Tag Archives: orrin woodward life business

Talent, Luck or Work Ethic

Year after year we see people on television, read about them in magazines or hear others talking about a person that has become incredibly successful.  Within one minute of someone saying the successful persons name, someone else will say, “Man they are lucky.”  or they might add, “I wish I had the talent to do that.”  At some very deep level they are correct in their statement but mostly they are incorrect.  Success has very little to do with talent or luck.  To the casual observer of success they would say that I don’t know what I am talking about.  To anyone who has ever really tasted success before, they would say that I am hitting the nail on the head.

 

I grew up in Saginaw, Michigan.  Not much else to say about that except its nickname is Sag-nasty.  That should give you a good idea of what the mindset of the community was.  You could go to almost any basketball court in the summer and find a group of five guys that could beat every high school basketball team in Saginaw.  If talent and luck are the key factors, then how is this possible?  Was every kid on street courts unlucky or did they create their own circumstances by not putting in the work.  In this case it could have been school work that kept them off the team but any way you look at it, it comes down to work ethic.  Sometimes, I wish this wasn’t true because it would make for a very valuable excuse.  Fortunately, there have been many books written on the subject that debunk the talent myth.

The first step to moving toward success is to realize that the idea that you have to have talent to be great at something is a myth.  We naturally move towards something if we show a little bit of talent but we also will quickly pull away if someone is better or we experience a few setbacks.  In the books Talent is Overrated and Outliers,  both authors prove that this is exactly what we are talking about, a myth.  The first example is called the Hamburg Crucible.  We see the Beatles as being this overnight sensation that were so gifted and talented.  Well, that’s not exactly the story.  The Beatles were just like every other band; they were struggling.  Until they were invited to come and play in Hamburg.  They performed in Hamburg on five different occasions between 1960 and 1962.  They performed live, for 270 nights, around eight hours a day,  in less than a year and a half.  By the time of their first success in 1964 they had performed over 1,200 live performances.  This is more then most bands will do in their entire career.  The long hours of playing forced them to learn new ways of playing and gave them time to experiment with different genres of music.  All of this compiled into one of the greatest lucktalent stories in history.  Of course, I am kidding.  It was sheer work ethic that created this amazing band.  The second example comes from a Hungarian couple that lived in the Ukraine.  Laslzo and Klara had three daughters and for some reason decided to try and turn them into chess champions.  Neither of the couple had any talent in playing chess but they decided they could learn and work.  The three daughters were homeschooled and the schooling consisted largely of chess instruction.  The family accumulated over ten thousand chess books.  The three girls competed for their country and two of the girls were named grand masters.  That is a pretty amazing feat for someone that showed no chess playing ability at all.

The other critical factor that these two books spoke of was deliberate practice.  Deliberate practice is different then work ethic because it is focused.  It means focusing on getting better at a specific skill instead of just practicing.  They would measure how well they were progressing and when they felt good about the skill they would move to the next skill they needed to master.  My mentor Orrin Woodward calls this P.D.C.A. or plan, do, check and adjust.  I am a golfer and amateur golfers are famous for just going to hit some balls.  Well, practicing the bad habits you already have can actually make you worse.  It has to be something specific that you can measure and see if you are improving.  Talent is Overrated did a study of 250 music students.  All of them had around the same skill level.  They watched them for some years to see what made the top notch students the best.  There were only 2 things that made a difference.  Work ethic and deliberate practice.

 

If we can stop saying we are not talented enough or lucky enough and just go outwork everyone, then we will one day be able to taste the sweet victory of success.

Bill Lewis

The Life Business – Freedom Day

The Life Business has done it again!  BreAnne and Kevin Hafner are free!

Last week, myself and my wife had the privilege and honor to attend BreAnne’s last day of work.  There were around 50 people that made it out to, Chelsea Retirement Community,  to watch Bre walk out of that facility for the last time.  It was a chilly day but the excitement of watching someone get there time back was to enticing to miss.  The group had freedom signs, Life signs, and cameras as they gathered around the door that Bre would be walking out of.  At  3:05 she emerged from the building and the crowd erupted with applause.  Her husband Kevin was one of the first to great her as she made her way towards all her teammates.  Her support team was also there to help celebrate. The Hatchers, Tingley, Coon, Ewing, Powers all played a part in making this freedom day happen.  One of the memorable parts of the day was as Bre and Kevin were getting into the car, to drive away for the last time.  Someone pointed up.  As we looked up there was a huge picture frame window on the second floor that had about 25 faces smashed against the glass watching the event unfold.  Many of those faces were people that told Bre that this day would never happen or that she was crazy for thinking that SHE could accomplish something so great.  What they don’t know is that BreAnne and Kevin have guts! They are fighters and are willing to pay the price for freedom.  They also don’t know that Bre is backed by one of the greatest people development systems of all time.  You see when I first meet Bre I didn’t even know that I met her.  She was one of the shyest most quite people that I have met in 15 years of building The LIfe Business.  Now Kevin & Bre are turing themselves into world class leaders. Free from a job at 29 years old!   People of integrity expected to be believed and when they are not, they let time prove them right.

 

Everyone has it in them to earn their freedom.  The question is are you going to cultivate it?   Are you going to stay plugged into the entire process, like Bre & Kevin did?  Are you going to NOT be swayed by the opinions of others, who don’t have the results you want anyways?  Are you going to allow your teammates to help you?   Will you continue to take the next step even when you don’t feel like it?  When you get knocked down will you get back up?  Will you read, listen and associate?  Everyone can do that and we can’t wait to celebrate your day,  with YOU.

Go earn your freedom.

Bill Lewis

 

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The Life Business by Orrin Woodward

Had to repost this article.  Orrin does a great job of giving you insight into The Life Business.  I know what he is saying is true because I have witnessed most of this journey.  If it wasn’t for Orrin and Laurie and what they have done, my family would not be able to live the life we always wanted.  I cannot thank them enough for what they have done except to continue to pay it forward.

Bill lewis

The Story of the LIFE Business

Posted by Orrin Woodward on March 17, 2013

LIFE Business Story

The LIFE Business is an ongoing story. Each person who joins the LIFE community chooses which part, whether large or small, he or she will play. What happens when a world-renowned best-selling author is introduced to LIFE and begins studying the history of this movement? The short answer is a compelling story of hopes, dreams, struggles, failures, perseverance, and finally victory. Thankfully, he has decided to write up the story of LIFE. In my opinion, it is great timing because never before has a LeaderShift been more needed than now. Indeed, this is exactly what the LIFE community intends to do – create a leadershift! Here is a portion of the introduction in his upcoming book about LIFE. What part will you play in the story?

Sincerely

Orrin Woodward

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LIFE Business Major Convention

 

LIFE Business Introduction

The fate of free enterprise is very much in doubt. By the first decade of the 21st Century, critics of free enterprise and modern democratic freedom had convinced many people that free enterprise is an outdated system, one that cares more about corporate profits than economic opportunity for everyone.

This problem was the result of a split between two approaches to free enterprise, the traditional type of freedom based on the cooperation of idealists and realists to share profits so everyone has the chance to succeed financially, versus a more cutthroat corporatist emphasis on what we might call “Skeptical Pragmatism,” or doing whatever is deemed most profitable regardless of who it hurts, and keeping most of the profits for a few elites.

In the midst of this growing divide, it was perhaps inevitable that new companies would arise to challenge the shift toward corporatism, and to once again champion traditional free enterprise. It is against this backdrop that the story of the LIFE business began.

It is a story set in a business world created by the likes of Jack Welch, Sam Walton, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. I will state my almost preposterous thesis here and now, as controversial as it may seem: Had history developed just slightly differently, the other names on this list would be those who created and expanded network marketing.

Indeed, network marketing should have been as big as WalMart. It would have been, except too many people at the top asked themselves, “Why would we only take a 10% profit when we could take 30%?”

The story of the LIFE business is the exact opposite. The top leaders asked, “Why would we take 30% of the profit when we could earn 10% and pass the rest to others in the business?”

Why would anyone do this? Did they miss the memo? Did they skip the unofficial lessons of many prestigious business schools?

Did they misunderstand capitalism? Or were they just less experienced, ambitious or visionary than their competitors on Wall Street?

This is the story of a company that dared to do it differently, to apply Sam Walton-like thinking to network marketing. Moreover, instead of soap, health drinks or other typical network marketing products, this is the story of a company that chose to build its central product line around the most American of exports—leadership.

This is not a story of perfect men or women, or a feel-good tale of continual success without major difficulties. Far from it. This is a story of men and women, ordinary individuals who faced extraordinary challenges with hard work, resilience, and, above all, persistence.

It is a story of people who believed in an idea, and who refused to let it go—even when it almost cost them everything. It is a story of a few men and women who would not bend to the “normal” business trends that created elitism and corporatism in the modern economy. Some may say it is a story of courage, while others might argue that more “sophisticated” businessmen wouldn’t have so stubbornly held to their ideals and risked it all.

But whatever else it is, this is a story about families, friendships, and principles. In a way, it would more naturally fit into the storylines of past centuries, where leaders were expected to stand up, stand out, take on the establishment and blaze new trails based on firmly-held beliefs. In our modern world of political correctness, group therapy, management by committee, and the drive to “fit in” and pursue popularity at all costs, the concept of standing up against the system because “it’s the right thing to do” may seem amusingly archaic to some people.

Yet that is exactly how LIFE came about. This is the story of a leader, indeed of a team of leaders, who set out to build a widespread community of leaders. And while such a story may feel anachronistic in the 21st Century, it may just be the type of story that will redeem this generation.

Could it be that the “success bias” of our modern world is desperately in need of what Stephen Covey called “the character ethic?” Do we live in a world where the most important leadership principle is a desperately-needed acknowledgement that character counts? If so, the story of the LIFE business is a story for our times.

It is a story unfinished, however. The more time I spent interviewing the main characters, researching and studying the events, documents and details of this story, the more I felt that writing this story was like writing about Sam Walton in the 1960s, before WalMart was a worldwide phenomenon. While the future of LIFE remains to be seen, the unique beginning of this business is a story worth telling in its own right. To paraphrase Santayana, the future remains in the future, and the best we can do is learn (hopefully) from the past.

Whatever your business or career, your level of education or status in society, the story of the LIFE business is a case study of what can happen when an ancient set of leadership principles (based on idealism, frugality, hard work and integrity) are applied in a modern business environment dominated by pragmatism. Every modern leader struggles with this very challenge, and this story is therefore deeply relevant for today’s leaders in every sector and field.

Orrin Woodward – The Life Business

The Life Business: First Year Results – Life Leadership

In November of 2012, Life Leadership  completed its first year of operation. I wanted to wait a few months to post because I knew additional feedback would come in. To say we got off to a good start would be an understatement. We had a fantastic first year! Just like anything else in life, there were many challenges and changes along the path of the first year, but we have an amazing group of founders that are leading the charge. What’s unique about the LIFE business is the founders are also the leaders in the field. They are actually teaching what they know from first-hand experience.

 

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First Year Results:

1. The LIFE business surpassed a 100% increase in subscriptions of the LIFE and LLR Series in under one year of business.

2. The LIFE business launched the Mental Fitness Challenge and sold thousands of 90-day challenges throughout North America.

3. The LIFE business paid out over $1,800,000 in end-of-year bonuses and free trips its first year.

4. The LIFE business paid out over 70% bonuses on its product volume points in its first year of business.

5. Rob Hallstrand, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of TEAM and a LIFE founder, coordinated operations for both companies, and combined sales blew past $50,000,000 (with LIFE leading the charge) from the Flint, Michigan, based office.

6. Team training produced its best operating margins ever (of which 100% of profits flowed back to field trainers) as Mr. Hallstrand continued his dramatic turnaround of Team operations. In fact, employee cost-per-profit-dollar has decreased over six times in his three years as COO, leading to increased bonuses for field trainers and office staff—a truly stunning performance.

7. Customers composed nearly 20% of total LIFE business subscriptions in the first year. Considering new members have six months to learn how to develop customers, this number will only grow as members complete training. What other community building business hits 20% customer subscriptions in its first year?

8. The LIFE business launched the Edge Series for youth and has added thousands of satisfied families in LIFE’s first year.

9. The AGO Series donates 100% of its profits to charities.

10. We added the 3 for Free Program to help develop a strong customer base.

11. The One-Time Cash Awards were increased.

 

The Life Business / Life Leadership: What Is It?

All people will be called upon to lead at some point (and usually at several points) in their lives. The only question is: Will they be ready?

The life business launched with the purpose of providing world-class leadership materials to business executives, entrepreneurs, corporate climbers, pastors, church leaders, administrators, community service leaders, public servants, teachers, parents, and all those who will find themselves in the position to lead. When it gets right down to it, leadership is for everyone. Nobody will be able to make it through life without needing to draw upon the toolbox of leadership skills. Sadly, many people lack these tools and therefore get to live with the consequences of being ill-equipped. These consequences include missed opportunities, unfulfilled career aspirations, financial woes, and broken relationships.

LIFE is for those who earnestly seek a better life, are interested in the strenuous process of personal growth, are driven to succeed in significant ways, and are committed to a life of excellence for a higher purpose.

Our Point of View: You can live the life you’ve always wanted. We believe it requires correct information applied with discipline, consistency, and purpose over time and the support and encouragement of a community of people aligned in a common purpose.

Our Purpose: LIFE seeks to provide the information, encouragement, opportunity, and community necessary to individuals who are hungry to live a life that counts!

We don’t know what we don’t know, and we’ve forgotten some of what we did know. But we know what we didn’t used to know, and we’ll help you learn it, too!

 The Life Business / Life Leadership: What Are Others Saying?

To me, the best way to learn about something is to talk to the people that are involved. Please click the link I have attached below to hear personal testimonies from people who have used the LIFE materials.

The Life Business testimonials : Life Leadership

Bill Lewis

 

Be Encouraging by Removing Your Layers

IT is quit amazing that one of the smallest parts of the body, the tongue, can have such a powerful impact on us and others.  The number of Proverbs and statements about the tongue are vast.

  • Death and life are in the power of the tongue  (Prov. 18:21)
  •  A soothing tongue is the tree of life  (Prov. 12:25)
  • The tongue is mightier then the sword ( ok I know its,pen, but the pen just writes what the tongue would have said )

Even though the tongue physically speaks the words it is the heart that creates the words before they are spoken.  Luke 6 :45  “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.   Since it is the heart that produces the words we use and the way we use them then we really need to solve the heart issues to become a true encourager to others.  You see what happens is we are living our life and words are spoken to us and about us.  Those words have a great effect on our view of ourselves.  We will start to build up protective layers around the fear in our heart that we are trying to protect.  As we speak, our words are affected by those layers.  When we build up enough layers we begin to speak from the layers instead off from our core self.  This can lead to creating blind spots.  These blind spots are areas that we don’t even recognize as causing issues in our life.

Let me give you a personal example of how layers affect your life.  My mom and dad were divorced when I was eight years old.  Not having a father figure produced some protective layers that I did not recognize until my 40’s.  Not having a father or any other male role model created a fear of  acceptance in me.  Now to protect that fear, I built up a layer of toughness and anger.  I was always noticing people that I thought were looking at me funny, reacting because of what I did ( lets use driving on the highway  🙂 or talking about me.  All of these were rooted in my fear of male acceptance.  I know this is true because one of my friends had the same issue and we were always looking for a fight.  One of my other friends didn’t have this fear ( layers )  and always thought me and my other friend were crazy.  By the way, he did have a great relationship with his father.  I think the layers we create are manifested based on our personality traits.  Choleric, melancholy, phlegmatic, sanguine.  The choleric’s layers become aggressive or angry; the melancholy becomes sarcastic or introverted; the phlegmatic becomes stubborn or recluse;  the sanguine becomes goofy or unaware of whats going on around them.  These are just some of the layers I have witnessed but there can be many more.  As these layers develop we start to hear everything filtered through those layers and speak from those layers.  Both situations will make it more difficult to build great relationships with people.  You have all experienced these conversations.  You say something to someone and there reply back to you has nothing to do with what you just said.  Now you have layers also and so you reply back with something that has nothing to do with what that person says.   Example, I was getting physical therapy and had to lay there and witness a half hour conversation about NOTHING! I thought I was going to go nuts.  Started off with ” My husband took me to that new restaurant” “Did you hear there is a food poison break out”  “My son was sick two weeks ago” “I think I’m going to train for a race.” “I just don’t like working out” both ladies were going back and forth and never acknowledged once what the other person said.  That was when I started praying that God would seal their lips shut.  God didn’t answer that prayer so I was forced to endure.  You see the problem with speaking from layers is that it means we aren’t really hearing the other person we are trying to achieve a desire of our own.

A desire may be defined as something wanted that cannot  be obtained without the cooperation of another person.  It is an objective for which a person can assume no responsibility, because it is beyond their control.  Reaching a desire must never become the motivating purpose behind behavior, because then a person is assuming responsibility for something he cannot fullfill on his own.  Encouragement by Dr. Larry Crabb and Dr. Dan alexander

 

Think about it for a minute.  The person that is best to talk to is probably the person in your life that has the fewest fears that they are trying to protect.  The less fears they have the less layers they have.   They can hear what you are saying, without filtering it through layers, and when they speak they are speaking from their core, not their layers.  When people speak from their layers their words seem like they are coated with the film of the desire they are trying to fulfill.  Some speak trying to make you feel worse about yourself so they can feel better, some speak in a way that they are fishing for compliments,  others speak in tones that imply to leave them alone, some speak in a way to try to convince you they know what they are talking about.  The list goes on and on but when you hit that person that doesn’t have layers it is like a breath of fresh air.  So how do we fix this.

The real key to fixing this is to eliminate the fears.  Once you eliminate the fear the layers go with it.  A lot of people try to fix these layers with technique or skill.  They will read books on how to improve their people skills but the core fear is still there and so their protective layers just change to a different type of protective layer.  Reading and self analysis can work but very few people are skilled enough to identify their own fears and layers.  The best way to identify and change them is by mentoring with someone who can help you see what you cant see.  I have been very blessed to have two mentors  (Orrin woodward – Life founder and Chris Brady – Life founder) that have helped me eliminate some of mine.  Once you have done this process you are now able to help others identify their fears, grow, and become better.  I wish you the best of luck on this very important subject.

God Bless

Bill Lewis

 

Life Business is Officially Launched

The -Team.biz  and the-Life -business.com, Lead by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady officially launched today!  It has been a very interesting journey to get to this point but it has been totally worth it.  Any leader that has ever accomplished something, they know that the journey to do something great, will have obstacles and goliath’s in your way.  ( read this with a Rocky accent ) Life is not about if and when you are going to get knocked down it’s about how hard can you get hit, get back up and move forward.  Probably the best Rocky line of all time.

The Life business is going to be a great model to help someone succeed.  The model that I started with was very different from what we have today.  But even as good as it is and even though we have tried to make it as simple as possible it does not guarantee success.  Someone can join this business and sign up for the subscriptions and not listen to them.  They will not help if they are not listened to.  Someone can listen to the cd’s and not implement what they are hearing on the cd’s.  Listening will help but taking the information and applying it will do the best.  This business is great because the door is open to anyone that wants a chance but the business cannot make someone take or do  the right steps that make the model work.  I can… guarantee that the leaders I work with will do every thing they can humanly do to help you.  Notice that I said human.  Not robot. Not a perfect person.  A human, someone who wants to help but at some point will make a mistake, will say something with a wrong tone, will forget to do something they said they were going to do.  I should probably stop telling you the things I have done 🙂 We all are human and this business succeeds with humans so something is going to go wrong.

The flip side to everything that I said is someone will get involved and not build the business but listen to the marriage pack, implement the ideas, and save their marriage.  Someone will get started and listen to the finance pack, get mentored and they will be out of debt.  Someone will get involved and not do anything for years except keep growing themselves and then one day start to explode their business and become one of the success stories.  Like a Dan and Lisa Hawkins.

I wish everyone that got involved would do what a Dan and Lisa Hawkins did, with their Life business, but we are human and we let many things sway our emotions.  The Life model will give people one of the best chances they have had for success and the worst case scenario is they will hear some great information.  Opportunity does not guarantee you success it guarantees you an opportunity.  People still come to united States ( at least for now) because they know they will have a shot.  They don’t expect easy they expect an opportunity to strive and see how hard they can get hit and keep on moving.

God Bless

How do we maintain freedom?

Orin Woodward, Chris Brady and the founders of the-Life-business have just finished their launch and it was a huge success.  There was so much recognition that anyone attending could not deny that this business model is working.  I would personally like to say congratulations to Chris and Daneae Mattis for joining the policy counsel ranks.  They have joined a very unique group that has dedicated their life to serving others.

I want to try to explain a topic that our guest speaker Oliver DeMille covered with the leadership group.  I know I will not do it justice but you can read his thoughts in his book Freedom Shift.  The diagram I am going to be referencing is what Oliver called, “speaking Anglo saxon”.  I believe what he meant was that speaking “Anglo-Saxon” is in essence understanding the ideas and thoughts that our founding fathers had in arranging the structure for the new America.  He asked us to diagram the governmental structure.  We thought we had the answer.

3 Branches pictureThen Oliver said, ” That is a good start but there is more.”  We thought we had him when we added the same 3 branches of the state government.  He drew a box underneath the federal and the state levels of government and he had us stumped.  He stated that the box underneath the federal and state governments was something that the Team was already doing.  When the founders wrote the constitution, part of everyday life was a community council.  Meaning that every community or town had a council that would legislate, execute and make judicial decisions that would govern that town or community.  We all nodded our heads in agreement starting to understanding what he was sharing with us.  Then he said that’s not it.  Even with the town and communities layer he said there is something else that was a given in those days and crucial for our system of government to work.   He drew 7 circles above the state and federal layer and said these are essential to keep every area in a true checks and balance system and are above in importance then the federal and state government.  Blasphemy, I know!   They are government, business, church, family, education, media, community.   If you just have family running things, that is called the mafia.  If you only have government, that is called communism.  If you only have the church, that was called the dark ages.  They are all important and equal or at least should be.  As soon as the family can’t decide how to discipline their kids and the government starts to tell you how, then you have begun to slide down the slippery slope of lost freedoms.

The most important issue that Oliver raised was that if you don’t have the top layer and the bottom  layer working then it doesn’t matter what happens in the federal and state layer, it will not work.  Have you ever wondered why no matter who is in office or which party runs the house and senate it seems that things always end up just about the same. Or I should say, they continue to get worse.   Well, as Oliver stated, “You now know how to speak Anglo-Saxon”. At least my attempt to teach you.  The business I am associated with and my mentor Orrin Woodward believe very strongly in educating people on these concepts.

GOD Bless

2 Days until the launch of www.the-life-business.com

We are approaching the launch of LIFE founded by Orrin Woodward and Chris Brady.   This has been a long and laborious journey to get to this point but I am sure everyone would agree that every step has been worth it. In Columbus, Ohio we are about to do something that has never been done before. We truly have a chance to be a part of history. How many chances or opportunities come along where you get to be part of a historical event. We are merging 4 different industries. Self improvement, life coaching, network marketing, and community building into one and in the process we will do something that blesses the millions of people who decide to join with us.

When these type of events happen it is always interesting to watch and see how people make decisions about their future. Most people tend to look at their immediate future and make decisions that will have a major impact on their long term future. We have financial issues, stress of life, time issues, babysitter issues, other people’s opinions ( who aren’t financially free ) and many others. I will save you the excuses of football, sick pets and party excuses that I have heard in the past. This weekend is designed to radically change your future. You’ll be able to hear from the 7 founders of LIFE and many other leaders that have achieved big success in the past few months. You will get all the information about the LIFE business, the web site, the pay plan and how to move forward with this information. You will also have a fantastic time because you will be with your team mates and in a very positive environment. The odd part about this is that very few people think about the future but instead think about what is happening NOW. I understand that there are powerful emotions that sway the way we think and how we feel. With that said, that doesn’t mean that we should let emotions or feelings be the only deciding factor for our future. If we let emotions and feeling determine the steps of our lives we would be a mess. I would have run many drivers off of the road, given away my kids and ate every piece of meat at Texas de Brazil. Kidding of corse, but Steven Covey talked in his best-selling book – The Seven Habits of Highly Affective People, about habit 2 and habit 3 which are, begin with the end in mind and put first things first. Robert Kiyosaki states there are 3 keys to wealth. Delayed gratification, the power of duplication, long-term thinking. We have 2 multi millionaires, that have helped many people achieve wealth, and they both say to think about the future not right now. Yet we still find it hard to make the right decision. Is it because this event is not mandatory but requires us to think through and analyze if we should or should not go? This is where the feelings and emotions that I listed above kick in and the big one – do I think this is going to work for me.

All I am saying is please don’t let the emotions and feelings of the immediate keep you from making a decision that can change your life or cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in the future. If we had to work this weekend we wouldn’t even give it a second thought whether we should go to work. Well maybe one or two thoughts but we would still go. If we had a chance to go to a concert or sporting event we would “figure out a way”. If something broke in the house and needed to be fixed, we would “Figure out a way”. If there was something a commercial convinced us we had to have we would quickly justify why we should spend the money to get it. As a country and as individuals we have sadly let the immediate control our future. That is exactly why we are in the position we are currently in.

God Bless and cant wait to see history this weekend.

Marriage communication – why is it so difficult for us ?

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