Truly Become Unstoppable!

Over the years as a business coach I have interviewed thousands of business owners, sales people, candidates for positions for my clients, and just everyday people. I’m amazed at the overwhelming number of those who have no idea of their purpose in life. They may know some of the things they might like to do or not do, but when it comes to identifying the thing that is deep inside that drives them to success, they are clueless.

Every day I talk to folks who want to be a successful entrepreneur and they want to be a good leader, but they don’t know their “why” or what it will take to drive them to overcome the challenges they have in life. They may start out good, but when challenges come, they are stopped, and they usually start making excuses.

How about you? Have you ever taken the time to figure out your purpose in life? I can tell you that it’s not about increasing your income, while that may be a goal you want to achieve, it’s about something deeper.

I have talked to mega high income earners, and I have discovered that while they all have a very strong profit motive, it is not what pushed them to ever higher levels of performance. It was not about the money, per se, but a profound sense of a higher purpose.

Not long ago I talked to a successful financial advisor about how he went from six figures to seven. His response reflected this common theme: “It happened when my mentality shifted to making a difference. When it’s not about what I want and more about helping others get what they want, I have a greater sense of fulfillment and I start making higher incomes.”

The successful people I have talked to possess a definite “fire in their belly,” which is ignited by an almost a divine sense of mission and a interpersonal commitment to something larger than themselves. What has struck me is how this combination of a lofty purpose with an implicit profit motive creates a really powerful intrinsic magic.

Here’s why:

1. Their strong sense of purpose fueled their unwavering perseverance. As one entrepreneur told me: “Having a big vision creates a drive to something really meaningful.” And another said, “I have such a deep sense of mission and purpose, that I go full force all the time.” Still another said, “When you’re on fire with a higher purpose, it is easier to move through those self imposed roadblocks that hold you back.”
2. The strong sense of purpose bolsters courage. Whenever successful people are scared, stymied, or facing a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, they immediately go back to their purpose – Their “why.” A multimillion dollar entrepreneur once told me, “When in doubt, revisit your mission. I know that is why I’m here on earth and I know that I have to have action. I can’t stop, I have to act.”
3. Sustaining balance and sanity are by-products of a strong sense of purpose. There’s a significant difference between drive and addiction. Addiction arises from feelings of inadequacy, pain, and fear, inevitably leading to burn out. Drive comes from a vision that nourishes one’s soul and enriches their life. As one young woman told me, “I had a massive inner critic and I’d push myself until I broke down.” Her solution: “I did lots of self improvement work and started to focus on achieving my purpose without killing myself.” What happened to her was a significant increase in her earnings and a decrease in her level of stress.

If you don’t have a clearly defined purpose, you need to take time to find it. I believe each one of us are on this planet for a reason. When we align our passion with our purpose and when we use our talents in service of our mission, we truly become unstoppable!

Getting in Tune With Your Focus

Ask yourself this question: “Am I focusing on what I have and what I’m good at, or am I focusing on what’s wrong, what I’m lacking, and what’s challenging?

It’s an interesting question and one that I seem to have to ask myself regularly. We all have a tendency to focus on the negative, what we don’t have, and the problems we are facing. Even though, we all know that focusing on the problem will never get it solved. The answer is to focus on the solution; not the problem.

Just as what you plant in your garden with definitely grow, if cared for properly, so it is in your mind. What you focus on will definitely grow. If you’re someone who’s focusing on not having enough money, and there are too many bills to pay, that will be what grows. If you focus on believing that nothing ever works out for you, you will not be the successful leader you want to be.

It just does not work! This type of thinking is a road to nowhere. Instead you have to focus on the positive: I’m moving toward making myself great so money flows in, I’m creative and results oriented, I can solve my problems, I’m spending time with people who are helping me be disciplined with my time and my money, and I’m working toward being an effective leader, and as a successful entrepreneur, I have money flowing into my life.

The key is really being careful that your focus is on what you’re working towards, what you’re passionate about, and what you know deep inside your heart you can do. If you need more knowledge, you can obtain it. If you need more skill, it comes from time and practice. It’s your attitude that provides the fuel to make it work.

Let’s take someone who has a bad habit. Let’s say maybe they like to eat junk food at night so they keep focusing their thoughts on why they keep eating junk food. They say, “What’s wrong with me? I really hate myself because at night I eat too much junk food. I can’t help myself.”

What’s happening is this person is training their mind to focus on what’s wrong. That’s their focus so it keeps growing because their focus is on unhealthy eating habits, sweets, and junk food, junk food, junk food. This programs their mind to eat more fattening sweets and junk food.

BUT… if this person decides, instead, to start saying, okay that habit was in my past. I don’t need it anymore, I know better. I’m in tune with myself now. I’m going to focus on the new me and tuning into my true self, my real self. I am healthy, fit, I make pure, amazing, wise choices. I choose wisely so that my soul, spirit, and body reflects who I am. I am an empowered, successful person.

What this does is that it starts to train their mind to make better choices so that when they have a chance to choose junk food, their mind will start to shift and they can walk away from the refrigerator or pantry and, at the same time, in repeating the mantra to themselves, they will be focusing on what they want instead of what they don’t want.

The same is true with bad business habits. Okay, so you may have been rejected a few times making calls to prospects. If you focus on the these calls, it will set up feelings of rejection, and the phone is more and more difficult to pick up. Instead, focus on the list of other prospects. Think of the all the successes you have had where prospects turned into valued clients.

I want to encourage and challenge you to be in tune with what you’re focusing on. Focus on whatsoever is pure, holy, peaceful, and good in your life. Focus on what you DO want to have happen. Some people call it “self talk.” I call it getting in tune with what’s inside you.

When you change your focus, it will truly accelerate your success, and curve and build the confidence you have in yourself, your ability to focus on the good, and making positive choices in your life.

We are what we think!

If you have read my articles or heard me speak, you know that I place great emphasis on positive action. You will never get results without action. To be a good leader and have any level of success, we need to focus on those activities that produce the greatest amount of results. This being true, our success depends on whether or not those results are positive or negative.

However, our success starts long before our actions. In fact, our success begins in our minds.

The simple truth is that our thoughts become actions and actions produce results. So the equation starts with the thoughts going on in our mind. The key to having success starts with the control of the thoughts that we have. Good thoughts become good actions, which become good results. The opposite is true, as well.

“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7).” We are truly what we think. It is impossible for us live responsibly and walk in success unless we choose to think positive, successful thoughts.

Positive thinking must become a way of life. With a positive attitude, we experience pleasant and happy feelings. This brings brightness to our eyes, we have more energy, and we experience more happiness. Our life broadcasts our good will, happiness, and success.

In fact, researchers also say that even our health is affected in a beneficial way as a result of our positive thoughts. Scientific researchers call it the placebo and nocebo effect. Scientific studies show that while the placebo effect demonstrates the power of positive thinking, expectation, hope, and nurturing care, the nocebo effect demonstrates the physiological effects of negative belief, fear, anxiety, and what Martin Seligman, the Director of the Penn Positive Psychology Center and Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology in the Penn Department of Psychology, terms “learned helplessness.”

These negative emotions trigger the amygdala in the limbic brain to send out a red alert that activates the “fight-or-flight” stress response. When the nervous system is in “fight-or-flight,” the body’s self-repair mechanisms don’t function properly and the body is predisposed to illness. All because you thought yourself sick.

What we think also affect others. Our positive and negative thinking are contagious. We affect, and are affected by the people we meet in one way or another. This happens instinctively and on a subconscious level through words, thoughts and feelings, and through body language. Is it any wonder that we want to be around positive people, and prefer to avoid negative ones?

People are more disposed to help us if we are positive, and they dislike and avoid us if we are broadcasting negativity.

If we do not have the right thoughts and the right frame of mind, we will stay stuck with negative results. Our mind literally controls the kind of results we get. Therefore, we have to choose how we think.

It may sound simple, but it’s not. Simply choosing to think positive is not as simple as it sounds. There is this predicament we have as humans. It is this “battle” we have with our thoughts. Thoughts of depression, thoughts failure, and thoughts of fear constantly creep into our minds and cause us to act in certain ways that are going to produce the opposite of the kind of results we need. Over the years our minds have become conditioned to certain ways of thinking. If we have conditioned ourselves to think negative, our thinking usually does not produce success.

Our negative thoughts, words, and attitudes create negative and unhappy feelings, moods, and behaviors. When the mind is negative, the poisons are released into the blood, which cause more unhappiness and negativity. This is the way that leads to failure, frustration, and disappointment.

How do we win the battle over our thoughts? Here are a few main points.

• Guard your mind. Your mind is a very precious thing. If you had a storehouse of gold in your house, you would hire an armed guard to stand watch and keep all the bad guys out. Yet, many of us let any old thing come into our minds. We need to keep the bad thoughts, the negative thoughts from even entering our mind. Now when I say this, I mean both the ones that start in our heads and the ones that come from external sources.

• Proactively place good thoughts in your head. Just like a garden, where you weed, or pull the bad stuff out, and plant, put the good stuff in, so we do the same thing with our thoughts.

• Avoid the naysayers. They are all around you. Be careful; they will steal your dream. You work with them, you live near them; some may even be in your family! Whatever you do, do not let them affect you with their negative thoughts. Spend as little time as you can with them.

• Act on the positive thoughts you do have. When a positive thought comes into your head, act on it! This will begin to produce a “bridge” between what you think and how you act! As you practice this, the transition even from negative to the positive gets easier as time goes by.

How do you win the battle going on that limits your success? These four key ideas will help you win the thought battle. When we do, we will walk taller, our voice will be more powerful, and our body language will communicate our confidence. The Charisma will attract others as we step forward in positive leadership.

The Law of Diminishing Intent That Holds You Back

The great American entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker Jim Rohn, coined the term “Law of Diminishing Intent,” and John Maxwell used it in his book The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth. But what is it? Some people call it procrastination, hesitation, or fear. In his book, Maxwell gave this example:

“When I was a kid, one of my father’s favorite riddles to us went like this: Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off. How many are left?

“The first time he asked me, I answered, ‘One.’ ‘No,’ he responded, ‘Five. Why? Because there’s a difference between deciding and doing!’

“That was a point that Dad often drove home with us. American politician Frank Clark said, ‘What great accomplishments we’d have in the world if everybody had done what they intended to do.’ Most people don’t act as quickly as they should on things. They find themselves subject to the Law of Diminishing Intent, which says, ‘The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it.'”

Usually, laws of the mind are pretty complicated or they have several levels of meaning, but not this one. The Law of Diminishing Intent is fairly simple: The longer you wait to do something the less enthusiasm you will have to do it.

Look, no matter who you are or in what industry or business you work, we are all vulnerable to the Law of Diminishing Intent. Here is how it works:

INTENT – Let’s say that someone pops into our head that we have forgotten about and we think, ”Oh yes, John. He’d be good at this. I have to call him.” Or we remember a whole group of people who would be good prospects, or we get the idea that we could just make 10 calls a day to a specific market segment, and we are excited about doing it. It’s 9:30 at night and time to close down for the day. Yes, it’s a good idea, and we are looking forward to tomorrow.

Visions of making a lot of progress dance in our head as we go off to bed, imagining a whole vein of prospects from this one idea. We are excited — we have intent.

However, with each passing hour the next day, as ‘life’ happens to us…. the kids need a ride to school, there are situations we have to handle, there is a customer service challenge, or maybe we have to deal with other interruptions. Our enthusiasm wanes; and right there, right at that moment, the Law of Diminishing Intent rears it’s ugly head; it moves us quickly from having a great idea to something we need to get around to doing later. The excitement is gone.

Most of these ideas never get executed. How very sad!

A good idea is worth, according to franchise consultants, about a dollar; but a plan to put it into action? Well, that could be worth millions.

In any business or organizational leadership role, the Law of Diminishing Intent is a back-breaker. Why? It’s because most people don’t realize that we are establishing a habit, and everyone knows habits are not easy to break.

We set a up pattern that re-affirms something that Henry Ford said: “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” Usually, within 48 hours we’ve forgotten all about the idea. The Law of Diminishing Intent is validated once again.

This Law of Diminishing Intent affects leaders every day. It happens to all of us. We get an idea and we’re excited about it – it makes us happy, energized, and inspired.

That is, of course, until that tiny voice of doubt whispers to us – that voice in our heads that tell us we’re not good enough, we’re not smart enough, we’re not ready. That voice can destroy inspiration faster than anything. One minute you know this idea is fantastic; and yet just a few minutes later, you start listing all the reasons why it won’t work. Has this ever happened to you? It has to me.

Here are 4 steps to overcoming the Law of Diminishing Intent.

1. Start Today. You have about a 48 hour window of opportunity to act upon an idea or a task; and if you don’t, you will often sabotage your idea and miss your chance to accomplish something important. Understanding and using this law is a simple and effective way to turn your idea, your intention, into a vital action. It is important to capture your opportunities before they slip away from you. Make a pledge to yourself today that you will no longer allow this to stop you.

2. Stop Sabotaging Yourself. Stop listening to the the naysaying voice inside your head that stops you from taking the steps toward success. Stop listening to the voice in your head that is telling you NO, the what if’s, or the reminders of the times you tried in the past and failed. You are not your past. Your past does not define your destiny. You are not even your future. You are your present; and if you have a great idea today, break free of the past that’s holding you back and push forward.

3. Clarify Actions With Your Emotions. The more clear you can get on why your idea should be put into specific action and what the results will look like once it’s achieved, the stronger your emotions are tied to it. It has to be a part of your “why.” Is your idea tied so deeply into your “why” that thinking about it brings about those emotions of excitement? Can you visualize your dream through it? If so, you can make it through the stumbling blocks that will inevitably happen.

4. Find a Mentor. Establish accountability with someone you respect. Tell them what you’re doing and why. Don’t feel like you have to do it on your own. Find an accountability partner or hire a coach. Don’t confuse busyness with purposeful action. Planning is great unless that’s all you do. You must take action, and having people around you who are willing to help you, advise you, and encourage you to take the action needed to implement your idea will help you to not allow the Law of Diminishing Intent to derail you.

We have our dreams, our passions, for a reason. It’s not by chance. For whatever reason, you have been gifted with this inner-voice to tap into your potential. That never-ending voice is giving you ideas and actions that will pave the way for you to be successful. You have the opportunity for greatness. It is within you. It is given to you to provide something special and unique to the world that only you can provide.

You have the capacity and the ability to hear the inspiration from within and act on it. Don’t let your naysaying voice or the Law of Diminishing Intent sabotage you from implementing your great ideas and becoming the leader you were designed to be.

It’s time to overcome the Law of Diminishing Intent – don’t procrastinate.

Does failure play a role in your life?

Failure is part of success, an integral part. – Bill Walsh

Not being perfect plays a key role for us in developing the right habits and gaining skills. To decide on a new goal or habit and then expect ourselves to flawlessly and immediately achieve it, is unproductive. Right? You expect to make mistakes. You expect that it will take time and you may miss the mark several times along the way.

So, does failing to achieve perfection mean that we are failures? Unfortunately, many think so. But, the key is in your perspective. The trick is to simultaneously expect some imperfection and not allow it to get you down, make you feel like a failure, or cause you to bail on your idea. Just because you set a goal of going to the gym five times a week but you only went three times, doesn’t mean that you failed. Could be that the goal was too high or unrealistic. Or, it could be that you need to analyze the problem, make an adjustment, and try again.

For me, once I take a moment to realize just how far I’ve come from where I was before I set the goal, despite the fact I may have failed at this moment, that’s when it is easy to still be happy with that failure and move forward towards being better the next week.

Our failure is a highly individual matter. We are constantly comparing our beginning to someone’s middle, and our middle to someone’s end. When we do this, we find that we will never, ever be satisfied. We will never, ever be good enough. When we demand perfection and not allow ourselves to struggle, we will find it hard to celebrate our accomplishments.

We have to be aware that each of us has a different road to travel toward our success. We are all at different stages and our journeys are very different, too. We tend to always be comparing ourselves to others when it makes no sense to do so.

The important thing is this, if you feel like you have failed with something, make sure that failure is your own and is not a failure compared to someone else. If you’re hitting the gym twice a week and meet someone who is going to the gym every day, don’t let that make you feel like a failure. Someone’s bigger car or the larger house does not have anything to do with you. You are on your own journey toward the bigger, larger, better. It is where you are headed that’s important. Its personal.

Our own goals and habits are completely individual to us. Use imperfection, missing the mark, and falling short to cause us to look at it as a step toward continually improving our personal bests, whether it is running, lifting weights, calling on prospects, or public speaking engagements. Once you get into a habit of small improvements continually, you can make some amazing progress.

Adjusting your definition of failure

Once you have developed a more healthy outlook on what failure means, you can adjust your definition of failure. Instead of letting it get you down, you can make it a stepping stone along the way to attaining your goal. This is very encouraging for me. It means that for example that I may lose a small battle one week and still win the war the next.

Do you often allow failure to get you down without realizing how far you have come? Do you sometimes compare your journey to others? I have certainly been a victim of this before, and I’m working to change it. My real progress is my own individual path.

Paul J. Meyer, founder of Success Motivational Institute, once said to a group of us that the definition of success is “the progressive achievement of worthwhile, predetermined goals.”

What are your goals? Are you on your own road toward success? Make failure a part of your success story.

Major Benefits of Adversity

I recently read a powerful article from Chris Widener, American author, leadership coach, and motivational speaker, on the four major benefits of adversity. In the article, I found important concepts for us to understand. Here is what he said.

“Most of us spend our lives trying to avoid adversity, and I guess that is just as well. We shouldn’t pursue adversity, but when she arrives, we should welcome her as a foe who, though our interaction with her, will make us into better people. Every contact we have with adversity gives us again the opportunity to grow personally and professionally and to forge our character into one that will achieve much later on.

With that in mind, here are some thoughts on adversity, and how it can help you to succeed in every area of your life and achieve your dreams.

Adversity brings out our resources. Horace said, “Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.” When everything is going well, we coast. There isn’t a lot of stress, and we don’t have to draw too much on the resources that reside within us. But when adversity comes we begin to draw upon each and every resource that we have in order to conquer the circumstances at hand. Adversity then, keeps us sharp. It keeps us using our personal muscle, if you will. That is a good thing because we grow through the use of our resources.

Adversity brings us together with others. Sure a team can have their problems with each other, but when they step on the court, when they experience the adversity of facing another obstacle, they pull together. One for all and all for one, as they say. The next time you experience adversity of some kind, keep your eyes open for how it can bring you together with your family, your co-workers or your team. Then when you are through it, you will find a bond that was created that wasn’t there before.

Adversity makes us better people with stronger characters. Never underestimate the power of adversity to shape us inwardly. How will courage, discipline, and perseverance ever flourish if we are never tested? After adversity, we come out stronger people and able then to use our character and influence in an even greater way to lead those around us and to improve their lives as well as our own.

Adversity makes life interesting. John Amatt said, “Without adversity, without change, life is boring.” How true. Have you noticed that while we are in the middle of adversity we only long to get out of it, but we then spend a lifetime recounting it to anyone who will listen? This is because it spices life up a little. Imagine how boring life would be if everything always went well, when there was never a mountain to be climbed.” – Article by Chris Widener

Great words to teach us these important concepts.

“Show me someone who has done something worthwhile, and I’ll show you someone who has overcome adversity.” Lou Holtz

Question: If you are in the middle of some adversity right now, what resources are you drawing on? Who are you drawing closer to and working with? What part of your character is being tested, and built up? What can you do to view this adversity as one who will be better for it on the other side?

“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit” – Napoleon Hill

When you respond positively and constructively to your biggest challenges, the qualities of strength, courage, character, and perseverance emerge from deep inside of you.

It is very easy to get caught up in the self pity, unfairness of life, or ‘why me?’ trap. Believe me, I have been there and done that. But, this is the trap that will take you under. But, here is what we should do. When adversity comes, and it will come, we have to recognize the opportunities for wisdom and growth that accompany it. As soon we do and begin to think more clearly, we are able to let go of self-defeating and unproductive thoughts and get down to the business of dealing with what’s before us.

This is where having a dream is so important. Without the dream, without the empowering force of our vision, we will allow adversity to take us under. What is before you? The crippling effect of adversity, or is it wisdom and growth that will make you an overcomer?

Good News – You don’t have to stay where you are.

I read something today in “MSN Money” that completely floors me. The article said, “According to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, most people establish their lifetime earning power within the first ten years of their career. After age 35, income growth pretty much flattens, so if you haven’t struck it rich by then, it’s probably never going to happen.”

I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anything that is so foolish. The report may be correct, but in reality, it could not be further from the way it should be. After the age 35, you have so much more wisdom and understanding to more fully tap into your own potential. So, what’s the problem?

The problem is this: By the age 35, a person has experienced more failures in their life than they have successes. Consequently, instead of letting those failures be learning and stepping stones to a brighter tomorrow, he/she has allowed those failures to stop them from moving forward. What a shame.

If this is you, you need a fresh outlook and a renewed vision. You need to stop listening to John Q. Average and start listening to those who will empower you. You need a fresh start.

How do you do this? Read the article I wrote back in May, 2014, https://ronjobe.wordpress.com/2014/05/27/a-fresh-start/. Learn how to take a “mulligan” and make a fresh start in your life.

Life has many challenges for everyone. The struggle is just to different degrees. One thing that I have found over the years is that people don’t believe they can do better and this is totally not true. You can do better. You can walk in better health, surround yourself with positive, confident people, and improve your finances through entrepreneurship.

Long after he had established himself as one of America’s leading businessmen, as well as history’s greatest steelmaker, Andrew Carnegie reflected that “We all live in the richest and freest country in the world, where no man is limited except by his own mental attitude and his own desires.” This is as true today as it was in his time.

The truth is you are not too old. Don’t fall for the lies being put out that things are so bad. They may be challenging for others but it doesn’t have to be that way for YOU. Don’t fall for the lie that there is not enough to go around, because there is.

It is not totally your fault that you may be having struggles and feel defeated. You see, you have been secretly programmed through the media that you can’t make it and that the American Dream no longer exists. Your belief system has be altered. You have been conditioned to give up on your dreams by the enemy of average thinking people.

If you change your thinking, your situation will seem to magically change.

I know this all sounds crazy but it is very true. If you study people that have achieved various degrees of success, all their stories are the same. THEY BELIEVED, even when no one else did. Even when they failed before, they still believed.

If you want to be an effective leader, you must first learn to lead yourself. Take control of your own destiny. Dare to dream again.

You don’t have to be poor and struggling, Just change your thinking and belief.

Leaders: Be of Good Courage

Have you ever shied away from a conversation, a meeting, or a party because you were lacking confidence? Have you missed a great opportunity to get your message out or promote your product because you were afraid to get in front of a group or approach a new prospect? Have you ever been reluctant to call on a prospect because you feared rejection? Have you settled for far less than you are capable of and deserved because you didn’t think you were worth it?

I can assure you I have experienced a lack of confidence in all these areas and more, and because of it, it has kept me from truly and authentically expressing myself, being who I really am, and from going after my dreams. We all struggle with fear from time to time, but we don’t have to. We can overcome the fear of rejection and lack of confidence.

There is the great news! We can learn how to overcome fear, become confident and courageous. I learned how to make major shifts in multiple areas of my thinking, habits, and life. This has allowed me to experience enormous levels of self-confidence and to also reap the benefits in my relationships, career, health, finances, dreams, and goals.

Confidence is very important to your success, and it can be learned. Unlike certain qualities like charisma or being good at a certain things, confidence is something that you can learn. You can take steps to grow and develop to where you feel completely confident. When you raise your confidence, it impacts every part of your life. It is a necessary skill of a leader.

One way to improve confidence is through adjusting your behavior, and this starts with adjusting your beliefs. You can learn to take your current undesired behaviors or habits and shift them from your old negative default habits to a new set of empowering positive habits.

In my book about how to say “yes” to your potential, (www.life-success-resources.com) I talk about the energizing power of beliefs. Once we believe in something, we tend to ignore counter examples and accept only those events that reinforce that belief. One way to change this is to start accepting new self-concepts and by speaking the positive words to reinforce them in our mind.

There is power in the tongue. Proverbs: 21:23 “Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity.” The tongue, according to how it is used, brings forth life or death. Our speech is the picture of the mind. How we think comes out in the words we say, and what we say produces consequences. Whether it is a kind, pure, and edifying conversation, we contribute to the health and life to ourselves and to others.

Many of us have spent a lifetime of believing our negative thoughts and developing crippling habits of using dis-empowering words. When we may have been rejected before, we set up a belief that we were not good enough, people reject us, or some other negative concept about ourselves. This became our belief. Because of that belief, it dictated our life.

To adjust this belief, you have to learn to shift your thoughts and use high energy words such as fascinated, inspired, in demand, anticipation, and curious instead of saying low energy words like stressed, frustrated, angry, and overwhelmed. Instead of thinking how you are overwhelmed, think that you are “in demand” and people want to meet you and gain wisdom and insight from you.

You are what you think. When you start thinking on good things, it begins to have a dramatic impact on your daily life.

“If you believe you can or believe you can’t, you’re right.” –Henry Ford

The past does not define your future. You can change. Your old belief system can be re-engineered. You can be that dynamic person you were created to be. But, you must leave the past behind and stop thinking the negative thoughts. You must allow yourself to change your beliefs by re-engineering your thought patterns and letting your words empower your mind. You can choose to continue to self-sabotage your success, or you can decide to change.

The first part of learning how to overcome fear is to become aware of your negative thoughts and the words you say. The second part is understanding that you must change those negative beliefs, and the third is having the tools and strategies to help you make the changes for good.

Leaders have a positive, powerful belief in themselves and in others.

The only disability in life is a bad attitude

How do you define the word disability?

“Disability – a physical or mental condition that limits a person’s movements, senses, or activities.” Taken literally, how many people do you think could apply this definition to an area or areas of their life?

Of those things we think of as a disability, in many cases do not have as much of a negative impact as you would think.

Scott Hamilton, a retired American figure skater and Olympic gold medalist, works on the committee of the Special Olympics, and as such he knows that the vast majority of the performers don’t want to be seen as being disabled. He also knows that many ‘disabled’ people lead happier, more fulfilled and more productive lives than people not given that label.

I have a friend in Ohio that has a son who was born with a down syndrome condition. I have never met a happier, more loving guy. He works, takes care of himself, and delights in bringing joy to others. He has an amazing attitude toward life, and for the majority of the time he never fails to put a smile on my face.

The real disability is how we view life and allow our attitudes dictate our performance.

Matthew Jeffers, a grown adult, is only 4’2″, and he’s endured a lot of heartbreak and obstacles in his young life.

But the email he wrote recently to his favorite team, the Baltimore Ravens, gives some incredible reasons why “The only disability in life is a bad attitude.”

Watch the video and then share it with your friends. –

Don’t Accept – Challenge Those Negative Feelings

All of us have days occasionally when we feel like stress and fear is overtaking us. We feel overwhelmed with problems. We feel like there is no escape and there is no end in sight. When we have one of those days, we have a choice to make; we can accept those negative feelings, or we can challenge them.

On days when everything seems to go wrong, if we don’t address those negative feelings, our mind begins to accept them as routine. Those feelings can become a pattern and ordinary for us, and those negative feelings begin to feed on each other. Soon, our mind goes into a downward spiral that is difficult to climb out of. When we have those kind of days, we have to challenge ourselves and get back into a positive frame of mind. To challenge those negative feelings we have to do something different.

I like what Kim Somers Egelsee, life coach, author, and speaker, tells us to do. She calls it the Five R’s to a great day.

1. REVIEW your day. Examine the things that went well. Think about what you are grateful for. Always end your day on a positive note.

2. REALIZE that you did your best. If there were things to improve on, now you know what they are. We all make mistakes or have things that just don’t go as planned. Take a few deep breaths and move on. We cannot always control everything that comes up in our lives.

3. RECOGNIZE that you are making a difference to others. Think about the ways you are able to help others and make a difference in the world. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves the value we bring to others. Even during those stressed filled times, we can be an example to those who are watching how we handle these times.

4. RECONCILE anything that you felt was negative and learn from it. What could you have done better or different? Identifying the problem, the challenge, the negative attitude, or whatever it was that brought on the negative. Half the battle is recognizing the problem. Now that you have identified the issue, reconcile it, adjust, problem solve and overcome it.

5. RELAX – Spend time breathing, go for a walk, or take a short period of time to ease any tensions. Make sure to take time out for yourself and do what makes you feel great. In this way you can be at your best. (Relaxation = Rejuvenation and Refueling) This helps to make you feel strong and reinvigorated. You actually can think clearer when you take the time to step back and take a break.

The Five R’s have helped me have breakthrough days and I know they will help you as well!