinking about it and you realize later, “whoa, I forgot that I was even driving a stick shift, I was thinking about what I needed to do the whole time I was driving.” This is the stage where you want to be and that is when you can do something without thinking consciously about it and are pretty good at it. This is called unconscious competence.

Now to move on you must become conscious of your decision processes so you can practice improvement. This is required because as adults we have already created our patterns, if they may be good or bad. To correct the bad and enhance the good habits in your life, the first thing that we must do is become more self-aware.

You must recognize what works best for you, given every person is unique with different strengths and weaknesses.  Then, through challenge and trial, you want to develop your own method. To begin this self-awareness process ask yourself, what am I lacking? What are my strengths? What challenges do I avoid and why am I procrastinating?

Now everyone talks about what the secret to success is and the method in which you can apply that in your life. Well the method you use to achieve success in anything is in itself a secret and can only be discovered by YOU analyzing your own decisions and how you think. No one has the same DNA. We don’t think exactly the same way. Thus, better decision making cannot be taught, but it can be self-taught and there is one simple rule that holds true always: make good decisions and you’ll succeed; make bad ones and you’ll fail. Not everyone performs the same or with even the same capacity to do so. What is crucial that we do then is to find our own way to the top by developing our talents, improving on our skills, and thirsting after challenges to conquer that will push us to our highest level.

The Refiners Fire

The Refiners Fire

Malachi 3:3 says:
“He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.”

What is Flow?

What is Flow?

Wikipedia gives a great explanation on what flow means.

“Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.”

There are also other terms for this mental state that we often find ourselves in and these include: to be on the ball, in the zone, or in a groove.

Brian Tracy on Taking Charge of Your Life

As obvious as it sounds, you are responsible for everything that happens to you and everything that doesn’t happen to you in your life. Brian Tracy explains: “You are what and who you are today because you’ve decided to be there.” When things go wrong, the easiest thing people do is place the blame on others. But it is vital that one remembers that YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE for everything in your life. You’ve decided deliberately by the choices you’ve made; or you’ve decided by default by the things you’ve failed to do.

It is easy for one to make excuses or place barriers of negative thinking. In the recent news, I read about champion tennis player, Monica Seles from Germany. She had dominated woman’s tennis for two and a half years until she was stabbed in the back by a deranged spectator during one of her matches. It caused a huge scare to the sports world, and took a large emotional toll on Monica as well as her family. Two years after the incident she went back to tennis but was never able to regain her top form. To make things worse her father passed away at this time. The huge amount of stress that was placed on Monica caused her to gain a large amount of weight.

Dan Clark on Communication

Have you ever heard the phrase, “You cannot not communicate”? Communication is constant in our lives. Every moment of every day you are communicating something. It doesn’t matter what language you speak, or even if you can speak at all. You are always communicating something.

Dan Clark, a wonderful speaker, says that communication is so important in our lives. In a speech he gave on ilearningglobal he told several stories about how communication affects our lives. Each story was to help us understand the effects of communication in our lives.

From his speech we are able to see two major effects of communication in our lives.

1. Support
2. understanding

How to get what you want and want what you have

You’ve heard the saying, “what you want isn’t always what you get”. And sadly, most people will never get what they want in life. Whether it is because they believe they don’t deserve the finer things in life, or they don’t know where to look for what they want. Either way they are at fault.

The truth is you deserve every joy and happiness of your heart’s desire. Don’t feel guilty for always wanting more than what you have!

John Gray, author of the book, “How to get what you want and want what you have” explains this problem when he says, “People who are so grateful for what they have feel it would be ungrateful to ask for more.” The problem with this way of thinking is it cuts a person short of their dreams and desires. In reality, it would be ungrateful not to ask for more. Gray explains that the key to getting what you want in life is holding on to “loving what you have” but also having a thought of “I want more”. When these two thoughts coincide, it creates an attraction which will motivate you to do what it takes to achieve more.

However, “wanting more” can either bring you great success or great suffering. Gray presented the following keys for achievement when it comes to getting what you want:

1. Have your intention. Decide what it is that you want, but make sure you find the balance between being happy with what you have and wanting more. Once you have clear goals and desires, you will become more motivated to succeed.

2. Recognize your needs. Are you getting what you need? Whether its physical, emotional, mental, or social needs, make sure you can recognize where the needs in your life lack. Begin with a foundation of the things you need before you begin to explore your other goals.

3. Remove obstacles in your way. It is important that when acting on your goals you expect challenges and obstacles. These obstacles can include doubt, self pity, and procrastination. It is vital to keep your strong desire to accomplish your goals and work through these “blocks” if you want to succeed.

With patience and passion, you have the power inside to get what you want in life!

(From John Gray’s video “How to get what you want and want what you have” on ilearningglobal.tv)