Own Your Time

No matter whether you are in a locker room, boardroom, courtroom, fire station, classroom, on an assembly line, opera/ ballet rehearsal or concert, hospital operating room or in another setting, being in controls of your time matters!

Lesson one: Coach Wooden "Never be late": Own Your Time

Coach John Wooden, the winning-est coach in basketball always started and ended his practices on time. Coach always arrived early to practice to make sure everything was set up properly. Practice was for 2 to 2 ½ hours and Coach planned every minute of practice. His practice plans were reduced to a 3x5 cards and afterwards his assistant coach copied every practice session plan putting it in a notebook with all the other practice sessions to keep a record of it.

Coach Wooden did not waste time. He said, "I would privately review my notebook from the previous year's practice for that exact day, looking for clues as to what had been effective and what did not work as well. In fact I regularly reviewed notes from two or three years back-sometimes more." ("Wooden On leadership" by John Wooden & Steve Jamison)

His meetings with his assistant Coaches were timed too. He would also ask for their suggestions and try them out during practice. When their suggestions worked, they would be added for future practices!

Lesson two: Toastmasters Meeting Run on Time: Own your time

At Toastmasters they watch the time. Meetings begin and end on time. Every minute of the meeting is timed. Speeches are also timed! The first time I visited a Toastmasters Club they handed me an "Agenda" with the time the meeting was to start, how many minutes each portion of the meeting was to be, and what time the meeting would end. Toastmasters' is an organization that helps "members improve their communication, public speaking, and leadership skills." Toastmasters teaches you to "own your time". Visit a Toastmaster club near you to see a timed Toastmasters meeting.

Lesson three: Being on Time, Punctuality is the Key: Businesses have to run on time to stay in business. Employees are being paid to be good team members who are dependable, disciplined; experts in their field, and must arrive at work on time. They also have a positive attitude, a respect for others, and an appreciation for their time too! Businesses and employees own their time.

Tardy Employees Lose Money at a Business: You have heard the saying "Time is money". At a company I was asked to consult with, employees were arriving late to work and leaving early. These employees were cheating the company each day of money and time. Work was not being completed and other employees could not depend on these delinquent team members. Moral was not good, Companies can go under because of this employee negligent behavior. Managers at the company had done performance reviews of these tardy employees separately and had asked questions to try to correct the situation. It was not working.

I read an article by Zig Ziglar, a motivational expert and mentor to Dr. John Maxwell, of how he had helped a company with similar problems correct the situation by having them announce to their employees that they would be installing "time clocks". Zig Ziglar said after a month the new "time clocks" were working well and productivity, teamwork, and attitude had improved. After the time clocks were installed, Managers did evaluation reports on the tardy employees weekly, to make them accountable and charge their behavior.

Zig Ziglar "Changed the Picture": Own your time

Zig Ziglar had changed the picture at this company by helping them install time clocks in order for his employees to receive their paychecks. By doing this employees became productive, had an improved attitude, did better work, completed assignments on time, and became responsible and accountable for their time on the job.

After reading Zig Ziglar's article I suggested to the company I was assisting that they announce at a meeting that they were installing "time clocks" and each employee was to sign in and sign out each day. After the time clocks were in operation and the company employees had been signing in and out for a month the employees were more productive, had a positive attitude, and became more responsible and accountable for their work. Managers were also doing evaluation reports on the tardy employees weekly as a reminder to them.

Concerts and Rehearsal Begin and End On Time:

As a musician playing the violin and viola, I have played concerts with Frank Sinatra, Natalie Cole, Lou Rawls in concert and performed concerts as a soloist, with orchestra, playing in opera or ballet orchestras, and in chamber groups around the world. The timing in every piece is important. Concerts and rehearsals must begin and end on time. Each piece must be timed to the minute.

In fact as a musician I always arrive early to warm up and get ready before the rehearsal or concert begins. In running any business it is imperative that employees show up on time and leave on time each day. Time management is a must in every part of your life. Without managing your time there is no discipline. Own your time.

What one thing can you do to "own your time" every day?

Like Coach Wooden and Toastmasters, plan every minute of your workday and your family time in advance and put it on your schedule. Stick to your schedule and own your time.

Rabbi Harold Kushner and Senator Paul Tsongas said, "Nobody on their death bed has ever said, "I wish I had spent more time at the office." Let your legacy be that you spent quality-focused time with your family and made sure your business was successful too. Own your time!

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3 Reasons to Carve Out Time Each Day for Yourself and Increase Your Productivity

"I have no time to myself" this is a common refrain by everyone.

Now ask yourself this question, whose fault is it?

First, you have to accept that personal time is a necessity, not a luxury or you will never leave yourself any. This is a growing problem that will even affect your productivity and your health. Let me explain.

One of the most effective ways to manage this is to actually make an appointment with yourself. Block time on your calendar for taking yourself out to lunch, a 30-minute soaking bath, an hour at the library, or at your favorite coffee café. Then treat this like any other high priority appointment and keep it with a vengeance and determination. This is for your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing.

Schedule other appointments like this one through out the month, do not a standard Saturday afternoon one hour once a week slot, this routine will become too common place and will disregard the importance of it. You must think of this as a priority and something to look forward to and plan.

We all need some kind of break each day, to getaway from work, chores, and people, even family. Use your great brain and calmly think of creative ways to make time for you. Perhaps at first your family will need a bit of explaining to understand that you are doing something for them as well as for you and you are not selfish. While you are explaining you are also defusing any guilt that might surface, nurturers are notorious for self-imposed guilt.

Depriving yourself of "me time" will only leave your feeling ornery, resentful and stressed out.

Your stressful emotions will spill over onto your family, friends and other relationships. They will feel that something is wrong and they will absorb your stress.

Knowing that your emotions influence others, you have choices to make. You can be grouchy, resentful, negative, stressed and difficult to be around or you can be pleasant, loving caring calm, happy and a productive fostering healthy relationships.

Besides, how else can we properly evaluate what we are doing, see the big picture, and appreciate those we love, unless we stand back from them once in awhile.

This standing back allows you to put your daily life in to perceptive and you gain patience and calmness. Once you have your daily agenda controlled, you can start on the weekly strategies. This will be an ongoing process but a happier, healthier life is worth it.

Take your allotted number of time outs, this time out ideas are a natural way of managing your stress and becoming comfortable with nurturing you. 

Nurturing the nurturer is a major method in naturally managing your stress.

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Success - The Key To Achieving Big Success

The dictionary defines success as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. Whatever your goal, you can achieve it. But success doesn't come in one huge action. Completing a series of small tasks add up. Day-to-day actions yield small results that lead to big success.

Stop making excuses. It's a simple instruction, but it's not always avoid the easy way out. Sometimes, making an excuse is easier than doing the deed. It's easier to tell yourself you're tired and need a break so you don't feel bad about sleeping in instead of heading to the gym. It's easier to tell yourself that you deserve a break instead of studying material for your class. It's easier to convince yourself that you need more time to prepare your product instead of cold contacting store owners about stocking it for sale. There is always an easy way out. Avoid excuses at all costs. Making excuses lead to no where.

Do the thing you don't want to do. Completing the difficult task is a form of personal development. Remember the first time you went for a run? Getting through that one mile was hard. But your doctor recommended increased activity to avoid blood pressure medication. So you run, even on days you don't want to and you successfully avoid taking a medication. Goal achieved by doing the thing you didn't want to do. The same with doing something you don't want to do when it comes to your business or education. No one wants to read chapters from a textbook but how else will you learn the material? Reading leads to learning. Learning leads to passing quizzes and exams. Passing tests leads to good grades. Good grades lead to graduation. Success. The same with business. There are things you don't want to do as a business owner, like firing employees or ending business relationships. What's the alternative? Continue to pay an employee who isn't performing up to standard? Continue to order from a supplier that no longer meets the needs of your business? Although it's hard, terminating an underperforming employee makes an opening for a potential super star who can help take the business to the next level. After doing the "hard" things for a while, it is less challenging to do it again.

No matter how big or small the goal, achieving it is simple. The only way to make it happen is to take small steps. Stop making excuses. Excuses lead to nothing. Just do it. The things that seem hard require growth to complete them. The only way to achieve success is to grow as a person.

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Why Small Wins Create Huge Success

If you are the kind of ambitious, bold-thinking, courageous high level achiever, you probably are a serious action taker who understands the essence and importance of daily personal growth and development.

A daily habit of self-improvement is one of the golden keys to consistent success. This kind of self-investment will lead you to become more successful, attractive, productive, courageous, happier, healthier and more fulfilling life.

As Jim Rohn taught me, if you want to have more, you have to become more. For things to change, you have to change. For things to improve, you have to improve.

The level of success we experience in our outer world is simply the mirror reflection of our self-identity and personal development of our inner world.

So when you raise your personal development set points (self-identity, mindsets, attitudes, philosophy, skills and abilities), everything in your life will be raised automatically.

However, some people approach this self-improvement process in a wrong way, which sabotaged their time, energy and efforts to succeed.

For instance, many of us are under the assumption that the best types of changes we can make are those 'big steps'.

You probably have heard about terms like 'turn over a new leaf' and 'start afresh' as if we could just hit a 'reset' button like a computer and everything will become clean and perfect right away.

In reality, the most effective, long-term, sustainable kind of self-improvement always involves taking small, tiny, seemingly insignificant steps day in and day out.

Breaking out of old destructive habits and introducing new habits into our routine are very difficult and the whole process requires a lot of effort.

Habits are formed when certain actions get repeated over time, and those neural connections in our brain will be strengthened every time they are instructed to fire the signal.

It's like creating a deep groove and then running water along the surface - it gravitates to the groove.

When you're trying to change a habit, you're exerting a lot of energy to go against this natural inclination of existing neural pathways whenever you perform the new action. Thus, you need a lot of focus, dedication and willpower if you truly want to change.

So if you're trying to change 27 things at once, or if you're going from no exercise to exercising 2 hours every day for 6 times a week, you're setting yourself up for failure.

Additionally, when you are overloaded with excessive information, your brain won't be able to process them and you will be shut down to take any kinds of action at all. So you remain as the same old self!

So the best way of creating lasting changing is almost always changing just 1 tiny thing at a time - be it getting rid of certain behaviors or adding a new empowering success habit.

This will make your entire body mechanism much easier to handle the transition when you shift from failure to success over time.

With enough consistency, persistence and patience, you will build up great positive success habits over time and you'll start to experience massive success you've always desired.

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Why Your Ability To Focus Is Your Personal Power

What's focus?

Easy, focus is simply your ability to put 100% of your energy, attention and effort in just ONE thing at any single moment.

Being able to focus is a power, it's your ticket to extreme productivity, peak performance and extraordinary levels of achievements.

Without focus, Usain Bolt couldn't have become the fastest human sprinter ever.

Without focus, Michael Phelps couldn't have dominated the Olympics and earned 28 medals in total.

Without focus, Kevin Hart couldn't have become the world's highest-paid comedians in 2016.

So if you also want to achieve your big audacious goals, then master your personal power of focus and use it to your advantage.

Here are the 4 key takeaways of your focus power:

#1 Prioritization

One thing successful people have in common is their ability to concentrate.

They don't multi-task but instead work on one thing at a time. With a particular goal in mind, they work through the action steps towards achieving it, one step a time.

They also tend to concentrate on the most important tasks that are high leverage and relevant to their goals instead of minor incidental ones.

If you're a business owner, then you must know how to delegate or outsource effectively so that you reserve your scared hours to focus on the major impactful ones. Prioritize your action items first and dominate the most important one first thing in the day.

#2 Visualization

Anyone can train their focus muscle as long as they are willing to reprogram their mental thinking and mindset.

However, no one can truly focus if their thoughts are occupied by negativity, fear, self-doubts and self-judgments. You have to be an optimistic because it's in the moments when you think you can that make things become possible.

Positivity is a powerful element of focus as you star to imagine what's possible for you, you activate the reticular activation system to look for clues, cues and signs of how you can accomplish things.

This visualization is a powerful weapon that's going to catapult your success and allow the subconscious mind to work in your favor.

Really want to have better focus right? Then visualize yourself being focused and productive on a regular basis until practice makes permanence.

#3 Productivity

As obvious as it sounds, your ability to focus is directly correlated to your productivity. The magical experience of flow sate can never be reached until you have laser focus of attention.

This powerful productivity technique comes into force when you are engaged in an interesting, stimulating task that requires you to be challenged to use the skills and knowledge you have, as well as to learn new ones.

While you're engaged in the task, you'll feel energized, elated and lose all sense of time Without focus, you will never get into flow.

#4 Achievement

As Napoleon Hill said, "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

You must first believe that you can before you stand a chance to succeed. Whatever your goals and desires are, it is important that you set challenging yet realistic goals.

This will provide you with enough challenge to keep you motivated and interested, but not so easy that you'll become bored and lose interest. Additionally, by believing that you can achieve them, you are creating a positive mental attitude.

All in all, your focus is your personal power.

The extent to which you fully utilize it on a regular basis will determine the level of success you are able to break through. Stop multi-tasking and let's unleash your powerful focus within today!

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3 Powerful Tips to Help You Have Your Best Year Ever

Here are 3 powerful steps you can take to free yourself from frustration and to start enjoying the good life so many are enjoying right now:

1) Know "where you are." Have you ever been lost in a residential area and no one was around to ask for directions? Now if you are somewhat familiar with the area, it's easy to just turn around here and there and find your way back. But the worst part about being lost is when we are lost and we haven't a clue where we are.

So, where exactly are you on your journey now? Do you know exactly how much money you owe? And how many assets you have? What are your strengths? And what are your weaknesses? Here's a good exercise to help you know "where you are":

Draw a map of your life and make every square a city. Name each square with an aspect of your life. One city can be your family, friends, knowledge of your field, spirituality, work, charity, financial, etc. Then rate each city from one to ten. Ten means you are doing extremely well, and one means it needs immediate help.

What I just shared with you is like having a balance sheet for your life. Put all your weaknesses on one side and your strengths on the other side. Put your strengths to work and strengthen your weaknesses. You can read more books, go back to school or find a mentor. Perhaps you can learn 50 to 100 power words this year in order to get a verbal advantage. Whatever you do, keep in mind that a better year begins with a better you. The readers of No Condition is Permanent know about this.

2) Do an inventory of friends. That's right. Make a list of who your friends are, and how they relate to the direction your life is going in. When companies want to increase their revenue, they get rid of unnecessary employees or ones that are holding them back. So when you are ready to increase your worth, you need to get rid of unnecessary friends. I am talking about those that only cause you grief and are a pain in the "you know what."

If you want to accomplish great things, you need to surround yourself with great people or people who have accomplished great things. You might say, "well, how do I find these great achievers you are talking about?" If you own a copy of No Condition is Permanent, refer to it for the answer.

You and I know fully well that some so-called friends are not worth the aggravation. They are draining, and they sap the life out of you. Consider this: Small people are always talking about things, but great people talk about ideas and concepts. Do you find yourself mentally stimulated when you are with your friends? If you are not, then you should be.

3) Quit killing time. Have you ever heard people say, "I'm just killing time." If they only realized how precious time really is. I have a wealthy friend who once told me that he can make millions of dollars any time he wants. He can purchase more homes, cars, and other luxuries. But the only thing he can never buy himself is more time.

His point is that he values his time more than his money. Wow! People who have little regard for time always find themselves engaging in activities that have nothing to do with improving their lives or that of those around them. They are routine people. They just do the same old things; they are just going through the daily motions. They love to shoot the breeze and just chill.

Listen, you are entering a new year, and you are not getting any younger. You may have lost so many opportunities. As a reader of my newsletter, you are important to me. I can't stand by and watch you squander your time and procrastinate. That's why I am encouraging you to find out "where you are" and start taking action to change your life. Take my advice. Inventory your friends and stop killing time.

I wish you all the best in this year!

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6 Quick Questions to Help You Simplify and Free Up Time for What Truly Matters

“Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.”
Charles Richards

There are many important things in life.

Your family and friends. A hobby perhaps. Working out and staying healthy. Reading, learning and growing as a person.

But finding the time for what is most important in life is not always easy. It sometimes feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day.

But even if it may not feel like it, there are often ways to improve how you use your time. This week I’d like to share 6 of the best questions I have found for doing just that and for shaking yourself out of a rut.



1. What are the top 3 most important priorities in my life right now?

With a lack of focus on what is most important in your life it becomes easy to spend too much time and energy on aimless actions or work. On things that aren’t really that important but you do out of old habit or because of other unhelpful reasons.

To keep your attention in the right place it is essential to remind yourself every day of what is truly most important to you.

So ask yourself: what are the top 3 most important priorities in my life right now?

Write those three things down on two notes and put one in your work space and the other one on your bedside table.

2. What are the 1-3 most common distractions that keep me from doing my work in a focused way?
Figure out how you can prevent those things from distracting you. It could be by:
Shutting the door to your office.
Putting your phone on silent mode.
Having notifications for your email or instant messaging program/app shut off.

3. What are the 1-3 most common distractions that keep me from having quality time with the people closest to me?

The answer could for instance be your smart phone, TV-shows you just watch out of routine and not because you like them very much or bringing your work back home.

Then figure out how you can reduce or eliminate those distractions.

4. What is one healthy limit I can start setting in my life this week?

One of the smarter ways to simplify your life and to free up time is to set limits.

Here are a few key areas that you can set powerful and healthy limits for:
Your daily input. Reduce the number of blogs, newsletters, magazines, book clubs, podcasts, TV-shows etc. you follow. Just keep the ones you are really getting something out of.
Email. Just check and process your email during one chunk of time once per day. Instead of checking it 10 times or more each day.
Social activities. Write down a list of the social activities you are involved in after school or work. Maybe you are involved in a club or an activity that it is not as fun or rewarding as it used to be. Maybe you want to rearrange your priorities a bit to focus on something else this winter and in 2017.

5. How can I minimise or eliminate one thing I may have missed?

What else can you eliminate or minimise besides the things listed above? Some meetings at work or in school? Redditing or some online forum you hang out on a lot?

Really question and reconsider your own daily and weekly habits regularly instead of moving along in the same old tracks just because it is what you usually do.

6. What is one piece of unnoticed or misused piece of free time during my regular day?

There is often quite a bit of open travel- or waiting-time during a year.

What will you use such time for as we approach the end of this year and go into 2017?

Perhaps you would like to read more while riding the train or while waiting for a meeting to start. I, for example, often listen to podcasts while I’m out and about or while waiting for a meeting.

Even if you only have 10-20 minutes of commuting time each day you still have a many, many hours in a year that you may want to, at least partly, use in a new way.

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6 Signs It’s Time to Change Your Life

Is it time to make some changes in your life? It just might be. Life is too short to not live it to the fullest.

Here are some signs it’s time to change your life.

1. Every week, you cannot wait for Friday.

Fridays are fun, but one thing I’ve discovered in my quest to find and do work I absolutely love is that almost every day can be really fun. If you’re saving all your living for the weekends, it’s time to truly think about your lifestyle and consider making some changes. Don’t get me wrong; it’s great to have plans you look forward to on the weekends, but what if you could have that excited Friday feeling most, if not all, days of the week? It takes a lot of self-discovery and work, but it’s truly possible to live a life you love—even on Mondays.



2. You live for your vacations.


Vacations are great, but what’s even better is building a life you don’t need to take a vacation from. As Seth Godin said, “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” Vacations are fun and exciting, but even better is building a life where you have the potential to do what lights you up many weeks of the year, not just your two allotted vacation weeks.

3. When you stop and think about it, you’re really not focusing your life on your priorities.
Write down your 3 top priorities. Then write down the 3 things you focus most of your life on. Are you spending your time living your top priorities? Consistently spending time doing what matters most to you is one of the keys to feeling fulfilled in your life. If you’re not focusing your life on what’s important to you, it’s time to make some changes.

4. You have no idea what lights you up, and you don’t have the space in your life to discover it.


If you haven’t found your passion in your current life, you’re not going to find it if you continue to do your same routine, over and over, year after year. In order to discover what lights you up, start by creating the space in your life to seek it. Give yourself time to figure out who you are, what your strengths are, and what picques your interest. Experiment with learning new things, spending time with inspiring people, and doing more of what excites you and less of the things that suck your energy.

5. You’re frequently jealous.


If you find yourself frequently feeling jealous of someone, there are 3 changes to consider making:
Make a point to focus on your path instead of his or her journey. Sometimes this involves taking a break from social media.
Get inspired from the person you’re jealous of, and work toward a similar goal in your life.
Decide what the other person has is not something you are willing to put in the effort to achieve, so you’ll cheer him or her on but choose to not be jealous.

When you are feeling jealous, consider why you want what the other person has, and what your motives are. Living a life on your terms, focused on your priorities, passions, and strengths, will provide you with much more fulfilment than trying to be somebody else.

6. You can’t remember the last time you stepped out of your comfort zone.

According to Neale Donald Walsch, “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” Your life can become even more amazing if you stretch beyond your comfort zone. If you’re not sure where to start, try the tips in this article about small ways to step out of your comfort zone.

Life is too short to spend your years not living to your full potential. If you decide you’re ready to change your life, I encourage you to start taking small action steps toward the life you want to live. Keep moving forward.

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A Little Change Makes a Big Investment

As I wander through life there are many interesting conversations to overhear and participate in. One that's caught my attention lately is how hard change is. You can resist change and stay stuck in your situation, or you can grow through change and create a different reality.

There's no denying that change is hard, at first. The benefit of sticking with the effort to make a change is that you emerge a better person. The effort you put in is rewarded by the results you get. The path along the way can be a bit messy, even disappointing some days, but you still owe it to yourself to persevere. And you learn and grow from even the messy stuff in the middle.

Another objection to some making change is that it feel like deprivation. You gotta change that mindset. If doing things that are hard creates a feeling of deprivation, not a feeling of challenge and growth, you owe it to yourself to switch your thinking. Growth isn't a sacrifice. When you lose bad habits you are growing. You lose a bad habit by replacing it with a good habit. When you change from a bad habit to a good habit, you haven't lost a thing, you haven't sacrificed anything - you have grown and improved. There's no deprivation in growth.

In my observations and experience, deciding to change some aspect of your life - diet, physique, addiction, meditation practice... any habit you perform - is energizing. That decision is taking the first step. Taking action is the next step, and subsequent steps, until you reach your goal. That's how change is accomplished, one decision and step at a time.

Each step along the way is a chance to learn. You learn about yourself and the world. Exciting! Empowering. That's part of an Energize Me attitude. That's part of the growth that keeps life interesting and valuable.

Are you tired of at least some aspects of your life? What are you doing about it? Action versus non-action is the difference between someone living up to their potential and someone stuck in the past.

Maybe you don't strive to grow and change because it feels like too much work. That's one of the comments I hear. Consider this: you are working toward the wrong goal, you aren't passionate about the change you are avoiding. That is stressful. Altering your attitude or goal will turn hard work into passion.

Another possibility is that you haven't found the right attitude about the change you want, or are told you must make. Can you wrap your head around the idea of accepting that the change is important and taking the first step, even if it's a little one? Can you tiptoe into the change? Some people prefer jumping in with both feet - or diving in head first. Regardless, you have to move toward your goal or your desired change won't happen. What's your style?

A friend of mine has learned to live his life like a video game or movie script. By turning a challenge into a game goal - complete with points, levels, and rewards - he has been living the life of his dreams for over six years now. Now that's energizing! That's the path to success for him, and lots of his tribe.

The reality, is by taking on change you are investing in yourself. You invest in yourself in other ways, like education, saving for a goal, health, or the friends you keep; why not invest in yourself when it comes to your habits and attitudes?

You'll find your life more satisfying and gratifying as you accept that change can be hard, but that you can make it easier. You'll be energized by the action you take with that first step. You'll live a better life.

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How To Use Positive Re-framing To Turn Things Around

When it comes to being positive and optimistic, it's easy to be reminded of the old adage of whether you see the glass as half empty or half full. This cliché is used more often or not to show how the same situation may be looked at either positively or negatively.

One tool that is often used to help people begin to think more positively or to become more optimistic is called positive re-framing.

Re-framing basically means that you take a situation that could be deemed negative and turning that experience into one that is a more objective, positive and empowering manner.

There are plenty of examples of how you can use positive re-framing.

Let's say that you are working at a new job and you want to make a good impression.

However, on your first day you send out an email that is only supposed to go to your supervisor, but instead it is sent to all of your co-workers. This email happens to contain some personal information about your current financial situation and is rather embarrassing.

So what can you do about this blunder? There are several ways that you can handle this situation.

A positive way to handle it is to turn this stupid mistake into a joke, perhaps replying to the email stating that at least it wasn't a naked picture or an adult website link. This response will likely make your co-workers laugh and have a more positive, funny, intelligent impression of you.

The other option is to become embarrassed, too apologetic or to avoid contact entirely. This overreaction will likely lead to a negative impression from co-workers because you've taken things too seriously and have made the work environment not as light and friendly.

When considering positive re-framing, it is important to note that it does not change what had actually happened. In the above example you cannot change the fact that you sent out personal information to your new co-workers.

While the situation cannot be changed, the way that you respond to the situation can be changed.

Using humor is a wonderful way to diffuse tension and make a difference in a situation that could otherwise be difficult, awkward and self-sabotaging.

All in all, optimistic people tend to look for the good in all things.

It is crucial to remind yourself that bad things are going to inevitably happen in your life. Positive re-framing is a fantastic way to make things a lot better when something embarrassing or bad comes up.

Take the time to look at all situations carefully and determine how you can re-frame the situation to make it more optimistic, fun and interesting. This will definitely make a huge improvement in the quality of your life.

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7 Tips on Motivation to Gain Momentum

Sometimes because of situations people tend to worry but worry leads to fear and discouragement, but instead of putting your face to the ground, one must raise up in faith and find solutions to the things that worry them. Worrying serves no purpose it only gets us down and makes us lose focus. We need to get up and take action, by acting, we are taking control of our lives and circumstances. We are NEVER hopeless and anything is better than worrying.

Tip 1. Stop Listening to Negative Thoughts

Many times because of bad experiences, we tend to listen to that inner voice, the negative thoughts, the hurts and pains. These negativity discourages us from achieving anything in life. Make up your mind to be positive about life, envision yourself in the place and position you want to be in, like financially stability, establishing your business or even owning your dream home, whatever you choose to accomplish keep this in the forefront of your mind and work towards it.

Tip 2. Change Your Environment

Remove yourself from any negative environment or circumstances that do not encourage your success. You cannot do the same things over and over and expect different results. You must re-position yourself in order to move forward.

Tip 3. Prioritize Your Life

Ask yourself how important the situations are around you and set your priorities in order, this would help you to cope, then work on the most important ones first.

Tip 4. Associate Yourself with Like-Minded People

Find people who have the same or similar vision and share your vision with them get new ideas and encouragement. Also learn to encourage yourself by encouraging others and get excited about it.

Tip 5. Set Realistic Goals

Set goals that you know that you can accomplish within a specific time-frame, put a plan in place, envision your goal, see it, touch it, taste it in your heart and challenge yourself to meet those goals.

Tip 6.Gain Knowledge

There are a community of resources out there like internet, books, networking events, talking with others in your niche and more..that you can tap into to bring you encouragement and help you gain momentum to keep you moving forward. These resources would influence your motivation.

Tip 7. Take Risks

Learn to take risks you will never gain anything by doing nothing! Choose to live life to the fullest, it's up to you! Be willing to fail before you can even begin to succeed at anything. Failure should motive you to succeed and not to get you down. Never quit, there is a saying, "a quitter always loses", keep trying until something great happens. Never see yourself defeated, instead, see yourself with real potential and get busy moving forward!

To many times people depend on others to push them to achieve, what if we don't have that someone, would you just give up in life. No, we were all created with great potential, talents and abilities within, we need to tap in and put away negative thoughts and start believing that you can do anything that you put your mind to do. Yes we all need encouragement, but motivation comes from within is an act of your will and desire, you have to get up and decide to move forward.

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Do It, Get Into Action

Nike's brilliant slogan, "Just Do It" has been running through my head for hours.

I've got a deadline for a blog post I committed to writing for a colleague and I just can't get my thoughts together.

Oh, sure I've sat at my desk and stared at the blank screen for a while but nothing happened.

I mean I waited... but nothing. Nada. Zippo. Zilch.

So, I stood up and headed out to the deck for a little sunshine and inspiration.

On the way, I walked through the kitchen and realized that I didn't unload the dishwasher from last night.

So I did that.

And, while I was in the kitchen I decided to wipe up the counters as I didn't do that after breakfast.

And, then I went back to my office.

I wrote the three lines, re-read them, and realized that something was off so I deleted them all.

Then, I hopped over to Facebook, hoping that I would find a little inspiration from one of my friends.

Instead, I clicked on 5 puppy videos that, while entertaining, took 20 minutes of my time and now I am much closer to my deadline.

I went back into the kitchen to grab a glass of water and before heading back to my office, I check out what was in the snack cabinet. And, then the refrigerator. And, then the snack cabinet again.

After I finally made it back to my office, I had the glass of water, two peppermint patties (just little ones) and what I thought was a great idea.

But, when I sat down in front of my blank screen, the idea was gone.

Does this scenario or an iteration of it sound familiar to you?

The good news is I pulled myself together and got it done before the deadline. Woo-hoo!

Here are the 5 simple steps I took to get into action so I could get the blog post written. They're easy-peasy and you can do them, too! (And, it's as easy as rinse and repeat every time!)

1. Make the commitment. When you have a firm commitment to a person, place or organization vs. focusing solely on the task, it's easier to get started.

2. Get into your body. When you're stuck, it's often because you're in your head and not your body. If you go for a walk or just move, it will empty your mind and the ideas will start flowing.

3. Ensure that you are working at the best hours of the day for you. You have a time of day where you are at peak performance. Do your most important tasks then.

4. Remove distractions. Close down FB, phone, etc. and focus on your one action item. No multi-tasking!

5. Just do it. Need I say more?!?

And, remember to celebrate!

ACTION ITEM: The Upside Challenge of the week is to identify where you are currently stuck. Print out the 5 simple steps and go through them to get your mojo back and get into action.

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4 Ways to Juggle Entrepreneurship & Parenthood Successfully

When people talk about settling down and starting a family, it’s always understood that they would be focusing more on being parent than being a career man or woman.

The point is, people are so used to seeing single entrepreneurs who have all the time in the world for their business. Most believe that entrepreneurship is a huge risk. And that someone who has a commitment to wife and kids can never handle the position.


How to Juggle Entrepreneurship & Parenthood

While many people think both these roles are hard to do side by side, there are some who succeeded and juggled parenthood and entrepreneurship successfully.

How did they do it?

The following is advice from successful parent-preneurs:


1. Prioritize Your Commitments

“Nurture your family as much as you nurture your business. Your business may take care of your family but your family will care about you.” – Brian Gatti of Inspire Business Concepts

With family and work all vying for your attention, how do you know which one to prioritize?

First things first: As a parent, you want to spend most of your time with your child. You want to be with your boy in every of his soccer game. Or with your girl in ever of her ballet recital.

But as a business owner, you also have to shoulder the responsibility of being an entrepreneur if you don’t want to let your clients, partners, and employees down.

So how do you do it?

Be realistic about what you can accomplish. Take the time to plot out the things you need to do at work and at home. Don’t take in more work more than you can handle. There are also times when you need to focus more on your business so you have to make up for the time you lost for your family by scheduling family time on the weekends.
Get involved with your child. Despite being busy, you can still be a good parent by being involved with your child in everything he does. This includes making time to attend his school activities, and making up if you miss one because of a work commitment.
Keep a routine. Routines make everything easier and faster. Find your own time flow where you can work and still spend quality time with your kids as often as they’d like.
Have a back-up plan. Imagine having an important meeting with a client or a work deadline happen during one of those days when your child is sick. Plan beforehand, if you fail to do these things on schedule.
Put important things on your calendar. All the things that have to be done without fail during that date should be scheduled. If it’s not on your calendar, then it’s not something to do.

2. Hack your Time

“I recommend [to] not check your work email 10 minutes before your bedtime, nor 10 minutes before your child will wake up from a nap. You never know what will be in that inbox that may cause excessive excitement or worry regarding your business! Better to leave it for a time when you know you can calmly respond to any pressure from work.” – Arlissa Vaugn, Special Event Painter

Most work-at-home parents often don’t have the time to work for eight hours straight compared to those who work in the office. The good thing is you can always hack your time.

So you can do everything on schedule and get more done even with less working hours.


The following are time hacks you can incorporate on your work day:
Cook for two meals at once so you can simply fridge the other half and have it for the next day.
Shop groceries online and simply pick it up on the store so you don’t waste time shopping.
Do things in batches. For example: commute and reply work emails, water the plants and wash your car.
Have your dry cleaning set to pick-up and delivery.
You can save far more time if you remove distractions while you work.


3. Outsource / delegate work

“As a mama, we try to do it all. But after having twins in 2010, I quickly realized I couldn’t be the mama I wanted to be if I was in front of the computer or on the phone and watching kids at the same time. I found myself completely stressed and overwhelmed, feeling like a failure as a mom and an entrepreneur. Getting childcare, be it a babysitter or a supportive friend, allowed me to finally focus 100% of my energy on my biz when I was working and 100% on my family when I wasn’t.” – Rachel Cook of The Yogipreneur.

Being a parent entrepreneur means that you might not be able to take in important meetings due to family activities. That’s why it’s critical that you train your staff or hire someone to take your place during these episodes.

You can’t do it all alone so you have to ask for other’s help. You should use every kind of tool or opportunity to make everything work easier for you. Here are some ways successful parent entrepreneurs get their work done:
Outsourcing Online – There are many freelance services online like freelancer.com or PeoplePerHour where you can find great freelancers to help you in your business. You can let them do work that takes up too much of your time. Or work that you don’t know how to do like web design, editorial, and content writing.
Get a Virtual Assistant – Hire someone who can help you schedule everything and manage work for you while you’re away from the office. Delegate all petty things so you can free up your mind to deal with the important stuff.
Teach your kids to help – If your kids are old enough you can teach them to do simple things around the house like taking out the trash, doing the dishes, or their own laundry.


4. Grow Your Parents Network

“Focus on money making and network-building tasks first—so for me, fiddling around with where a graphic goes on my website is last, after finishing projects for clients and doing networking activities” – Kathy Catlin Davis of Inspired Abundance

Having children grows your ‘parent network’ as you meet other families through playgroups, school, and your neighborhood.

This helps you earn your place in their community which can be beneficial for you to meet interesting people that can turn into valuable contacts or even partners in business.

Parents that are like-minded in business may turn to each other for advice and strategies in financing.

These parent networking events are great ways to find help in growing your business. You might even find it amazing how other parent’s business ambitions will inspire yours. So take time and grow these parent connections while you bond with your kids.


Summary

At the end of the day, it’s all about reflecting on what’s important to you and finding ways to reach your goals. You can have a multi-billion business and become a committed serial entrepreneur while still getting the award for the best mom/dad in the world.
Are you juggling entrepreneurship and parenting? Leave a comment below.

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20 Life Lessons Learned in 20 Years of Life

The first 20 years of our lives are crazy.

We grow from helpless little babies to educated adults with a heavy degree of responsibility. Within these first 20 years are hundreds of first experiences, pains, growths, laughs, wonders, that slowly begin to shape our lives for the future, and there are many life lessons learned along the way.

The mindset that people begin to create for themselves during these years can waver greatly, and either push them towards what they want, or gradually away from it. As humans we are most susceptible to drastic changes, which begs the point of this article.

20 Life Lessons Learned in 20 Years of Life


1) People’s actions are affected more by what they want to hear, rather than what they actually hear.

What I mean by this is that people act very rashly based on what they wanted to hear, rather than acting correctly on the things they actually hear. This is the case for many different scenarios, and causes people to take various actions towards things that push them in the wrong direction.

The reason for this is because as humans it’s natural for us to want things our own way. Which leads to us not taking in feedback correctly, or not being able to accept compliments sometimes when they’re given to us.


2) Being different is important. Trying to be someone else can destroy any unique talent that you have.

As people grow up, they want to fit in with others. They want to make new and cool friends to spend their time with, and as a result copying others becomes a natural thing for people to do, especially if they’ve been made fun of for doing something different before.

Being different is not a detriment. Being different is important in order to stand out and make sure you live your life doing what you love. This is the second of my 20 best life lessons learned within 20 years of life.

A lot of people think their search for happiness will be over once they ditch being different and start fitting in with everyone else. But the key to happiness is to do what you love no matter what, and learn to be proud of everything that makes you different.


3) Time can be both your best friend and worst enemy. How you use it is critical.

Time is something we think we have endless amounts of, in our early years of life in particular.

So the general pattern is that we spend a lot of time lounging around, not doing too much, just ‘chilling’, for the first half of our lives. Then for the second half we feel like there’s so much left that we still want to do, but we don’t have time for. Use your time wisely.

Time can also be our best friend because of the fact that it allows things to nurture. If you feel like you’re giving everything 100% but you’re still not heading upwards, give it time.


It apparently takes around 10,000 hours to become successful, but I think that’s a pretty loose definitive depending on what your definition of success is.


4) When you finish education, the talented start to get overtaken by the hardworking.

When we’re growing up, the majority of us will receive a fairly good education, and some brains will develop more quickly than others. Since we’re receiving the same education for the most part, it’s not difficult for talented people to stand out.

They may not be that hardworking, but their talented and with the same number of hours in the class room, they get pretty good results.

Although, when we finish education and get released into the big wide world of work, talent alone won’t make people a success unless there’s hard work accompanied with it. Hardworking people tend to overtake people who are just simply talented if they don’t put in the same amount of hard work.


5) Everybody has the capability of dreaming and achieving, but most people do not attempt to achieve what they dream.

Most people often think that they can happily dream about everything they want in life, but still believe it will never be achievable. And for this reason, some people never even attempt to achieve their dreams.

6) Anything ever worth achieving does not come easy. Hard work is the key to everything.

This is one of my most important life lessons learned in the past couple of years. Nowadays people are led astray so often by the promise of opportunities that give the same results, but are are quicker and easier to achieve.

“Get rich quick”, “20 minute abs”, they have it all.

These are false promises made to reel people in from the attractive guarantees. 90% of the people that purchase these books or programs fail to accomplish what the book promises, and the other 10% are not just relying solely those schemes to get what they want.


7) The majority of situations can be improved, if you’re willing to drop all the excuses you tell yourself first.

We all have excuses for something: “I don’t have time”, or “it’s impossible, it can’t be done”, but pretty much every excuse you tell yourself or hear from someone is not reality.

It’s a way of giving themselves a reason as to why they can’t do something, in order to clear their conscience. If you’re in a situation at the moment and you want it to change for the better, that can happen if you’re willing to drop every excuse you like to tell yourself.


8) Connecting with like-minded people is the quickest way to developing yourself into the person you want to be.

Jim Rohn says you become like the 5 people you hang out with most. The point is that hanging out with like-minded people is the best of developing yourself into the person you want to become, because they’re on the same journey as you and can share their knowledge.

Truly one of my best life lessons learned within the past year. Let go of the negative friends and hang around with like-minded people!


9) Never turn your back on people who have always supported you.

Loyal friends and family that love and support you, should always know how much you appreciate them. Considering that loyal friends are pretty hard to find nowadays, it’s stupid to neglect those that already support you.

10) The first 20 years of your life build the foundation for the rest.

As I briefly pointed out earlier, our lives for the first 20 years are crazy. The rapid growth and self-development we go through during this time is phenomenal, and whichever routes we choose to go down during this time can, more often than not, stick.

Not only because we’re more susceptible to things like peer pressure and other influences, but because our brains develop and adapt at a much quicker rate during this time than they do at adulthood.

The route you decide to take during this period can have a large effect on the rest of your life. How will you build your foundation?


11) To create something your truly proud of takes time. Your vision always has the potential to become reality.

Ever since I was a child, I was obsessed with creativity and design. Patterns, drawing, creating something that just kept on improving; that was what I craved.

To this day, I still look for ways I can create something I’m passionate about, and consistently improve it over time. Then look back at the original creation and realize just how terrible it was.

The point of this, is that your first idea or vision for something big may seem like the best it could ever be, but only time can reveal whether you were right or not. As time progresses, so does your knowledge and your creativity.

Ideas only get better over time.

12) Peer pressure is a test of your will. Strong will is essential for success.

One of the hardest life lessons learned, and hardest thing to overcome growing up, is peer pressure. What with people trying to fit in with others, and just be like everyone else, some find this impossible to avoid.

Back in high school, pretty much every one of my friends started smoking, and I was one of the only ones to not take it up. I would go outside with them whenever they went out for one, but I wouldn’t smoke with them.

I had no desire to instantly become popular by starting something that personally I wouldn’t get anything from.

The nature of this life lesson is that strong will is important for succeeding in life. Because whenever anybody tell you “no, it’s impossible, you should just give up”, and they try to put negative thoughts in your head; your will determines which side you end up on.


13) Anybody who sets out to make a big impact or go against the grain will receive some level of hate.

The thing with trying to have a big impact on the world, is that everybody is different and in a world of free speech, opinions will always be mixed.

The more publicity you start to receive for whatever it may be that you’re trying to accomplish, the more people that will possibly have something bad to say about it. It’s unavoidable. So don’t be afraid to go against the grain, and make a difference in the world.


14) Many people think they have the option to either live and die young or live elderly and die without truly living.

The two options people think they have in life is to either live and die young; meaning do whatever they want before they take up a boring job that they hate. Or to live elderly and die without truly living; meaning they work hard and become successful, but don’t have all the fun experiences they can whilst they’re young.

The options you have are the ones that you create for yourself. The majority of people will probably believe that they have to choose one of the above, but this isn’t the case. You can live your life however you want to live it.

15) Things aren’t just naturally attracted to you. It’s up to you to make the first move.

Naturally, we think that if we work hard and take care of ourselves, opportunities will present themselves. The fact is that opportunities only present themselves if you make the first move.

You should go up to that girl, you should contact that company, you should reach out to people, you should ask for training.

Waiting for opportunities to come to me is not a game I like to play. Number 15 is one the best life lessons learned in my life.

16) Trees can’t be chopped down without persistence. Only after so many hits in the same spot will it be brought down.

One of my favourite sayings that I once heard in an Eric Thomas speech, is that if you hit a tree with an axe a thousand times in a thousand different places, you won’t bring it down. But if you take that axe and you hit that tree a thousand times in the same spot, you’ll bring the tree down.

Persistence is the key to improvement. Whether it’s with a girl who you thinks playing hard to get, a business that can’t quite get off the ground, or a quest for building muscle mass that is going far slower than first expected. Persistence is the key.


17) It’s better to act and be embarrassed for five minutes, than to not act and be embarrassed for the rest of your life.

Back when I was in school, I was afraid of asking questions. I wouldn’t do it in case the question was stupid and people felt compelled to laugh at me.

But since then, I’ve realised that asking those questions would have helped me out a great deal, and it’s better to be embarrassed for 5 minutes and gain that knowledge, rather than never ask and be embarrassed by how little you know in the future.

18) You don’t have to follow the crowd just because it seems sensible.

The general pattern when leaving school is to go on to university or college, but it’s not a must. So many people are leaving uni with the same degrees, that when it comes to getting a job none of them stand out compared to a guy who’s had some incredible real life experience.

You don’t have to follow the crowd just because it seems like the most sensible thing to do. Remember, it’s good to be different.


19) The best form of learning is outside of school.

School education is a general form of learning that has to be applicable for every child. Nothing about it is tailored to what you want to do in life, and it doesn’t give you any in action training.

Going out of your way whilst in education and even after to progress your knowledge in subjects your passionate about, is something you absolutely must do. The education system can only get you so far.


20) Above all, never give up on what you believe is possible.

The last of the life lessons Learned in the past 20 years of my life, is to never give upon what you believe is possible. No matter how much you feel like you’re up against it, if you truly believe it’s possible, you can get it done.


Before you go, do you have any life lessons learned in recent years of your life you’d like to add?

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