“Multi-tasking is dead. It never worked and it never will. Intelligent people love to sing its praises because it gives them permission to avoid the much more challenging alternative: focusing on one thing.”   -Timothy Ferriss

The Grinch is Giving some Pretty Good Deals at MoreBetterBooks.com

Books on Scoopers, Poopers, Leaders and Theives…. delivered shipped for the next 14 Days for FREE!?  NO WAY!!

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Make it a Great Day

Kirk

You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims.  ~Harriet Woods (1927-) American Politician

I liked this piece especially for a couple people I used to work with who believed differently and only seemed to view others as obstacles and objects on their “take no prisoners build no relationships” journey towards their goal.   Considering the often distastefully muddy nature of political debates, I was also excited to see the quote came from a politician.  Most of our politicians do seem to be able to say wonderful things - now if they would just do them as well.  (Hey I’m a bit this way myself…life seems to be easier said than done.)

For the Holiday Season - my website MoreBetterBooks.com is offering Free Shipping (in US) and Awesome Bulk Book Buying rates.   So now you can afford to give all of the people you care about a book about Poop or Cookies! You can also see a picture of me as the Grinch.  (Hey, it’s for the kids!)

A short time ago -  I had a chance to share the platform with friend, speaker and leadership expert, Mark Sanborn, a man I greatly respect and admire.  He’s also the author of one of my all time favorite books, “The Fred Factor”.  It was great fun to sit in the back of the room with my journal and pen in hand and join with the audience in trying to capture the incredible amount of wisdom and insight he was offering.  In his own amazing way he managed to pack more into a 60 minute presentation than many people may be lucky enough to get from 2 years of college, or from 3 years worth of seemingly worthless work meetings.  A couple simple but significant highlights from my notes follow.

It doesn’t take any more time to be kind to someone than it does to be a jerk                

What does it mean to truly C.A.R.E. for a customer?  Create A Rare Experience 

Quality & Service get you into the game - relationships keep you in and help you to win.

Gratefulness makes for a Great Fullness Of Heart

Celebrity is based on what you get - Greatness is based on what you give

Great Questions to Ask yourself might include.

Q.  Did I waste any of the day I just finished?

Q.  Was I fully engaged in each moment?

Q.  Great question to ask someone you haven’t seen in a while. What great idea has seized you since we last met!

The 3 word question   =    Innovate or Replicate?

You can re-invent yourself everyday! 

It’s never too late to become who you might have been.

If you want more of Mark’s Wisdom I invite you to take a gander at his website where you can find lots of great articles and quotes.  http://www.marksanborn.com/

If you want to read the wonderful short story that inspired the best selling FRED FACTOR book and spawned the FRED Revolution - click HERE!

BE A FRED !

Kirk

This quote has been one of my favorites through the years.  I re-discovered it yesterday when making a new Fax Cover sheet.  Enjoy -

“Thought is the real caustic force in life, and there is no other.  You cannot have one kind of mind and another kind of environment.  You cannot change your environment while leaving your mind unchanged.  This is the real key to life, if you change your mind, your conditions must change too - your body must change, your activities must change; your home must change, the color- tone of your whole life must change.”

“This may be called the Great Cosmic Law.  The practical difficulty in applying it arises from the fact that our thoughts are so close to us that it is difficult, without a little practice, to stand back and look at them objectively.  Yet that is just what you must learn to do.  You must train yourself to choose the subject of your thinking at any given time, and also to choose the emotional tone.”~    Emmet Fox

I invite you to listen to my 2^nd guest appearance on Dr. Paul’s  “Live on Purpose” radio show. To listen to the “podcast” - http://www.liveonpurposeradio.com/radio/ our show was called “Thanksgiving with a Magic T”

My previous show with Dr. Paul, Watch Your Language, Flip Your “But” is his most downloaded go to  http://www.liveonpurposeradio.com/radio/page/2/

WOW, lots and lots of wonderful comments from T4D readers on last weeks “Thought 4 the Day” post titled “If I were any better I’d be Twins”.  To read it and the comments go too www.kirkweisler.com/t4d

In other news; I was blessed to do another “Live on Purpose” radio show with Dr. Paul, the “Shrink who expands your life.  To download or listen to the “podcast” version of the show simply go too… http://www.liveonpurposeradio.com/radio/ our show was called “Thanksgiving with a Magic T”

While there Dr. Paul told me that my last time on the show is the most downloaded since he began - to hear Watch Your Language, Flip Your “But” go to  http://www.liveonpurposeradio.com/radio/page/2/

Today’s T4D  Thanksgiving for the Differences

Like many or most of the citizens of the U.S.  I celebrated Thanksgiving with family and friends last week.  It was wonderful to be able to gather together with my brothers and their families along with my Mom & Dad.  For most of the week we were all together in our home… 4 families all with “their own way of doing things” all coming together and allowing for the differences of others, often giving up what would be preferred personally for what might be desired collectively or by another.  

Since this time we were gathered in our home in Atlanta - I found myself perhaps even more aware of how differently “my own family does things”…like get ready for bed, feed children, discipline or correct kids, talk about life…and even listen to one another.  Each of my brothers and their families have their own way of doing these same things.  

The obvious temptation in life is to believe that they way we do things is the “best way”.  Because, of course. we wouldn’t deliberately choose to raise our families or to live our lives in a worse way… right?  The danger is if we can’t get past the belief that our way is the best or only way to do things - then we will waste an inordinate amount of time being critical of others - which, of course, accomplishes no good thing.  My brothers ways of doing things are potentially, and probably “way better than my own.”  At the very least my way of doing things can only represent “one way.”

Still people who do things differently than we do them at home or at work can prove to be annoying… especially if the way they choose to do them inhibits or alters our pattern and way of doing things.

For the past week my wife Rebecca had “other people” in “her kitchen” and my Mom even “took over” the kitchen a couple of times.  Rebecca dealt with this wonderfully, but at one point I found myself starting to be a bit critical of the amount of time my Mom was spending in the kitchen - I thought - No one asked her to be in there or too cook, or too clean up - but there she was.  A couple of my brothers even told her as much.  We wanted her to relax - the kitchen can wait is perhaps “our way of doing things”.   It is not my Mom’s way.

Why was she in the kitchen? Well when I thought it through I quickly concluded that it was not out of a need she has to have or be in control.  She is just not that way.  It is her way to “get it done” so she can relax knowing that it is done.  I thought she is also likely there in the kitchen because her whole life has been about raising and caring for her sons…and the kitchen was one of the central gathering and nurturing places of our growing up and where a good bit of this nurturing took place.  So with her sons and grandchildren gathered - one of the places she felt most at home and most able to serve was in and from the kitchen.  These were my thoughts…and they changed my view of my Mom being there.  Mom didn’t need to change where she was at … I did.

Considering people’s motivation and intention - can help to change our perspective - and help us ‘make the needed change’ in our view.

Taking the time to consider others intentions and to give them the benefit of the doubt creates for ourselves greater opportunities to allow for understanding and for the placing of others needs before our own.  The moment we are able to do this is the moment we become able to replace a measure annoyance with a far greater measure of endearment - it is the moment when you can more easily forget yourself and truly treasure another.  It is a moment of true thanksgiving, not just for another person, but for their differences that actually have helped you to see yourself and the world with more compassion and more clarity than you could have without them. 

Whether the differences in others and in their way of doing things are better or worse than our own is of little or no consequence.  Of greater consequence is that we are willing to value and learn from those differences so we can become better.

Our Thanksgiving becomes greater as we do !

Kirk out

Dear readers….I got writing this and it just kept going… so forgive the length and enjoy your day.

I have a character in my family we call “Uncle Bob”.  He’s one of those people who you look forward to seeing just so you can ask him how he is doing.  A conversation almost always begins like this.

“Hey Bob, how you doing?

His reply - “If I was any better I’d be twins.”

For the nearly 10 years I have known Bob his reply to any form of a greeting has always been upbeat, filled with positivity, and possibility.  If a person didn’t know better they might think Bob hasn’t had and doesn’t have any problems.   I happen to know some of the significant hardships Bob has been through…not because he’s told me of course.  Because Bob isn’t one to talk of or dwell on such things.

I try to be like Bob.  I try to focus on the positive and the possible and I work hard to deliberately fill my mind and my language with words that lift and inspire.  I believe this practice, more than any other, helps me keep my focus, my language and my life on a more positive path.  I believe such a practice helps to make us more attractive to good things in life, I believe it increases our like-ability and magnifies our pos-abilities.

There are those in life who don’t, won’t or can’t seem to understand or accept our deliberately positive attitude.

“Hey Kirk, How was your weekend?”

“I had a wonderful weekend, heck It was Awesome!”

In reality it was filled with challenges and the other stuff that makes up this experience we call life.

Have you ever vocalized your enjoyment of life so much that people only to have people say foolish things to you like.  “You seem so happy, and either imply or say directly that they would be too if they had your nearly perfect life.”  Perfect life?  Who has that?

I have another friend who seems to think his problems are so much greater than anyone else’s that he is obsessed with talking about them to anyone who will listen.  The problem is everyone is tired of listening - because that’s all they every seem to hear from him.  The more they try to distance themselves from being his “needed ear” the more his need to be listened too seems to go unmet and the situation exacerbates itself.

Most of us are now or have experienced a relationship with someone like this…we love them, but just can’t dedicate the time to being the friend they seem to need…especially considering that all the listening we have done in the past hasn’t seemed to do any good.

I recently listened to a friend bemoan the unfairness of his life for over an hour.  The situation he described was pretty awful - I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with any of what he was experiencing.  

At one point as I listened - he actually implied that I, along with other people had “no idea” of the unfairness and difficulty of what he was dealing with…and that their  attempts at offering comfort or counsel were not even approaching being helpful to him. 

As I listened - I began wondering if he wanted my life instead…or even the last year of it.  Was my life so devoid of difficulty that I couldn’t relate? Or was my life so “pleasantly perfect” that I wasn’t able to comprehend, counsel, or console my friend. 

What was my last year like?? My mother in law passed away from complications stemming from diabetes, she had suffered a long time…kidney transplants amputations of body parts, loss of eyesight, seeping wounds that would never fully heal.  For the last 2 years she had something called “shingles” on her side.  It was often hard to watch her suffer, it was painful for her to endure.  Did my friend want her life? With all of her obvious discomfort and loss of quality of life…she never complained. 

My brother-in-law Jared, age 37 died a few months ago of tongue Cancer.  He left behind a loving wife and 4 young children.  The cancer was brutal…for nearly the last year of his life he couldn’t eat or even swallow.  The treatments for his cancer were or seemed barbaric and they didn’t help.  It wouldn’t go away.  He just kept shrinking away until finally his body had nothing left to keep it going.  Jared was not one to complain - I remember only once him saying to me that “cancer was a cruel way to die.”  Does my complaining friend want his life?

If my friend had lived only as long as my brother in law - he would have died and stopped complaining over twenty years ago. 

My own father was just told that one of his kidney’s has several cancerous growths on it and needs to come out.  He’s not so young anymore - losing a kidney can be a hard surgery.  My dad is not complaining about it…”what good would that do” he says, “it’s just part of life.”  Rather his thought process is - “I am glad the Doctor took a close look at my blood work that was done when I got my pacemaker… it was because of his attention to a small detail that they were able to discover I had this cancer.  Had it gone undetected for another few months it would have spread throughout my body and been much worse…even fatal.  As it is, I’ll just be losing a kidney.”

Life does and will continue to come at us hard and fast.  Life is not fair, nor is it unfair…life just is.  It is a great and grand experiment and experience that helps us better understand ourselves and hopefully helps us discover our capacity to be our best selves.  Or at least it can if we approach it with a right mind set.

Some people might seem to have it easier than we do, some to have it more difficult.  In the end - who can say?  All we really seem to have is a choice to make about how we will respond to the experience of life…we can respond with bitterness and blame…or we can respond with benevolence and a sense of becoming. 

My life and my happiness is not the result of favored circumstance, but of a determined choosing and deliberate and sustained effort.   This sustained pattern of thinking is or can become a mental mindset.  My uncle Bob pours concrete for living - he’s nearly 70, looks 50, and I haven’t seen a twenty year old that’s able to keep up with him, in fact no one seems to be able to keep up with him…he works so hard and get’s so much done -it’s like he’s two people … It’s like he’s twins.

Make it a Great Day - Just by saying that it is! 

Let’s Make it a Wonderful Day - Let’s Be Twins

Kirk Out

PS - Special Holiday Specials & Bulk Pricing on my books at www.morebetterbooks.com

No pleasure philosophy, no sensuality, no place nor power, no material success can for a moment give such inner satisfaction as the sense of living for good purposes, for maintenance of integrity, for the preservation of self-approval.   — Minot Simons

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.  — Leo C. Rosten (1908-1977) American Writer

Kirk Out

I’ll never forget one of Jim Collins observations in his landmark book “Good to Great” where he noted the difference between a good leader, a good team, a good company and a truly great one…wasn’t generally the result of some huge thing.  Rather it was the cumulative results of several little things that on the surface may not appear to be of great significance.  The difference in those that achieved greatness was their willingness to do just a ”little bit more” than others were willing to do. 

To have more than we currently have we must become more than we currently are.  Sounds easy and hard at the same time doesn’t it?

“Excellence is the result of: Caring more than others think is wise…

Risking more than others think is safe…

Dreaming more than others think is practical, and

Expecting more than others think is possible.”

So let’s do a little “more than” the average person does.

 Make it an excellent day by doing “more than” and trust that the results of pursuing this course will lead us both onward and upwards –from Good to Great.

Kirk out

Let’s kick off this week before thanks giving with Ralph Waldo Emerson…an American Classic…..here are just 4 of his great quotes….

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

The only way to have a friend is to be one.  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, while he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Make your day and your week a happy one….it’s your choice

Kirk