The Thought For The Day: Everyday Harvester
Monday October 25, 2010
Inspiration: “The day of fortune is like a harvest day, we must be busy when the corn is ripe.” Torquatto Tasso, Poet who authored the epic poem Jerusalem Delivered
Be: (positive Confession) I am an Everyday Harvester.
Do: (first steps) Today, take account of the notion that harvests are not simply to be acknowledged for their existence or beauty- they are meant to be REAPED! Most of us, having not grown up in an agrarian society have no idea of the concept of reaping, we simply go to the grocery store and load up the cart with our produce or whatever it is we choose to indulge in on any given day. Harvesting calls for real work, reaping literally means to cut with a sickle, scythe, or reaping machine. Think about the process of wielding a large knife/cutlass and hacking against a thick root as you attempt to forcibly remove the precious fruit you desire from the stalk. That’s quite a study in contrast from the perception that once we’ve sown our seed we are afforded the luxury of sitting around to wait for our bounty to manifest. Maybe that explains why you haven’t seen the return on investment you were anticipating? The good news is you can start immediately on recouping the by-products of seed that has fallen to the wayside. Here are a few idea to help you get involved in the harvesting process: 1) Actually mail in those rebate forms! 2) Call Your Cable Company and tell them you can get a better rate from DirecTV, and see what they’ll do. 3) Call, email, or write clients who are past due on accounts and offer them a significant savings to pay their accounts in full or up to date. 4) Call your creditors and offer them to settle on accounts you owe them for pennies on the dollar, or seek a reduction on your interest rates in return for your promise to pay. 5) Send a special offer coupon or re-introductory letter to customers who expressed interest in your product or service but failed to purchase (be sure to put an incentive for fast action- at most 2 weeks) 6) Quit Smoking! 7) Tithe on your income. 
Eat out 1 or less times per week. 9) Take advantage of investing in your 401k or an IRA account.
Have: (making dreams reality) As I begin to actively participate in the process of harvesting I’ll see the yield of my harvest approach maximum output!
Be, Do, and Have the Best Day of Your Life! God Bless You!
The Thought For The Day: Selective Reminder
Thursday October 21, 2010
Inspiration: “Not the power to remember, but it’s very opposite, the power to forget, is a necessary condition for our existence.” Sholem Asch
Be: (positive Confession) I am a Selective Reminder.
Do: (first steps) Today, exercise your ability to pull up positive images, exclusively. When it comes to performing at our highest level there is a definite “reel to real” connection. Under pressure situations the events that come up on the big screen of our mind have a tendency to play out, over and over either for good or bad. In other words when we are able to visualize a positive outcome the likelihood of producing a positive result greatly increases. The athlete, businessman, or student who can do that on a regular basis is at a decided advantage. That being the case, doesn’t it make sense for you to develop selectivity when it comes to remembering the events of the past? Learn to replay only the moments you’ve had success and destroy the negatives so they don’t come back to bite you! By learning how to have amnesia when it came to missing putts, Jack Nicklaus became the most prolific golfer of all time. Baseball great, Mariano Rivera has remained succesful at stopping the opposition’s best hitters partly because he is able to mentally block out the rare occasions where he gave up an untimely hit. Best of all, you CAN put this skill to work too! In areas where you have many accomplishments to draw from this should be a piece of cake, but even in situations that are new or where you only have failure to pull from you can make this work by drawing parallels and finding commonality with past victories from other sectors (i.e. closing on a big sale can be related to getting “yes” response to a marriage proposal). For more on the subject of selective memory/amnesia read Golf is Not a Game of Perfect by Sports Psychologist, Dr. Bob Rotella.
Have: (making dreams reality) As I push aside the memory of events that tend to reinforce failure in favor of those that corroborate victory I’ll produce a sequel that far outperforms the original film!
Be, Do, and Have the Best Day of Your Life! God Bless You!
The Thought For The Day: The Right Side of If
Tuesday October 19, 2010
Inspiration: “Reality confronts man with a great many “musts,” but all of them are conditional; the formula of realistic necessity is: “You must, if ” and the “if” stands for man’s choice” Ayn Rand, Russian Born Novelist and Playwright
Be: (positive Confession) I am On the Right Side of IF.
Do: (first steps) Today, take care of the ifs in your life. You probably recognize this as the slogan for one of the top insurance companies of our day. Truth be told, it is also the best way you can insure a more fruitful tomorrow. While insurance companies can take care of the ifs that are out of your control, proper handling of the ifs that are in your control is not a luxury you can put off until a more convenient time. They beg your immediate attention! Here are 5 of the most important ifs that relate to you, your family, and your business: 1) If I make the effort to eat right and exercise then the chances of enjoying my later years at home rather than from a hospital bed skyrocket. 2) If I take the time to date my spouse regularly then we won’t be strangers when the kids grow out of the house and we won’t become another divorce statistic. 3) If I eat dinner with my children 3 or more times per week then the likelihood that they’ll be overcome by bad influences goes way down. 4) If I spend as much time working on my business as I do working in my business then I will see steady increase in my bottom-line. 5) If I’ll communicate regularly with God, through prayer and meditating on his word then I’ll develop faith that will move mountains.
Have: (making dreams reality) As I tackle the ifs in my life head on, I’ll rarely have to make the internal statement, “If only…”
Be, Do, and Have the Best Day of Your Life! God Bless You!
The Thought For The Day: Noticer
Monday October 18, 2010
Inspiration: “The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.” R.D. Laing
Be: (positive Confession) I am a Noticer.
Do: (first steps) Today, train yourself and your team (employees, family members, volunteers, etc.) to take better notice of small details. Try this exercise: have someone give you explicit details to either bake a cake or build a model, by word of mouth only (keep a written copy in a secure place). This can be done by the team as a whole or for each individual member to assess the abilities of each cog, and the group as a whole. After you’ve completed the task test your recollection of the verbal commands by writing each step you remember down then comparing these answers to the original written directions. The real proof as to how well you pay attention, of course, will be in the pudding - or in this case the cake you bake. Taste and see!
Have: (making dreams reality) As I improve my aptitude to see the details I’ll not only be able to sit up and take notice, but also get up and take action!
Be, Do, and Have the Best Day of Your Life! God Bless You!
The Thought For The Day: List Builder
Wednesday October 13, 2010
Inspiration: “In all planning you make a list and you set priorities.” Alan Lakein, Author of How to Get Control of Your time and Your Life
“Every morning I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I’m not there, I go to work.” Robert Orben, Author of many books including Speaker’s Handbook of Humor, former head speechwriter for Gerald Ford
Be: (positive Confession) I am a List Builder.
Do: (first steps) Today, realize that success is tied in large part to your ability to make and build strong lists. List making, to be truly effective, is less a laundry list of things “to do” than it is an ordering of steps and disciplines that must be “ta done” for you to maximize your potential. You must have an understanding of what is unique about you and prioritize necessary tasks based on those skills that you bring to the table and delegate those that don’t accentuate your capacity to produce (Recommended Reading: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey). As important as list making is, List Building is a far more potent weapon against the enemies to championship living. Whether you are running a business or leading the PTA it is essential that you develop an infrastructure that allows you to reproduce victory over and over again without starting from scratch. A line-up of strategic partners and team members who you can rely on to complement your skill set is a requirement for the completion of a grand vision (remember if your goal requires only YOU its too small). Maintaining and adding to a directory of the people that you serve and can continue to supply is also a pre-requisite of any successful endeavor. This includes phone List, email list, address list, roll of contributors, or a roster of volunteers. The key is to not just collect names (list growing) and keep them locked away in a file (this goes for both strategic partners and potential clients/customers/volunteers), which is list saving NOT list building; but to remain in constant contact- providing them with something of value on a regular basis (aka list serving). This can simply be information that is helpful or a special offer of some sort; but whatever it is, IT NEEDS TO BE CONSISTENT both in the message you are conveying and in frequency (minimally once a month). For best results use the entire spectrum of media including email, fax, DVD/CD, text messaging, and snail mail taking care to creatively reach the various personality/temperament types that your list is comprised of.
Have: (making dreams reality) As I master the art of list making and, especially, list building I’ll reap the benefit of a herd of devoted followers (aka clients/contributors/volunteers)!
Be, Do, and Have the Best Day of Your Life! God Bless You!
The Thought For The Day: Trap Buster
Tuesday October 12, 2010
Inspiration: “The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that’s when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.” John Maxwell
Be: (positive Confession) I am a Trap-Buster.
Do: (first steps) Today, stop trying to motivate yourself to produce and start allowing your actions to create a higher level of motivation. Remember, a body in motion STAYS in motion. Don’t wait for the reasons to do something, begin producing results and the reasons will manifest before your eyes.
Have: (making dreams reality) As I make a concentrated and concerted effort to “do the thing” I’ll have the motivation I desire!
Be, Do, and Have the Best Day of Your Life! God Bless You!
The Thought For The Day: Under Control
Friday October 8, 2010
Inspiration: “Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” Ambrose Bierce
Be: (positive Confession) I am Under Control.
Do: (first steps) Today, resist the temptation to vent your anger. Anyone can give full throttle to their internal fury, and most will wish they hadn’t for either the internal or external consequences….. or both! Anger affects us in so many ways. It is more than just a mental or emotional condition, there is a very real physical component as well and the combination of these three powerful realms often manifest themselves in negative patterns that have been with us since our early childhood. To overcome the tendencies we’ve ingrained that lead to outward explosions, anger needs to be confronted on all fronts; that is verbally (language), visually (thoughts), and kinesthetically (posture/physical position). Here are 5 Ways to combat anger and repair damaged control: 1) Make a sudden physical change. Try changing your focus, literally! Look up to the sky, stretch or massage the back of your neck, do a little dance or a mini workout, or simply change your facial expression- all of which can serve to interrupt the usual negative pattern and stop a downward spiral. 2) Search for the Silver lining. Darkness cannot continue to exist when light is brought into the situation; by the same token negativity has to flee in the presence of evidence to the contrary. 3) Flush defeatist phrases down the drain. Words like No, Can’t, and Don’t produce powerful negative images, try replacing them with their positive parallels (i.e. instead of saying “I don’t want to fight” say “I want peace.”) 4) Having the right Circle of Trust is a must. There is no discounting the fact that you are, in part, a product of the people who influence your life. Surround yourself with a bunch of hot heads and negative people and the question won’t be “if” but “when” will you explode. Simply put, fill your life with people who have a track record of controlling their emotions and tongue. 5) Identify the End Result of Anger. Take a retrospective look at the damage that has ensued in the wake of past angry episodes. Ask yourself, “Is a few minutes of release worth the chaos that ensues?”
Have: (making dreams reality) As I creatively seek to bring closure and resolution, rather than a short lived emotional high, to the issues that anger me I’ll have a lot less to regret and repair!
Be, Do, and Have the Best Day of Your Life! God Bless You!
The Thought For The Day: Director of First Impressions
Thursday October 7, 2010
Inspiration: “What we learn only through the ears makes less impression upon our minds than what is presented to the trustworthy eye.” Horace
Be: (positive Confession) I am a Director of First Impressions.
Do: (first steps) Today, get good at doing what you never have a second chance to do. It is estimated by professionals in the field of psychology that it only takes about 17 seconds for someone to form an opinion of you. These tips will certainly help you to influence those thoughts in a positive direction; violate them, though, and you will find that those impressions will direct you out of the picture! First, show that you are “Others Oriented” by taking the spotlight off of you and making them the center of your attention. Second, demonstrate that you are an “Attentive Listener” through both verbal (genuinely show interest by interspersing phrases such as “interesting”, “tell me more”, and even “Hmm”) and nonverbal cues (good eye contact and not fidgeting when others speak). Next, become great at “Personalization”. People like to hear their own name, use it frequently from the get go. Fourth, “dress for success”. This may not work for an impromptu meeting, but when you have the ability to schedule or plan for one, it should go without saying that you must “look the part”; how you choose to attire yourself not only is a reflection of your personal image, but it also says alot about how much respect you have for the person you are encountering. Lastly, develop “Stylish Speaking Habits”. This doesn’t mean that you have to sound like you are in a Shakespearean Play, but you should learn the basics of speech such as altering your inflection and pitch, speaking clearly, displaying animation and facial expressions appropriate to the situation; as well as how to use hand gestures when making a point. (For help in this area join a local ToastMasters organization)
Have: (making dreams reality) As I learn how to handle myself in first encounters, putting others on the pedestal instead of myself, they will walk away Impressed and look forward to the opportunity to meet with me again and again.
Be, Do, and Have the Best Day of Your Life! God Bless You!
The Thought For The Day: The Dangerous Book Worm
Tuesday October 5, 2010
The Dangers of the Book Worm!
Inspiration: “Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting” Aldous Huxley
Today’s thought comes from the annals of “Too Much of a Good Thing.”
This is especially appropriate for those of us who are constantly learning. Whether it be reading books, listening to educational materials on CD or DVD, or attending conferences and seminars you need to be aware of a HIDDEN DANGER. As a matter of fact it is probably one of those pitfalls that they hope you never find out!
It’s simply this:
Too Much Reading accompanied by Not Enough DOING (or in some cases not any doing) will ruin you…..FAST!
This is such an important issue that two Fortune 500 companies have targeted the idea of MORE DOING in recent advertising campaigns ( you may have heard of them: Home Depot and Intel). Unfortunately it has become fashionable to learn, think, and plan but at the same time be slow to follow-through.
When it comes to actually living your life and running your business the only thing that really matters is implementation (unless you plan to be a professional game show participant).
It’s true, when you are able to read with understanding you have within you the power to MAGNIFY, MULTIPLY, and SIGNIFY your life, but ONLY IF you APPLY the wisdom encased by the words you’ve soaked in.
Today, if you’ve found yourself caught up in the learning mode: Step Back and Pull Out something that you can actually Put Into practice, DO IT and watch your endeavors flourish.
Be, Do, and Have the Best Day Of Your Life! God Bless You!
The Thought For The Day: Open Minded like a Colander
Monday October 4, 2010
Inspiration: “The open mind never acts: when we have done our utmost to arrive at a reasonable conclusion, we still - must close our minds for the moment with a snap, and act dogmatically on our conclusions” George Bernard Shaw
Be: (positive Confession) I am Open-Minded like a Colander.
Do: (first steps) Today, be responsibly open to new ideas. I can think of a lot of things with openings, 2 of which readily come to mind from, of all places, the kitchen. Compare the trash can to the Colander. The trash can has a wide opening and can be filled with all manner of things, but mostly those that have outlived their usefulness. In our house anyone can dump anything in the trash at anytime they please, and frequently the combination of this mixed bag stinks after a short period. The colander on the other hand is reserved for a person that is in the kitchen with a purpose, to prepare something that is satisfying and nourishing for the other members of the household and honored guests. It has hundreds of small openings that allow it to filter out the contents that the day’s chef deems is unacceptable for presentation or lacks nutritional value while still containing the real food meant for consumption. For best results, though, serve readily or you’ll find that what once was a delicacy had dried out and lost its intended flavor. So, be open minded not because of the pressure put on you by someone who would criticize you for being intolerant of their ideas and not in a way where you allow just anyone to speak into your life. Take the approach that successful people embrace, listening to the wisdom of those who are accomplished in their field, then readily put it into practice while it is still fresh in your mind.
Have: (making dreams reality) As I develop a responsible system for filtering new concepts and ideas, I’ll be like the man who declared “I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out.”* Winning ideas will stick, while those that are unfit to deliver will flow down the drain.
Be, Do, and Have the Best Day of Your Life! God Bless You!
* quoted from Judge Harry Stone, the Character played by Harry Anderson on the television program Night Court