”A word to the wise ain’t necessary — it’s the stupid ones that need the advice.” Bill Cosby

Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself.  - Harvey Fierstein

Recieved this one the other day - I really liked it.  On a personal level Rebecca and I have been working hard on saying no to lesser things so we can so YES to more important ones.  There is much less gathering together of families today than ever before, less time spent facing one another replaced by people facing screens, or facing foward in autos as we rush from place to place. 

“It is difficult to know what counts in the world. Most of us count credits, honor, dollars. But at the bulging center of mid-life, I am beginning to see that the things that really matter take place not in the boardrooms, but in the kitchens of the world.”  ~Gary Allen Sledge

Rebecca, my wife,  has a quote that hangs in our home.  It says, “A gathering is a strengthening” 

Thank you Tara for sharing this with me yesterday… 

If you always believe  

What you have always believed  

You will always feel  

The way you have always felt  

If you always feel  

The way you have always felt  

You will always think  

The way you have always thought  

If you always think  

The way you have always thought  

You will always do  

What you have always done  

If you always do  

What you have always done  

You will always get  

What you have always gotten   I

f there is no change  

There is no change  

-Author Unknown-

 Lot’s of cool responses to last weeks “Thought 4 the Day” messages.  The following came in response to Jim Rohn’s “the Great Challenge of Life” - it was in the comment section of the blog posting but I felt it was too good not to share.  Thank you Janet for sharing it with us.  

 A woman once told me, “If you won’t share your hotdogs, you won’t share your steak.” That phrase really struck me. Much like the ‘if I had a lot of money, I would be generous’ attitude mentioned in the T4D and sometimes prevalent in our thinking, it highlights the trap of waiting to become what you want to be and the fallacy of a truly generous nature only when you have more than you could possibly use yourself. If you want to be a generous and giving person, the time to be that is NOW. Share your hotdog, so that when you’re in a position to have steak on your plate you’ll have the attitude and habit of sharing.

 Practice Sharing Now - it’s something you can better and better at.  ~ Kirk

From Francis Fukuyama, in the book Culture Matters, page 102

Social capital is not, as sometimes portrayed, a rare cultural treasure passed down from one generation to the next, which, if lost, can never be regained. Rather, it is created spontaneously all the time by people going about their daily lives. It was created in traditional societies, and it is generated ona daily basis by individuals and firms in a modern capitalist society.

Here is a T4D I wrote back in the spring of 2003 just after returning from my very first around the world training trip.

Back from my trip around the world… what an experience, London, Sydney, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand….and back home to Salt Lake City. Team Building around the world has taught me many things… here is just one of them. Everyone everywhere is dealing with many of the same things we are…both personally, and professionally. How to find meaning in their work, how to motivate their less motivated co-workers, how to stay motivated themselves, how to balance family and work, how deal with difficult and challenging personalities, how to deal with rapidly changing market conditions, how to play by the rules, deal with the government restrictions, and build a great business culture….and on and on it goes.

The constant pursuit we must all make is not for any one thing…. for obtaining any one thing will not bring happiness or success…unless perhaps that one thing is “Excellence”. Excellence being defined as “Doing the very best you can do, in the situation you find yourself, with the resources available to you.” Pursuing excellence does not always mean obtaining or achieving your desired goals…though you might. It does mean that even if we don’t realize the goal, if we pursued it in the spirit of excellence…then we did all that we could, and in this there is great satisfaction and no regrets. Allowing us to never waste energy on regret or remorse, excellence then empowers us to quickly assess where we came up short and focus on moving forward quickly once again. The pursuit of excellence then is its own never ending reward.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle

“Greatness is not measured by what a man or woman accomplishes, but by the opposition he or she has overcome to reach his goals.” -Dr. Dorothy Height

“The common denominator of success — the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful — lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.” - Albert Gray

The Habit of Excellence…hmmn, maybe Excellence should be a cigarette? 

Kirk Out

 This is from a talk given to a group of teenagers….just imagine it!

My favorite saying about your associations and my way of saying it is, “You are the same today as you’re going to be in five years except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read.” Hang around thinkers; you’ll be a better thinker. Hang around givers; you’ll be a better giver. Hang around workers; you’ll be a better worker. Hang around a bunch of thumb sucking, complaining, griping boneheads; and you will be a better thumb sucking, complaining, griping bonehead.

Now. With that said… how many of you are under sixteen yet? Great. How do you like an idea that you might be driving a Cadillac when you’re sixteen? I got it for you. When my son was your age, he wasn’t quite as excited as you. I said, “Jerry, do you want to have a car when you’re sixteen?” “Yes.” “Do you want me to help you buy that car?” “Yes sir, dad.” “Alright, son, we’re going to do it, but the free ride’s over. No more allowance. I’m going to give you a way to make a lot of money.

Here is the deal. I am going to pick out books for you to read. There will be motivational books, history books, inspirational books; and every time I give you a book, you give me a book report. Every time I get a book report, I’ll put money in your car fund. Another book report; more money in the car fund. In two years if you read in style, you’ll drive in style. But if you read like a bum, you’re going to drive like a bum.”

Overnight he developed a fantastic hunger for reading. Now the first book I had him read was Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” Now the first day he came down and said, “Dad, dad, there’s a whole chapter in here on smiling and shaking hands.” And he shook my hand, shook my hand - first sign of life in fourteen years. Woohoo! And he smiled at me. Then I had him read a book named Joshua in the Old Testament on discouragement. And we were going to Sunday school one week, and I said, “Jerry, how are you getting along with Joshua?” He says, “Dad, dad.” He hit my leg. Imagine that, he hit my leg. And he said, “Everybody ought to have to read that book.” That was a sign he was beginning to think about somebody other than himself.

Well, he read 22 books. Did he buy a car? No. He kept the money, used my car and my gas. Now but wait a minute. Don’t laugh. It was worth it. Then he went off to college, and I got one of the greatest experiences of my life. And the last chapter of my book “Life is Tremendous” is about Jerry Jones (my son), and there is the reading contract to negotiate with your dad to get it in writing, so he can’t change his mind. So Jerry goes off to college and he writes me a “Dear Dad” postcard everyday for four years. You know what I used to do when I would get some of the cards? I would put my head on my desk and cry. Do you know why? He was thinking thoughts that I never dreamed a young person could think. Now he didn’t have the full meaning of them, but he had read and he had the thoughts in his mind. So I would like to read you a couple cards from college to me.

“Dear Dad, It’s tremendous to be able to know that when you are in a slump, just as a baseball player will break out in time, so will you break out of yours. Yes, time really cures things. Like you said, you don’t lose any problems, you just get bigger and better ones, tremendous ones. Tremendously, too. Jerry”

“Dear Dad, Just started reading a hundred Great Lives. Thanks for what you said in the front. The part that every great man never sought to be great. He just followed the vision he had and did what had to be done. Love, Jerry.”

“Dad, I just got done typing up little quotes out of the Bible and Napoleon Hill, so everywhere I look, I see them. When people ask me what they are, I tell them they are pinups. Tremendously.”

“Dad, I am more convinced than ever that you can do anything you want to. You can beat anyone at anything just by working hard. Handicaps don’t mean anything. Because often people that don’t have them have a bad attitude and don’t want to work.”

“Dad, nothing new. Just the same old exciting thought that we can know God personally and forever in this amazing life.”

“Dad, when you’re behind two papers in the fourth quarter and you’re exhausted from the game, you have to make up a set of downs in order to stay in the game, and you get up to the line and you see two, 250 pound tests staring you in the face, it sure is exciting to wait and find out what play the Lord will call next.”

Well, the power of books. Now here is another one. Sammy is my nine year old grandson. I’d like to share something that I hope your dads will get for you. So last Father’s Day a year ago, I’ll just read you a paragraph that I wrote to Sammy on reading.

My dear Sammy, each word in this letter is bathed with my love and prayers for you. As you get older, you will discover that your mind doesn’t always keep pace with your body. The food you eat can nourish your body, but the food you feed your mind and heart determines your good as a person.

I am going to share a few principles I pray you will commit to memory. I could share many more, but I have tried to select ones that I wish I could have begun working on earlier in my life. Read, read, read, read. A proper diet is good for your body, and the best books are good for your mind.

Your life will be determined by the people you associate with and the books you read. You will come to love many people you will meet in books. Read biographies, autobiographies and history. Books will provide many of the friends, mentors, role models and heroes you will need in life. Biographies will help you see that there is nothing that can happen to you that wasn’t experienced by many who used their failures and tragedies and disappointments as stepping stones for more tremendous lives. Many of my best friends are people I’ve never met - Oswald Chambers, George Mueller, Charles Spurgeon, A.W. Tozer, Abraham Lincoln, Jean Gietzen, hundreds of others. Don’t read the Bible, but instead study it. Digest it. Memorize it. Realize that God’s greatest gift for our time on earth is His word. Well, know the word!”

Happy Reading!

Charlie “Tremendous” Jones

 (excerpted from the Special Teenager Session at the Jim Rohn Weekend Event - Excelling in the New Millennium)

Very few of us are authorities on the truth. About the closest that any of us can get is what we hope is the truth or what we think is the truth. That’s why the best approach to truth is probably to say, “It seems to me…”

There is nothing wrong with affirmations, provided what you are affirming is the truth. If you are broke, for example, the best thing to affirm is, “I’m broke!”

If the truth isn’t enough, then you must become stronger at presenting it.

Sincerity is not a test of truth. We must not make this mistake: He must be right; he’s so sincere. Because, it is possible to be sincerely wrong. We can only judge truth by truth and sincerity by sincerity.

Find someone who is willing to share the truth with you.

I love Jim Rohn and his teaching… I have found that one of the truths of life is this…”It can be hard to find people in our lives that are willing and able to tell us the truth about how we really are in a way that can help us on our journey of becoming more than we are.  Finding feedback through coaches and mentors isn’t something that generally just happens on it’s own.  We need to seek it, create it, and make it happen.  Building a network of truthfulness around you is a both a most challenging and a most rewarding pursuit.  ~ Kirk

Here’s the great challenge of life - You can have more than you’ve got because you can become more than you are.

I have found that income seldom will exceed your own personal development. Once in a while income takes a lucky jump, but unless you grow out to where it is it will go back to where you are. Somebody once said if you took all the money in the world and divided it among everyone equally, it would soon be back in the same pockets. However, you can have more because you can become more. You see, here is how the other side of the coin reads - unless you change how you are, you will always have what you’ve got. The marketing plan won’t do it. It’s a good plan but it won’t work without you. You’ve got to work it. It is the human effort that counts. If you could send a sales manual out to recruit - wouldn’t that be lovely? The major thing that makes the difference is what YOU do.

In order to have more, you need to become more. The guy says “If I had a good job I would really pour it on, but I have this lousy job so I just goof off.” If that is your philosophy you are destined to stay there. Some people say if I had a lot of money I would be really generous, but I don’t have much so I’m not generous. See, you’ve got to change that philosophy or you will never have “the lots of money”. Unless YOU change, IT won’t change. Amazingly, however, when we throw out our blame list and start becoming more ourselves - the difference is everything else will begin to change around us.

To Your Success,

Jim Rohn