YOUR STRATEGIC PERSONAL PLAN

Scott and Joni in Maui

A Formula for Change—the Personal Strategic Plan
You would not dream of building anything of importance without some idea of what you wanted, would you?

The drawing or sketch you would create is called the blueprint. No matter how rough the Plan is, it will let your mind see what you want.

Your mind can then go to work developing the final plan that will get the project started. This is the only way the picture can become a reality.

Remember, a house is built one brick or board at a time. Your life is built the same way. If you don’t have a blueprint for erecting your project, just constructing at random, your building will never become anything more than a disarray of brick and wood. This would be disastrous for you, don’t you agree?

How many people do you know that live lives that look like that?

It is a fact that only 5% of the people in the greatest country in the world wind up their working days and retire financially able to take care of themselves. 95% of the people in the U.S. did not plan their lives; they merely accept what is given to them.

The final product for many plans is most often better than the first draft. This is because the vast greatest power of the mind pulls in all the facts and improves upon them. The part of the mind that does this is called the subconscious. It is, without a doubt, the greatest creation of the face of the earth. Not only is it the thing that separates man from animal, it is foundational to our creativity.

Have you ever gotten anything you really wanted? Of course you have! As a child you wanted things. You dreamed of your first Red Rider, bicycle, or Barbie doll, and behold, you got it! As you grew older, came a desire for a dress or a certain model of car. Up to that point, you dreamed it once and received a lot of things. Think about that.

Leaving a Legacy in Business

LEAVING YOUR BUSINESS LEGACY IN 5 EASY STEPS— 

There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what   happened.

-   Mary Kay Ash

What will they say at your memorial? What would you want them to say?
THAT will be your legacy and it will be too late to start working on your life of significance at your memorial. You can begin TODAY to      work toward a “Business and life legacy” and really make a positive difference!
How do you leave a legacy of positive business leadership? Who doesn’t want to leave a positive legacy? Leadership and legacy means    being PROACTIVE…Take the lead and be the instigator!

Think about your personal leadership… See life as a chance to identify your purpose, position, passion, and posture and then begin to live as though your life makes a real difference—because it does! Living a life aware of leaving a business legacy can help you be more intentional and show your quality.

TRUE STORY
I worked for Ron Pileggi for 20 years at the local Tri City Weekly and he exemplified a business leader who left an awesome business and life legacy. Ron always made life about RELATIONSHIPS. He modeled how to really care about and serve others with his staff, customers, community and in his industry.
Staff- Ron modeled “servant-leadership” in that he really helped his staff wherever possible. He showed a boss who was involved on a personal level and really loved his staff by showing it in his actions.
Customers—Ron went the extra mile to really serve and meet needs of his customers. He even would give it away if it meant helping a fellow businessperson get back on their marketing feet.
Community-Ron was an example of a guy trying to make a positive difference in our community. Whether it was serving in Rotary, helping various non-profits, or just showing up at events, Ron was present and a servant of all.
Industry—As an industry pioneer and leader, Ron shared expertise in the Free Paper Industry of America freely. Not only was his publication multiple award winning over years, he gladly shared his trade success secrets with fellow entrepreneurs.

Ron left an amazing legacy across the board—Staff, Customers, Community and Industry. He intentionally modeled ‘servant-leadership” in the roles he served.

Here are 5 Easy “Knows” to a Great Life and Business Legacy:

1. Know Legacy–Understand and Know what a Legacy is–Begin to study what a legacy is and how we are all leaving behind something” in our lives we will be remembered for. Study the lives of those who you know have made a positive difference in their world.

2. Know Thyself–Begin to look at your life and what you are leaving behind and what you are now known for. What is it that people remember about you and your life? Be honest! Ask safe people who will give it to you straight and without apology. It is about what others know about you vs. how you perceive yourself. You may be really surprised …

3. Know Thy Legacy–Pick and focus on one aspect of your life that yields positive results and influences others in a significant way–Find your message, media, and platform and go to work leaving behind something meaningful to others. Live your life of significance with intention.

4. Know Thy Audience–Who listens when you talk? Who picks up when you “throw down”? Who are your peeps and those who love you? These are the ones ripe for receiving your legacy message.

5. Know Thy Media–Begin to find and understand your most comfortable platform and medium for delivering your legacy message. This can be written, spoken, crafted, or lived out loud in some way. Most folks begin with some writing or speaking—the written and spoken word has tons of possibility when leaving your life of significance. Blogging, public speaking, or writing your book all have potential for great legacy tools. All legacy begins with being a good communicator—be one!

It is time for us to get busy and become more intentional about leaving behind a life of business legacy and living with and on purpose. Each of us has a limited number of days on Earth (Grandpa Tom says, “No one gets out of here alive!”) and we need to be purposeful in how we live. Know legacy, yourself, your own legacy, your platform and your audience and you will begin to make a positive difference and leave an awesome legacy!

Life and business will have more meaning and so will you! Start living your legacy today—we’ll be glad you did.

10 Tips for Family Life

10 Tips For Quality Family Life

Parents and their children are spending less time interacting with each other. As a result, many children are getting less personal love and attention than their parents did. American Demographics reported that parents today spend roughly 40 percent less time with their children than did parents a generation ago. To help families stay connected, below is a list of helpful family time tips. Keep in mind, quantity and quality time is important when choosing activities. So build memories around exciting events by keeping your family time creative and enjoyable. Print out the following tips as daily reminders.
1. Eat together & listen to each other. Most children today don’t know the meaning of a family dinnertime. Yet the communication and unity built during this setting is integral to a healthy family life. Sharing a meal together allows the opportunity to talk about each other’s lives. This is a time for parents to listen, as well as to give advice and encouragement. Attentive listening conveys a message that a person is really interested in another. It also imparts a sense of worth and helps develop trust. Therefore, listening is a critical link in successful parenting.
2. Read often. It’s important for parents to read to their children. The latest research indicates that reading to your children cultivates an interest for knowledge and stimulates language development. It also increases their attention spans and helps them become more curious. Look for books that your child would enjoy reading. After reading, ask questions about the content.
3. Do chores together. Part of what goes on in the home is the development of teamwork. Functional family life depends on the contribution of everyone. Assigning chores is the most productive way of teaching responsibility and accountability to your children. Doing chores with your child will help foster good communication skills.
4. Help with schoolwork. A great way to spend quality time with children and light a fire of learning is to help children with their schoolwork. A parent’s eagerness to help will cause a child to become more interested in school thus improving his or her grades. Regular trips to the library for school projects are an inexpensive and enjoyable way to spend time with children. Helping should begin with an understanding that children are responsible for homework. Parents are there to help their child get organized and to encourage them when they get stuck.
5. Start a hobby or project. Choose a fun activity that your child is interested in. Activities like cooking, crafts, fishing, or biking will make great hobbies that can open the door to exciting family time. Once a child learns a new recipe or is able to cast a lure accurately, let him or her take the lead with your supervision.
6. Play games. New technology has made video games more prevalent. As a result, many children are spending long hours in front of the TV playing computer programs. Parents should find creative ways to spark an interest in family-oriented contests such as board games or card games. This will give parents additional time to talk and nurture their relationship.
7. Plan a family outing. Sometimes getting out of the house is important. Hop in the family car and go for a drive. Prepare a picnic lunch and visit a local park. Take time to play catch or ride a bike. A stroll in the woods will help parents interact with their children. Also, a visit to the zoo or museum will spark a child’s enthusiasm and lead to lengthy discussions.
8. Encourage athletic activities. It is vital for children to exercise. Sports not only strengthen the body, but also build character and determination. Whether it’s a father pitching a baseball to a son or a mother and daughter nature walking, finding time for athletic events is important for a child’s emotional and physical development. This is a great opportunity for a family to interact.
9. Create a Family Time calendar. Since many parents have hectic schedules, time with children often becomes a low priority, whether intended or not. Post a calendar on the refrigerator and have parents and children pencil in special events. Knowing when you’re going to meet may also help you think of creative activities. Commit to keeping this schedule free from interruptions.
10. Pray together & attend a house of worship. Nothing is more special than taking a few minutes each day to pray with a child before bedtime. By explaining the purpose behind prayer, children will learn the importance of faith as the foundation for the family. Also, when parents go to religious services, they instill in their children a reverence for God. Churches can also offer invaluable support to families.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Hey, gotta minute?

We all possess valuable resources, but none is trickier or more valuable than time. Managing your time is THE key skill set in managing your life. Show what you do with your time and you show what your value system is all about. When leveraging time you will utilize and expand on core strength. If you can manage your time well you can accomplish almost anything. Using time incrementally, methodically, and strategically will help you stay on track and achieve your life priorities.

Personal productivity is only as limited as your proper use of time. Wise use of time maximizes and leverages all resources and helps you achieve your goals, objectives, and priorities. Good time management allows you to plan ahead and to use your purpose and passion with laser focus—nothing becomes impossible. Your productivity, as you leverage your passion through good time management, increases exponentially resulting in compelling accomplishment.

“Plan your work, then work your plan” is a great axiom. The “work your plan” part has to do with time management. Planning is great, but is useless without execution. Time management is all about the execution of your plans, goals, passions, and objectives.

Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Do you value life? Then waste no time, for that is the stuff of which life is made.” The value of anything that you obtain or accomplish can be determined by how much of your time, or your life, that you spent to acquire it.

The amount of yourself that you use up in achieving the goals that are important to you is a critical factor to consider, even before you begin. Only by discovering your innate strengths and developing and exploiting them to their highest degree can you utilize yourself to get the greatest amount of satisfaction and enjoyment from everything you do.

Deciding what you want to do, what you can do well, and what can give you the highest rewards for your efforts is the starting point in getting the best out of yourself.

Show me how much you love your family by how much time you give them. Show me a dad who loves his family and I’ll show you a guy who plans and spends time with them.
Personal Time Management

The definition of Time management: is a set of skills, tools, and systems that work together to help you get more value out of your time and leverage it to accomplish what you want.

The 3 Overlapping Life Passions = Opportunity

Your Strengths, Your Passions, & Your Money Making Opportunities

Where these three areas overlap is where you’ll find your best success opportunities. Envision these three areas as concentric circles overlapping. You will find it is the overlap area that has compelling possibility.  You can leverage this discovery to create optimal motivation, success, and possibility…

Some people struggle with right position related to what they desire to accomplish from a personal point of view.  Sometimes, people are still trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up… therefore, you might consider developing a personal vision statement in narrative form describing the issues that are a high priority in your life.

Developing a personal vision statement is a great way to begin clarifying what is important to you.  When you know about what is important to you it’s easier to prioritize daily activities.

Everyone’s personal vision statement should be unique.  This is not an exact science.  Develop a draft statement quickly.  Then read a statement and see if it sounds good to you.  If it does, consider it a good first draft.  Keep improving your vision statement, over time.  Approach this task as if you’re making soup.  Have fun and enjoy the benefits of a clear life vision.

Stress and You

Stress and How You Can Deal With it

Salesman’s Prayer

Prayer From The Greatest Salesman In The World … by Og Mandino

Oh creator of all things, help me. For this day I go out into the world naked and alone, and without your hand to guide me I will wander far from the path which leads to success and happiness.

I ask not for gold or garments or even opportunities equal to my abilities; instead, guide me so that I may acquire ability equal to my opportunities.

You have taught the lion and the eagle how to hunt and prosper with teeth and claw. Teach me how to hunt with words and prosper with love so that I may be a lion among men and an eagle in the market place.

Help me to remain humble through obstacles and failures; yet hide not from mine eyes the prize that will come with victory.

Assign me tasks to which others have failed, yet guide me to pluck the seeds of success from their failures. Confront me with fears that will temper my spirit; yet endow me with courage to laugh at my misgivings.

Spare me sufficient days to reach my goals; yet help me to live this day as though it be my last.

Guide me in my words that they may bear fruit; yet silence me from gossip that none be maligned.

Discipline me in the habit of trying and trying and trying again; yet show me the way to make use of the law of averages. Favor me with alertness to recognize opportunity; yet endow me with patience which will concentrate my strength.

Bathe me in good habits that the bad ones may drown; yet grant me compassion for the weaknesses in others. Suffer me to know that all things shall pass; yet help me to count my blessings of today.

Expose me to hate so it not be a stranger; yet fill my cup with love to turn strangers into friends.

But all these things only if thy will. I am a small and a lonely grape clutching the vine yet thou hast made me different from all the others. Verily, there must be a special place for me. Guide me. Show me the way.

Let me become all you planned for me when my seed was planted and selected by you to sprout in the vineyard of the world.

Help this humble salesman.

Guide me, God.

Goal-setting for the Every Day Person

Why Goals?

Why set goals? Why document priorities? Why plan your life? Why live life on purpose?

Setting smart goals offers focus and efficiency of effort. Goal setting offers a father the opportunity to live their life with passion and do what’s most important to them.  These key purposes offer a life lived on purpose.

Putting your passion on paper and discovering what your true desires are, committing to these things in the form of goals, is a vehicle to achievement and accomplishment. When you truly discover your passions and desires and are willing to write out cogent outcomes in the form of smart goals you are on your way to living a life with purpose and fulfillment.

What Is The Purpose Of Goals?  For one thing, goals concentrate and give focus to our personal energy. When we get the goal setting process right, they do this very well. By defining what we want to do and then set reasonable time limits in which to get things done, goals bring out the best in us. With focused, concentrated goals and reasonable plans to achieve them, we will behave very much like a laser beam. Focused goals, like the light of a laser, can excite and motivate a wide variety of spectacular tasks and follow-through behaviors of all kinds for us.
Goals need to be smart, specific, time driven, challenging, written, and achievable. Vague and hazy goals are not goals at all. Goals must be specific, periodically reviewed, shared with others, and flexible. It’s okay to change your goals and rearrange priorities on the fly. Flexibility is a hallmark of good goal setting. Priorities change-people change-situations change-circumstances change… and so should your goals. Our focus changes as our lives change. It’s okay to change your goals.
The power of the mind, coupled with sustained effort, brainpower, focus, and hard work and diligence create an unstoppable force in achievement and overcoming obstacles. Bringing visions to reality requires the ability to dream dreams, see the big picture vision, and then determine to realize the dreams. Goal setting as a life practice and purpose driven priority planning is a great means to fulfill and leverage your gifts and talents and to live your life and purpose.
You must do the work. You must do the planning and preplanning, execution and review. In order for goal achievement and accomplishment to take place, you must do the work. There is no free lunch in goal achievement. There are no shortcuts. There are no ways to cheat the system. You must do the work.
You must be incremental, methodical, and sequential. This will require faithfulness day to day perhaps for years-but it will be worth it when you achieve what you truly set out to do. Doing something incrementally for 30 minutes a day is far more compelling than the periodic spasms we often have which lead to inconsistent effort and therefore inconsistent results.
Faithfulness in goal setting fuels passion and accomplishment. You must set out to be faithful, diligent, and methodical even when—or especially when—you don’t feel like it. To work on your goals daily, despite feelings of the contrary, is necessary to achievement of goals and therefore a life with purpose. To fulfill your goals, you must be faithful, to be incremental. It takes a diligent faithfulness and loyalty to the mission to go forward on a daily basis in the face of obstacles and challenges, to press onward towards your life goals and accomplishments.
Goal Tools you can use include:  Write down your goals on paper. –They need to be specific, measurable, aligned, realistic, and timely. Accountability–you must be accountable in order to be successful. Inspiration–you need something larger than yourself to motivate you toward your goals.
One way to get started in your passion plan is to take a retreat, a passion retreat. Take some time away to relax, reflect, and experience renewal. Write and keep a log and record your discoveries.

2010 Best of Zen Habits Post written by Leo Babauta.

Borders Book Signing Saturday 12-3pm 12/18/10–Please Come!

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