Category: Life Lessons - Coach to Expect Success

Statement vs. Question

7/26/2020

Got all fired up from a conversation with the one and only Dr. Jeff Lip. We were talking about a book that we both recent read, "The Final Summit" by Andy Andrews. It was an eye, mind & heart opening book and Jeff brought up some great points that we talked about on his show. Check out his show HERE to hear our conversation and to find his other podcasts to listen to it. One thing I wanted to bring up was this idea of our lives being a mindset of a "! vs. ?". Our lives can be either a question mark (full of doubt, fear, lack of passion, etc.) or it can be an exclamation point (confidence, encouragement, passion, great relationships, etc.).

There are so many things that we can do to get through the "stormy seas" that we all have going on in our lives and how we don't have to be scared along with realizing that we ourselves, can be the "calm" of our own storms. This came from this quote out of the book that Jeff shared with me in our discussion:

"My life which was a question mark is now a statement. Stormy seas do not scare me for I am the calm in the storm. My past is behind me and my future is bright because I now know the secret of the present. I will do something and I will do it now."

Part of this solution to have a life more of a "!" is by having great people in your life that you can talk with, bounce ideas off of, to have in your corner for encouragement and to learn from them too. Another thought is who's "storm" do you want to be driving your ship through? Your own "stormy seas" or someone else's where you are not the one in control. Same thought - do you want someone else driving your ship? I know I don't want that.

Check out my podcast HERE where I share some thoughts & ideas. This is something that will help me to get my day & week started in a great direction. Hope it does the same for you.

Encouragement - We All Need It

7/10/2020

This has been happening a lot lately, so I thought it would be a great reminder for not only me, but for anyone that reads this post.

I've been encouraged a lot lately. With posting a little bit more on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, my podcast, LinkedIn, and even just a little bit on Instagram - I've been getting some good encouragement for what I'm putting out there. You know what, it not only makes me feel good; but it gives me more confidence for what I'm sharing out there. So in essence, I'm trying to encourage others just like people have done for me. It's one thing I've always done for a long time and people have told me about the fact that I'm good at it. Which looking back throughout my life, I guess it's been a foundation for me.

In today's world I think it's something that we all need more of. A key element of it that you need to give it to get it I think. If you can keep lifting people up and encouraging them in everyday little moments; it will come back to you many times over. Remember, the world is not going to this for us - it's up to us to do it. That's why I think not only in person we need to do it, but we need to put these messages of encouragement out into the social media world too. There is power in this for others. Knowing that someone is there telling us that we can do something, might be just the thing to get us going. Also remember that sometimes we have to believe in someone else's belief in us. Try it and watch what happens.

I Don't Know, What I Don't Know

7/4/2020

I think this reading more books is tending to agree with me as I am more fired up now than ever before and reading has been a big part of it. My current read is "Mean People Suck" by Michael Brenner and it's another good one. No big surprise as I heard about this book on John O'Leary's Podcast. This whole simple idea that we don't know everything & there are tons of people that think they do know everything. There are a couple of advantages for those of us that realize that isn't true. One is that if we recognize that we only know what we know and we don't know what we don't know, compared to those people that pretend to know it all - we can use that to a HUGE advantage. Just being honest with ourselves about this opens up the fact that we know and want to keep learning.

Those people (bosses, executives, others) that think they know it all - it's the opposite affect and it comes to be more costly too. It not only shuts off new information that can help solve problems, make more money, create new opportunities, etc.; but it is also does bigtime damage to relationships too. Look at those people that are in your life that just always seem to dismiss people because they "think" they know everything. I think we all know people like this and it is amazing how, for the most part we look to not really do too much for them or with them. There always seems to be that tension around them and that always will make things more difficult to get things done.

So again - this book (and the others I'm reading .... see my booklist on my home page), really has reminded me of things that I can do to help myself out. I hope these things help you too. Remember, you gain a very large advantage remembering that you you don't know everything. Remain humble in what you know and always look to keep that life-long learner type of attitude. Since there are so many others doing they opposite, they will actually help you more than will ever know.

Clarity In Our Future

6/23/2020

There are so many things going on where many people are worried about their future. I get it. The economy. Fears about our health with the Covid19 Pandemic around us. All of the civil unrest. Everything that seems to have a political connection to it. The simple fact of human interaction is still not happening like it normally does.

There have been plenty of things that have cleared up too. Things in life that have been shown to be important and things that have not shown that we need to get rid of too. There are plenty of people I think that have learned some important lessons throughout the year 2020 so far. For others, maybe the lessons have not been found yet. Maybe some people are still focusing on the things that are causing most of their troubles.

I found something to tie into this thought in John O'Leary's book "In Awe", where John talks about Fr. Tom Hoar being on his podcast and he brought up a very important question that we need to ask ourselves - Have you had enough? With Fr. Hoar, it's all tied into addiction. He mentions about changing happening when we have had enough of the the life that we have been living and we are deeply looking for something better. He also mentions about being addicted to the unimportant. This is something that caught my eye. Not only do I think we all have addictions to some things in our lives - things that are unimportant are eating up a lot of everyone's time at one point or another in life. I know it's happening to me.

Of the many things happening in this year of 2020, I have found an extreme understanding of many things I don't want to focus on any more. The hate that has sprung up in our lives, heck, it's always been there - but we are seeing it more and more now. Politics! If there is one thing that I have developed a strong distaste for in recent years, it's this. I still vote, but I will not let these political leaders affect my life where I blindly close my eyes, heart and mind to people who have a different opinion than I do. It's a fine line of controlling the information, the opinions of others, the messages that I let affect me and my life and still being able to function in society. The lack of character in our world is something that I do not want to join in with just to fit in.

I need to continue this journey of being better than the guy I was the day before. The important lessons that continue to be thrown at me, I need to not only continue to learn from them but I also need to make the changes in my life that I got from those lessons. In a small way... YES is my answer to that question - Have you had enough? Yes, I've had enough of holding myself back from going after my goals and dreams. Yes, I've had enough of my negative thinking towards others and myself. Yes, I've had enough of mortgaging my future for being comfortable today & not putting in the hard work so that my tomorrows will be better. This pandemic has taught me a lot about wanting clarity for my future. I for one, need to ramp up my efforts for making the changes I know I need to make. What about you?

Prudence - wait, what??

2/12/2020

The character trait of Prudence is one we don't hear too much about. In fact, if you are like me you had to do a double take at it and then probably look it up. Here it is: "The ability to do the right thing, at the right time for the right reason." It's about our decisions and how they affect us now and in our future!

There were 2 videos that I had my students check out for some indications of Regrets that some people shared about their lives. If we can recognize when we are in a moment that our choices and decisions will matter for our future - that's powerful to know about. First was this video "Life Lessons from 100 Year Olds" where they interviewed 3 people that were over 100 years of age. One big thing that I noticed from all three, were their smiles and laughter. Amazingly inspiring listening to these people sharing stories of things that they have been through. I also thought right away, how I want to be like that too. Being full of gratitude, energy, love, purpose to get up everyday, etc. What a blessing it was to watch, listen and learn from them.

The other video was just as meaningful as we watched 70 people talk about their regrets in life. This video was titled, "70 People Ages 5-75 Answer: What Do You Regret?" It was again, amazing to listen to their experiences and thoughts about things that they have been through. Learning from other people's stories and experiences saves us from making similar mistakes. We can learn without making those same choices or at least better understand things before we still might make those choices. Most of my students learned a lot from this one too. For me, the few that were older than me... twenty-two of them, got me thinking about what is coming for me in the years ahead and I think often of these lessons as I'm trying to make good choices & decisions every day of my life. Amazing things can happen when we look at things differently and start to think differently too. In fact, I'm getting emotional right now blogging about these thoughts and ideas. I'm finding myself wanting to be better, do better, work harder, to have the courage to do things that help me go after my dreams and goals... like I said, amazing things can happen when we jump into these thoughts and ideas. How about you join me? Check these videos out and let me know what you are thinking and feeling.

Become Courageous

11/8/2019

This week's blog assignment had a couple of things to check out. First was this video, "Become Courageous - A Motivational Video" had so many great reflections for us to use on ourselves. One of the first things that really jumped out to me was this thought "What would your life look like if you decided to be courageous?"  WOW... I've never really heard that question asked before, let alone try to apply it to myself. It's a really powerful one if you take it to heart. I start to think about the many areas that I need to be more courageous in my life and I find it encouraging to think about the results that might come my way with having more courage in those areas. One is for sure to keep going after my dream of doing more with podcast, writing a book (or more than one), developing a few video/audio courses, and other things. I can see myself doing it - I just need to get through the limiting beliefs that are holding me back. Nobody's fault other than my own.    Do me a favor, ask yourself that question above and get back to me on any thoughts you may have.

Another question from this first video is "What would your life look like if you decided not to care what other people thought of you?"  For one thing, I do care what some people think of me - those that I love and care for, the important people in my life. My family, close friends, etc. Others? The critics in the world? The negative ones? NO WAY! I need to not let their opinions hold me back - especially since their opinions don't pay my bills!! How are you with this one?? For some people they worry way too much what others think about them.

The other video link - "Golden Buzzer - Kodi Lee" showed a super talented young man who is blind and is autistic, show tremendous courage when he did a 5 STAR performance on America's Got Talent. The look on the judges faces were something to see, especially Simon. ;-)    This emotional and super-powerful performance is something that you need to check out. Since we are talking about bravery & courage, check out Kodi's mom. Talk about a lady who is brave and strong, but one who has so much compassion for her son. That is another huge lesson for all us as the world needs more of those traits now. This story really sends the message that we all are totally capable of doing great things as people with so many more difficulties and challenges are doing great things in their lives. I asked myself, what is my excuse as to why I'm not doing more things that I know I want to do, and even more importantly - I need to do them.   How about you?

Finally, I put out a challenge to my students (and myself too) to have the courage to see what we can individually do to unplug from forms of technology that are really getting in the way and causing us problems. Whether it's our phones, computers, video games, etc. This is a powerful reflection moment for us to do some checking to see where we can have some self-improvement. I know I need to maybe switch my time on technology devices to be more productive. There are things that I need to spend time on - there are a couple of training / educational / self-improvement items that need my attention, compared to other non-productive things that I do with technology. I see this happening in school and in all around life way too often and the sad thing about it is that most of the people don't see themselves doing anything wrong or negative. Time is one of THE most important resources we have and we seem to be "wasting" it more and more when it comes to technology. What would you challenge yourself to get better at with technology?

Learning About Creativity & It's Importance In Life

10/30/2019

For this week's Positivity Project term about Creativity, I had to admit to myself and my students that this is (at first) was a rough one for me. You see, I don't really consider myself as a creative person. I do see, like most people, that I am a bigger critic with myself than any other person could ever be. So as I read and listened to the author that wrote "Creative Solutions To Life's Challenges" I got both views - one from the essay he wrote and then the other from the audio of him reading what he wrote. Frank Walker did a great job with this piece.

This helped me right away to see that I am more creative than I think I am. It got me thinking about my parents when I was growing up and how creative they were along with my family members at the time - grandparents, aunts & uncles, friends of my parents, etc. They all gave me lessons in creativity every day of my life it seems. Now that I am in my 50's I can say I'm more creative in things in my life, but not to the extent that they all were (from what I remembered) every day in their lives. Great lessons none-the less.

I also connected with the fact that I can't let labels that some may put on my on what I do for a living, limit me and my confidence. Like many things, I have a choice as to what I do and not do with taking in other people's opinions about just because I'm a teacher, that I do or don't have a lot of Creativity. All that I know is that the world needs the different amounts of creativity that everyone brings to the world from all different areas and we certainly can't go after things in our lives based upon other people's opinions.

This is a good piece of reading for you to check out - or listen to. It got me thinking out of my comfort zone, hope it does for you too.

Perspective - 3 Short Stories To Help

10/29/2019

Found 3 very short stories to help us see and think about having a little more Perspective in our lives. The 3 stories are HERE.

The first of these 3 stories is about "The Muddy Road" - 2 monks are walking and one stops to help a lady out of the mud. So he carries her to safety and puts her down and continues on his way. The other monk is worked up that he did that since they are not supposed to be around females, let alone touch one. The one who helped the lady mentions that he left her back there, why is he still worried about her? Carrying on a worry, burden, etc., does not good for our future. That enables us to keep having that one event cause us more problems than it originally did back when it happened. I know we need to learn from this mistake, maybe even remember some moments of it so we can learn and get better. I also try to let it go. I'm not always successful with that, but I know I need to.

The second story is titled "The Two Wolves" where a grandfather is telling the story to his grandson on how we all have 2 Wolves inside of us.. the good one and the bad one. The one that wins is the one we feed the most! The negative or positive voices we have... that's the key. We all battle with trying to do the right things in our life and we can be our own worst critic for sure. But it is shown over and over again which ever "voice" we let drive us, the one we "feed" the most is the one that will control our thoughts, etc. The key is WE have choice.

The final of the 3 stories is "The Farmer's Fortune" - so many things happen to this farmer and his son, and every time a neighbor says to him "that's too bad that happened..." or "isn't it fortunate that that happened...". The farmer responds the same each time... "perhaps" is all he says. He doesn't pile on in misery & complaining when things are not going well, nor does he get all fired up when things are great. He stays even keeled... no emotional swings or reactions... that's a great message for all of us. It's far more important as to what our reaction is compared to what actually happened to us. We never know the next door to open tomorrow no matter what we went through today.

This was a good and quick exercise to try. Click on the file link above and see what you can get out of these stories as far as perspective goes. Then let me know your thoughts. :-)

Being Present - A Story From A Plane Crash

10/10/2019

What a story - one that most people have heard about the incident itself, but not the first hand account that Ric Elias shares. It was a perfect fit with our Positivity Project thought for the week - "Being Present & Giving Others My Attention."

His story was all about being on the flight that crashed in the Hudson River in New York City on January 15, 2009. He brings up some very emotional and valuable lessons here about life and what is really important. It reminds us that things can change in the blink of an eye and then depending on the circumstances, we can either do something about what's going on or like in his story, he couldn't.

He reminds us that EGO is a problem and it's one that we have to get over in our lives and the sooner the better. More things matter than ourselves, that's for sure. The fact that he quickly thought of all the things he didn't get a chance to do = a lesson for us not to put things off. I personally loved the wine example that he is not going to save another bottle for sometime later, if there are good people around today to share it with.

We learn so many lessons from tragedies that we would hope they stick with us, but usually those lessons blow by in the wind. A key is the lessons we can learn from HIS story without us having to go through it ourselves. Again, the power of a story is huge. Lessons we can learn at someone else's expense.

I plan on always looking to do things that mean more to me rather than tasks that I "have to do" or am "expected to do" from society, etc. Truthfully, I have put off so many things in my life and at my age, things I have been through personally in my life and stories like this and countless others that I've seen others go through - it's more than time to keep making changes in order to do those things that I need and want to make. ]

Check out the video HERE. Then think about some of the things he says. Role play and empathize if that was you in his seat and how would this experience change you and the rest of your life??

EQ - It's A Difference Maker

10/1/2019

Found a great article that I had to share with my students on the importance on having Emotional Intelligence in our lives in order to succeed. Check out the article HERE. It got me thinking about a book that I read years ago called.."The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book" by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves. It's one that I had to pull out of one of my bags as I put it in there with great intent to read it this past summer... needless to say I did not but I still need to read this again.

EQ is something that all of us can work on to get better at. It has so much to do with all the important areas of life - check out this picture that is a great indicator:

Looking at these "leaves", I can see so many of them that (at least to me - my opinion) that they simply blow having a large IQ, out of the water!! Now again, don't get me wrong as I know having a great IQ is not horrible. But the way I see it, the things on this "tree" are just a lot more meaningful in & throughout life that I'd take these things first. It's a good thing too, since I know my IQ is not off the charts anywhere.

Emotional Intelligence predicts performance, so it certainly seems like a good thing to work on and try to improve throughout our lifetime. As I sit here and think about my students (some, maybe not all of them) and the opportunity they have for their lives to improve them, now, at their age... wow I am just blown away comparing it to my timeline of knowing about this after the age of 35 (at least!)

This brings a HUGE connection to our term this week from our Positivity Project - Open Mindedness. It's so powerful to be able to take some new ideas and come up with ways of improving ourselves. So the backend of this idea of my students getting exposed to these skills now at their young ages compared to me where it was later in life, and think of all the people who never take a venture out to learn about EQ or even improving their own EQ. WOW! I think we all know plenty of people who need to work on improving this in their lives, but choose to ignore it or even let their negative thinking get in the way of ever even trying. I know that I do not want to be one of those people who won't ever look at this "tree" above and not want to try and get better in all of those "leaves".