Archive for the ‘Success’ Category

I had a chance to hear Claude Hamilton talk in Kitchener yesterday, and part of what he said was so profound that I have to share my interpretation of it. Understanding the concept I’m about to share can drastically change your life.

There are three time frames to consider: your past, the present, and your future.

The first thing to consider is where you are in life right now. How much money do you have, or how much debt are you in? How much of your time do you own, and how much is owned by others? To explain that last part, take my situation for example; I’ve sold 40 hours a week of my time to my employer (if you don’t count lunch breaks and travelling) for a certain amount of money – this means he owns that time and not me. How many friends do you have, and how good of a friend are they? How fit are you health-wise?

The answers  to those questions is simply the way things are right now in the present. You can’t change the present. Everyone is where they are in life because of what they did in the past. You can’t change anything in your past to make anything different today.

Since you are where you are because of past decisions, you need to start making decisions with a different level of thinking if you hope to change anything. If you are worse off today than you were in the past, then to not change your thinking means your life will actually get harder. (more…)

The Slight Edge by Jeff OlsonSuccess in anything is easy. It’s doing small and simple things continuously over time. The problem: these simple things are easy not to do.

I just finished reading ‘The Slight Edge’ by Jeff Olson, which I now consider to be one of my top 10 favorite books. The main point of the book: Success is easy; but so is failure. What is great is that we have the freedom to choose which path to take.

As we’ve gone through many times before, true success requires personal and professional development. Be careful here though; reading one book like ‘The Magic of Thinking Big’ or attending a leadership seminar is not enough. If it were, you would see many more successful people in the world due to how many leadership books get sold and how many people are attending leadership seminars.

Success requires reading good books on success, and listening to good information. It also requires the slight edge principle that Jeff Olson tells us about.

The slight edge is about doing simple things consistently over time. (more…)

green belt certificateI’ve finally given my presentation on my Lean Six-Sigma Green Belt project, and it was a huge success. I can now be proud to say that I’ve got my Green Belt. The only sad thing is that it’s just a term, and I only get a certificate; no belt for me 🙂

For those of you not familiar with the term, Six-Sigma is a set of tools used to improve processes. It’s about implementing Kaizen after Kaizen to make things better.

Kaizen is Japanese for continuous improvement. It’s about continually doing small improvements that over time compound, bringing a company or a process from good to great.

What I loved most about it, is how it compares to what LIFE teaches about life.

Consider this: Six Sigma projects follow a project methodology inspired by William Edwards Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle.

There are 5 phases to this: (more…)

I finally did it! I put my top 100 list in order!

I also removed a couple things, and replaced it with things that mattered more to me. The main change I made was due to watching the film ‘Pay it Forward’ again a few months ago. It got me thinking how awesome it would be to do stuff like that for random people.

I’m going to give them something they really need, or do something for them that will get them through a bad situation. The stipulation I put on myself for this, is that the value will have to be around $10000 or more.

Imagine what it would be like to find someone who needs a very important surgery but can’t afford it. Maybe I can help someone who was in a car accident and who got screwed over by the insurance company’s small print. Maybe it will be someone who got stuck in another country, and has no way to get back to their family.

I don’t know what it will end up being, but I’m going to apply the slight edge principle to my life, using the LIFE Business, to be ready when the time comes. My post on what the slight edge is all about is forthcoming in the next few days. Stay tuned… It’s AWESOME!

And yes… I will ask them to pay it forward when they have the opportunity 🙂

procrastinationWe’ve all been there. Whether it was leaving your homework assignment until the night before it’s due or preparing that presentation the day, or even morning before you have to give it. We’ve all procrastinated on important things. Sometimes out of laziness, sometimes out of the desire to do something more fun for the time being, and sometimes out of fear.

In many cases we leave it even longer, and that important thing we let slide just doesn’t get done. Even when it does get done, I’m sure we can agree it wasn’t done as well as it could have been had we put some real effort into it.

We all have our reasons, which always seems good at the time (and even in hindsight for those of us really experienced in the art of self deception). I think if we went back and compared what we gained from procrastinating to the consequences of it, we will find that it wasn’t the best course of action after all. (more…)

life-wheelHaving been involved with the ‘networking’ industry for a couple years now, I completely understand why it has been so hard to find others who wanted to get ahead in their life using this model.  When I approached others at first, I never understood why they were so scared of what I was showing them. ‘Networking’ is like a swear word in some circles.

Then I started to hear about other companies out there, that brought to mind images of pyramids and scams. for some of them, even I thought they might very well be scams when you consider the cost to get involved and the high price of the products. Then there is the way some of them are structured, where the person at the top makes all the money, making it an illegal pyramid. And there are those where you make money for signing people up and not actually doing anything productive. I must say I’m glad I wasn’t introduced to one of these first, or I may have been doomed to mediocrity, not looking past the companies that give this industry a bad name.

I just didn’t see their point of view at first due to Life Leadership being so different. They were still seeing the Ford Pinto which might explode, when I was trying to show them a new Lamborghini. It’s like they thought all cars were bad because that old model was bad, when in fact there are some pretty nice ones out there too.

I’ve been wanting to do a post on this for a while to address these thoughts, but then Chris Brady did one that is certainly much better written than I could have done (He does have the advantage of being a best selling author)

He talks about what LIFE has done to address all the negatives, and what they did to fix the industry. I see LIFE doing to networking, what McDonald’s did to franchising. When franchising was almost voted to be illegal due to the way the industry worked, McDonalds changed it to being one of the most successful industries in the world.

What LIFE did is take everything that was seen as being wrong with networking and threw it out the window, keeping all that was right. Consider that unlike any other company out there, LIFE doesn’t keep any profits; there is no owners cut. Because of that, prices don’t have to be inflated to pay both the owners and the members. In fact the prices are reduced to keep it affordable to the masses, instead of catering to the classes. ALL the profits goes to the members!

Here is what Chris had to say: (more…)

Last weekend I attended one the 3 LIFE winter leadership conventions, and thought it was one of the best ever. One of the best talks was given by Wayne MacNamarawho was recognized for achieving the rank of LIFE Policy Council Member. This is a very significant achievement – showing he has developed many teams of growing leaders. He achieved this through learning and applying the information gained through the LIFE materials and training system. Starting as a welder going nowhere, he now leads thousands of people in his organization. What I found really significant in his story was his level of leadership after the first 5 years. He still wasn’t making much money, but instead of quitting he continued his journey on to riches.

This made the best teaching talks all the more significant. The most significant of which was given by Chris Brady in my opinion.

He listed the top 10 BAD reasons to quit something. I wish I was able to write fast enough to get everything, but all I managed to write down were the reasons themselves since the talk was so good.

I’ll list the reason he gave, and fill in the blanks from my knowledge and interpretations of everything I’ve learned up to now. Chris was talking about how people don’t just all of sudden get up and quit something, but that it happens gradually, following a progression. The key to not quitting is to recognize the different thoughts that cause us to quit and to guard against it. (more…)

Producer

As a follow up to the Entrepreneur Manifesto – I believe this one goes hand in hand!

Entrepreneur

A comment made on my Rascal Manifesto post led me to find a few other gems out there, and I just had to share them as well. Here is the first: I am an Entrepreneur Manifesto – and it’s available to purchase as a poster at lifemanifestos.com

I was born free and I intend to live like it.
This means that I will live my life while I’m alive.
No one owns me.
No one can put me in a box, a category, a social group, a voting bloc, or a classification.
I am fiercely independent,
and with those aligned with me in common purpose, interdependent.
 I know that with my freedom comes responsibility.
I take responsibility for my own actions, and I hold the bar high on myself.
I am not afraid to struggle, because it’s the struggle that makes me great.
I know that excellence always lies on the other side of inconvenience.
I am a learning machine.
I read, I confront brutal reality, I grow.
Long term, no one and nothing can defeat me, because I will keep coming back, stronger and better than before.
I will educate myself about the true principles of freedom,
and I will strive mightily to preserve freedom for the next generation.
I rely on no man and no government to provide for me.
I will not follow the herd of mediocrity and victim-thinking.
I don’t follow herds, instead I run with a pack – a pack of Rascals.
Let others bask in their privileges, as for me, I will invest them in my purpose.
I will defy tyranny.
I will charge the hill.
I will make a difference.
I’m a Rascal!

(more…)