Table of contents for Getting Along With Others

1. Getting Along With Others

Getting Along With Others

Getting Along With Others

Certainly there are things you can accomplish alone. And yet, there are many, many more accomplishments that will come from working with others. Certainly there are joys and insights to be found in solitude. There are many more joys and experiences, and much more knowledge to be gained from interacting with others. Each person in this world is unique, and still we all share things in common. That beautiful situation makes it both challenging and immensely rewarding to work, to play, to love and to live with others.

Life can be so much richer when we experience it in harmony with those around us. The other people in our lives can be the source of many of our greatest joys. They can also be the source of our most difficult problems. As such, it is crucial to the very quality of our lives that we make our relationships with others as positive as possible.

The quality of genuine fellowship, of positively sharing life’s experiences, of finding common ground, of working together with others, is something that can add value to every aspect of life. As with other things of value, relating successfully to others requires effort and commitment. While some relationships seem to grow effortlessly and naturally, others require some work to get going and to maintain. All positive, productive relationships deserve the effort and commitment necessary to keep them healthy.

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“I am an optimist. Any tough problem, I think it can be solved.” — Bill Gates

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Table of contents for Seven Words For Success

1. Seven Words For Success
2. Live Your Life As A Stewardship
3. Success Requires Discipline
4. You Have Got To Have Faith
5. Have Courage
6. Get Healthy
7. Forgiveness Is Essential

Forgiveness Is Essential

This is the seventh of the seven words of success; you must learn to forgive. That is difficult for many if not most people. Forgiveness is difficult, especially if you were wronged.

However, forgiveness is still essential. You must forgive for your own sake. Lack of forgiveness will eat you up inside and bitterness will overtake your life.

Forgiveness is difficult. Forgiveness is manditory. Think about it.

Forgiving must be learned.

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Table of contents for Making The Effort

1. Making The Effort
2. Making The Effort Is Satisfying
3. Enjoy Making The Effort

Books: Business/Economics

Enjoy Making The Effort

Enjoy Making The Effort

What really makes effort undesirable for you is the energy you put into fighting against it, into resenting that you have to do it, and into wishing that you were already beyond it. But what if you chose to simply let all that go, to accept and even embrace the effort? Imagine actually enjoying the effort. Can you do that? Of course you can.

The empowering fact is, you can decide what is enjoyable and what is not. When you enjoy what you’re doing, everything changes. First and foremost, you immediately eliminate a whole lot of stress, frustration, and other needless negative energy. That in itself improves your life in a powerful way. Plus, when you enjoy what you’re doing, you’ll do it much more creatively and effectively. By choosing to enjoy the effort, you’re able to get more value from that effort and also able to get the job finished more quickly.

So, how do you do that? How do you get to the point where you can enjoy the effort you’re making? A big part of the answer comes from simply reminding yourself that you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by choosing to enjoy what you’re doing. Take a step back and look objectively at your situation. If you were advising someone else in that same situation, what would your advice be? Very likely, you would advise that person to enjoy the effort because there’s every reason to do so, and no good reason not to. So simply take your own advice.

Another effective way to get yourself to enjoy the effort is to jump in and quickly begin making the effort. You’ll find that it’s not nearly as distasteful as you previously imagined it to be. Plus, you’ll quickly feel the satisfaction of making progress and of making a difference.

Focus your awareness on the positive rewards that you’ll create, for yourself and for your world, by getting the work done. There’s a good and meaningful reason why you must make the effort. After all, if there were no reason you would not have to do it. Zero in on that reason. Make the connection between the effort and the positive, valuable things it will create.

Imagine how helpless and dependent you’d be if you were not able to make any kind of effort. That would indeed be a frustrating and unfulfilling way to live. You are truly fortunate to be in a position to make effective, value-producing efforts. Sure, those efforts can often be inconvenient, tedious and uncomfortable. And yet, by going ahead and putting the best of yourself into them, you can create achievement and fulfillment on a scale that’s limited only by your imagination.

Making the effort will make a major difference in your world. Get yourself okay with it. Choose to embrace and enjoy it. Then get going, get busy, and get some spectacular achievements in the portfolio of your life.

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Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can’t do this or that. That’s nonsense. Make up your mind, you’ll never use crutches or a stick, then have a go at everything. Go to school, join in all the games you can. Go anywhere you want to. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible. — Sir Douglas Bader, a British fighter pilot who lost both legs in a flying accident, but still fought in World War Two. He was knighted for his work with the disabled, and the quote above is from his talk to a 14-year-old boy who had lost a leg in a car accident.

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Table of contents for Seven Words For Success

1. Seven Words For Success
2. Live Your Life As A Stewardship
3. Success Requires Discipline
4. You Have Got To Have Faith
5. Have Courage
6. Get Healthy
7. Forgiveness Is Essential

Get Healthy

In order to fully realize you must be as healthy as possible. I divide health into three areas:

• Spiritual Health,
• Mental/Emotional Health,
• Physical Health.

These three areas are interconnected. Everything effects everything else. Get healthy. Stay healthy!

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As we get to the end of the “Great Recession,” the housing market is starting to pick up quite nicely. It seems that of all the areas that are recovering, Florida is among the best. Why is that? Well, I think there are a lot of excellent reasons. Can you imagine owning a house in the Florida Keys?

Also it looks to me like a lot of fun living on the east coast of Florida or in the Orlando area. Lots of sun and mild weather. There are plenty of world class attractions available within a modest driving distance. And what about great sports teams? Florida has got them all in abundance. A lower cost of living does help as well. Did I mention that gasoline costs less in Florida?

Buying a home anywhere is a serious investment. Be certain to do your due diligence here. There are plenty of Florida houses for sale. If I was in the market to buy a new home in Florida, I would look for a company with an excellent reputation. I would want someone who was experienced in building houses and building them in Florida. What works here in Connecticut may not work as well down there.

And be sure to do some comparison shopping when it comes to a mortgage company as well. Home loan rates are at very low levels these days. A good shopper could save some serious money!

Owning a home in Florida is a dream for many folks in New England. The sun, the water and, the lifestyle is all available in Florida. Be sure to find a reputable builder with a proven track record. Get a good mortgage rate from a quality finance company. Be prepared to live the life of your dreams. Sell your snow blower at a tag sale. Give your snow shovels to your former neighbors! Get started on your great adventure today.

Table of contents for Making The Effort

1. Making The Effort
2. Making The Effort Is Satisfying
3. Enjoy Making The Effort

Making The Effort Is Satisfying

Making The Effort Is Satisfying

One more thing effort does very, very well. It satisfies. There is no feeling that can replace the feeling of knowing you’ve made a difference. Everybody has a burning desire to matter. It is a fundamental part of being alive. Effort, whether it is mental, physical or spiritual, is the primary means by which you can make a difference in this life. Effort enables you to matter.

So why would you want to avoid effort? You don’t. By default, you have a passionate desire to constantly and effectively put forth effort. You were born with it. Spend a few minutes observing a two-year-old child. Her whole world is effort, one joyous effort after another.

Here’s the only difference between a two-year-old’s efforts and your efforts. The efforts of a two-year-old child are called play. Your efforts are called work. For the most part, though, it’s just a matter of semantics. Someone somewhere decided that certain efforts should be classified as undesirable and referred to as work. But that’s a totally arbitrary distinction. A thirty-six-year-old firefighter goes to “work” each day at the fire station. Yet if an eleven-year-old boy were to spend the day in the same situation making the same efforts, he would likely consider it to be the adventure of a lifetime, and not work at all. Yet when that eleven-year-old gets up and goes to school the next day, he probably thinks of that as work. The firefighter might also go to school, perhaps to take a jujutsu class in the evening, and would most likely consider that to be a lot of fun.

So which is work and which is play? The amazing thing is, there’s really no objective answer. Work is what you think of as work, and play is what you think of as play. They both can involve amounts of effort.

The point here is this. There is absolutely no basis to the assumption that effort (or work, for that matter) is undesirable. That’s a very liberating concept to wrap your mind around. It can free you to make any dream come true.

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“They say things happen for a reason…You don’t do them, they won’t.” –Donavon Frankenreiter

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Table of contents for Seven Words For Success

1. Seven Words For Success
2. Live Your Life As A Stewardship
3. Success Requires Discipline
4. You Have Got To Have Faith
5. Have Courage
6. Get Healthy
7. Forgiveness Is Essential

Have Courage

Have Courage

Courage is another of the “must haves” for success. Courage does not mean you are not scared or concerned or fearful. Courage is moving forward in spite of what you are feeling inside.

In our media saturated society we often visualize courage as a knight riding a white charger who seems fearless. My experience tells me quite the opposite.

There are going to be situations in life where you must take a stand. You may not feel like taking that stand. Be resolute, take the stand, ignoring the feelings of fear and you will be surprised by what can happen.

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