Archive for the 'Inspiration' Category

Riddle me this… What is scarier?…

1. Driving an Indy Race Car at 230 miles per hour
2. Dancing on TV in front of millions of viewers

While both are scary, only Indy car racing can kill you on any lap. Yet for me I would rather take my chances in a race car than humiliate myself in front of millions of people with my two left feet.

Helio Castroneves has overcome both to become a two time Indianapolis 500 race winner and now the winner of the Dancing with the Stars dance competition. Helio is an amazing person and his performance on this popular TV show these last few weeks has been a real inspiration to millions of viewers.

Helio, a 32 year old Brazilian race car driver, showed what it takes to overcome fear, both on the track and now on the stage. He faced fear in the eye and focused instead on winning.

Helio showed…

1. Vision: He knew what he wanted and he figured out a path to get there. In racing it was the coveted Indy 500 trophy and kissing the bricks at that famous racetrack. In dancing, it was the Mirrorball trophy. In short… Helio wanted to win!
2. Passion: Helio showed that he wanted to become the best he could be. Whether it is driving or dancing he exhibited incredible passion every step of the way. That is what makes him so exciting to watch. Without passion, he would have been just another dancer. From his bright yellow suit to his huge jump across the stage he showed he had the passion to win.
3. Determination: Dancing and driving are full of setbacks, and winning means overcoming them and learning from them. Helio and his dance partner, Julianne Hough, showed they had the determination to overcome a bad dance or a stubborn judge. Instead of getting down or letting fear overtake him, Helio pushed on with his signature smile and the attitude to do whatever it would take to make the next dance better.
4. Personality: Helio showed that winning is about being the best you can be… not trying to be someone else. With his smiling personality and glowing attitude the fans really got behind him. One week, he tried to play the bad guy, with a serious look and a bad attitude… it didn’t work. The judges scores reflected this. He learned from this and during the rest of the competition his true personality came out.

I really enjoyed the Dancing with The Stars program this year. Every week was about people showing what passion, practice, and determination can produce. Marie Osmond showed incredible courage after she fainted on stage one week and experienced the death of her father a few weeks later. At 48 years old, she made it to the finals and truly showed that age is not a factor to true greatness.

Melanie Brown of the Spice Girls showed what practice and determination can produce. With almost perfect moves dance after dance, her and her partner Maksim had the highest judges scores throughout the competition. Her performances were truly inspiring and they took her to the final round.

Cheetah girl, Sabrina Bryan, brought some amazing talent to the competition but showed how important personality and communication is to winning. One week her fans took it for granted that she would be in the finals and didn’t bother to call in and vote. Since the fan vote was half of the score, she was eliminated that week of the competition in the biggest upset of the series.

Fear and a negative attitude can keep us from trying different things and truly becoming the person we were meant to be. This show is a great example of what can happen when we face fear in the eye and forge ahead! Truly amazing things can happen!

Thanksgiving is always a special day for me. It’s a time of reflection about what is truly important in life. It’s a time to think of those special people that make a difference in the world and the lives of others. (It’s so ironic that Thanksgiving comes the day before one of the most commercial and crazy days of the year, Black Friday.)

Here are some of the things I’m very thankful for this year.

• I’m thankful that I live in a free country.
• I’m thankful I can freely worship God and that he has a presence in my life.
• I’m thankful for my wife, my daughter, my son-in-law, along with the rest of our families, who make life worth living.
• I’m thankful for my friends and co-workers, that put up with me.
• I’m thankful to have two amazing and loving dogs who are always there for me no matter what.
• I’m thankful for the 100’s of blogger’s that brighten my day, challenge me to be a better person, and encourage me to reach for the stars. (Here is a short list of blogger’s you should definitely visit. Here is another group I’m very thankful to be associated with.)
• I’m thankful for all of the support and encouragement from our local Toastmaster clubs
• I’m thankful for turkey, bread stuffing, and corn pudding (I can’t wait!)
• I’m thankful for parades, football games, and the family time that make this day special.
• I’m thankful for all of you that stop by from time to time and make this blog a community. Thank you for your support; your comments; and most of all your encouragement to keep this thing called blogging going…

Happy Thanksgiving!

John Richardson

In our continuing series on John Maxwell’s book, Becoming a Person of Influence, we find chapter six on mentoring and enlarging other people. John explains that we must build others up and help them reach their goals. We should share our time and talents with others and motivate them to do better.

Joel Osteen in his book, Become a Better You, brings up a great point about enlarging people. He says..

Remember your thoughts do not bless anybody but you…

The idea of this statement is that we need to let others know what we are thinking. We need to make the phone calls and write the e-mails to let people know when they are doing a great job. If we keep it to ourselves, the other person is not built up and consequently does not receive the blessing.

If I see you doing a great presentation, I need to stop by afterwards and give you a word of encouragement. If I read your blog post, and it captures my interest, I need to comment that you did a great job.

Simple words of encouragement can really help someone move to the next level in their career. They can help others take a leap of faith and start a new business.

This is an area that I have been focusing on in the past few weeks. Trying to learn how to better communicate with people. I realize that time commitments and my perfectionist streak hinder me from making quick replies to e-mail or leaving a quick comment on a blog.

Joel’s statement got me thinking… isn’t it better to send a short note saying "great job," than not sending a more elaborate note because I don’t have time to write it.

Rather than a two paragraph work of literary art, how about if I just leave a one sentence comment on someone’s blog? I can’t tell you how many of those two paragraph masterpieces I’ve had in my head that never were written.

Hmmm… how about a paraphrase… A few words written are much better than a perfect paragraph in my head…

When I was in second grade I was a very shy kid. The thought of sharing in front of the class was pretty scary. But I had a great teacher named Mrs. Reyer who was also a great coach. Her motto was “Yes You Can!” I’ll never forget one autumn afternoon in class. We had to stand up in front of the class and give a report about a former president.

John Adams was my subject, and suddenly I was called on to stand and deliver. Mrs. Reyer looked at me with an encouraging smile on her face and motioned for me to start. I stood straight up and with a loud voice shared about the second president of the United States.

Like a track coach during a race, Mrs. Reyer coached me to victory that day. Her encouraging gestures during my speech energized me. When I was done speaking, she said something to me that I never forgot. “John, that was a great presentation, someday you will be a great politician or public speaker.” For a seven year old kid, those words were gold. That day I experienced victory… victory over the fear of sharing in class.

Having faith in other people and helping them experience victory is the third tenet in John Maxwell’s book, Becoming a Person of Influence. John covers a lot of territory in this chapter but the one thing that stood out was that we should help others by experiencing some wins together. John explains…

“Coming alongside others to help them experience some wins with you gives them reasons to believe they will succeed. In the process they will experience victory. That’s when incredible things begin to happen in their lives.”

When People Sense Victory

• They sacrifice to succeed
• They look for ways to win
• They become energized
• They follow the game plan
• They help other teams members

When People Sense Defeat

• They give as little as possible
• They look for excuses
• They become tired
• They forsake the game plan
• They hurt others

Years ago when I first got into outside sales, I had an incredible sales manager named Gary Murphy. Making cold calls is never easy, but Gary had a great way with people. He spent a few days working with me and he helped me experience the thrill of closing a sale.

Gary had a positive attitude and always looked for a way to help his customers. His technique was win-win and more often than not we would walk out of a new prospect with a smile and an order. At the end of the day, I was energized. That energy translated to a much better attitude on my part and a large increase in sales.

When people believe in you there is an incredible power that fills you up. Suddenly the impossible becomes possible. Great coaches will help you visualize success.

John gives four action points to help us have faith in others…

1. Find a Strength. Instead of looking at weaknesses look for strengths in others. Find one that can be nurtured. Point it out to them and offer ways for them to use it. (A great book on the subject that offers an online strengths test is Strengths Finder by Tom Rath)

2. Build on Past Successes. If you have to give someone a difficult or challenging task, take time to recall their past successes. This will give them encouragement for the future and help turn a demanding situation into a positive one.

3. Help Others Overcome Defeat. If you have friends or colleagues that have recently experience a defeat of some kind take time to talk with them about it. Be a good listener and when you are done make sure you value them and let them know that you believe strongly in them.

4. Start off Right. The next time you recruit new people for your club or organization, start the relationships off right. Instead of waiting until they prove themselves, make it a point to express your faith in them before they give you results. You be pleased by their desire to live up to your expectations.

Make someone’s day today… have a little faith in them.

Technorati Tags: John Maxwell, Faith, Strengths

In our continuing Digging Deeper series we turn to chapter two in John Maxwell’s book, Becoming a Person of Influence. This time it is the subject of nurturing other people. John brings up five main attributes that make up this special quality. I would like to take these qualities one at a time and show you through some personal examples, bloggers who used these to reach out to me and to other people and how that helped them reach a huge audience.

To become a nurturer you need to put your focus on other people and help them develop…

1. Positive Self Worth. In my early days as a blogger it would feel really lonely putting up a post and having little or no feedback. It was like throwing something into the wind and have it float away, never to be seen again. This is where Rosa Say came in. With her feedback on a few of my early posts, I felt empowered to write more. She always has a positive and nurturing spirit that has helped me and hundreds of other bloggers succeed.

In the early days it was also nice to visit Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger. His posts lifted the profession of blogging to a higher level. According to Darren, not only was blogging a worthwhile endeavor, but it also could be a profitable one. His posts helped me in many different ways, but helping me to see the positive aspects of blogging was very important.

2. Sense of Belonging. One of my early mentors in blogging was Steve Pavlina. He had started his blog six months prior to my blog and I always felt like Steve was like a big brother. He offered positive feedback and his blog was comment heaven in the early days. He put a link to my blog on his site and commented on my posts from time to time.

It’s funny, but in the blog-o-sphere having someone link to you is a big thing. It definitely gives you a sense of belonging. Once Steve linked to my blog, my traffic started to increase and suddenly readers were commenting on my posts. I started to find other blogs that I liked and started linking to them. Suddenly I was part of a growing experiment in communication called blogging.

About a year ago I met Liz Strauss over at Successful blog. She has taken the idea of community and has really run with it. She came up with an idea to review and link to successful and outstanding bloggers. She calls these blogs SOB’s and provides a colorful badge to everyone she links up with. She took the whole idea of a blog community to new levels last year when she collaborated with Phil Gerbyshak and other relationship bloggers to
create SOBcon07, a blogging conference held in Chicago. Her blog has become a weekly collaboration event ever since.

3. Perspective. After I was blogging for a few months and my traffic was increasing, I ran into business blogger, Yaro Starak. Yaro helped me develop a new perspective on blogging. He talked about finding your niche and helping others by writing pillar articles on your subject of interest. His blog tips series helped me focus on my evolving category of personal development. I went from just a casual commenter to some one who was really interested in the field.

4. Feeling of Significance. As my blogging became more frequent and my writing became more focused, Rosa Say offered me a membership in her growing Ho’ohana community. This was like reaching blogging nirvana. All of a sudden I was part of something very special. I was suddenly part of a community of bloggers that I had incredible respect for. With powerful voices like Dwayne Melancon, David Zinger, and Tim Milburn this was humbling to say the least.

Collaboration with others is so important in business, your personal life, and especially in blogging. Trackbacks and linking are some of the best ways to develop community on the web. With these simple tools it is quick and easy to offer off site resources and link to pillar articles that really make a difference.

5. Hope. Now that I have been blogging for over two and a half years, I look ahead to what is next. I want to say a big thank you to all of you who have read, commented, and have been a part of this blog. You have inspired me to keep writing and to make a difference in the world. We have some exciting new things coming soon, including a new look and some great new resources.

Blogs come and go, but two of my favorites are celebrating third birthdays this week. Three years is a long time to keep writing and sharing and both Steve Pavlina and Darren Rowse deserve and big round of applause for keeping at it. Steve is offering a look back at his polyphasic sleeping experiment while Darren is giving away prizes at his birthday fest.
 
When blogs have been around this long it gives me hope for the future. I think this experiment called blogging is just starting, I can’t wait to see what the future holds…

Technorati Tags: John Maxwell, Steve Pavlina, Rosa Say

The 400 pages of the large book seemed daunting at first and the teacher was relentless. The book review was due in a week. I wasn’t sure how to about this task. As a student I had run into difficult tasks before but this one was different. There was an unappealing book in front of me that needed to be read, dissected and reported on. I didn’t have much time and the whole process seemed overwhelming, and yet my grade depended on it. Four hundred lousy pages and I hadn’t read one yet.

The grumbling in the class was apparent but there was one student who seemed to have things under control. My friend James was busy reading and taking notes. As the bell rang, we walked out of class and I asked him what he though of the project. I was expecting the same negative attitude as the rest of the class, but James surprised me. He said something simple yet profound…

You’ve got prime time before the chime,
write it down, one chapter at a time.

This simple advice really helped me on the project, and I learned a new skill that day. I learned to take notes along the way. Before this I would attempt to read the whole book and then go back and write down notes. I always seemed to run out of time and I had a hard time remembering what I had read. My grades reflected this.

My solution was to take a large sheet of paper, and scribble notes as I read. While not elegant, these simple notes formed an outline, and a quick way to get started writing a report. This note sheet became a bookmark, and the torn edges reflected its use.

From that experience, I developed a simple outline sheet which has been a big help when reading and studying. One of my co-workers, Jeanette, gave me an idea the other day to make this even easier. I showed her some graphical bookmarks that I was designing and I asked her for her opinion of how they could be used. She liked the graphics but said that plain bookmarks would be helpful for her kids to take notes, chapter by chapter.

Chapter bookmarks were born out of her great idea.

Here is how they work…

I went back to the drawing board and came up with a two sided bookmark card, that can be printed on plain white business card stock. The front of the card has the chapter headings, a rectangle for notes, and three lines that can be used for keywords, page numbers or general ideas.

The back of the card has a place for three action points and a box for references or quotations. The cards are simple enough that they can be used in a variety of ways. Just put a few blank ones in your book and use them to mark your place as you read along. As the ideas flow, mark them down chapter by chapter.

The nice thing about cards is that they are portable. You can leave the cards in the book or take them out and store them in an envelope or other storage container. You can clip them with a mini clip and store them in pocket or purse. When you are done, lay out your chapter cards on your desk and rearrange them by idea or topic. This is where the flexibility of cards comes in.

Like a mind map on your desk, the tapestry of ideas will come alive. Move them around and sort them by topic, keyword, or page number. The visual nature of these cards will help you create some amazing associations. Start creating your book outline with the enclosed idea-outliner and you’ll have an amazing book review in no time at all.

It’s real easy to get started…

1. Download the ChapterMarks zip file to your computer.
2. Unzip the file and open the templates in Microsoft Word.
3. Put a sheet of plain white Avery Business Card stock in your printer.
4. Print out the front of the cards first with template 1.
5. Turn the business card sheet over and print the back side with template 2.
6. Print out an idea-outliner to use with the cards
7. Get reading and writing…

I’ve included a second sheet of front cards that are numbered 11-20 for longer books. You can easily modify any of the cards to meet your individual needs or to mark them for books with more than 20 chapters.

These cards work well with our Walleteer organizer, for easy retrieval and storage. Print out a set for the students in your home and help them develop the habit of taking notes chapter by chapter. Their grades and their attitudes might just change for the better.

When working on a thesis or other larger project try these cards with our SuddenMind idea mapping system.

Technorati Tags: books, bookmarks, studying