Zig (1926-2012)

My friend Zig Ziglar passed away today.  Even though I never knew him personally, I always considered him a friend because I felt I knew him through his books and tapes, listening and learning about a better way to live.  I saw him for the first time in person when I was 22 years old.  Even though I had already listened to a few motivational speakers, I had never seen or heard anyone like him before or since.  Over the years I've read and listened to many of his quotes, and I wanted to post a few that resonated with me then, and still do today.  

• "Of course motivation is not permanent. But then, neither is bathing; but it is something you should do on a regular basis.'
• “There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.”  
• “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” 
• “Failure is an event not a person” 
• “Attitude, not aptitude, determines altitude.” 
• “A narrow mind and a fat head invariably come on the same person.” 
• “Optimists are those who go after Moby Dick in a row boat with a bucket of tarter sauce.” 
• “Don’t become a wandering generality. Be a meaningful specific.” 
• “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” 
• “it's not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.” 
• “If you can dream it, then you can achieve it."
• "You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” 
• "There has never been a statue erected to honor a critic.
• “If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.”
• “A goal properly set is halfway reached.”

As I sat there that first time, it struck me that he obviously knew something I didn't, and at the end of his talk he shared what was different: his faith in Jesus Christ and how important it was to him.  It triggered a response within me to begin exploring what (rather, Who) he was so passionate about, which I discovered for myself a short time later.   

I'm glad he had the guts to share it...

Well done, good and faithful servant...

John

Go out and make it a great day!

Poke Us To Focus

One of my challenges is organization...

It's mainly trying to figure out what to do each day. I usually have a general idea of what needs to be done, but then I would squirrel.

Squirrel - that's something I learned from my dog, who would be focused on one thing and then then....SQUIRREL!

I'm not crazy about squirreling...it just creeps up on me and then...SQUIRREL!

Computers are great for squirreling. You turn on the screen at 8:00 a.m., sneeze, and then it's for lunch!

I'm no different. It's easy for me to get focused on one thing, and then get on my squirrel pursuit.

To give you an example of my battle between me and the squirrel, one morning, I needed to connect with administrators in the Manteca (CA) school district:

Me (thinking): I need to find out the number for Manteca's school district." (google, google). Manteca - hee hee - that's Spanish for lard...I used to eat it all the time in the tortillas my grandmother made for me.
Squirrel: What kind of lard did she use? (google, google)
Me:  Let's see...there is a picture of a lard container. I remember that! Armour Lard...I remember using that stuff! God bless my abuelita and her tortillas! Sigh, good times....
Squirrel: Armour...isn't that the first name of the guy who invented baking soda? (google, google)
Me:  No it's Arm and Hammer. That stuff works pretty good in my refrigerator...I guess.
Squirrel: Okay, so the baking soda is named after the guy, not the lard...(google, google)
Me: No, that's Armand Hammer. He was a rich guy. 
Squirrel:  So, what did he own? (google, google) 
Me:  Occidental Petroleum. 
Squirrel:  I thought Occidental was a college. (google, google)
Me:  I was right...it is!  I had a friend years ago who used to wear a shirt that had the letters O-X-Y on it.  
Squirrel: Where the heck is OXY? (google, google)
Me: Southern California....hey, their website says "oxy.edu."  That's cool. Hey, if I was a student there, I'd call it "Accidental College." Ha ha. I'm so funny.

Then it was dark outside.  Day over.  

So, I'm learning that mastering time, along with myself, is work, but it doesn't have to be a chore. Here is how I'm learning in 30 minutes a day.

1. I set aside 10 minutes to plan my day. I don't turn on my computer, but I do grab my coffee (very high priority) and I sit down with a notepad. I then review what I already have planned, and add to it what I feel will make my day successful. I sort them out, from the hardest and/or highest priority items to be done toward the beginning of the day, before even checking email, Facebook, Twitter, et cetera, and then working the list by order of priority. Since I need to use email, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, I have to specifically make note of what productive thing I'm going to do while on my social networking media, rather than find out what kind of sushi Mildred posted while on her trip to Hawaii.

2. Every hour I refocus for a quick minute - how am I doing? I manage my day one hour at a time. That comes out to 8 minutes throughout the day.

3. At the end of the day I take another 10 minutes - to review and see how I did, and make note where I was most productive and most distracted and to make a preliminary plan for the next day.
Okay, so it's 28 minutes...but you get the point.

The power of a routine is it's inevitability. By doing the same thing in the same way over and over again, the outcome of a routine is inevitable as well. By choosing to focus with purpose and constantly remind myself of my being focused, I will remain focused.

By the way...did you know that there's an actor named Armie Hammer? Sigh...that just popped into my head....darn squirrel...(google,google)

Have a great day!

John

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Donkey Haughty

There is a saying in Spanish:  

"La cabra siempre tira al monte."  

It means that "the goat always heads for the mountains."

We are victims of our habits. Just like that goat who heads for the mountains when it's out of its comfort zone, the weak-minded man knows in his mind that he "knows" where he belongs and will always head "home" to where he believes he will be safest.  

The same rule can apply to donkeys.  

When my dad was about 7 years of age, he traveled from Texas to a small town in Mexico with his family.  There, he met his grandfather (my great-grandfather) for the first time. While there, he took my dad for a ride in a wagon, pulled by a donkey. It was a good mode of transportation, but the donkey had one bad habit: It didn't like to go anywhere. It was happy in its corral - eating, sleeping, and doing what donkeys do when they're not pushed to go anywhere. 

Fortunately, my great-grandfather was always able to get the donkey to move, but he had to motivate it by using a switch on its backside. After a couple of swats, the donkey would give in and begin its march away from home, much to its disdain. So, away they went, traveling down the dusty road, with my great-grandfather enjoying the rare company of his 7-year-old grandson, in a wagon pulled by a bummed-out donkey, which only was motivated by a whip instead of a dangling carrot.  

After reaching their destination and taking care of business there, the time came to turn the cart around and point the donkey toward home. Once realizing that he was pointed home, the donkey suddenly became energized and took off happily down the road, trotting, without a need for a switch and not needing any incentive, including carrots.  The donkey realized that it was finally able to go home, back to its corral, to once again eat, sleep, and do what it is that donkeys do.

Sometimes it's pain that motivates us to move out of our comfort zone instead of the potential of financial or physical reward.  

I can relate to that donkey.

Due to a back injury sustained last year, and working out of the home for the past few months, I developed a habit of staying up late and getting up late. It was getting to the point where I was just so unproductive, and decided to do something different. I started to change my routine and get up early in the morning (4:45 am) to hit the swimming pool at the gym and swim my laps, which is what I'm limited to right now. Getting up was horrible. It hurt. Once I got there, the water felt great, but afterward I had to drink a ton of coffee, and then I was suffering from sleep-deprivation and the shakes and couldn't fall asleep! Someone told me I looked like I could audition for one of those zombie apocalypse movies.  

Now, at this point in time, I wish I can say right at this moment that I overcame the sleep deprivation issue, but no. It's a process that I'm going to have to push through until I'm used to it.  

What the mountain was to the goat, and what the corral to the donkey, my bed was to me.  

So what I'm working on is focusing on my early morning thought process and focusing on remaining positive, consistently and persistently. A positive attitude is the foundation for achieving my definite purpose in life, which is being fit and successful in inspiring others. Yes, I will be challenged with circumstances out of my control, and what will get me through these tough times will be the choices I make regarding the way I handle it.  

With God's help, I'll make it. Robert Schuller always said that tough times never last but tough people do. I'll push on, with my conscious thoughts acting as the whip to push me forward.  

Our bad habits will cause us to return to the place where we're most comfortable. Unless we use our own version of a "switch" to prod us along in our personal development, we will take off trotting back toward the bad habits that keep us from moving forward. We will be the slave of bad habits until we make a conscious and sincere effort to replace them with good ones!

Have a great day!

John

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Six Things

Six things I'm grateful for today:

1.  I woke up.

2.  God loves me.

3.  My family loves me, and I love them more than anything.

4.  I live in a great country.

5.  I have great friends.

6.  Joy and success are just a decision away. 

If you're having a bummer day, and having trouble finding something to be grateful for, just stop and take a minute...take a deep breath...and start counting...

Have a great day!

John

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Appreciate the Small Blessings!

Last week, when the election results were in and President Obama was re-elected, there was an unbelievable amount of negative posting on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, saying how this country was going downhill, that people were going to be destitute, that people were voting for free stuff, the death of a nation, et cetera. Judging by the voting numbers, I can confidently say the same thing would have happened by supporters of the president, had Mitt Romney won. While I may been happy with some election results and disappointed with some defeats this election (it's not all about the president - but local and state issues as well), I have learned over my lifetime that no one party in power has made a difference in my way of living. While the last four years were the most difficult that I can recall, life still went on. I made adjustments. However, I spent a lot of time wallowing in the problems and how they affected me, rather than take the more proactive approach, which was being grateful for what I did have. This enabled me to get out of the funk that was holding me back, and allowed me to become more focused on the positive, which is what I'm doing now!

That being said, this is the time of the year where we take the time to appreciate the blessings in our lives, big or small! Unfortunately, the holidays are a time where millions of people suffer their greatest periods of depression, something I can absolutely relate to. One of the greatest things that I've learned through my challenges is that gratitude gets me through a lot of difficult times and allows me to move from a destructive frame of mind to a creative and constructive frame of mind. If you struggle with depression or thoughts of negativity, take about ten minutes a day (or a few times a day as you are able - the TV can wait) to begin to activate your gratitude by acknowledging ten things to be thankful for. If you have difficult coming up with ten things, here are ten things for which we can all be appreciative:

• If you have relationship with God, you are blessed! (This is my personal belief and the most important to me). If not, be happy to know that God is very real and loves you and wants to have a relationship with you!    
• If you have friends and family, consider yourself blessed. 
• If you live in the United States or Canada, there are nineteen other people who live in other parts of the world. 
• If you have a job in these economic times, consider yourself blessed. If you’re underemployed or without a job, but are managing to make it in spite of your situation, consider yourself blessed that you’re not going under for now. It'll get better. This I know from experience! 
• If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes in your closet and a roof over your head, you are better off than 75 percent of the world’s population. 
• If you eat three meals a day, you are far better off than the one billion people on the planet who eat once a day at most. 
• If you have utilities that work regularly, such as clean water and dependable power, you are fortunate. 
• If you have a car that allows you to run errands or go to work, look at the guy at the bus stop sitting there when it's hot or cold. If you're the guy on the bus stop, be thankful that you have access to transportation or perhaps friends that can give you a lift in a pinch. 
• If you're healthy, you are indeed blessed! If you're not, are you able to do something about it? If you're able to exercise for weight or back problems, or if you can treat your ailments without having to go to the doctor, such as taking ibuprofen and aspirin, you have what would be a luxury in other parts of the world. Did you know that if you don't have insurance, there are ways to see a doctor for low cost or get medications for less than what people pay with their copays? 
• Are you able to read this? If so, that means that you have a computer and internet access to stay in touch with the world, or have access to education, or even perform work for which you are paid. This is a big one for me! 

If you can celebrate these simple blessings, it'll be easy to think of ten more things to be thankful for!

John

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