Tag: #potential

5 Principles to step away from average and unleash your greatness. Principle 1

There are 5 principles that I believe are critical if you are to step away from accepting an average existences and unleash your inner greatness. You must learn them and live them. I’ll be sharing each of the five in a series over the next few weeks, Here is my thoughts on number one.

I believe as Les Brown always says, you have greatness within you, we all do. I believe we are here on earth to pursue, stretch, and test the limits of our god given talents and potential. You have greatness within you

I also believe that we live in a society that has accepted mediocre and thrives on being average. The statistics bear this out. 78% live paycheck to paycheck and that’s pre-pandemic, 67% are disengaged at work or in their career, 63% of Americans don’t have $500 on hand to cover an emergency, 50% of marriages end in divorces and of the remaining 50%, almost half of them are unhappy. I could go on but you get the point.

We are not here just to get by. We are here to expand, create, and to live in abundance in all areas of our lives. We grow and expand by thoroughly exercising our talents and exploring the limits of our potential. By doing this we live a more fulfilled exciting life filled with meaning and significance.

A by-product of this is the creation of wealth, meaning, impact, and blessings. We should pursue being blessed so we can bless others. We should be a conduit of blessings.

So how do we pursue the limits of our potential and unleash our inner greatness? Live by and execute on the five principles, number one;

Principle # 1. You are responsible for everything in your life, everything.

Every decision and action you have taken in your life has delivered you to where you are right now, financially, career, relationships, everything. Every decision you make and action you take moving forward will drive you to where you’ll be in the future and will determine whether or not you live a life of achievement, meaning, and success. You can set that course starting today. Are you going to commit to growing, expanding, and intentionally becoming everything you can be? You have greatness within you, you aren’t meant to live an average mediocre existence.

Once you understand that your condition and your destiny is not captive to what others think, the economy, who the President is, whether people are biased against you, or anything else outside of you. Once you stop looking outside of yourself for reasons why you aren’t where you want to be, you take control. Focusing on outside forces is just a way to rationalize to yourself why you wont do what’s required to get, do, or be what you want.

That doesn’t mean there wont be challenges, setbacks, failures or problems. The only people who don’t have problems are in grave yards. That doesn’t mean there wont be people who let you down, that’s life, and by the way, life isn’t fair. You get out of life what you put in, what you go get, and what you intentionally become.

We should not be arrogant enough to believe that we should not have any problems. Problems are an opportunity to grow. Problems should not be impediments that cause you to fold up and quit and settle for average. Problems and set backs are just indications that its time to re-evaluate the path forward, pivot, adapt and charge forward.

We all have problems, we are all going through something. The difference between the successful and average? Successful people understand they are responsible for everything in their life so when they encounter the same problems everyone has, they quickly find solutions, they adjust, and they plow forward through the problem. Most importantly, they don’t quit.

Stop listening to Yourself and Start Talking to yourself.

If you are going to do big things, make your dreams come true, be the best at your job or industry, you must stop listening to yourself and start talking to yourself.

You’ve got to shut down the negative self talk. You know, that voice in your head that plants the seeds of doubt and fear. I don’t care what level of success one has achieved, we all have the negative self talk that impacts how or if we take action, our confidence, and our performance. Studies say that we have 50,000 thoughts a day and of those, 70% are negative. That’s 35,000 negative thoughts a day, that’s an astounding number, its a wonder we achieve anything.

The majority of your thoughts are subconscious with a limited number making it to the conscious. Its my belief that this massive number of negative sub couscous thoughts shape the conscious thought, impact your attitude, and feed your fears and doubt.

How do you fight those negative thoughts both conscious and subconscious?

Eradicate the negative limiting talk in your mind

Fill your mind with so much good only good can come out


We are inundated with thousands of negative messages every day all day from the media, television shows, news, and social media post. You must tune these messages out. I suggest filling your mind with so much positive information and messages that it overrides the negative stored in subconscious, deprogramming and replacing stored negative beliefs and thoughts with better positive mental data.

You’ve probably seen the presentation with the pitcher of dark water representing negative thought, and then clear clean water is poured into the pitcher and the water is cleared representing positive mental beliefs and thoughts flushing out the negative. You can do the same.

Having said that, I am not one that believes all you have to do is think positive and all will be well and achievement is assured. In any endeavor action is required, but action fueled by a positive mental attitude will out perform a negative mindset every time, easily.

A positive mindset also doesn’t mean that bad things wont happen to you, we all face adversity, but if you’ll focus on a positive mental attitude you will deal with and handle hardships better.

Look for books, podcast, videos, and mentors that feed your positive mental state. Its probably unfair because there are so many great examples out there but I’ll give you one that I’ve been obsessed with recently, check out Ed Mylett

Be intentional about Eradicating Negative Speak


We must be self aware of the thoughts that make there way into our mind. We all have heard that voice, I don’t think I’m good enough, What if I fail, what will they think of me, I’m going to look stupid. We all have these messages running around inside our heads at some point or another, based on the statistics of 35,000 negative messages a day, I’m pretty sure I am correct.

I am suggesting that the moment we start hearing these messages that we don’t entertain them. We must immediately be intentional about shutting down the negative speak. It may be tough at first but I am telling you to develop the habit. The second that voice starts, you shut it down. You tell that voice that you are good enough, you do have what it take, that you can do it. I suggest sentences that start with these small but powerful words, I can, I am, I will, I must. Keep this in mind, it doesn’t matter who says you can as long as it isn’t you.

Stop Making Excuses


Stop making excuses because when you do you are focusing your control outside of yourself. Excuses are how we rationalize to ourselves that our doubt and fears are valid because of outside forces. When you accept that you are responsible for exactly where you are, relationally, financially, or career, you own your power. Once you own your power you can believe and be confident in yourself when you say you can, you must, you will.

Life Lessons we can Learn from the Super Bowl Champions

What life lessons can you learn from the Super Bowl Champions?

I believe there are strong lessons to learn from every player on that field last night.

Obviously Tom Brady is getting a lot of the attention and rightly so, he deserves it But every player on that field can teach us all a lesson, a lesson that if we applied to our lives, our goals and dreams would radically change our destiny.

Super Bowl Champion Tom Brady
TAMPA, FLORIDA – FEBRUARY 07: Tom Brady #12 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers celebrates with the Lombardi Trophy after defeating the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV at Raymond James Stadium on February 07, 2021 in Tampa, Florida. The Buccaneers defeated the Chiefs 31-9. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)

Every player on that field had a dream since they were little kids playing Pop Warner football to play in the NFL and to play in a Super Bowl. Yes, every player was born with athletics ability and potential. But so were tens of thousands of others who never made it to the highest level, What’s sets these players out above the others?

The players on the field last night relentlessly pursued and stretched the limits of their potential their entire lives for this moment.

Since they were little boys they had the dream and they committed do doing what ever it took to get there. Yes we see all the money, the life style, the fame and we think somehow it was easier for them. False.

These players worked every day of there lives up to this moment to push every ounce of talent out of their bodies. They pushed through the pain, through injuries, through setbacks, and they never quit.

That is the difference, they never quit. every step of the journey they worked harder, studied more, trained more. When others were taking off, playing video games, giving limited effort in practice, they were working, giving everything.

What if you applied this discipline to your goals and dreams? What kind of exponential growth in your life would you see in a year, three years, and decade? You could achieve any goal you set your mind to. You could create the life you dream of.

I challenge you to commit to relentlessly pursuing the limits of your potential. Its your responsibility, your duty.

Don’t be lazy with your potential.

You are in control, dont let anyone derail your dream. 3 Tips to achievment

You are in control, dont let anyone derail your dream. Just wanted to send out a reminder that where ever you are in your life, financially, job, career, business, or relationship, whatever, it does mean you have to stay there. Its a fact that we are all where we are because of the decisions we have made and the actions we either have taken or not taken. But the truth is, those past decisions do not have to dictate your future.

You have the ability to choose the future you want right now. Once you decide what your goals and dreams are you have started the process of changing and shaping the future you want. However, this is the easy part.

The key to making any change and achieving any goal requires action. This is where people stumble and fail. Everyone wants the money but are’nt willing to commit to what it takes. Everybody wants the fit and attractive body but manny are’nt willing to put the work in, to sacrifice. You can achieve your goals and dreams but you must be willing to work and sacrifice. Nothing great comes easy.

Commit goals to paper


Once you decide what it is you really want to accomplish or what you really want to become you must commit it to paper. I know we all have high tech devises but Im telling you to pick up a pen and a sheet of paper and write your goals out. Right out exactly what it is you want to achieve or become. Detail what your plan is and the effort you will put in to achieve your goal. Review those goals every morning and every evening. Hold yourself accountable. For a time tested method for setting and achieving your goals and dreams I highly suggest you read “think and grow rich” by Napolian Hill.

Commit to massive action


Commit to taking consistent massive action. We get fired up starting off while we are all excited about our new goals that will deliver the life we dream of. Once we experience a little friction and that excitement wears down, it gets a little tougher to keep putting out that effort. It can get diffuicult pushing forward without seeing results or at least the results we think we should be seeing. Keep in mind that results follow momentum, keep pushing, cosnsistent effort is always rewarded. The reason why most fail is because they fail to accurately consider the work required to accomplish their goals. Understand up front that what ever your first thoughts are on what action is required, double it, tripple it. Doing this you start to find out if you are actually committed. Grant Cardone author of “The 10X rule” says that what ever goals you have, what ever effort you think it will take multiply that by ten. Its actually a great mindset, I agree with Cardone that we think to small, we must think much bigger and set our goals higher. We set our goals to low and hit them, we should be setting our goals so high it stretches the limits of our potential.

Prepare for the cynics


Prepare yourself for the naysayer, the critics, cynics, and detractors. There will always be naysayers and critics, people who will always find the negative in everything and everyone. When you start stepping out of your comfort zone, you’ll be putting your self out there for the world to see. You are going to be vulnerable, again, here is where you find out how committed you are. Some will criticize and try to ridicule, they do this mainly because you are a threat. You by your actions are challenging them to question their own abilities and commiment to pursuing their own potential, some cant handle this. Rather than re-evaluate themselves they feel better criticizing you. You must get your friends and family on board also, share with them what your trying to accomplish and the effort it will take. You’ll need them to understand that you must block out the time required to acieve your dreams, Its in their best interest as well. Make sure you commit special time for them as well. You need them on your side, on your team.

Where ever you come from, lower financial background or status, High school drop out, over weight, what ever it is doesnt matter. What matters now is that you have decided now to make a change,set goals, and chase your dream. Whatever they may be, you want to achieve financial freedom, you are going to become a Senior Poject Manager, or you are going to get in the best shape of your life; whatever you dream of it can become real. You are in control, dont let anyone derails your dream.

Three Steps to 90 day learning cycles

The only way we become our best and stay on top of our game is if we commit to lifelong learning. How much better would you be in a year if you committed to studying a new subject, trade, or product every 90 days. I want to share with you three steps to 90 day learning cycles to make you the best you can be. These ideas work for any career or industry.

Lifelong Learning is the key to achievment and success, Start with 90 day learning cycles

ONE – Work harder on yourself than you do on your job

The great Jim Rohn said, work harder on yourself than you do at your job. If you havent heard of Jim Rohn I encourage you to watch this video . The idea is, work hard at developing your self, developing your potential, and building on your skills and knowledge. If you will do this the bring more value to the maret place. The more value you bring, the more income, benefits, and perks you can demand.

Work on your leadership and people skils, what is called, the soft skills. These skills will take you farther than your field knowledge. If you can influence others to want to work for you, to want to carry out your vision, and build loyalty and respect you will be successful.

I advise starting out reading all you can. Commit to reading one book a month. The best place to start for leadership is John Maxwell, read all his books. I recomend starting with, “Developing the Leader Within You”.
The best book there is on developing people skills is “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. Read this book and then re-read once every year.

Two – Study The different discplines of the industry picking a new subject every 90 days.

We all have areas we are strong, and then if we are honest we would have to admit we all have areas we are weaker. Lets strengthen our weaknesses. As the Superintendent on the job, the more you know about each trade the better you can understand the needs of the project and the requirements of your trade partners.

Pick a subject, concrete, utilities, electrical, HVAC systems for example and find liturature or books to study your subject for 90 days. Each industry has loaded the internet with information on thier products, systems and codes. Firestone Building products website for example is loaded with liturature detailing specifications, installation instructions, and details. You can find this type of information for almost everything you’ll encounter on the job.

Utilize the information on the internet, purchase a book, or ask your trade partners you currently work with if they have any books or information you can borrow.

Three – Utilize your current trade partners as resources

Once you’ve decided what your subject of study is for a specific 90 day cycle, utilize your trade partners as resources. Take a foreman from a Subcontractor to lunch and pick his brain about his trade and his job. Most people love to talk about themselves and they will take a free lunch.

Be right up front and tell them you’re interested in learning more about his/her trade. This is your chance to ask questions from those in the trenches. Questions like, what are code requirements or even better, what is typically a reason inspections are failed? What is the biggest contributor to inefficiencies in your work? How could I help you be more efficient or effective in getting your work done? Is there a particular trade you need to coordinate with the most and how can this be improved?

This is also a great opportunity to build relationships, show them you care. Ask them how they got into the trade and there back ground.

Imagine how much you can learn if you didthis just once a month for a year with different trade parters.

Want to be the best? You’ve got to keep learning

YOU ARE A LEADER, NO TITLE REQUIRED.

You are a leader, no title required. I’ve been studying leadership and the impact good leaders can have on business, careers, and relationships. I have had the opportunity to work for and be around great leaders and learn from them. I’ve also had the opportunity to be around poor leaders and learned lessons from them as well.

John Maxwell defines leadership as influence. Notice that there is no title needed to influence others. There is no requirement to be the president, CEO, or boss. This is why I believe we are all leaders or at least we have the ability to be leaders no matter what your position is at work, home, or out in public. We are all leaders, yes you too.

How can we be leaders or influence others if we are not in a position of authority?
By being the example of excellence. Now I don’t know that excellence is ever attained, I believe excellence is more of a consistent pursuit of your highest self, consistently giving your best effort, and stretching your god given potential.

What makes you a leader? Constantly being the example of and modeling of a high level of character and integrity. You couple that Character and integrity with commitment to self-improvement and you’re a leader that can make a real difference in your business, career, your relationships, in your life and the lives of others.

I want to share with you three simple character traits that if applied can and will make a real difference in your performance on many levels and will increase your influence on others.

Don’t be late.

Don’t be late to work, don’t be late to meetings, don’t be late to a family events. Showing up for work on time, be at your work station what ever that may be, ready to go. Being in the parking lot putting your shoes on or doing your make up doesn’t count as on time. Arrive at the meeting on time, prepared and ready to take care of business. What does on time mean? If you aren’t early you are late. If you aren’t 10 minutes early, getting prepared and ready to get after it at the designated time you are late. Being on time shows respect for others and the task at hand. If you aren’t early you are late.

Do more than what is expected.

Folks, the bar is set low out there, anyone can do the bare minimum and most people do. Why is that some people excel, achieve more, or get more done than others? They do what is expected and then a little more. Jim Rohn always talked about, your income is in direct proportion to the value you bring to the market place. So remember this, your value in the market place is created after you’ve done the bare minimum. Anyone can just show up, I see it all the time. People want to just show up and get rewarded. No, your value or at least your added value comes when you do what’s expected and then a little more. This applies to business and relationships. You do the bare minimum in your marriage you probably wont have a great marriage, go the extra miles on a consistent basis, it will pay off. Anyone can do the bare minimum, and most do.

Don’t be a complainer.

Great leaders are not complainers. IF you don’t bring a solution to a complaint you’re are a whiner, no-one likes a whiner. Great leaders do recognize when things aren’t going right or that there is a problem, but they bring a solution to the complaint. You see, that makes you a problem solver, not a complainer. Great leaders are always great problem solvers. Complaining can be contagious, don’t get sucked in by others. When others are complaining, ask the question, ok how can we correct the problem? What can we do to make the situation better? Always bring an idea for a solution to a complaint.

These three ideas seem simple, but they are practiced nearly as much as they should be. Notice nothing I’ve suggested requires a title. If you apply these ideas and make them your habits your influence on others will improve. You will be the example of excellence and you will be a great leader

Human Potential and Living a Full Abundant Life

Human Potential and living a full and Abundant life


I’ve been thinking a lot lately about human potential and living a full an abundant life. When I say abundant life I mean not just financial, I’m talking deep meaningful relationships with family and friends, making real impact on my community. I’m talking about making a difference in the lives of people I don’t even know. Living a life of significance.

Be a Champion


I have visions of making significant and meaningful impact on young men and women needing a mentor. There are those who believe they aren’t worthy, they’ll never succeed, their dreams will never come true. There are people my age and older who believe its to late to chase their dreams, they believe their time, and there opportunity has slipped through their fingers. They need a champion, I want to be their champion.

We All Have Greatness Within Us


You see I believe I was truly meant to make an impact, I believe that I have the potential within me to impact and change peoples lives for the better. There is greatness within me just waiting to be unleashed. I don’t think I am any different or better than anyone else. Its my belief that we all have greatness within us. We need only the courage to release it, to cultivate it, to unleash it.
Stretch The Limits of Your Potential

I believe it is our responsibility to push and test the limits of our full God given potential. We should set big fat audacious goals and then set out a plan of action to achieve them. We should aspire to be the greatest version of ourselves that we can possibly be. Remember, you can have all the potential in the world but it means nothing if you don’t take action. You can have a powerful race car but it wont move and get down the track until you put the pedal to the floor.

Will we ever really max out our potential, and be the absolute best version of ourselves? No, I don’t think its possible, and I can accept that. What is not acceptable for me any longer is not pursuing my best. Nothing less than a relentless pursuit of my full potential on a consistent bases is acceptable. Success is in the mission, in the journey where you leave a trail of meaningful relationships, achievements, and victories.

So What does Testing the Limits of Your Potential Look Like?

So what does pushing and testing your potential look like? Again, big fat audacious goals and an action plan to achieve them. It means taking consistent action daily towards our goals. It also means facing the questions, the unknown, facing your fears. Questions like, how could I ever do great things? You don’t have to have it mapped out, you just have to start, as you take baby steps the path will become clear. What will my friends and family think? What if I fail and everyone sees that? There is no failure unless we quit, only learning opportunities we can use to make course corrections. Through set backs and hardship, no matter how slow the process, we will still be ahead of those not even trying, and ahead of those rolling their eyes at us for trying.

I challenge you to test the limits of your potential and live a full and abundant life.

Your Potential, Your free will

Potential

We all have been blessed with God given talents and potential.  This is fact. It is also true that we have free will.  This is where the great divide occurs between greatness and mediocre.

It is your job to pursue those talents and stretch the very limits of your potential.

It is your responsibility to seek it, to cultivate it, and to consistently expand and test your limits.

Freewill

This is what free will is all about. You can sit on the couch and know every detail about a silly TV show or you can create a life others dream of.

You have all the power

Once you decide to choose greatness, seek out your God given talent. Maybe you already know what it is, but you are afraid of failure, or fear what others think. That’s where courage comes into play.  Push through the fear, the fear of failure, the fear of ridicule, the fear of being uncomfortable.  Push on with your passion.

Its a shame that so much power in the form of human potential goes untapped and is wasted. Tap into and push your potential to the limit.  We are more capable than we can even fathom if we just dare test our limits.

 

My greatest fear

My biggest fear when I really think about it is not death but dying without truly living life to the fullest.  I fear most dying without leaving anything for my children, without leaving any real legacy, without coming close to realizing my full potential.

What it all boils down to is when I am done here on Earth I want to leave a mark, some sort of proof that I was here and made a difference. I’m not there yet, not even close…………..you?

Its gone on too long, living in mediocrity. Its easy, its comfortable, just do what most others are doing muddling along through life scared to be different.

As I get older mortality becomes more real and the fear of not achieving all the dreams gets greater.   I will use these fears as fuel to the fire of my desire to be more, achieve more, and create a legacy.

I challenge you, face your fears and use them.  We are NOT here to be mediocre. We are here to be great, to be significant, and to impact others. My mission is to help and inspire others to go after their goals and dreams and test the limits of their potential.

I’m not afraid of dying but I am afraid of dying without really living