I lived on dairy farm for the first six years of my life. It was a great childhood for a mischievous, imaginative little boy with the freedom to roam and explore. My brother and I played in the barn and around the animals and farm equipment. Those were happy times and times of growing and learning from the extended family we lived with.

A lesson that is particularly vivid for me is the adventure of making old-fashioned homemade ice cream. It was for special occasions like the 4th of July. My uncles usually were in charge of the task. The ice cream maker was a wooden bucket with a crank and a metal container, which fit inside the bucket and attached to the crank. The ingredients for the ice cream went into the container and then rock salt was placed all around it. My brother and I watched the preparations and helped in carrying items to our uncles. Then the lengthy laborious task of turning the crank for what seemed like hours to us began. Because it was tiring we took turns turning the crank all the while anticipating the taste of that delicious ice cream. When it was finally done and we sat down to eat it, everyone agreed it was worth it.
I’ve never had that sense of satisfaction from eating store bought ice cream. The ingredients that went into our enjoyment came from the effort that we put out, the anticipation and finally eating the ice cream.

Here’s the lesson I’m taking from that experience that relates to our just completed 90-day goal project.
As we envisioned the attainment of our goal, we recognized the effort we put out was an integral part of the enjoyment we’re experiencing now that it is complete. We can say, “It was worth it.”

Success Thought For Today:

“SATISFACTION LIES IN THE EFFORT NOT THE ATTAINMENT. FULL EFFORT IS FULL VICTORY.”
-Mohandas K Gandhi

Byron
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Blanche Wells was a friend and former colleague of mine. She has since left this mortal coil but I’ll always remember her outrageous sense of humor, creativity and courage.
One of her many outstanding qualities was her optimistic hope for the future.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines hope as: “ to look forward with positive expectation.”
But Blanch did not sit back and wait for some Divine inspiration to deliver her hoped for future wish. She believed in working toward her dream. That probably sounds familiar to those of you who have read Build Your Dream: 12 Essential Tools for Successful Living.

Blanche, who owned the Dale Carnegie business in Oregon at one time, had a poster on her wall with a cartoon figure of a man with his fingers crossed. The caption under the cartoon said, “Don’t be a member of the Crossed Fingers Club.”  The Crossed Fingers Club members were “hoping” everything would come out all right without putting in the effort necessary to make it work out.
Everyone who has accomplished anything of note has coupled his or her hope with hard work. “The hope of the world lies in what one demands, not of others, but of oneself,” said James Baldwin.
But, in the end there is always the realization that hope in and of itself is a necessary but not sufficient ingredient in the pursuit of significant accomplishment. Samuel Johnson said, “Where there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.” Michelangelo: “If people knew how hard I work to get my mastery it wouldn’t seem so wonderful after all.”

One last thought is our success thought for today.

“Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have is not permanent.”
-Jean Kerr

Byron
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My America Heritage Dictionary defines ‘tranquility’ as: “the quality or state of being tranquil.” (Don’t you just love that when your dictionary talks to you as if you were a 3rd grader?)
So I went to ‘tranquil’ which AHD defined as; “free from anxiety, restlessness, composed.” Also: “ free from commotion, disturbance.”

The reason I bring that up is that that is the feeling I’m experiencing as I write this. I’ve just returned from a three-day  visit to one of my favorite retreats. It is a small fishing and boating village in Mexico.
The reason I like it is because the pace of life there is really unhurried and after watching enough of my friends and a brother-in-law who own boats, I have never fallen into the temptation of taking on that aggravation.
As a result when I go to San Carlos there is nothing for me to do but relax in a peaceful setting, visiting with friends, reading and experiencing tranquility and peace of mind.

I enjoy a pretty laid back life normally but I’ve created enough self-imposed dead lines and busy enough schedule that I find the change of pace to be valuable.
I think wherever you live there exists an opportunity to find our own haven where we can have a change of pace and capture that feeling of tranquility for ourselves.
I believe that the refreshed feeling that comes from even a short get away pays big dividends in renewed energy and enthusiasm.

Success thought for today:

“Inner peace is beyond victory or defeat.”
-Bhagavad-Gita

Byron
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Flexibility

Mind Mapping

Faith

Truth And Self-Knowledge

Reward

Look at the five areas for goal achievement we discussed this week and ask yourself:
“How can I apply these suggestions to my 90-day goal?”

We are nearly at the end of the 90-day project and it may be worthwhile to consider what you might have done differently if you knew about yourself when you started what you know now.
What have you discovered about yourself as a result of your participating in the project?

Success thought for today:

“Each step upward makes me feel stronger and fit for the next step.”
-Mohandas K. Gandhi

Byron
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I opened my post office box yesterday and found an envelope from my publisher.

I was thrilled to see my first royalty check when I opened it. It was not a big one but I still felt that sense of satisfaction of knowing that I’d been rewarded for my effort.

As I said in my blog yesterday, I received a tremendous feeling of satisfaction from seeing my book finally in print but this was a different feeling. I’d sold copies of the book before, at a book signing and to friends who’d come over to the house and couldn’t say no, but this seemed more real. It seemed to validate the whole experience.
It reminded me, when I went to the New York office to be officially given the title of Dale Carnegie Sponsor. When the ceremony was over and I thought about the years of sacrifice and hard work that had gone into that achievement, I knew I’d been rewarded. As soon as I could, I called my friend and associate Doug Carter and screamed into the phone, “Doug, it’s worth it!

I’d been told from earliest childhood, that anything worthwhile had to be worked for and earned and it was true.
This is by way of giving you encouragement to pursue your dream. To do whatever it takes. It is definitely worth it!

Success thought for the day:

“That which costs little is less valued.”
-Cervantes

Byron
byronethompson.com

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When I first looked at the edited copy of my book after I’d picked it up from my publisher last September, I had a tremendous feeling of satisfaction. It was thrilling to look at the successful completion of an eight-year project coming to its end. Patricia and I only needed to proofread it and get it back my editor and I’d be a published author.

My mind went racing back through the hallways of time and tried to imagine what Mr. Lanning would have to say.
Who? Mr. Paul Lanning my eleventh grade English Teacher. He only gave me a passing grade so he wouldn’t have me back the next year. English was a required course. He was also one of the teachers responsible for my being in the 10% of my high school graduating class that made the upper 90% possible.
I think one of the reasons that happened was because of a misunderstanding concerning our final assignment. The night before it was due I remembered that Mr. Lanning was a baseball fan and a train aficionado. He knew every train in the country and what routes they took. I happened to remember that as I was reading the current issue of Sports Illustrated, which had an article about the baseball pitcher Walter Johnson, whose nickname was ” The Big Train”. I saw that as an omen and a surefire A on the final. I sat down and wrote my final paper in less than 30 minutes. (Actually I copied the article word for word. I didn’t think there was any way I could improve on that writing and I’d never heard of plagiarism.)

Imagine my shock when two days later, he handed the paper back to me with a grade of F and some obscure reference to the specific issue, including page numbers of the Sports Illustrated magazine in which I’d done my research and from which I’d drawn my inspiration. (It seems, unbeknown to me at the time, Mr Lanning was a subscriber to Sports Illustrated.)

In retrospect that was kind of a mistake. This was one of my early lessons in which I learned the value of being truthful.

It took a while but I’ve come to realize that being real, truthful and honest in all my dealings with people and especially in my speaking and writing, is the royal road to success.
As I sat staring at my, soon to be released, best selling classic, I knew it wasn’t perfect, and it was perfect because every word in came from me. Mr. Lanning couldn’t possibly put a grade on that.

Why did I tell you this today? Because as you look at your daily achievements, there will be the recognition of an earlier experience, ala the failed attempt to scam Mr. Lanning. You can revisit that incident and see it as a way of knowing and appreciating yourself.

Success thoughts for today:

“SELF-KNOWLEDGE IS THE BEGINNING OF SELF IMPROVEMENT.”
-Baltsar Gracian

IS IT THE TRUTH?
IS IT FAIR TO ALL CONCERNED?
WILL IT BUILD GOODWILL AND BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
WILL IT BENEFICIAL TO ALL CONCERNED?
-Rotary International Four-Way Test

Byron
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As I sat down in front of the computer screen, my mind was being assaulted with doubt. It occurred to me that some of you must experience some of the same feelings. I was questioning my ability to successfully market my book and achieve my goal of helping a large number of people to realize their potential.

This experience did not throw me into a blue funk, as my friend Bob James used to label his periods of depression. I did find myself questioning my faith in the rightness of my project.

I am having a momentary “Crisis in Faith” as has been written of Mother Teresa as she went through her hours of darkness. We can draw inspiration and a practical example from her life by reminding ourselves that in spite of her feelings of abandonment, she kept working.

In my book, I cite the example of Jack Boland’s “second force”. Jack said that almost as soon as one sets a big goal, an equally powerful negative reaction takes place. One thinks of all the reasons why attainment of the goal is impossible: “I don’t have what it takes,” Who am I to try to do that?” “Other people are better qualified.” I went on to say, “Don’t let this negative force of self-doubt rob you of energy and destroy your ambition.”
I decided to take my own advice and this temporary loss of faith has dissipated like dew in the morning sun. I was able to go ahead and write this post.

Here’s the lesson in this for all of us. When we start to doubt and lose faith, get busy, go to work, as I did with this post, act as though we believe in the rightness of our goal.
When we do, we’ll find our faith has been restored.

Good luck.

Success thought for today:

“OUR DOUBTS ARE TRAITORS AND MAKE US LOSE THE GOOD WE MIGHT WIN BY FAILING TO ATTEMPT.”
-Shakespeare

Byron
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Patricia and I sat down a year ago September to plan our move from Cannon Beach, Oregon to Tubac, Arizona. We went to the Rand McNally.com trip planner and plugged in our “goals”, the places where we wanted to stop on the way down. When we got to Tucson we went to see our daughter Ana and visited a couple of other places before we resumed our trip to our new home. We were not that familiar with Tucson but fortunately we had our newly purchased GPS, which enable us to get around without any problems.

I thought about that experience in light of our discussion yesterday on flexibility, creativity and the use of right brain thinking. I’ve concluded that as marvelous as the satellite technology is that enables us to get from one part of the country to another and to find our way around strange cities, it would have to be considered to be second rate technology. It pales in comparison to the power of our sub-conscious mind to get us from one circumstantial location to another.
Yes, we use computers and hi tech equipment to launch our missiles into space and to go to the Moon and to explore Mars but those destinations were first created in the minds of the visionaries who conceived the missions.

Here’s the application for you and me as we plan our futures and determine for ourselves what our ideal lives will be.
We need to first determine where we want to go, (Tubac) and what the quality of our journey will be like (interim stops or goals). That sounds like standard Goal-Setting 101, but that would be the linear left brain approach and would be limited by our history.
The necessary step beyond that is to visualize a destination we’ve never been to yet. That is creativity. I’ve used that approach for the attainment of all the worthwhile goals I’ve achieved in my life and I believe it will work for you as well. (It is also the reason I’ve failed to achieve some goals but that is a conversation for another post.)

Here’s the technique I recommend. It’s called Mind-Mapping. I’m sure many of you are familiar with it and have used it. I do want us to appreciate the deeper implications of its use as I understand them.

How to draw a Mind Map.

1) Take a large piece of paper. Go to the extreme right hand margin and measure in two inches.

2) Decide what your goal would look like if everything were ideal, write a description of it and draw a circle or a balloon around it. Put the date that it will be a reality. Believe that it will come to pass.

3) Decide what would have to take place for that to happen at that time. Write it down and again encircle it. Put a date on it. Draw a line connecting that circle with the previous one.

4) Continue to work backward, following the same procedure until you get back to the present. You may have two or more events occurring simultaneously, in which case you’ll have two or more lines connecting that event to the previous one.

A simple example might be a desired reduction in weight.

1) Large piece of paper–right hand margin–two inches.

2) Write a detailed word picture of the ideal conditions that will exist for you. How much you’ll weigh. What dress or suit you’ll be wearing. What people will be saying about you. What you’ll be doing etc. Use concrete language so that you can feel, taste hear, smell and see what is occurring around you and to you. Draw a circle around it. (I like to draw my circle like a cloud, you know kind of dreamy.) Put a date on it.

3) Now back away from that end experience and ask yourself what has to happen or what will I be doing that is causing that circumstance? You may be jogging or walking or going to a health club etc. Describe it, circle it, and put a date on it.

4) Continue working backward. What would you be doing that would lead up that behavior? Reading a fitness magazine or a diet book or whatever it takes to condition yourself to move forward toward your dream.

The important thing for you to do to make this work for you is to take a small short term easy to imagine goal. Set the bar low, maybe it is to not eat any sweets for one week or to go for a fifteen-minute walk for five days out of the next seven.
The magic in this exercise is that you’ll be training your sub-conscious mind to create desired outcomes for you. You’ll also discover how your marvelous inner goal-seeking mechanism can turn your dream into reality.

Success thought for today:

“THE IDEA IS TO SEEK A VISION THAT GIVES YOU PURPOSE IN LIFE AND THEN TO IMPLEMENT THAT VISION.”
-Lewis P. Johnson

Byron
byronethompson.com

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I had lunch with Jeff Burrows, creator of “The Entrepreneur’s Success Code” a few weeks ago and learned some things about marketing in today’s world.
His clients, even though older and more established than my target market, are operating at a very fast pace, want answers yesterday or sooner, are learning quickly, are time starved, very tech savvy and prefer to operate online and on the phone.

It’s not new news that we are living in a changing world or even that things are happening at a much faster pace than at any time in history. What is newsworthy to most of us is how we, individually, must adapt and change to operate in this rapidly changing new world.
How do we develop the flexibility required to not just keep pace in our careers but also remain relevant in all the milieus in which we live and work?

The answer: Learn to think differently, according to Daniel Pink in his 2005 book “A Whole New Mind; Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future”.
“We’re realizing that our economy is not about standardization. Computers are turning traditional left-brained work, jobs where a series of steps leads to one answer, into a commodity that can be outsourced.”

We need to be more creative, innovative and flexible. We need to tap into the right hemisphere of our brain where we can be and are more intuitive, perceptual and metaphorical.

The good news is we all have that ability and are able to develop it with training. Po Bronson, co-author with Ashley Merryman, of “NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children”.
“In the end creativity is mainly an attitude. It’s about coming up with an original answer to something as opposed to the one we’ve always seen.”

Success thought for today:

“SO-CALLED “INSPIRATION” IS NO MORE THAN AN EXTREME EXAMPLE OF A PROCESS WHICH CONSTANTLY GOES ON IN THE MINDS OF ALL OF US.”
-Anthony Storr

Byron
byronethompson.com

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For the past five days I’ve been thinking and writing about time.

I’ve asked you to join me as I’m on a 90-day quest to create a life worth living. That’s the essential theme of my book and I’m extracting some of the tools for success I talk about in the book and overlaying them on this short-term project to demonstrate their soundness.

So let’s use this week’s 2-day review period to re-read the last 5 Posts (or blogs) I’m still not sure about the nomenclature.

Let’s ask ourselves some questions relative to our relationship with time.

1) What am I learning from my past, both immediate (last 7 days) and my history, (the past number of years)?

2) Am I living in the here and now? How can I be in the present on a more regular basis?

3) Am I planning the daily events of my life or just drifting? If so, is that OK?

4) Am I creating my future? What do I need to do differently to create a life worth living?

5) Do I have a strategy for dealing with the “Biggie” in my life right now? Am I going to enlist the willing cooperation of others to come up with a solution to my biggie problem? Who will those people be? How and when will I do it?

6) Has the time I’ve spent this past week been profitable action and quality time? What changes will I make to insure that I have more quality time this next week?

Success thought for the weekend:

“TAKE CARE OF THE MINUTES, FOR THE HOURS WILL TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES.”
-Lord Chesterfield

Byron
byronethompson.com

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