Where you are and where you are going!

Something a little different this week. Please be patient, I don't have plans of starting to copy other articles as an entry, but this will make a point.

You, like me, probably have people who forward you so many emails that you just delete them or block them. But hopefully, like me, you have at least a couple of people who forward you emails that you know, if they are forwarding it, it will be good. This week, I got such an email from a friend. This is an entry about the power of our brain -- as you can see this work is credited to Cambridge University.

More Brain Stuff . . from Cambridge University

Olny srmat poelpe can raed tihs. I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs psas it on

I believe that the same is true for our goals and our lives. If we know where we are and where we want to go, we can get there. Consider these points.

1. What are you goals? If you know your goals and you write them down, you have created the desired end result. (The last letter of the word)

2. If you will honestly describe where you are right now (the first letter) you can begin seeing what you need to change to get to your goals. For example:

A. To hit your end goal you need better time management. So you might set aside some weekend time to make sure you are ready for the week to reduce the stress of getting ready everyday. Perhaps, you start getting up earlier in the morning.

B. To hit your end goal you need to become an expert on a subject. So you might reduce the amount of TV or computer time and read more. You could buy an audio series on the subject and turn your drive into learning time.

C. To hit your end goal you need to get into better shape. You go to the grocery store and buy healthier food, you set aside exercise time, and you begin the walk to a healthier you.

Once you know where you are and where you want to go and start the walk there, your powerful brain will figure out what you need next. If you have no goals, then life just happens and life is too precious to just happen. So how about it? Why don't you spend some time this week figuring out the details? Take the first step and engage your brain and subconsious mind and you will be amazed on what happens.

The next time you need a speaker, make it easy on yourself and call me. I will inspire, motivate, and entertain your group. Check out my speaking demo at www.bransonbusiness.blogspot.com then call (417) 339-6568 for availability. The only way I look good is making you look good for booking me.

Did you enjoy winter?

This week brings Spring. Everybody seems to love spring, the sun, the warmer temperatures, the countdown to days of summer. But my question remains, did you enjoy winter?

Life is a great teacher. One of the many lessons that it takes awhile to learn is to enjoy the trip. When we were younger, we couldn't wait to be older. Now that we have a few more years on us, have we learned to enjoy the moment, regardless of the season?

We know that life is precious -- but have we learned to treat everyday as a gift? This week, I challenge you to:

1. Enjoy the day. Regardless of how your day is going, it would not take very long to find someone who would love to have the opportunities that you are enjoying. Be in the moment and love it.

2. Tell someone how special they are to you. If life is a series of special moments, what are you doing to make these moments special? Think about your family, co-workers, the person behind the counter at the store, how do they make your life better? Why don't you tell them?

3. Do something nice for a total stranger. Look to do something extra nice for a complete stranger this week. It will blow their mind and you will have no idea what kind of impact it will have on them. Who knows, they might just pay it forward.

My point this week, if we are always just waiting for the weekend or vacation or the next season to get here, we are missing opportunities to live life. We can all agree that life is too short to wait. Go live!

The next time you need a speaker, make it easy on yourself and call me. I will inspire, motivate, and entertain your group. Check out my speaking demo at www.bransonbusiness.blogspot.com then call (417) 339-6568 for availability. The only way I look good is making you look good for booking me.

What can we learn from The NAIA Basketball Tournament?

For the past ten years, the NAIA Divsion II National Basketball Tournament has been held on the campus of The College of The Ozarks in Point Lookout, MO. It is truly an event that the entire area gets behind. I believe that we can learn two major business lessons from the tournament.

1. Cooperation. The business community, the schools, and the college all work together to make this event happen. Their entire focus is on making the tournament a great event.

What would happen if, as an area, we had the same kind of effort for all our events? The stronger we become as an area, the stronger we will become indivdually. One of my main concerns for the area is the "somebody should do that" attitude that seems to be developing. We could learn from the efforts put into this tournament.

2. The one thing is the one thing. The tournament is about basketball. Everything points to what happens on the court.

Everytime you split your focus, you jeopardize the quality of the product. The more focus that you can bring to your customer, the better chance you have to improve your product. As a business, you need to know what you do and do it better than anyone else.

Spend some time thinking about how you can apply these lessons to your business. Have a great week.

The next time you need a speaker, make it easy on yourself and call me. I will inspire, motivate, and entertain your group. Check out my speaking demo at www.bransonbusiness.blogspot.com then call (417) 339-6568 for availability. The only way I look good is making you look good for booking me.

Are you a duck?

A friend of mine owns a successful excavation company. This past week, he did us a huge favor by repairing our driveway. Afterwards, in a older brother kind of way, he told me to stop being like a duck and driving the same path down the drive way; that it is better for the driveway if I vary my path.

It got me to thinking. How many other things in our lives are we like ducks?

1. Personal Life: What if we have a "positive" surprise this week with something totally out of the ordinary? A mid week date night or flowers.

2. Work life: I believe a lot of the problem that we have at work is our unwillingness to try new things. This is the way we have always done it, this is the way we are always going to do it. This week try a different path, listen to a training tape, stop worrying about being the manager or the boss and allow the team to make some decisions, put away the cell phone, blackberry, and email for a day and just go see customers.

3. Spiritual Life: Sometimes we get in a rut here too. Our prayers sound the same, are at the same time and there is nothing personal about them. This week, get personal, get real, turn everything over to Him.

Try not to be a duck this week. Take a different route to work, meet someone new on the job, go forgive that person that you have been holding a grudge. If it works for driveways, it's has to be good for humans.

The next time you need a speaker, make it easy on yourself and call me. I will inspire, motivate, and entertain your group. Check out my speaking demo at www.bransonbusiness.blogspot.com then call (417) 339-6568 for availability. The only way I look good is making you look good for booking me.

Dancing, my comfort zone, my self coach

Be patient with me on this one. It may start out as a diary entry, but it will make a point, I promise.

Have you ever felt like you were getting a sign? A number of people had challenged me to get out of my comfort zone. Then, I was asked to participate in Dancing with The Branson Stars. My first two thoughts – I ain’t (I often think in poor grammar) a star and I can’t dance. Even with that, I got reinforcement from my wife, Derinda, and I said yes because there is no better way for me to get out of my comfort zone than dance, or try to dance.

Derinda and I met Kelly (the professional dancer) at our home, we talked about what we were going to do, and she taught me a few moves. We met a couple of other times at the house and I began thinking, okay this isn’t going to be too bad.

Then Kelly wanted to meet at a dance studio. So the Sunday before the Friday night event, we met at the Dance Studio. Did you know that a dance studio has many mirrors? The mirrors are so you can see what you look like on the dance floor. I did not want to see what I looked like on the dance floor. I thought I looked bad – but I had no idea. I walked out of that rehearsal thinking about ways to get out of this commitment, ideas included staging my own kidnapping, but I thought a felony might be a little much.

On top of the dance event that week, I had a speaking engagement on Thursday and it was the last week of the month, which is always a busy time at the station. Sunday, I was feeling sorry for myself. I decided that I needed a meeting with myself to discuss a few things. It was a three item agenda.

1. I had made commitments and I was going to hold to those commitments.
2. Kelly had worked hard to help. I needed to shut-up and stop telling myself that I could not do this and listen to her and get this dance down.
3. I did not want to embarrass Derinda or let Kelly down.

The event happened. It was a fun night – I got through the dance without embarrassing Derinda or letting Kelly down. My points this week:

1. Now that it is over, it was fun to be that nervous again. When I speak, I need a couple of butterflies to keep my on guard. Friday night was more like dinosaur type butterflies.

What about you and your business, how long has it been since you tried something so new that you get butterflies.

2. Now that it is over, Sunday night was important to the process. Having to watch myself dance was not fun, but it was important.

What about you and your business, when was the last time you held a mirror up to see how you are doing?

3. Now that it is over, having to learn the basics was an interesting concept. Kelly had to keep reminding me about the simplest of dance moves, like not letting my arms flop – be strong, etc.

What basics have we all forgotten in our businesses? In a down economy, basics are more important than ever.

4. Now that it is over, I will have more self-meetings. I always talk to myself, but this was a hard core, door closed meeting that I had to have with myself on Sunday Night. It was time to cowboy up, lock and load, get focused, etc, etc.

What about you, need to have a sit down with yourself? I believe that we all have a coaching spirit deep down inside. Mine has a Bobby Knight attitude and he really let me have it on Sunday night.

Are you taking care of yourself as you should be? Are you too busy telling yourself you can’t do something to actually go out and do it?

Do not misunderstand me; I realize my strong limitations as a dancer. Nevertheless, going through the process was interesting and exciting and I am glad I did it. I would encourage you to find a way to get out of the comfort zone this week.

Have a great week.

The next time you need a speaker, make it easy on yourself and call me. I will inspire, motivate, and entertain your group. Check out my speaking demo at www.bransonbusiness.blogspot.com then call (417) 339-6568 for availability. The only way I look good is making you look good for booking me.

What is your contingency?

We are living in a time that provides more questions than answers, more risks than security. Are you prepared?

Football is a great analogy of life. From High School to the pros, most every team has a detailed game plan. And in every football game, there is at least one (usually many more) plays where that detailed game plan fails. The great teams are able to see the failure then quickly look for opportunities to overcome. The great quarterbacks can audible. An audible is a change of the called play to take advantage of the defense.

Are you prepared to audible in your life? Do you have a contingency plan? If not, I encourage you to prepare a list of what you would do if you lost your job.

1. Have a list of people you would contact, ask for letters of reference, use your network to get the word out that you are available. Now, is not the time to hide.

2. Go for a run, work-out, do something to clear your mind. Yes, there will probably be anger - but anger is not going to serve you right now. Chances are, your company did not want to make this move either, stay calm and let them help you as much as possible.

3. Read your "atta boy/girl" file. If you don't have one of these, you need to start keeping one. When you get a thank you card, a job well done email, etc -- keep it in a file. When you start doubting yourself, pull out that file and read it.

4. Keep up your routine. Sleeping and lounging all day is not going to help you. Keep up a schedule, go volunteer, stay moving, stay focused, and stay active.

5. Keep your resume updated. (I would do this on your own time and your own computer)

Having a contingency plan is like a smoke alarm, I hope you never use it, but it just makes you feel more secure. Good companies make tough decisions every single day and it is vital that the companies remain strong. To do that, at times there has to be cuts. If you happen to fall victim to those cuts, you are going to bounce back quicker if you have a plan.

The next time you need a speaker, make it easy on yourself and call me. I will inspire, motivate, and entertain your group. Check out my speaking demo at www.bransonbusiness.blogspot.com then call (417) 339-6568 for availability. The only way I look good is making you look good for booking me.

What is the bigger tragedy?

By now you know of the tragic death of Nadar Kumaritashili in a practice run just before the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Kumaritashili was a 21 year old luger from the republic of Georgia.

This sad story once again points out that life is a gift, a very delicate gift. Like many people, I had never heard of Nadar Kumaritashili until his death on Friday. Admittedly, I am making one big assumption in this entry, that Kumaritashili was doing what he loved to do. We know that he was performing on the biggest stage that his sport offered. Even with that assumption, this week's entry offers us all something we can think about and learn.

Life is a gift, use it. My mom used to joke with me whenever I got clothes as a little kid, she would smile and say, "we will save those for good." It could be anything...socks, underwear, blue jeans, everything was "for good" Luckily mom was joking.

Sometimes though, that is how we live our life, waiting for good. What about you? Are you using your gift? Are you living everyday with the attitude that it is a gift and it might be my last?

Life has an expiration date. It is not something that we spend a whole lot of time talking about, but we are all going to die some time. Which one is more tragic, the death of a 21 year old that lived life to the max or an 80 year old who never got out of their comfort level, never dared to dream, never worked on their gift? That is a question each of us need to answer for ouselves.

This week I challenge you to spend some time thinking about this gift called life. What have you always wanted to do? What have you always dreamed of accomplishing. What is stopping you? Go for it, no need to save it for good.

The next time you need a speaker, make it easy on yourself and call me. I will inspire, motivate, and entertain your group. Check out my speaking demo at www.bransonbusiness.blogspot.com then call (417) 339-6568 for availability. The only way I look good is making you look good for booking me.