The one you listen to the most is…

The one you listen to the most is YOU.  Your brain hears every word you say.  

If you say “I am bad at that”, or “I am tired today”, or “I hate this”, your brain is listening and does not argue.

They are not just statements; they are instructions.  You brian goes to work to make it true.

Repetition creates stronger and stronger neural pathways for acceptance and instruction of these statements.

Be careful how you talk, even when nobody else is around to hear it.

Someone very important is listening, and will make your speech come true.

You should want to be something you are not.

Did that get your attention?

“What the heck kind of advice is that?” you ask.  

Shouldn’t I be happy with who I am?  Isn’t disliking who I am a cause for a lot of psychological trouble?

Yes. It is.

But I did not say that you should dislike who you are.

I said we should want to be something we aren’t. Yet.

I see people with no goals, and they are literally “aimless”.

We need to have goals.  Goals we really want AND believe are possible for us.  Goals that are not attained yet.

Those goals will take us out of our comfort zones.  

Those goals will give us a reason to get up in the morning.  

Those goals will get us out of our comfort zones.

Those goals will have us learning new things, stretching, being creative and courageous.

Those goals will chase away boredom and depression, get us excited and bring out the best in us.

At age 62, after accomplishing much, I have more of these goals.  I need these goals. 

And because I set out to accomplish goals in the past and did not give up, I am a more capable and better equipped person to achieve new ones today.

What do you want to be/do or have that you are not/do not now?

Can you write it down?

There is no excitement inside your comfort zone

I knew a couple who seemed to do well, but they always said no to invitations.  They had their routine, and they didn’t want to get out of it.

“Do you want to come to the party?”  “Well, we’ll see what we have going on.”   

“Do you want to try riding this thing?  It’s easy.  My daughter is riding it, see?”  “No, no, that’s not my thing.”

“Do you want to shoot this bow, or play cornhole, or go camping with us?”  “No, I’m good.”

But there was something sad inside of them.  There was no spice in life, no excitement.

Habits make life easier.  Good habits will get good results that compound.  But don’t forget to break the routine.

They say that at the end of life, people regret the things they did NOT do more than the things they did.

When you have a weekend where you do something new and out of your box, isn’t that exciting?  Aren’t you talking about it for a long time?

A few years ago, we scheduled a day where my wife, Marie, and I would go skydiving.  We actually accepted an invitation to go with another couple.  Well, Marie was so nervous, she didn’t speak for a couple days beforehand.  We drove there, and she was silent with fear.

The place ascended.  She almost threw up.  When she landed, she yelled, “That was the greatest thing I’ve ever done!”

This is life, everyone!  This is our chance.  

All growth and a lot of excitement live outside your comfort zone.

Go get it!  Try new things!

Do you need to do well, or want to?

What is your primary driver, need or want?

Four differences between needers and wanters – 

1) Needing is extrinsically motivated, where wanting is internally motivated.

2) Needing is security driven.  Wanting is freedom driven.

3) Needing is scarcity minded.  Wanting is abundance minded.

4) Needing is reactive.  Wanting is creative.

What drives you?  Need?  Or want?

What would you do to kick your own ass?

If you were your competitor, knowing what you know about your company’s vulnerabilities, what would you do to kick your ass?

Fix that.  

Do that.

Treat people as good as you are

Don’t treat people as bad as they are.  They may live up to your assessment in dealing with you.

Treat people as good as you are.  (I am assuming you are damn good!)  They will elevate themselves when they are with you.

You can’t change other people

Some people think that they will be happy if they could just change a few other people to be more like they want them to be.

Maybe it’s their coworkers, their friends, their spouse or their kids.

They spend their life trying to make this happen.  But it is futile.

People don’t change.  And if they do, it won’t be because you wanted them to.

The only person you can change is yourself.  That is cool because it is in your direct control.  And by changing yourself, other people and situations will look very different.

Listen to this audio track from my Blueprint album – 

Blueprint – “Something Different”

Move up by solving problems and making decisions

Some people do not understand how to grow in importance and salary at work.

Problems?  Many people stand around waiting for someone else to solve the problem.  Maybe they don’t know how to solve the problems, or they don’t see it as their job, or they don’t have the courage to speak up.

If YOU solve problems and make decisions, that makes you more valuable and harder to replace.

When you take responsibility for the solutions to those problems, that is really good.

You will also earn the right to solve more problems.

Some problems are easy to solve and don’t move big needles too much.  Still, they need to be solved. 

Some problems are complex.  Some are more important when it comes to the results they get with customers, with sales, or with profits.

The more valuable the problems you solve, the more valuable the results are.

This is how you move up and do higher-value work.

If you change, everything will change for you.

Jim Rohn – what a guy.  He’s gone now but his counsel is timeless. 

You can listen to him on YouTube.  AI is amazing – bringing people back to life.

The core of his teaching – 

If you get better, everything will get better for you.

People who complain and people who are angry at the world because it is not easier….Jim would give them this advice.

By blaming anything but yourself, you give your power away to them/it.  You are saying they are responsible for your situation and not you.  This gives you a convenient way to avoid responsibility and for doing the work to get better.  You are off the hook – it is someone else’s fault.

But when you take responsibility for everything in your life, it is at the same time sobering and empowering.  Now you have the power to change it.  You still need the will and resolve, the courage, the knowledge, and the self-discipline, but you have taken the important first step.  You have taken responsibility.

The world is your reflection.

If you change, everything will change for you.

We discount free information.

People value advice more if they have paid for it, even if it is the same as advice they got or can get for free somewhere else.

Do you really need to pay for weight loss advice?

Do you really need to pay for, let’s say, “adult education”?

The answer is no.  Of course, if what you want is a support system and someone holding you accountable because you don’t have self-discipline, then that is a “value-added service” that comes with the advice.

Consider Think Daily.  It’s free.  How many of you have your teen or older kids signed up?  How many of your kids would even want to be signed up and read it every day?

I have kids, I know!  Some do, some don’t.  Why?  As Jim Rohn would say, “We don’t know why.  That’s just the way it is.”

How many of you have spent your life savings sending them to college?

Good information and advice is still good regardless of where it is from, whether it is from your grandmother, your Dad, your pastor, your professor, in a book, or in a YouTube video.

You’ll get better at recognizing good from bad quickly as you learn more and try things.  That’s called wisdom.

Who are the five people you spend the most time with?

You probably already know Jim Rohn’s line: “You become the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.”

Question to consider: WHO are YOUR 5? 

If you mixed them up in a blender, what quality of character, values, thinking, and actions do you get?

Direction + Time = Destination

It’s always a good question to ask again – 

“If I keep going the way I am going, where will I be in 5 years?”

10 years?

20 years?

What is your answer?

Do you like the answer?

Memories are not accurate

Memories are not accurate.  They feel like facts, but they are not.

Memories are colored by the limited facts you knew or observed back then, what story you want to support today, what was documented (and repeatedly impressed) and what was not, and other factors.

What incentive do you have for your memory to support? Once you filter your memory through the incentive, the memory is altered.

People don’t doubt their memory, but you should.  

The past is a memory.  If the memory is not accurate, then neither is the past.

Question – do you want your memory to support victimhood today, or empowerment?  Because it can do either – it is your choice.

Love. medicine and miracles

This is the title of a book by Dr. Bernie Siegel.  Here are some ideas from it – 

The mind and the body are deeply connected.  Emotions like hope, purpose, and love can boost immunity and aid healing.

Self-love matters.  Patients who treat themselves with compassion tend to heal better than those filled with guilt or self-rejection.

Visualization and belief shift biology.  The brain responds to imagery and positive expectation – what you believe influences how you heal.

Love is the most powerful medicine.  When people feel deeply loved – by themselves or others – they will heal faster and more fully.

Your mindset can be part of your medicine.

Here’s a comment from me – If mindset can be part of your medicine, and I firmly believe that, the opposite is true.  Consider your mindset is part, or even all, of your disease.

What do you think?

Failure of Purpose

Here is an excerpt from a Joe Polish email –

“In the 1970s, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health built the perfect mouse habitat.

Unlimited food. Unlimited space. No predators. No scarcity of any kind.

And the colony completely fell apart.

The males stopped competing. The females stopped nurturing. Play disappeared. Society collapsed.

He called it Universe 25.  And his warning was simple: abundance without challenge doesn’t produce flourishing.

It produces collapse.

Peter Diamandis has spent decades at the frontier of exponential technology. Steven Kotler is the world’s leading researcher on flow and peak performance. They sat down at a recent Genius Network meeting to talk about their new book, “We Are as Gods,” and what it actually means that we now have godlike capabilities.

And somewhere in the middle of that conversation, the question got uncomfortable.

If AI removes friction… robotics handles labor… and abundance is no longer a question of resources…

What happens to us?

Because the same thing that makes the future extraordinary is the same thing that could hollow it out.

Too much delivered. Not enough earned.

Peter says we’re already watching the first fork happen. Not between rich and poor. Between consumers and creators.”

When we can get almost anything with little effort, bad things will happen to us.  I am a firm believer that the effort, challenge, “failures” and struggle are necessary for us to be mentally and physically healthy and strong long term.

What do you think?

Make success come to you

Success is not something you chase.

Develop the habits.

Learn what you need to learn.

Do the work.

Keep showing up and be consistent.

Success is something you attract by the person you have become.

Life is a terminal condition

“Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.” -Wayne Dyer

This is it!  Your big moment in cosmic time and it is the only one you will get.

What are you doing with it this week?

Reputation

Your reputation is very valuable. 

It’s your track record in the minds of other people.

People don’t forget.

A good reputation takes a long time to create, and a minute to ruin.

Think twice before you do something dishonest, yell and scream, insult others, do something in poor taste, be rude or greedy, or say something stupid.

And with the internet, your reputation is killed at the speed of light.

Be kind, smart, thoughtful, help others, work diligently, don’t talk when you’re angry, and work to make things better for everyone.

Act as if the whole world is watching, even when nobody is.

Your reputation is not what you think of you, it is what everyone else thinks.  

A good reputation opens doors, creates opportunities, makes friends and money, and makes your world a nice place to live in.

The horrors of a half-lived life

When we get to the end, we will most often regret the things we did NOT do, rather than the things we did.

It’s too late then.  Your one chance will be over.

Live.

What do you need to do NOW?

Grandma School

This is from my Aunt Donna who lives in Jacksonville Florida.  I thought you’d like it.

WORDS MATTER 

            My grandson Dallas wanted to bring some friends with him when he visited me, so I said, “Sure, bring them along.” There were three of them! Oh my, where would they all sleep?

We managed with double beds and couches, and they settled in for the weekend. Two of them were Black,  one was Hispanic; my grandson is white. It pleased me that my grandson had friends of diversity, and we set out to have a great time together. We went ice skating- totally new to Dallas’s friends. They played basketball together. We went to the Dreamette for their famous ice cream. We did Thrift Store shopping, which they really liked.

            Now I have a program I like to do with kids- it’s called Grandma School. In it I teach about budgets, writing thank you notes, setting a table, cooking basics, sewing on a button- you get the idea. Many of these things are not taught in school and busy parents don’t always have the time or energy.  So- I thought, why don’t we have a few sessions of Grandma School?

I chose to do Thank You notes, and one I just developed. It’s called “Words Matter”. Joe Namath, the football player grew up thinking his name was “Shut Up”until he was thirteen years old.

“You are fat”; “You are Ugly”; “You are stupid”; “You won’t amount to anything”; “No One likes you”, and so on. All had experience these words or something similar spoken by classmates, friends, or family, or they had heard them spoken to others.

What we hear every day becomes our reality. If you are told every day that you will never amount to anything, guess what? You may never try.

And so, I had each boy write down five positive things they will place by their bathroom mirror and say to themselves every morning. We then passed a mirror around and each boy read what he had written.

That was pretty much the end of the exercise, until my Grandson said, “Let’s go around the table and say positive things about each person. He began, and since I was sitting next to him, started with me. Oh my! My heart was full. As each boy spoke, the emotion was over the moon. We all took turns speaking to each person, and by the end of the exercise we all had tears in our eyes! What an experience! Perhaps these boys had not heard such words before. Or hearing them in this way made it such a moving experience.

And so, they ended the weekend with good memories and promised to return.

Bruce Lee said, “Change the way you speak about yourself and you change your life. What you’re not changing, you are choosing.”