Reading4Champions: December Book

Hello Champions!

The November book, "A Setback is a Setup for a Comeback" by Willie Jolley, gave us great tools to effectively handle the bumps in the road of our championship journey.  (if you haven't finished reading it, keep going until you do!) I don't know about you, but no more "awfulizing and catastrophizing" for me.  As Mr. Jolley says, "you cannot control what happens around you, but you can control what happens in you."  Remember, the purpose of the book club is not only to fill our minds with champion thinking, but also to implement champion behavior in our lives.  So don't forget to take one or two of Mr. Jolley's tools and start using them right away.  

Our December book is also about effectively handling the setbacks of life.  This book was recommended to me by a mentor and was the first book I read by this gentleman who has become my favorite author of self-improvement books.  My library is now full of his books.  I even use his Leadership Bible which highlights the leadership principles found in the Bible.  I have had the privilege of hearing him speak, or teach as he would say, on several occasions.  He is known as America's expert on leadership.

Are You Missing You?

The other day I was having a pity party.  When I had a job, I had a high level of income and I could buy lots of stuff.  That income has dropped since I chose to become self-employed.  So while I was sitting at my computer wearing my "poor me" face, I decided I should look for a job-sharing or part-time job.  Yeah, I reasoned I could work part-time and make some extra change and still have time to devote to my business.  Yeah, I could have my cake and eat too! Yeah!  So, I started my Google search and found some websites for employment.  But as I was completing an application, I heard something inside me softly say, "If you work for someone else, you will never develop into the person you need to be for your business."  I froze.  Needless to say, I immediately left those websites and have not been back.  But the incident got me thinking, "What kind of person am I going to develop into (I got excited!) and what would I miss if I didn't keep moving forward?  It also got me thinking, "How many people never develop into the people they were meant to be?"  In effect, are you missing you?

Reading4Champions: November Book

Hello Champions!

Were you able to finish 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class by Steve Siebold in one month?? The book is so chock full of insights that I was not able to finish it.  I am still chewing on many them.  Did you do at least do one Action Step For The Day?  This book is definitely one you will refer to time and time again.

Speaking of re-reading, the book for November is a re-read for me and it has a special place in my life.  You see, I met the author in 2000 when he was speaking to youth at the start of a summer works program.  He spoke with such passion and his message so inspired me that I bought not one, but two of his books! (yes, they are autographed). The November book is

Look up!

It's Monday morning.  The alarm goes off, you jump out of bed and the race begins.  You race through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday doing job things and family things without looking up.  Saturday and Sunday come and you race around doing chores and other weekend stuff without looking up.  Monday morning comes, the alarm goes off, you jump out of bed and off you go. Week after week, month after month, year after year, without looking up.  LOOK UP!

Now I know if you are an adult, you have bills to pay and responsibilities to handle, but life is not just about paying bills and handling responsibilities.  I am not saying to forget them.  What I am saying is life is a gift so,

Get Motivated!

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the GET MOTIVATED! business seminar held in my city. (http://www.getmotivated.com/)   If you have never attended one, you are missing something good!  I had a wonderful day and learned alot.  I thought I would share my experience with you.

I found out about the seminar in an email from a friend inviting me to attend.  Being the geek that I am, I went to the website to see what was what.  According to the website, "the GET MOTIVATED Seminar is an action-packed, fun-filled, explosive, exciting, inspiring, skill-building business event that is world famous for its mega-watt superstar speakers and spectacular stage production."  Okay.  I clicked on the event for my city to see who would be speaking.  Scheduled to speak were Rudy Guiliani, Gen. Colin Powell, Steve Forbes, Dan Rather, Terry Bradshaw, Rick Belluzzo, Krish Dhanam and Zig Ziglar!  The advance ticket price couldn't be beat: $1.95 for one ticket and $9.95 for your office.  Your "office" is any sized group.  I was immediately sold!

I arrived at the arena at 6:45 a.m. to pick up my tickets.  I was surprised to see hundreds of people already there waiting for the doors.  The event didn't start until 8:00!  The people were open and friendly. There were lots of smiles and "good morning" and "how are you" in the place.  I was really struck by the number of people there on a workday. 

Needless to say, each of the speakers were

Reading4Champions Book Club: 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class

Hello Champions!

I hope you squeezed all you could learn about opportunity from the September book, Opportunity Knocks by Pat Mesiti.  For October, we will be reading 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class by Steve Siebold. I quoted Mr. Siebold in my first post about the book club:

       "The great ones have a world view that says happiness is learning, growing and becoming.

         School is never out for champions."

This book is simple to read.  Each page contains one topic and additional bullet information in green, orange or blue blocks (I love color!)   But please, please, don't be fooled.  This books is chock full of thought-provoking and paradigm shifting statements.

I picked this book because this book club is for champions (which you are, yay!).  In order to be a champion in the world, you have to

Still Learning After All These Years

I've been going through some tough times lately.  I've felt like I was drowning.  Very often, I felt like sitting in the middle of the floor and doing nothing. . . forever.  I wanted to give up on my dreams.  But I didn't.  I kept going even though I didn't see any end and I learned some life lessons as I went along.

1. Attitude is everything.   I know you have heard that saying before.  But during my trials, I truly realized attitude is not everything, it is the thing.  How you respond to any given situation is a choice which can make you or break you.  I decided to have a positive attitude.  I reminded daily myself that my trials were temporary and I spoke about them as being temporary to the people I confided in.  Because of my attitude, I saw the good side of the trials.  My thinking stayed clear.  Instead of saying, "I can't do X because of Y", I asked myself, "How can I get X done?"  This question caused me to think out-of-the-box and come up with creative solutions to problems.  I can't wait to see

What are Your Challenges, Part II

In August, I conducted a poll asking you what challenge you face most often and promised to write a post on the challenge most faced.  The choices were procrastination/delaying, managing your time, dealing with difficult people, being organized and handling stressful situations.  The winner was......(drum roll) procrastination/delaying!

Before I write anything else, I want to thank those of you who responded to the poll.

Now, to write about your challenge and how to overcome it.  It took me awhile to decide what to say new because I have written about procrastination before. (see June 25, 2010 post) Or maybe I was just procrastinating. Anyway, I decided to

Reading4Champions September Book - How's it Going?

Just a quick post to see how everyone is coming along in reading the book for the month, Opportunity Knocks by Pat Mesiti. 

As I said earlier, we are starting with a book because it is only a 100 pages and is an easy read.  Mr Mesiti explains that opportunity is everywhere and in order to take advantage of it, all you need to do is decide.  He also explains the misperceptions people cling to which cause them to miss great, life changing opportunities and he dispells each one.

Truth or myth: "Today's great opportunity is hindered or robbed by yesterday's failures"? The answer is on page 23.  

Champions, don't miss your opportunity to grow by reading this book! You have 16 more days before we start reading the next book..............

Question for Comment: How did this book help you?

Reading4Champions: Opportunity Knocks

Hey everyone, it's time to read and succeed!

The first book for the #Reading4Champions book club* is Opportunity Knocks by Pat Mesiti.  I picked this book to start because it is a easy read, 100 pages, the layout is simple and the text is not hard on the eyes.

I recommend this book because it is very straight forward.  Mr. Mesiti's view of opportunity as "a means to create a more meaningful, prosperous and influential life, for others and myself" (page 18) caused

Reading for Champions Book Club

It is a new month so I thought I would start something new on my blog and on Twitter.  I have written before about the value of reading, and listening to, self-improvement, motivational books and tapes.  That is why I have a Books I Have Read list in the left column.  So to motivate you to read, once a month, beginning this month, I will highlight a book from my list and tell you why I recommend you read it.  Now, I am not a book critic so don't expect to read about the pros and cons of the book.  This endeavor into reading will be called the Reading for Champions Book Club!

I know from my experience, as well as the experience of others,

It's Hard to See the Picture When You Are in the Frame

It's August....the heat has let up for now....it's not raining today...  Whatever the reason, I thought I would do some self-assessment this week.   If you read my blogs, you know I believe self-improvement is critical in anyone's life.  You know I read motivating books and magazines, and listen to positive tapes.  (if you don't know, you can read my May 21, 2010 post or click The Books I Have Read link in the left column).

Recently, I attended a leadership boot camp.  For my company, boot camp means honest talk and guidance to get you to the next level in your personal development; to get you out of your comfort zone so you will become a better person, a better leader.  As Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, says, "The most important actions are never comfortable."   Now, I have known the  boot camp trainers/mentors for several years and I have seen them evolve into better people, better leaders.  I listened as they talked about the books they read and the tapes they listened to during their journey.  I listened as they

Poll - What Are Your Challenges?

For some reason, we think when we are facing a challenge or challenges, that we are the only person in the whole wide world who has EVER faced that challenge.  If you think like this, STOP NOW! It is sooo untrue.  The one thing I have learned in talking with people is that, for the most part, we all have the same challenges in life.  The only difference between you and the person "who has it all together" is, the person hasn't really shared with you.  I mean, if you sat down with the person and both of you shared yourselves, had a real heart to heart conversation, you would most probably find the person has faced the same challenge (s) you face.  The person, however,

Guest Blogger

I want to use my weekly post to thank Robert Wingfield for allowing me to be guest blogger for his blog, The RAW Blog. (http://rawblog.posterous.com/)  Let me tell you a little bit about him.  He is a native of Nashville, TN and a graduate of the illustrious HBCU Fisk University (yeah Fiskite!).  Rob is a media consultant in Nashville and blogs about current events, food, music and entertainment.  I have known Rob for a long time and felt greatly honored that he would allow me to express myself to his followers.  Check out his blog.

And while I am talking about guest blogging, if you (yes, you) would like to write something, anything, to be posted on my blog, email me at myjourneytome@gmail.com.  Be glad to have you! 

THAT Stirring

Ever read or hear a message then felt something jump inside of you so much tears came into your eyes? Yes? That feeling, that stirring means you were supposed to read or hear those words at that point in time. It means those words were meant just for you, even if you are sitting in a vast audience.

The other day, I was idly going through my emails and opened an email update of a blog I subscribe to. The title of the blog post was catchy because I was feeling that way. I started to read the post. And something jumped deep inside of me,

Why You Shouldn't Be Perfect

As I write this, I am thinking perfectionism fits perfectly here right after the topic of achieving personal goals since the two can be intertwined.  I am the type of person who starts something brand new on Monday and expects to be perfect at it by Friday (of the same week).  Yes, I am a closet perfectionist. (I guess since I am writing this, I am no longer in the closet!)  And I had been frustrated a lot of times in my life.

I learned a valuable lesson about perfectionism from my granddaughter. When she was learning to talk, oftentimes her speech would be grammatically incorrect. We would correct her, she would repeat it and go merrily along her way.  No uncomfortableness, no shame in her game. It suddenly  dawned on me one day I wanted to be perfect at everything I did because

It Ain't All About Achieving The Goal

Set a personal goal, write it down, break down the goal into do-able steps, add a completion date and you will achieve it.  You will live happily ever after!  Sound familiar?  It should.  We've all heard this at one time or another.  And since I wanted to live happily ever after, I went through the process of writing down goals with a completion date.  Some I accomplished and some I didn't.  For the goals I didn't accomplish, I would do the process again....and again...and again.   But when I saw I wasn't accomplishing a goal again and again, I stopped writing it down, and as you expect, the goal got lost in life.  To me, a goal was the "be all and the end all".  If I wasn't "being all" then why bother.  I lived like this for years.

What I didn't realize is, although achieving a goal is important, there is more going on than meets the eye.  The realization hit last year when

Procrastination: It's A Mind Thing

I am a procrastinator.  I said this all the time and freely used it as an excuse to myself for why only eight out of 15 tasks on my daily To Do lists got done.  I procrastinate - it was my mantra.  I owned it totally.  It was me.  And I felt bad about undone tasks.  I felt like an underachiever.

Then one day, I started to think....why am I a procrastinator?  Was the root the traditional reasons experts give (you know - fear, lack of focus, task so big you don't know where to begin so you don't, poor time management skills, TV)?  But, I had tried the experts' traditional fixes for these, but they didn't work for long. So was the root something else? 

Some words I read years ago began to echo in my head:

The Joke's on Me

I read The Purpose Driven® Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren a couple of years ago. I am writing about it here because, while the whole book was excellent, one chapter had, and still has, a profound effect on me, shaping my thinking and actions.

Chapter 2 is called "You Are Not An Accident".  At the end of the chapter, the reader is given this question to consider the following question: "I know that God uniquely created me. What areas of my personality, background, and physical appearance am I struggling to accept?"  Well, I no problem whatsoever with that question!!  This is what I wrote:

Words of Wisdom

The other day I was thinking (yes, I still think) about some of the "words of wisdom" I have read or heard that I find continuously and positively influence me.  I remember these things when the road in my life gets rocky and when situations don't work out the way I thought.  I really lean on them when I start to second guess myself and feel I should "conform to the norm" and not do what's right for me. 

I don't remember where I read or heard all of these "words of wisdom".  But for the ones I do, I will let you know. Here goes:

• "Why do you think other people know better than you what is best for you and your family?"
• "You need to graduate from MSU- University of Making Stuff Up."   Play to Win!, Larry Wilson
• "I am not where I need to be, but thank God I am not where I used to be; I'm OK, and I'm on my way!"  How to Succeed at Being Yourself, Joyce Meyer
• "To be successful, double your failure rate" Darren Hardy, Publisher, SUCCESS magazine
• "If you buy someone else's opinion, you buy their livestyle." Orin Solomon, SVP, ACN
• "No one has the right to define you but you!"  Steadman Graham
• "....Faith without works is dead." The Bible, James 2:26 (NKJV)
• "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to [His] purpose."  The Bible, Romans 8:28 (NKJV) 
• "One reason we don't attain our goals is we often focus on how far we are from feeling satisfaction, rather than on how far we have already come."  Fred Pryor

I am learning that after others pass judgment on my life, they leave and don't look back.  I am the one left with me and the consequences of any decisions I make.  Therefore, I must to remain true to me.  I have written these "words of wisdom" and lots of others in my daily planner.  That way, they are always with me and keep me going forward.  

FYI - You must do this to get e-mail updates.....

Hey Everyone!

Ok, I am learning how to do this as I go. If you subscribed as a Follower, you will NOT get an email when I update my blog as I incorrectly stated earlier. There is a new box in the right margin for an email subscription. Enter your email address here. Thanks!

What Am I Thinking??

A former co-worker once complimented me on my attitude. She said I was different from the other people at work; I was so positive. After thanking her, I told her I didn't watch the news (people will tell you bad news whether you ask or not) and I read lots of self-development, self-improvement books. She asked for a list of the books I had read. I started going through my library to make the list and, to my surprise, I had read a lot of self-improvement books.

You see, it wasn't that I was not a reader. After college, I read plenty of romance novels (you know, the ones with a picture of a woman with big hair and the silhouette of a shirtless buff man in the background on the cover). But I had started a business in 1999 and my business partners, my mentors, encouraged me to read books that would improve me as a person. Books that would change my thinking for the better. And since I wanted to be successful like them and I read the books they read. However, before my co-worker said something,

Why A Blog??

Yes, I am writing a blog. You are probably asking yourself why??? Well, this blog is to be a catharsis for me…. a place to write the thoughts and adventures I am having in my life right now. I also hope this blog helps other people to stop and think, to see life differently, to laugh at themselves, to know they can still learn and grow, and whatever else they get from my blog that helps them become better.

I will be 54 this year and am the only child. That may also explain this blog…I don’t have any siblings to dump on. Anyway, I am enjoying my life more now than when I was younger. In December 2008, I walked away from my career in law, from a position as a judge, to do something different. I lot of people ask me if walking away was hard to do.