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Following, Orrin Woodward Life Business

Dreams and Goals: Are You Moving Toward Them or Away?

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Goals: That one simple word holds so much power. Yet very few people really use it, truly understand it, or harness the power of it. It is amazing how my life transformed after I was exposed to the power of goals. When I joined the LIFE business, my eyes were opened to how goals could help me pursue my dreams. If dreams are the destination, then goals are the path to get you to your dreams. If you only have a dream, it may take you a very long time to get to your dream, or worse, you may never get there at all. Goals are what keep you focused, moving forward, and out of the ditches of lost dreams. Let’s take a look at what The Magic of Thinking Big teaches about goals:

A goal is an objective, a purpose. A goal is more than a dream; it’s a dream being acted upon. A goal is more than a hazy “Oh, I wish I could.” A goal is a clear “This is what I’m working toward.” Nothing happens, no forward steps are taken until a goal is established. Without goals individuals just wander through life. They stumble along, never knowing where they are going, so they never get anywhere.

Let’s start with the big picture first and then work backwards. How do you picture your future? What does your family look like? How do you act ? What does your relationship with your spouse look like? How is your faith? What business do you own? What kind of house are you living in? Do you have multiple houses? What kind of cars do you drive? What do you look like physically? Are you funding any charities? When you do this part, you should write it out and keep the paper somewhere visible. This will serve as your overall life template.

This is the time to really try and stretch your dreams. One of my mentors Chris Brady says, “Most people way overestimate what they can do in one year and drastically underestimate what they can accomplish in ten years.” Another way of putting it is that you should almost laugh at what you put down because it seems so improbable at this moment in time. Won’t it be fun to go back to this list and discover that you accomplished everything on it? You will think to yourself, “I should have dreamed bigger!” Once you have the dreams written out, you can start to set goals to help accomplish the tasks. You may not even know what goals to write down yet, but that may lead to your first goal: find a mentor that can guide you to these dreams. One thing I have learned about successful people is that they are dying to help others accomplish their goals. The people who will give you the hardest time about achieving your dreams are the ones that have achieved the fewest themselves. Any successful person you talk to will give you all the advice he can because he has already achieved that goal himself.

For the next step, you need to realize that your brain wont just say, “It’s a great day; we are going to accomplish something.”  No, your brain will immediately begin to tell you all the reasons why you can’t make these dreams and goals happen.  Here are six success stealers that you must figure out a way to eliminate:

  1. Self-depreciation: I can’t do it. I’m not good with people. I don’t have enough money. I don’t have enough time. I’m not that kind of person.
  2. Security-itis: Things aren’t that bad. Our relationship is okay. I really don’t need that house. I don’t want to risk my security.
  3. Competition: That field is already overcrowded.
  4. Family pressure: I should listen to what family members think is safe for me.
  5. Family responsibility: I should have done this a couple of years ago, but now I have too much family responsibility.
  6. Dream stealers: These are the people that haven’t accomplished their dreams and want you to be safe instead of pursuing yours.

 So how do you set goals? You just established the big picture of what you want. You know what the end destination looks like. Now you have to start mapping out how you are going to get there. There will be road blocks, accidents, and flat tires along the way, but that doesn’t change the end destination; it just changes how you are going to get there. You can’t set a ridiculous goal that you know you won’t put in the work to accomplish, but you also don’t want it to be so small that it requires no effort.

With all that said, I would venture to say that most people are not in the habit of setting goals, so start with this: In whatever area you are looking at, determine what you could for sure do. Examples: Read a page a day, listen to one CD per day, eat 100 fewer calories per day, run for five minutes every day, etc. Once you have that established, add a little bit to it: Read two pages per day, listen to two CDs each day, eat 150 fewer calories per day, run for eight minutes every day, etc. Another factor that affects your goals is how fast you want to accomplish them.  Bestselling author and leader Tim Marks says you need to know: “What and by when?”

This is what The Magic of Thinking Big says about why goals are so important:

 Successful people have their eyes focused on a goal and this provides energy. The point is this: energy increases, multiplies, when you set a desired goal and resolve to work toward that goal.…The most amazing thing about a deeply entrenched goal is that it keeps you on course to reach your target. This isn’t double talk. What happens is this. When you surrender to your goal, the goal works itself into your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is always in balance. Your conscious mind is not, unless it is in tune with what your subconscious mind is thinking. Without full cooperation from the subconscious mind, a person is hesitant, confused, indecisive.

WOW!  I know I have felt hesitant, confused, and indecisive a bunch of times, and it was because I wasn’t sure what I was chasing after. The overall concept is that it is much better to have some goal than to have no goal at all. If you have a goal, at least you are moving toward something, and that is much better than moving toward nothing. My mentor Orrin Woodward often says,” If you don’t set a goal, you will hit it with amazing accuracy.”

Bill Lewis

 

Following, Leadership

Success Requires Others

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One key point to remember when trying to succeed is that success always takes a team of people. The notion that someone is self-made is ridiculous. It took two other people just to get you on the planet. I can’t think of anything else on the planet that is less self-made than humans are. So, if we always need others to help us succeed, then we should probably think about how we treat other people. Now, I understand that people are people and are always doing special things. 🙂 I am not saying that people won’t continue to bug us sometimes, but we need to have grace when dealing with humans because all of us are messt up. (I know that’s not a word, but it is appropriate here. Thanks for the grace.) The Magic of Thinking Big gives us four leadership principles to help in this area:

  1. Trade minds with the people you want to influence.
  2. Think: What is the human way to handle this?
  3. Think progress, believe in progress, and push for progress.
  4. Take time out to confer with yourself.

Let me give you an example of number one on the list. A lady was hired to be the assistant buyer for a low- to medium-priced department store. All of the things she purchased were great, but they were not selling well. Eventually, she was let go from her position. The reason was because she was purchasing items that she liked. She was raised in a well-off family that was used to purchasing high-quality items that naturally cost more. She was thinking everyone would love what she loved, but she never tried to mentally switch places with someone that had a tight budget. It is very important in business to always try to think from the other person’s point of view. How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People talks about the importance of moving to the other side of the table with someone—in other words, seeing the world  from that person’s perspective or walking a mile in his shoes. The question to ask oneself is: How can I help that person based on where he is, what he sees, what he likes, what he doesn’t like, and what he dreams about and not what I think he should see, like, not like, or dream about?

Now if you are mentoring someone, you have to have the ability to see from the other person’s point of view and understand his position but also be able to see where he can be, rather than just where he is.

The human way to handle things actually seems like it is not natural to humans at all.  I have seen people try to be the dictator and the letter-of-the-law person. The dictator sounds like this: “You will do it this way, or else!” That kind of attitude is really good for destroying relationships. Now, of course, most of us don’t approach it that way. We  say things like, “Well, I am a so and so, and I think I know what I am talking about” or “Why would you listen to that person?” We have all kinds of creative ways of saying, “I am the dictator” without actually saying those words.

The other big violator is the letter-of-the-law person. I saw this one tragically implemented one time. Our business team produced a CD that talked about the husband being responsible for the family finances. The letter-of-the-law people told all the males that they should be writing the checks and doing all of the budgeting. WOW! I have never seen so many couples’ monthly budgets get destroyed so quickly! The wife was the organized one, and the sanguine males started torturing themselves trying to do the budgets. The human way is to look from their shoes and implement the principle, not the details. The male could still be responsible for the month’s budget without having to do the technical work. Study anyone that has successful long-term relationships, and they have handled things in a human way instead of the dictator or letter-of-the-law way.

The third item of always seeking improvement can cover many areas, but let me try to boil it down to a few simple steps. First, be harder on yourself than you are on your team members. If you strive for excellence yourself, your team will always follow suit. Second,  try to make all your goals revolve around helping others hit their goals. If you plan it that way, then by default, you are focusing on others but still striving for progress.

The last step from The Magic of Thinking Big is to confer with yourself. The number one job of the leader is to think. I believe it was Henry Ford who said, “The hardest work in life is thinking; that is why so few people engage in it.” If the leader is not mentally ahead of the followers, then that means he is mentally with the followers and, by default, cannot be leading. Leaders must have quiet moments in which they give themselves time to think through issues, game plan, and set goals. This should be a weekly habit, but then leaders also need some bigger (or longer) thought-processing moments. Bestselling author Chris Brady wrote a great book talking about that very subject called A Month of Italy.

God Bless

Bill Lewis

Family

Parenting Easy or Hard ?

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Have you ever been walking through a store and noticed the many different ways that parents react to their children?  The younger children create many situations that are down right hilarious but as they become older you see a lot of reactions that are steamed from the roots they grew up with.  Ever notice kids seem to react and handle situations the same way the parents do?   The unfortunate part is that those reactions could have been different if we just had the right tools at our disposal when they were younger.  Now, I am not saying that it is to late to turn things around but it is much easier to establish good principles and habits when they are younger.  As parents it is hard to admit that we have created the roots that are producing the fruit.

The story goes – There is an apple tree in the backyard.  Every year the apples start to grow but then they fall off the tree before they become ripe and able to be picked.  The wife ask the husband if he can do something about this.  He thinks for a minute and then says, ” I got it.”  He goes to the store and comes home with some ripe, red, luscious looking apples.  He grabs a ladder, the fresh apples and a  staple gun.  After he attaches the apples to the tree he goes into his wife and says, ” Look, I fixed the tree.”

Obviously, a silly story but the point is good.  You cant just fix the appearance or the surface issues.  You have to fix the root system that is feeding the fruit.   Yes kids are born with a natural sinful nature but we determine a lot of what the root structure will be.  Lets dig in to a couple different areas that will help us develop better roots.

The first area we must look at is ourselves.  Being a parent is the hardest job on the planet but it can also be the most fulfilling.  One day you wonder if you could leave them at the grandparents for about 20 years and the day after that you couldn’t ever imagine not having them.  To be the best we can be, we have to get over our own idols that we might have.  The idol of comfort – this is hard or taking up to much time.  The idol of respect – they should respect me even when I am sinning and being a jerk. The idol of appreciation – don’t you know what I have done and the sacrifices I have made, The idol of success – I must have good kids so I don’t look bad. The idol of control – they are suppose to do what I say.  We have all displayed these idols on the surface. But the problem is if you have an idol in your heart then you aren’t focused on the only person who is really in control, God.

The second item we need to understand is that we shouldn’t be trying to get our kids to say and do the right things, from a mental standpoint.  We can’t just staple some good looking fruit on their forehead and think everything is ok.   We need to try and focus on where the issue started and that is in their heart.  They need to understand that they have a natural tendency to be ruled by their own selfish desires.  We need to help them understand that they are not trying to please us they are suppose to be obeying Gods law and growing to be more Christ like.  If they rely on him for strength then they can accomplish anything.  We can help them understand this process by displaying it to them.  Let them know where you have failed and ask for their forgiveness.  What a great example of humbleness obedience to God.

Some tools to help in this process is when something happens or goes the wrong way stop and talk to them.  Ask them some questions.

What were you thinking and feeling?

Why was that so important to you?

Do you think that was the right thing to do?

Does what the other person did control what you do?

What were you trying to accomplish when you did or said that?

Why did you become so angry?

What is that you were afraid of?

If we can get them to think through issues themselves then we are enabling them to do the right thing at all times, not just with us.   We need to give them principles to live by and explain to them that those do not change because of the situation.

There is a war out there.  It is being fought on the turf of our childrens heart.  It is fought for the control of their soul.  Be careful and continue to fight everyday.

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