Prepare for the 4th Quarter

Are you going to let another year slip away without going after what you want?

I certainly hope not.

If you grap a complimentary version of Go Get It! before October 1st, you'll have 3 months to find purpose, set goals and maintain success.

(whew)

CLICK HERE

Pick a Direction and Start Moving

The world is full of directionless people. There is so much uncertainty and fear and doubt - you want to just curl up tight under a blanket until better days arrive.

If you think that way, that's all you see. However, if you're open to possibilities, creative thinking and have even a teaspoon of confidence, when you ask the powers in the universe for a sign you may find one, like I did yesterday.

Clear direction spelled out on the sidewalk under my feet. Sure, it was a message meant for someone else, but it spoke to me too.

Here's what I chose to see. Pick a direction and move in that direction.

What do you see? It will tell you a lot about your mindset.

It's Obvious

Want to figure out what you’re good at? Need to find a way to be useful to humanity? There is no shortage of books and programs designed to help you explore those questions. I'll save you a few hundred, maybe a few thousand dollars, and give you the answer. It's obvious.

Think for a moment about some of the best gifts you’ve received. Undoubtedly they were meticulously wrapped and presented by someone who loved you. They wore a huge smile and were brimming over with confidence when they gave it to you. They knew they had found the perfect present for you and were excited to see you open it. It was probably something you hadn’t asked for, hadn’t even thought about. But they did. They thought about you and knew this was something you had to have. When you think back on it, they were right.

We all start out with a special gift or two. I believe they were presented to us from God with that same enthusiasm and knowing smile, but maybe for you, it was someone else. As a blob of a kid you didn't know what it was, but you gurgled and squealed, happy to receive it. God didn’t tell you how to use it, or even what it was. The wrapping is part of the gift. You get to guess what’s inside by shaking it around a little and going through some trial and error.

Some people unwrap their present at a very young age, others wait until they are much older. After a lot of poking, prodding, staring and guessing, everyone unwraps their gift eventually, but not everyone knows what they’ve been given.  

It’s obvious.

Your gift is the thing you do well. It’s your talent. The thing that comes so easy for you that you mistakenly assume everybody has it. They don't. Your gift is the thing that you do nearly effortlessly and without thought. It’s frustratingly simple to uncover. You've probably been ignoring your gift because it has seemed too easy, or not grand enough, or you haven't felt worthy because you've been tricked into thinking your gift needs to be some complicated thing. Powerful gifts are not complicated. Your talent is easy to identify. How you choose to use it is the present you pass along to others. Once you’ve identify your gift, use it. It's insulting not to.

Do Your Passions Overlap?

Sometimes when I'm surrounded by competing priorities, long to-do lists and neglected wish-lists, I feel stuck. So, I open up a notebook and see where my pen takes me. 

More often than not, I sketch a mind map that resembles a smashed spider. A splotch of something in the middle, surrounded by eight or so legs, each labeled in an attempt to either quiet my mind and organize my thoughts, or motivate me into action.

I usually keep these brainstorming notebooks and every once in a while I glance through them to reminisce and try to comprehend what my thinking was at the time. It surprised me that many of my pages contained variations of a Venn Diagram containing; Leadership, Business and Writing. 

These are not the only things I'm passionate about, but nearly every significant project that I've successfully pursued has taken place in the overlaps or sweet spot of these three themes.

There's a clue there.

What three things are you passionate about and how often do you craft your life to work on all of them simultaneously?

RELATED POST:  Where to Invest Your Time

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Find easy to download and read .pdf versions of these titles:  GO GET IT!, Pushing Back the Ocean, Trouble with Women, Attracting Success, and for a limited time, a special 8 title package called, Goal Goodness.  CLICK HERE

Snooze and Lose?

Do you use an alarm clock to wake up?  Author, Ken Blanchard, a perennial optimist gifted with a positive attitude suggests it be renamed an Opportunity Clock.  Wouldn’t you prefer to be awakened by opportunity rather than an alarm?

Granted, some people like to sleep.   Just like a new vegetarian’s willpower prevents them from indulging in an artery hardening but delicious prime rib, there are those who relish their slumber.  They deeply value it.  It rejuvenates them.  They would never agree with statement, “There will be plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead.”  (To be clear where I stand, I have no problem eating a steak at 11pm, but that’s another story).

Have you seen the sobering advertisements the state of Michigan tourist board have put out, that remind us, “25,000 mornings, give or take is all the average person gets.”

What percentage of those mornings have you hit the snooze button and decided to put off the day for a little while longer?  I asked 235 people how often they hit the snooze button in the morning and here’s the results:

29% - Once

22%  - 2-3 times

9%  - More than 3 time

40% - Before it goes off

When you are living on purpose, you tend to wake up enthusiastically with the alarm, or one minute before it goes off.  Have you ever experienced that?  It’s amazing how you can program your mind that way.  Unfortunately many do not.  People who are not thrilled by the prospects of the day choose to snooze.  Inevitably they then run late and compound their stress.

ACTION: Live on purpose and find your passion.  Passion is easy to identify.  It keeps you up late at night and wakes you up in the morning.  It causes your heart to race, not with anxiety, but with anticipation.  As Wayne Dyer has often said, “You can decide to wake up and get out of bed, open the shades and mumble, good lord, it’s morning.  Or, you can wake up, get out f bed open the shades and declare, Good Morning, Lord.”  The choice is always yours.