Category Archives: Family

Faith, Family, Finances, Fitness, Following, Freedom, Friends, Fun

Visualize the Change you Want

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Reading Orrin Woodward’s latest book Resolved gave me a new insight into visualization and a different angle on how to use it to effectively change.  We have all heard of the power of visualization.  In Orrin’s book he goes deep into the power of not just visualization but connecting your ant ( conscience ) and your elephant ( sub – conscience ).  If you can figure out how to harness this power you can really accomplish anything.

Author Vince Poscente in The Ant and The Elephant, describes the difference between the conscious and the sub-conscious mind, teaching that the conscious mind in one second of thinking stimulates 2,000 neurons, while the sub-conscious mind in a second imaging stimulates four billion neurons.  That’s 4,000,000,000 neurons to 2,000 neurons ; literally two million times more neurons are stimulated in the sub-conscious than the conscious mind in a second of mental activity.  This is why you will hear every performer at the top of their game talking about using visualization as a powerful weapon to their success.  In “Resolved” Orrin gives 2 examples of this, olympic athletes and Will Smith, and how they used the power of it.

Most of us think about this elephant and mental picturing only from one angle.  That angle is to picture what we want.  Weather that is a material reward, helping some cause, paying off debt or eliminating a job.  I never thought about using this tool to change myself.  To change my attitude, how I react, what I say, or even how I think.  I was trying to do those things but I was using the ant method instead of the elephant method.  I would write down 3 things that I wanted to work on and change about myself.  I would put them on my mirror in my bathroom and my steering wheel so I could see them and read them regularly.  This process did work and it still works but now I have realized that using elephant method is a much more effective way of making the changes that I want to make.

I have tried my new technique and was shocked at how fast the change happened.  What I do now is write down what I want to change but I write down to visualize the change.  This is what I mean.  My first list of items I wanted to change was  smile, book a follow-up meeting, and don’t get defensive when I got questioned about my business.  Now what I would do is write a note to remind myself to visualize me smiling, visualize me booking the follow-up meeting and visualize how I would respond if someone did question me about my business.  Doing this is using the four billion instead of the two thousand and obviously would cause change quicker.

I have recently tried this on a new list of items I am working on and I have seen the change almost immediately! I didn’t believe it so I told my wife and she tried it on something she was working on.  She had the exact same result! Now this doesn’t mean that it is permanently programmed into our brain but the change happened that much faster.  Now we just have to continue doing the visualization to make the movie that we play, in our sub conscious mind,  a permanent movie. Hope this help

God Bless

Family

Fatherhood

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I would like to take a few moments and talk about a topic that the rest of our civilization very rarely talks about.  The subject is fatherhood.  Our society puts the majority of its emphasis on moms.  I don’t have any thing against motherhood or being a mom.  I have stayed home with kids for extended amounts of time and I have no idea how they handle what they handle.  With all that said there are more and more studies coming out about the vital role a father plays.  First I have a story and then some statistics.  The intention of this is just to get us to think about our role as dads. I grew up without one but I had a great family system around me and some great friends that kept me from becoming one of these statistics.

There were 2 sons who had a father.  And the father said to his 2 sons,” Boys, before I share any of my estate with you, I must go away for a while and build it so that one day it might actually be worth something.” When will you come home, Dad?”  the younger one said.  “I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then, son.”  So, not long after that, the father got together all he had and set of for a another city.

While he built great wealth, he wasted much of it on wild living.  After that there was a severe recession and so he worked even harder to regain what he had.  Every time he would get ahead something would happen and he would be put back again.  Abandoning his leadership at home for his own self-absorption far away, he became the modern day prodigal – the lost and wayward father.

Finally, in his desperation, after years of being away from his home and his 2 sons, the father came to his senses, and said, ” All of my work has been in vain; its meaningless.”  I have sinned against heaven and my boys.  So he got up and returned to his 2 sons who were now grown men.

He approached the younger of the 2 with his confession and said,” I would like to spend some time with you if you don’t mind,” but his son said,” I’d love to Dad, if I can find the time….lets talk soon.  With tears in his eyes the father realized the tragedy of his life.  “My boys have grown up to be just like me, my boys have grown up just like me.”

 

Statistics from the University of Pittsburg Office of Child Development, the future of children who grow up in fatherless homes.

63 % of all youth suicides

90 % of all homeless and runaway children

85% of children who exhibit behavior disorders

71% of all high school dropouts

75% of adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers

70 % of juveniles in state sponsored institutions

85 % of all youths in prison

 

We may not have left to go to another city, like in our story.  But we have left mentally through video games, bowling leagues and TV.  Let’s make sure we that we give our children what they need.  They need us.  They need us to help them, love them, discipline them but most of all, they need time.  Let’s make sure that we don’t let those statistics be the same with fathers that are in the home.  There is nothing wrong with having a career or having hobbies.  Just make sure that we are equally focused on raising the next generation of great men.

 

God Bless

 

Family, Following, Friends

The Most Forgotten Element of Success

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I have only been able to read a little information on this topic.  The reason why is, it seems most people don’t talk about it or at least they don’t package their writing around this subject.  There are 2 books that will help you, the Bible and a book by Deborah Norville.   The topic is respect.

The test had been announced in advance, which meant the students had the chance to study and come well prepared.  Test papers were handed out, and the college exam commenced.  The room was silent except for the scratching of pencils and the occasional tapping of a pencil as students tried to figure out an answer. Until the last question.  One by one, as students reached the end of the test, they read the final question with consternation.  Some grunted in disgust.  One student exclaimed, “Your kidding, right?”  Another asked,” Does the last question count toward our grade?” It had to be a joke.  “Yes it does,” replied the teacher, somewhat tersely.  When all the papers had been handed in, the professor finally explained.  The last question was,    ” What is the first name of the man who cleans our school?”  Virtually every student had been stumped.

 

The teacher’s point was as you go through life you will meet many people and all of them are important.  We go through life so hurried and in a rush that we fail to recognize people or even give them a nod, a glance, or dare I say a smile.  Every subtle acknowledgment of another human being puts a little deposit in their soul.  You have walked past someone at the gym or a store and if they give you  a head nod or a “hey,” for some reason it makes you feel better.  Every once in a while we go out to eat at these “fu-fu” restaurants.  The ones that have a water person, bread person, and then the waiter.  If we say hi to the water guy he almost doesn’t know what to say.    He will stutter a little…..”Hi”   back to us.                Dr Goldstein says,” You have to have a good self-image of yourself and if you don’t you disrespect yourself and others around you.”  So that means we need to work on ourselves the most and it will grow our respect for others automatically.

 

Some people are great with people they don’t interact with regularly but they aren’t so good with the people that they see on a regular basis.  I think this paragraph from Deborah Norville sums up how we should think about the people in our lives.

Respect requires empathy, the capacity to anticipate and understand the feelings of others.  It requires consideration.  It is letting the Golden Rule shape the way we interact.  It’s being mindful to see a situation from others perspective.  When respect is given it communicates to the recipient of the respect that he is valued and important.

If you go through your day and are so busy thinking about how someone treated you, what they said to you, what you thought they should have said to you, or they should have let you go first.  Then by default you are violating the point from Deborah’s paragraph.  If you are only thinking about yourself, it is impossible to anticipate or understand how someone else feels.  If you don’t understand that all humans are naturally selfish and sinful creatures, then you will have a hard time having empathy when some one does something stupid.

I have to admit that this is a pet peeve of mine.  Not that it makes it more important it just really annoys me when I see someone not even hold a door for the next person. Or cut their way in front of other people.  Every plane ride I take someone from 4 rows back tries to push their way to the front past all the other people standing in front of them.  AAAGGGGHHHHHH!  Those are the moments when my Saginaw side comes out and I just want to clock ’em in the head. But I believe that would violate everything I just wrote about 🙂

Let’s at least agree to try everyday to do the simple respectful things.  Hold doors, smile, say hi (they wont bite), let someone go in front of you,  shake hands,  pick up what that person dropped, help them lift that heavy bag, give your seat up for a woman, serve someone.  It’s not that hard.  I know we can do it.  Lets change the respect of our society one person at a time.

God Bless

 

Family, Following

Are You Attacking Goliath or Running Around Him In Circles?

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I’m sure everyone has heard the story of David and Goliath.  I Samuel 17 tells the story of a small shepherd boy who defied a giant and TOOK HIM DOWN.  The Philistine army and the Israelites were facing each other ready for battle.  They were positioned in a valley and had their backs to the steep slopes behind them.  The Philistine army had the advantage because they had a big whopper of a guy named Goliath who was over 9 feet tall.  The giant would come out everyday and taunt the Israeli army to come and fight.  This went on for 40 days.  Neither side would attack because it would put them at a disadvantage based on where the armies were positioned.  One day David comes to the battle field to check on his brothers.  He sees what this giant is doing and is outraged.  David  decides to go out and kill the giant with a slingshot and a bag of rocks.  David was not qualified to fight anyone, let alone a giant.  He was a teenager and not trained as a soldier but he had the most powerful weapon on his side,  FAITH.  He took his stones and slingshot, ran to the battle field and slew the giant Goliath.

The point I want to make is this.   Are you attacking the goliath’s in your life or are you cowering on the sidelines.  I am experienced on both sides.  It is not easy to face the goliath’s that we have in our lives but it is necessary for growth.  In leadership and life you are getting ripe or you are going rotten.  The second you stop facing goliath’s and growing from the experience you are beginning to rot.  It is even more of a tragedy if you have a mentor that can help you defeat goliath but you still choose to run circles.  My mentors Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady have helped me immensely with conquering and with calling me out when I am running circles.  Do you give your mentor that freedom?

 

Lets look at a couple of key teaching points about this process.  The first one is, David killed the giant with a stone.  Not a bazooka, M-1 tank, or a cannon.  A simple little stone that was lying on the ground.  I have found that conquering personnel goliath’s is very similar.  It may seem like you need a bunch a fancy things and be trained in special ops techniques but it doesn’t.  It is a bunch of small process and thought changes that lead to the big victory over your goliath.  So don’t be afraid that you have to make some radical changes that you wont be able to maintain or implement.

 

The second point is did you notice that the story said David immediately questioned what was going on and then he ran into battle.  Does this sound like someone who was worried about what others thought about him.  NO, I am assuming that it didn’t even cross his mind. One of the biggest factors in people not attacking their goliath’s is, they don’t want to look bad.  Well let me help you clear something up.  If you are using a mentor by definition they are going to be helping you identify weak ares and come up with a plan to fix them.  They are not there to judge you they are there to help you see the areas you can’t see.  They are also going to give you a different way of thinking about your situation.

 

The last one is simply that David had total faith that he would destroy Goliath.  When you start the mentoring process you need to have total faith that you will overcome your goliaths.  Once you conquer one goliath you start to feel like you can take down any of them.  This process is not fun or easy but it is necessary.  I wish you the best of luck in attacking your goliaths and becoming one of the rare people in this world.  The person who won’t run from Goliath but will face it head on.

God Bless

Family, Orrin Woodward Team

Marriage communication – why is it so difficult for us ?

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Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult for humans to communicate.  Is it just me or do humans seem like they are talking all the time.  If you could follow the average person around per day and count how many words or how long they talk you would be amazed.  We all have a family member or a friend that we wish would shut it up, once in a while.  If you have kids, WOW,  just watch them.  It is amazing to see how they can go from one subject to another, to another, to another and yes to another and they don’t wear out!  I had a couple ,that we were in business with, and they had some marriage issues.  We took them to see a mentor to get some help.  Hint – if you go to see someone who can help you, you should probably listen!   This guy talked for an hour and a half straight!  I mean he did not come up for air one time.  He must have had an extra air tank hidden in his stomach lining or his kidney.  I am convinced that the strongest muscle in the human body is the jaw bone.  Now I must qualify all my statements with the knowledge that I don’t speak very much at all.  As a matter of fact I could go days without talking and be perfectly fine.  OK let’s get to why I started all of this.

Last night me and the Mrs. had to have a talk about something that happened between us.   It wasn’t fun but it was very productive and we have a better understanding of how each of us sees the issue.  Oh, guys, this talk didn’t happen after laying in bed for  3 hours feeling the tension, then finally falling asleep, and then hearing those words that all males loves to hear.  “Can we talk”?  AAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!   That is how all our talks used to start.  They also used to be championship fights of: who could protect their turf, call the best names, make the other person feel the worst, and throw in some belittling and  disrespect.  The crazy part was we never consciously thought about trying to do those things.  We didn’t start our talk and have the thought,  I cant wait to make her or him feel like garbage.  Actually, we were both trying to get to same end point but we had lots of obstacles in our way that made the conversations more difficult than they should be.  If you get rid of the obstacles then it becomes easy to have a conversation like we did last night.

The key foundation of any relationship has to be established on moral authority and speed of trust.  When you don’t have that, every conversation will go bad.  When you do have it every conversation will have the potential of going well.  There are obviously other unique things, to us individually, that we need to work on as well.  Last nights conversation was one of working together as a team to problem solve something.  Which is what you are when you are in a marriage.  You are 2 different people, different personalities, different weakness’ and strengths but you are a team, you are one.  At the beginning of our marriage we were two people living together and we defiantly didn’t think of it as being one person.    In the beginning I didn’t have moral authority because there were some blatant sins that I needed to deal with.  Until those were solidified our foundation would have been on sand and all other changes in myself wouldn’t have the same impact.  Then I had to start dealing with my selfish nature.  Instead of looking at everything from my angle and how it affected me.  I had to understand that she had an angle also and try to see from her side.  Initially we couldn’t have that kind of communication face to face.  We would go to different parts of the house to cool off and call each other on our cell phone.  Stupid, I know, but it worked for us.  Then we started to build trust with each other and that allowed us to admit areas that we knew we were weak in.  I had to learn that when she was weak, crying or sad that was not the time to get mad but that was the time to comfort her and let her know that we would overcome this challenge.  It seems like it was more complicated than that but it wasn’t.  We just kept doing that process over and over again.  Lots of times we had to have our mentors involved so they could help us see where our thinking was off.  In the beginning we changed just because we were more worried about letting our mentors down then changing for each other. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that this was a quick or easy process.  It  has taken us 5 to 7 years to get to a really solid foundation.

Lets go through some basic thoughts to get  you moving in the right direction.  Side note – these don’t have to be big huge jumps or changes.  Every big success is a bunch of small success put together.  Forgot where I got that one so it is now a Bill Lewis original.   Most of what I am going to recommend revolves around reading.  Confucius says, ” By three methods we may learn wisdom:  first, by reflection, which is noblest: second by imitation, which is the easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.  Reading allows you to reflect on yourself.

1. You have to start working on yourself – if you have moral flaws or trust issues  with yourself then growing with another flawed person is going to be really hard.  Recommended books: How to win friends and influence people,  What to say when you talk to yourself, Speed of trust,  Bringing out the best in people, Leadership and self-deception, The pursuit of holiness.                                                                                             These should help start to identify things about yourself that we need to work on.

2. Love language – find out how your partner wants them to be filled, not how you think they want them filled.  Start doing some small things. Recommended book – 5 love languages.

3. Start to understand how each other process things.  Recommended book – DNA of relationships, love and respect, 5 languages of apology, personality plus.

4. Learn better communication tools.  Recommended books – crucial conversation, courage.

5. Use a mentor.  You need someone who is unemotionally involved and has results that you want

6. Read the bible.  Every issue we have in marriage communication reverts back to some sin we have in our life.

There is so much that goes into this topic that you could devote an entire blog just to this subject.  So I recommend that you seek out as much information as you can and continue to grow and become better.

God Bless