Cryin’ For Me

 

Ran across an article this morning that was a tribute to Former OU Basketball Great, Wayman Tisdale.  Toby Keith has written a tribute song and produced a video for the song.  After watching this and getting a little teary eyed, I found myself thinking about how people impact our lives.

Now Wayman was at OU when I was a teenage boy in high school.  I know it’s hard to believe that a teenage boy would be influenced by a college athlete, but hey, I didn’t realize it at the time.  I guess, I haven’t really realized it until this morning as I was watching this video.  I have heard lots of times that you really never know who is watching and that you should set an example everywhere, all the time.

Just watching the video and seeing Wayman’s infectious smile and listening to the words of the song made me start thinking about what would MY tribute song and video be like.  Would anyone really want to do a song and video?  The answers to these questions are still being written and I hope that they are many, many years away from being answered.

But they are questions that we all should consider as we go through life and remember that each time we interact with another person we are impacting that life in some way.  Do you want that impact to be positive or negative is the question.

Here is the link to the article and video Cryin' For Me, listen to the words of the song.

Enjoy and have a blessed day.

Book Review: “IT” by Craig Groeschel

 

What is IT?  How do I get IT?  What do I do if I’ve lost IT?  IT could be many things in many different circumstances.  In Craig’s book he tries to answer these questions and give you practical ideas on how to keep it or get it back if you lost IT.

Craig goes over seven things that he feels that are components of those with IT and those without IT.  These things are Vision, Focus, Camaraderie, Innovation, Willingness to fail, an Outward view and heart and lastly a Kingdom Mindedness.

This is the second book of Craig’s that I have read and both have been excellent reading.  I wasn’t sure about this book when I first started it but I quickly warmed up to it and finished the book in no time.  I found myself laughing at the first of the book listening to Craig’s funny stories, He can be very entertaining.  During the middle of the book, I began to think how this book could be used in my career as a Leadership book and then at the end of the book, I felt the urge to use it as a spark to grow more and more spiritually.

Craig took me through all of these thoughts and phases with a very easy to read and short book.  This is a “Soft” Leadership book as John C Maxwell would call it, but there are plenty of ideas that will help your career and leadership development.  I took one lesson about your local max and the big max and was able to relate that to my business.  I was also able to take things from this book that will help spiritually and with my family life as well.

This is a book that you can sit down, read and take a lot of ideas away from it, as well as, plenty of things to think about.  I would strongly recommend this book and have already encouraged others to read IT.

 

Blog Review: Obstacles Welcome

 

Obstacles – if you are breathing, you have either had or have them.  So the only question is how you will react to them.  In the book Obstacles Welcome by Ralph de la Vega, he uses his life examples to help lead us through ours.  Starting with his scary lonely trip from Cuba to Miami at the age of 10 to his current journey as President & CEO of AT&T Mobility, Ralph shares what he has learned and how he uses one obstacle to prepare him for future ones that come in his life.

I found this book page turning.  Learning leadership lessons while reading such an inspiring story, this is what America is about.  Ralph has proven that America is still the land of opportunity, all you have to do is be willing to work, keep a good attitude.  This is a book that I would read again to pull more leadership lessons from because this is someone who has been there and done that.  It has also inspired me to think differently about the obstacles that I am and will be facing, as I now find myself looking forward to those times.  They are chances for me to grow as a person and stretch out of my comfort zone.

Narrowing my area of focus.

 

Life has a way of getting in the way sometimes.  It’s been a while since I have posted anything to my blog.  It’s not that I don’t have things to say, it’s that I have been lazy and haven’t taken the time to write about things.  I think we all get this way at least on occasions for some people.

To help catch you up on what’s been going on, about 3 weeks ago, I went to KC to a conference for my business and since then I have been focusing on 3 things that I intend to change each day over the rest of Oct, Nov. and Dec.  I am going to share these with you now in order to add accountability for myself.  I invite you to check in with me to see how things are going.

The first area is to stop making excuses in my life.  During some soul searching over a 4 hour drive back from KC, I realized that I still make excuses for why I haven’t grown my business to where it should be.  I have been using the excuses, that “I’m too busy” and that “I didn’t have time”.  It’s not that I was too busy or didn’t have time, I just wasn’t focuses on the things that will grow my business and making them a priority.

The second focus is to at least one new personal contact each day.  Making a new friend and potential client each day will greatly increase me as a person and help my business.  As you know networking is something that we all need to do to grow ourselves and our business.

The final area of focus for me is to study every day and grow personally.  I recently read and article that talked about the 10,000 hour rule.  This rule says that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in whatever you are doing.  I admit that I haven’t done this everyday and by not doing so, I have lengthened the time it will take me to get my 10,000 hours.

Well those are my short term goals and areas of focus and what I have been doing the last couple of weeks.  By narrowing my focus to just three things, I can focus like a laser beam and make big changes in a short period of time, oh yeah, and it’s also easy to remember just three things instead of a laundry list of things.

Take care and God bless.

The great asset we spend

 

We’ve all heard it time and time again, “be careful how you spend your time.”, “time is money.”, “wasting time.”

We are constantly reminded that time is ticking and that we cannot get it back.  Time is our greatest asset and we should guard how we spend it.  As Franklin Covey says, we should put first things first.  But what does that really mean?  If you are like most people, you are too busy reacting to what is happening to actually be able to do the things that are important to you.  I know this is a trap that I have to constantly battle as well.

But what if you actually took a little time and decided what those first things actually were for you and then you planned for time when you could focus only on them?  Spending time with the kids.  Why not schedule one evening or afternoon a week and turn off the phone and TV and just go for a walk.  Quality time with the wife?  Get a sitter and go have dinner with her and just talk about plans for the family.

Now, I don’t pretend to know everyone’s first things but I will venture to bet that there is one area that we could all use help with.  That would be sitting down and planning out our future both professionally and financially.  Ask yourself, where do I want to be next year?  Five years?  Ten years?  What do I WANT to be doing then?  What will my life look like.

The truth is that successful people think about these things while most other people do not.  The value of the time you spend doing this will impact your future significantly.  You see, in order to reach these goals, you will have to improve yourself and by improving yourself, your time becomes more valuable.

But you need to spend some time up front deciding what you want that future to be like and what is your first things.  When you do this, you will be able to know if something falls into your plan of action and then you will not just be reacting all the time.  When you are not reacting to life you can then start living the life you want.  Isn’t that what we all want anyway?