Friday, September 29, 2006

We’re at the third quarter pole…..

Wow. Can you believe it? The end of September already!

That means there’s only the fourth quarter of the year left.

How’s your year been so far?

What the biggest difference in your life between the end of September 2005 and today?

For many, the sad truth is, that their lives really haven’t changed much at all in the last year. Or, maybe, for the worse.

Personally, I can’t believe how much my life has changed in the last 12 months. All for the better.

I credit it all to one word, ATTITUDE.

Over the last 36 years, I have consciously trained my mind to have the best possible attitude under every circumstance.

I believe in all those corny sayings like….”when life hands you a lemon, make lemonade”, and “10% of life is what happens to you, and 90% of life is how you respond”, and “it’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many time you get right back up”, and…..well, you get the idea.

ATTITUDE is EVERYTHING.

You have an attitude about every single thing. Some of your attitudes contribute to your success. BUT, many of your attitudes contribute to your struggles.

Being optimistic, expecting the best, expecting success, believing in yourself, becoming the best possible person you can be, caring about others, contributing to society, these are all the results of your attitudes.

My attitude is that my 4th quarter of 2006 is going to be awesome and the launching point for an unbelievable 2007.

What’s yours?

Make it exciting. Make it meaningful. Stretch yourself. Get out of your comfort zone.

And start thinking about developing some new, more supportive attitudes.

It’ll make a world of difference.

Namaste.

Jeff

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Who Are You Learning From?

Understand the message you are about to read, and you will transform your life forever.

Perhaps the most valuable profession in the world is teaching. A great teacher can impact the lives of hundreds or thousands of people directly, and countless other indirectly.

What makes a teacher great? Have you ever had a great teacher in your life?

Once we graduate from school, we often never have another “teacher” again in our lives. Except the top 5%, who realize that the teachers they choose can have a greater impact on their success than any other decision they make.

Suppose you decided that you wanted to be an entrepreneur. You could do what most people do and “wing it”. Perhaps that’s the reason that the failure rate in business in the first 3 years is so incredibly high.

But what if you decided to find someone who was already successful in business and asked them to give you guidance and advice? How valuable would it be to have someone who was a proven success at what you wanted to do helping you make the better decisions or at least helping you avoid making bad ones?

Suppose you decided you wanted to reach your full financial potential. How would you go about doing that? If you found someone who was a financial success and was willing to share their secrets with you, and teach you, would you find that of value?

Well, if you truly wanted to reach your full financial potential, your mind would be open to any and all ideas, and in particular, coming from someone of authority and success. If that person was willing to teach you, you would increase your chances for success tremendously.

In every important area of your life, there are highly successful people who are teachers. The more successful people you surround yourself with as teachers, the more successful you will automatically become in many areas of your life.

2 things begin to happen when you start to surround yourself with “teachers” who are proven successes in their areas. First, you will begin to acquire new habits, success habits. Since we are creatures of habit, the more new success habits we acquire, the more naturally and automatically our successes will be. Second, as you begin to see success in one area of life, you begin to gain “momentum”. One success leads to the next, and pretty soon you have more successes happening more frequently.

Another name for a teacher is a coach. In sports, think about the great head coaches. Vince Lombardi didn’t become famous because he was a great football player. He became famous for being a great coach. The same thing for Chuck Noll and Tom Landry.
Some franchises pay huge salaries to attract the best coaches. Why?

Simple.

Some franchises are dedicated to winning. Having a proven, successful head coach improves the team’s chances for success. It doesn’t guarantee it, but the value of a great head coach on a sports franchise cannot be disputed.

A great coach has a winning system. He teaches his system throughout the organization, to the assistant coaches, to the players, to the scouts, to everyone involved. He has a vision of the team he wants to field, and a plan for turning that vision into a reality.

Suppose you were going to hire a head coach for your team. How much would it be worth to you to have someone who could improve the chances of your achieving success?

People who are serious about getting into shape hire a personal fitness trainer/coach. Why? Couldn’t they do the exercises without having a trainer there? They’d save the money too.

That’s exactly loser thinking.

Think about it. A great personal trainer, someone who has studied this field, and works in it daily, is going to know infinitely more about their field than you do.

So you will undoubtedly learn from that trainer.

If you’re meeting your trainer, you have a commitment. Without it, it may be too easy to come up with an excuse to skip working out.

We value something to the extent we have to pay for it. When we pay a trainer, we value the workout more. It means more to us.

It is a proven fact that people who work out with a personal trainer see more success than those who just do it on their own.

Begin to think about all the areas of life that are important to you, and then look for people already successful in those areas. Recruit them as you teachers, and surround yourself with at least a couple of trusted teachers that you admire and respect.

Once you do, you will never be the same person again.

Namaste.

Jeff

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Would You Like to Know a Secret?

A secret so valuable that if you knew it, understood it, and applied it in your life, you’d never be the same person again?

This secret is the difference between living an average life, or living the life of your dreams.

The secret is…… for you to be a truly happy person, you must separate yourself from the 95% of all the people out there who are struggling..

The happiest people in the world are people who are accomplishing something worthwhile. They are “living their mission”. They contribute to society. They love life, and the possibilities that every day presents.

If you think about it, how many people do you know that are living their mission? How many of the people that you know are excited about life? Now, compare that to all of those who are struggling.

I tell this story to clients all the time. It’s something I once heard Harv Eker say at one of the Peak Potentials programs I attended.

Imagine that you are standing on a bluff looking down on a long winding river.

100 yards off to the right, you see a huge mass of people all attempting to swim across the river.

But the river is deep, with deadly currents, and alligators and sharks lurking.

And many of those trying to swim across the river are being sucked under by the strong currents, or are barely hanging on, or are being attacked by alligators and sharks.

Many people are losing their limbs in the struggle, and those who finally make it all the way over to the other side of the river are totally spent.

Now, if you look over just 100 yards to the left of the bluff, the river is calm. It’s shallow. It’s clear and clean. And there are little ducks and swans swimming in it. There’s even a bridge going over the river!

And the few people who took the time to look for other ways across the river, they do it with joy and laughter and ease.

Wouldn’t you prefer to cross your river of life that way than trying to swim across the way most do?

If you’re like most everybody else, you’ll get results like most everybody else.

Most people aren’t really happy very much. Most people struggle in every area of their lives. Most people aren’t living their mission. In fact, most people never really stop to think what their mission is.

Most people don’t get what they want, because most people don’t know what they want.

Don’t be like most people.

Be like the few. The few who have decided what they really want out of life, and have learned how to use their mind to bring them everything they really want.

I guarantee you, that if you are living your passions in life, if you are succeeding at exactly what you want to be doing more than anything else in life, your life will be transformed forever.

Go for it!

Namaste.

Jeff