Tag Archives: ideas

You are Capable

Posted in Contribution, Developing the Possibilities Mindset, Practicing Self Mastery by

mocha moments

We all need to be reminded that once we activate our creative power we can follow through on any plan, idea or purpose.

We need to stop the insane thinking that keeps us constantly looking for more information, wasting countless hours scouring the Internet. Like Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors “Feed me! Feed me! Feed me! Feed me, Seymour” – we have insatiable appetites – letting perfection haunt us. Not raising that next foot until we’re convinced it’s a sure thing. And it’s never a sure thing!

We spend time getting READY to work and talking about ALL the things we have to do without taking any action.

We plan but never follow though

We deliberately let things get ‘out of hand’ and single- handedly sabotage ourselves just to prove some point that we aren’t good enough, deserving of…or “this just wasn’t our time.”

Today I think you – yes YOU! You need to hear these words…simply that you’re capable. Forget all the other toxic beliefs that you might be harboring about yourself. Know that you’re capable and simply take the next logical – no scratch that – TAKE THE NEXT CRAZY STEP! You know the one I’m talking about – Go on…TAKE IT!

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Throw Open the Prison Door & Liberate the Captive!

Posted in Practicing Self Mastery by

mocha moments

Freedom is coming to a body near you! Could be today – it’s up to you!

It often starts with a spark – an idea – a BIG dream.

A day goes by…still excited

“This is good…this is going to be so frickin’ good” you say to yourself.

You smile.

And then you share the idea – you take the tiny seedling

And put it into the hands of someone who prefers the vast grey of concrete

To the rich possibilities of colorful ideas

With a quick fold of the hand your idea is strangled…not by its birth mother/father

But by a colleague, friend, supervisor, boss, co-worker, aunt, uncle, stranger

It doesn’t matter

See what you’ve done?

You’ve allowed someone else to take your power and grind it into nothing

But that is an illusion.

There’s more of that power inside of you

You just have to reach in, tap in, align with

And let it surge forth from captivity

Go on…

Do it.

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The Importance of Reading and Keeping Your Mind OPEN

Posted in Developing the Possibilities Mindset by

mocha moments

My cousin’s oldest daughter does not read anything except that which she must! She is 14. Knowing that I am an avid reader, on a recent trip Trinidad, my cousin asked me to have a chat with her about her dislike for reading. Now I learned long ago from Dale Carnegie – that a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still so my approach wasn’t to convince her to read but to share some of the benefits of reading: seeing how others strung words together, seeing different styles, increasing ones vocabulary, discovering new ways to use words you thought you knew.

Yesterday I came across a blog post by Jonathan Fields called How to Get Your Mojo Back and Do Big Things TODAY. He saved me a ton of work organizing my own thoughts about the steps that we all must take on this journey called life if we want to live our best and give our best. But it was the blog post WITHIN the blog post that had the biggest impact. Jonathan said:

Things like mission statements, painted pictures, perfect-day exercises, outcome visualizations, they can all help you understand where you’re going and what your personal metrics for success are.

But, when you’re in the part of any quest I call The Thrash, ,<—-(this is the post within the post :) ) you often don’t yet have a clear beat on your metrics for success. But you still need something to strive for. To measure. To know if you’re moving forward, backward or sideways.

This is the first time I’ve seen anywhere a description of what it feels like on this journey to greatness – where you keep pushing your boundaries, exorcising your fears and oftentimes not knowing what the F you’re doing!

In Jonathan’s words:

So, here’s the interesting thing about the early days of any visionary journey, there’s a whole lot of thrashing that goes on.

It needs to go on. But most visionaries don’t talk about that “dark” time. Because it’s not sexy. It doesn’t feel good or look good to others. Nor do the great creators tend to get any public attention until after the thrash yields a clear enough vision for them to become unwavering pulled toward a quest. The spotlight loves heroes and legends, not WTFs…

We feel bad when we’re in the thrash because all the luminaries we place on pedestals seem to have their stuff so together, seem to be so insanely focused on the one and only thing that matters. And dammit why can’t we be them? Thing is, those same people thrashed mightily before arriving in a place of mission. And they will again.

The thrash needs to happen. Hiding the conversation around this part of every visionary creator’s epic journey makes those currently in the thrash feel inadequate. You look at your heroes and assume “they never thrashed, so what’s wrong with me?”

Which is why READING is so important. We don’t know everything. I have been experiencing the THRASH yet did not have a name for it and of course thought that I was the only person with this experience. How wrong I was!

This is how we learn, how we unlearn, how we integrate new ideas, throw out things that no longer serve us – through the written word! Some may argue that you can just talk to people to find out what’s going on with them. That coaches and teachers will always give you the 411. I think that people tend to be a little more comfortable writing about the “dark” patches versus talking about it out loud. When you’re in a one and one – people want to project the BEST aspects of any situation and skim quickly over the murky, less palatable areas in summary sentences. Writing allows a person to explore in depth, so you get the REAL-ness of the situation.

My advice to my cousin’s daughter was to find books about things that were interesting to her and to get summaries for the less interesting but important topics. Experiment with her choices.

I agree that my way is not THE way but I certainly could not do the work I do without all the reading that I expose myself to. Instead of creating with just one or two  ideas, I have a surfeit thanks to the courage of those willing to organize and put words on paper and then of course share them through books, articles, and blog posts. Thank you all writers in the world!

Reading these books at the moment -

robert-greene-masterybroken-open-how-difficult-times-can-help-us-growshare

Too many *whatevers* spoil the broth

Posted in Practicing Self Mastery by

My favorite – Japanese Vegetable Nabe…

‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’ has been used in actual kitchens but also in everyday activities meaning too many persons involved in managing an activity can ruin it.

So can:

setting too many goals result in none being attained

focusing on paying off all your debts at once but not making a dent in any

generating tons of ideas for improving your business but not implementing one

discovering a ton load of affirmations but never using any  effectively

For the next thirty days why not set one goal, work on paying off one debt, implement one business idea, use one affirmation every day for the thirty day duration.

I’d love to hear how this works for you.

If you’ve been following my blog – by now you must realize that I write about what I need to learn the most. :) I’m going to be reducing the number of cooks across the board.

Will let you know if the quality of food improves in the next thirty days!

Vegetable Nabe from http://www.picasaweb.google.com

 

The Power isn’t in the Money…

Posted in Developing the Possibilities Mindset by

Radix Malorum est Cupiditas – The LOVE of money is the root of all evil.

Money doesn’t grow on trees

If I just had more money I would…

It’s sad that so much faith is put in money. We think about money ALL the time. Getting more. Getting by. Getting out of debt. Winning the Lotto. Getting an inheritance.

Everything’s gonna be alright once I have enough money!

Where’s the power though – in the money – or within each of us?

Having left my job since 1994 I have always been responsible for making money to support myself. There have been good times and very bad times but this is what I’ve learnt:

Whenever I focus purely on ‘the money’ I usually find getting work much harder. Whenever I focus on what value I can add to someone’s life or how I can really make a difference then the money flows.

Money really has no power. We all can create the money we need based on the what we can give – the value we bring to the table.

We must recognize and respect the ideas that we get: the thoughts of making a difference, the dreams that we dream of solutions to pressing problems and instead of thinking that we could only bring those ideas to fruition WITH money – let’s channel our energies in stoking the fire of our DESIRE to bring the ideas to  life. Let’s work on our belief that it’s possible and that we would not have been given the idea without the option of its possibility. It’s really up to us. Our thoughts and ideas are our money.

As Robert Collier said: “The secret of success lies in this: There is inside you a Seed of Life capable of drawing to you any element you need, to bring to fruition whatever of good you desire. But like all other seeds, its shell must be broken before the kernel inside can use its attractive power. And that shell is thicker, harder, than the shell of any seed on earth. Only one thing will break it – heat from WITHIN – a desire so strong, a determination so intense, that you cheerfully throw everything you have into the scale to win what you want. “

In other words we need to take good care of our ideas (our money).

Let’s not just dismiss our thoughts as impossible. Let’s put faith where faith needs to be put – internally – on nurturing and growing those idea seeds.

Kitten photo from www.annemariekessler.blogspot.com

No one can copy your mind…

Posted in Developing the Possibilities Mindset by

Business owners are usually so scared that someone will steal their ideas, to the point where they keep them locked up so tightly that their precious ideas never see the light of day.

My philosophy is that ideas are a dime a dozen.

Implementation and execution are the trump cards you’re looking for.

Always remember that no one can copy your mind -

  • how YOU think
  • how YOU process
  • how YOU relate one thing to the next

People who focus on stuff being stolen from them are filled with thoughts of scarcity.

There is enough to go around.

There is room for every person to give their idea a chance to grow.

Not all ideas will germinate, take root and flower. Some ideas will never catch on…but if you want a surefire way to failure – then keep on guarding your ideas

with Fort Knox intensity!

There will never be a better you than you

Posted in Developing the Possibilities Mindset by

Whenever I talk to a group, and ask this question “You do believe that everyone is born a genius right?” – regardless of age, they all answer “YES!” Yet despite this group consensus, when I look into their eyes they know that they are not playing full out. They know that they are not living their full potential. They know that they are not letting the world see their true genius.

It was Mr. Buffett (Warren) who once observed, “There will never be a better you than you.”

People may try to copy you – how you dress, how you speak, how you might present your ideas but no matter how hard they try they would NEVER be able to ‘DO YOU’ like YOU!

I love music and oftentimes I can turn what was meant to be a love song about someone else to be a song that I can dedicate to me.

The next time you feel that you’re not living up to the best you, the next time you feel discouraged because you don’t fit in, the next time you think that someone else is better than you are, the next time you are at your

remember this song by Donna Summer – and dedicate it to yourself – because no matter what…

THERE WILL ALWAYS BE A YOU!

Photo courtesy Now & Zen Photography @ freedigitalphotos.net

The one critical thing, that anyone working in the newspaper industry knows, that would make a success out of any business – guaranteed!

Posted in Uncategorized by

If you really want to understand how the human race behaves take a trip to the Emperor Valley Zoo and watch the chimps and monkeys for one week. First you’ll see them doing their thing but soon enough you’ll begin to recognize the many traits they share with us such as:

Being as lazy as possible – as much as possible.

I was once exceedingly lazy and to be honest, I don’t think the need to be lazy ever totally leaves your body. We talk quite often about wanting to laze around doing nothing all day or having a “lazy day”. The thing is, once I entered the world of newspapers my life changed forever. I picked up on the one tactic that changed my business view forever:

DEADLINES

In the newspaper industry: you just cannot be late. Missing a deadline means not being able to produce a daily paper on time, which means every single day of the week. You don’t have the luxury of skipping a day or asking for more time. Ads need to be placed by a certain time, or they don’t make the paper; specialty supplements take greater pains in planning especially if they are to accompany a daily paper as an insertion, usually days in advance.

Deadlines can be hateful little things to say the least but without them most projects go on and on, ad infinitum, with no end in sight. As inherently lazy creatures we need deadlines to be efficient.

In most businesses it’s acceptable to push back deadlines. So after all the money has been spent, paying the huge outside company to tell us what we already know (but didn’t have the time to conduct internally) and to suggest a certain course of action – we then play the deadline game – that of change – and quite never get around to doing ANYTHING!

Most books stay with the authors until their deaths as ideas are carried about and they ruminate on plots for years but never set a deadline for getting the chapters outlined, the chapters actually written and the book finally published.

Deadlines need to be a part of any business plan with no contingencies. Deadlines make promises realities. They form a full stop in this fantasy world of “tomorrow-land” that keeps us doing ballet (on our toes) and in line.

Committees are formed to “study” the problem, endless focus groups are created to “test” the problem, and reams of reports are written and shelved in an effort to “get at the problem.” All of this: BS!

The only way to attack a problem is to roll up your sleeves and get right to it. And please have a plan with a deadline for finishing it!

Yes…without a deadline, most newspapers would NEVER be produced so promise yourself to become a deadline setting monster and watch your business become successful at lightning speed.

What challenges have you had with getting things done? Would love to hear your comments!