Cancer and concern are cares that often come together. The cancer patient is concerned for their situation and their family, friends and caregivers show concern for the patient. Hard times and challenges can bring pity for self and others.

It is just so hard. They don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve this. How can this be happening? Concerns over physical health and emotional well being cause us all to feel for those in this situation.

Today I learned of Devin, a 15 year old cancer patient who was not doing well. He had every right to be discouraged and depressed. So did his visitors, family and friends. He could have looked into his heart and focused on his sad position.

For some like Devin the seeking sorrow in self-pity just is not in their language or life. Sure the struggle was tough but Devin had a perspective worthy of us all.

He asked for a small refrigerator for his 15th birthday, his last. In the refrigerator he stored sodas for his visitors. He made a sign for the refrigerator door:

“The Soda Factory — come depressed and leave refreshed.”

He then helped his visitors to find “refreshment” in their interactions with him and their shared soda.

The simple truth is that Devin was living the solution to self-pity. He was teaching lessons on how to face personal sorrow.

The principle of life is this: simple sincere service is the stuff that takes our minds off our own situation.  Sypathetic words spoken softly, a listening ear, and shared feelings from the heart just may be enough to move yourself and others off the path of self-pity.

This is a simple service with deep power to the people involved. Listen from the heart.  Speak from the heart.  Share a heartfelt story.  Carry on a conversation.  Share in their concerns.  Understand their situation.  See in your troubles the situations of those around you.  As you are talking about solutions to THEIR situation your own answers may surface.

Simple acts of concern can take us on a journey of service and understanding which reveal to our heart and minds solutions for our own situation.  Self-pity is overcome by service.  Sometimes this service is simple.  It may be nothing more than a radiant smile but it just may be enough to keep you and I on the positive path of personal progress.

Resolve with me to share in someone’s struggles. See if the service doesn’t lighten the burdens you bare.

Learning, Is It Really?

Are you the child of 3? Are you the youth of 17? Are you still your mother’s child or her caregiver? When did YOU change? If you have changed which you is you? Maybe it is time to start learning about you!

Today is the first day of the rest of your life… Who are you and what will you do with that today?

Learning Is Changing

Each “New” Day, Month, Year, event or activitiy gives you and I the chance to change. When you learn something about yourself and the world around you, you change.  Because of the change you are not the you, you were a while ago.

Does Your Personal Learning Lab Leverage Learning About You

Look at the first day of a New Year.  Is it really different than the day before?  The sun will rise and set the same as everyday here on planet Earth.  The difference is your attitude and your hope of a life improved and  greater satisfaction carries the day.  You have a new hope generated through the possibilities of changes in your choices.

You can actually speed up the entire process by learning more about yourself.  Not the ever changing you, but the you who is doing the learning.  You and I need to become learners about ourselves as learners.  This brings ourDoes Your Personal Learning Lab Leverage Learning About You hopes and dreams into the realm of reality.

Learning About You

Sure you are changing each and every day.  You are not the same any day of the week because what you learn changes who you are.

Your core elements reveal your preferences for learning.  How does your mind work?  Are you a “visual” learner or do you prefer to hear the lesson?  Are you person of action?  Do you learn by doing more than seeing or listenting?

When you learn how you learn you are prepared to know what you can do to learn more quickly each day!  Learning about you, your preferences and dreams makes your ability to change expand quickly.

There are so many barriers to becoming all we want to become.  What is stopping you or I from becoming exactly what we want to be? Is this why we are continually experiencing challenges as we change?

1. 1. We beleive we know who we are.
2. 2. We are kidding ourselves.
3. 3. We do not want to face the reality of who we are.
4. 4.  We don’t know enough about ourselves to properly plan our own learning expereinces.

Plan now to get to know yourself.  Trust you have it in you to become your best self.  Know there are those of us around you cheering on your change.  Learning about you may just be the fastest breakthorough to the new you you desire.

Your Hope of a New You in the New Year

Isn’t this really what gives us the light in the dawn of the new year?  Hope for a bright future. Hope for a dream come true. Hope for learning the best stuff for us so we can be changed by what we learn.  Will you indeed leverage you and learning about you into the new you?  You are changing.  You are learning.

Why not learn about you and how you learn so you can become the new you faster.  Learn about you so you can learn more around you and change for the better?

I hope you have the time of your life learning to change by learning about how you learn and change.

Best of success,

Leveraging Learning into Significant Solutions

 

 

 

 

Feel free to contact me about your own personal learning sytle assessment.
Accelerated learning is enabled when you the learner are learning about you!

George Fourie, ThatMLMBeat founder and Top 50 MLM Blogs competition creator shares the excitement behind the scenes of this year’s Top 50 MLM Blogs competition on The Teach Jim Show

Listen as You Read:

George shares his story of overcoming bankruptcy, an automobile accident and a brush with death. Questioning what his life is about he got kicked into gear again and jumped into life more fully. (See Ears to Hear Life Lessons? opens in new window)

He  shares powerful stories behind the best MLM Blogs on the Internet and the workings behind the Top 50 MLM Blogs competition.  He even reveals the key to Kimberly Castleberry’s win in the 2010 competition.  You will learn tricks he has to help you learn how to drive traffic through your effort in the competition.

Check out ThatMLMBeat.com and the Top 50 MLM Blogs for 2011 competition. Vote for your favorite blogs and be a part of some of the best informal learning you can find on Network Marketing.

George Fourie was having a bad week.

He had missed the last three days of his life. When he woke; his mother was at his side after traveling around a 1000 km to be there. He found out he had a broken neck and some serious head injuries.

Within days his doctor looked at him and laughed.  When pressed the doctor revealed, “You are not supposed to be here.  Anybody with your head and neck injuries we normally just ignore because they die within two weeks.”  George realized he had another chance at life.

The auto accident and George’s brush with death changed everything.  He moved forward with greater purpose!  He heard what life was teaching.

After hearing this on The Teach Jim Show I asked myself … am I listening to the lessons life is trying to teach?  Being a bit more sensitive here are some of the lessons I’ve learned this week.

You and I are magnificent!

The Butterfly Circus (low res) from The Butterfly Circus.

You and I are talented!

The Dot – By Peter Reynolds

You and I can embrace how we look.

As a beauty I’m not a great star.
There are others more handsome by far,
But my face, I don’t mind it,
Because I’m behind it—
’Tis the folks in the front that I jar.
[Anthony Henderson Euwer, “My Face,” in Rhymes of Our Valley (New York: James B. Pond, 1916), 92]

We can do something about the “tough times” we face.

Scratchings from the Little Red Hen

Said the big white rooster, “Gosh all Hemlock, things are tough,

Seems that worms are getting scarce and I cannot find enough.

What’s become of all those fat ones is a mystery to me;

There were thousands through the rainy spell, but now where can they be?”

The little red hen, who heard him, didn’t grumble or complain,

She had been through lots of dry spells, she has lived through floods of rain;

So she flew up on the grindstone and she gave her claws a whet,

And she said, “I’ve never seen a time there were no worms to get.”

She picked a new and undug spot; the earth was hard and firm.

The big white rooster jeered, “New ground! That’s no place for a worm.”

The little red hen spread her feet, she dug fast and free,

“I must go to the worms,” she said, “the worms won’t come to me.”

The Rooster vainly spent his day, through habit by the ways,

Where fat worms have passed in squads, back in the rainy days.

When nightfall found him supperless, he growled in accents rough,

“I’m as hungry as a fowl can be. Conditions sure are tough.”

He turned to the little red hen and said, “It’s worse with you,

For you’re not only hungry, but you must be tired too.

I rested while I watched for worms, so I feel fairly perk;

But how are you? Without worms too? And after all that work?”

The little red hen hopped to her perch and dropped her eyes to sleep,

And murmured, in a drowsy tone, “Young man, hear this and weep,

I’m full of worms and happy, for I’ve dined both long and well,

The worms were there, as always – but I had to dig like hell!”

Oh, here and there white roosters are still holding sales positions,

They cannot do much business now, because of poor conditions.

But as soon as things get right again, they’ll sell a hundred firms -

Meanwhile, the little red hens are out, a-gobbling up the worms.

Embrace Each Day!

Leveraging Life’s lessons into the most benefit for you and I means sharing our story and the stories of others. It means making the most out of this moment of our lives so we can enjoy the peace and joy of this time.  The little things in life become the most important.  Important messages make meaningful connections.  Thank you for ready.

Embrace each day of our lives. Do you have ears to hear life’s lessons like George did. I keep trying and hope you are too!
(More on George and That MLM Beat tomorrow.)

Personal Productivity defines your success quotient in YOU INC.

Your ability to get things done in the time is really important for you, your business and your business partners.  Recently I came face to face with myself again as I considered my use of time.  Sure, I’ve been practicing Getting Things Done strategies for years.  Yes I actually get pretty good for a while there.  Today I decided to reflect on what I am really doing and share with you some of my conclusions.  I hope you find these issues helpful in refining your Personal Productivity Patterns.

Any analsys must begin with a gap analysis.  You know.  What is the gap between what I’ve got and what I want?

What I want is a fully functional productive system:

What I’ve got is strong except for the labeled concerns:

What I need seems to be the items marked in red:

In this case I’m pretty satisfied except for three main areas.

1. Processing my inbox fully.
2. Having a single repository for storage and retrieval.
3. Staying fully focused for entire work blocks of time.

As I wonder why I’m not processing my inbox I came to the conclusion it is because I have several different repositories for my inbox info.  I do not trust how well I can get things out of these different repositories.  Accordingly, I am reluctant to put things into the “untrusted” system.

I NEED a TRUSTED repository for ALL or most of my important stuff. I’m looking at an online/offline notes system.  ToodleDo has a notebook section but it only handles basic text.  Spring Pad It  is good for offline / online collection of a variety of document/note types but the tagging/notebook structure seems too binding.  When I conduct searches and my stuff is not showing up it is frustrating.  I’m thinking maybe Evernote with multiple “note” types and it’s text in image recognition capabilities.  But is the search stronger than SpringPadIt?

Are there other options for a single repository for my “valuable” things processed from my inbox?  What are you using?  What do you see as the options?

Years ago, I was introduced to a teaching principle.  Great teachers not only use the best teaching methods to reach their students. Master teachers teach important timeless truths. More than tactic or technique these teachers teach important truths their students may or may not want to learn.  Quality teachers teach their students what is most important using the best methods possible. So, what is of greatest worth in life to teach?

Today I ask you a difficult question I’ve had to ask myself.  Are you and I busy looking for large gold nuggets?  Do we want it all right now?  Are we so set on the big, earth shattering solutions that we are overlooking the simple beauties and riches along the way?

Sometimes when we pursue answers to the problems we face, we jump forward in leaps and bounds seeking to accumulate wealth.  In our running forward in a frenzy we risk missing the flecks of gold along the way.  Life lessons worth learning are strung along our path.  Are we seeing them? Do we see the riches of today?

The accumulation of great riches often happens through the patient collection of tiny gold flecks gathered carefully along the way.  I am grateful much of the wealth I enjoy today has come in this way.  Enjoy this parable:

By small and simple means are great blessings brought to pass. Does your daily method of operation foster this kind of service and reward?  Are you serving others in small and simple ways?  Are you getting better along the way?

I wish you the greatest of wealth and happiness.   Collect the flecks of gold of life.  Enjoy the great wealth from these small and simple things done well over time.  You can accumulate great wealth… beyond your dreams.

Are you seeing the world through the eyes of a new reality?

Convergence is changing the world.

Social Media has its part. Transparency.

Demographics.  Mobile apps and more.

More changes. Employment stats.  Are you Ready?

What are you doing about all this change? Is your business adjusting to these changes? We are making some changes too.  Are you?

A group of us are adjusting to these change at revvquest.com.

What would you say if someone came along and stuck a camera in your face and said.. “What is your dream?”

That is what happened to me when I met Edward Elliot in person. He took me in that instance into a world of possibilities and reality all in the same moment.

I’ve reflected on what I told him that day. Maybe I should have been bolder and said a billion or a million. Maybe I should have been more specific with what I would teach or what these people would learn. No, I stand by what I said that day. Anything else would limit the possibilities. Here it is:

Since then you and I have been busy. Maybe you didn’t notice the beginnings of this self-directed learning community in the Order of Profitable Producers. Maybe you don’t see it now in Do What You Love For Your Living. It is there. Each of these projects are potential community efforts but entry begins with a specific end results in mind for the learners who enter.

Today, we are building that community of learners.  Learners who want to learn to master directing their own learning by doing. This dream is only a dream come true with YOU!  We have added to the dream  synergyquest.us. SynergyQuest.us provides a place for us to all learn from learning and from life.

This last week I had the good privilege of connecting again with “The GREAT Edward Elliot” on The Teach Jim Show.  It was great to thank him for that day and the way it caused something I’d thought about for years to come spilling out.

It was a delight to clarify how he helps people see their dreams and put into place their action plan for getting it done.  Some of the stories he shares are inspiring.  Moreover they give hope to dreamers like you and I the world over.

I hope you will take a few minutes to enjoy Edward Elliot on The Teach Jim Show.  It may just inspire you to take on your dreams and make them a reality.

Thanks Edward for the camera in the face!  It was good for me!

Sometimes the things that make us most uncomfortable reveal to us the truths deep inside.  I hope you each will consider dreaming a little more.  Day Dreaming just might not be such a bad thing…

Personal & Business Development  ABC’s

Where Are you? …ask yourself probing questions until it is clear you understand where you really are. What have you GOT?

Where do you want to Be?  …follow up with more demanding questions to clarify and solidify your WHY! What do you WANT?

What will be your Course of Action? What do you NEED to DO?

• Solid 4×4 Core Commitment
• I am here
• Developing Personally
• Plugged-in
• Working Consistently
  
• Strong Start (first phase 30 – 90 days)*
  
• Sustained Service (Phase 2 usually 90 days – 180 days or more)*
• Strategic Leadership (Maturing phase more than 180 days)*
  

* Days are just suggestions.  Actual progression through the phases depends on personal development and business development.

Walking to work the other day I ran into a crane fully extended over the City and County building here in Salt Lake City Utah.  Full of curiosity I wondered what in the world they were doing.

The workers revealed they were “evaluating the stone”.   I thought that was strange.  Don’t they know it is made of stone?  Can’t they see from the ground with binoculours that the stone is in place on the walls?

The next day I asked for a few more details.  They informed me they were looking for ways to improve the worn or broken stone so the building would last for another 100 – 200 years.

When asked how, they informed me they would replace badly damaged stones and repair those they could.  For now they were just conducting the assessment.  The information they provide would allow the city/county to make decisions on what they would do next to prepare the building for the next hundred years.

This got me to thinking about the money, time and effort they were expending to get a clear point of view.  They examined the entire building up close and personal so they could gain the exact details they needed.

This demonstrates for each of us the need to stretch beyond our current frame of reference.  We each need to “see” our place in life with greater clarity and clear focus.  We need that “better reality” I often talk about.  What will you do to get a better point of view for you?

Enjoy this very short reflective video and the longer radio show episodes as I examine what the changed point of view might do for you.

Radio show broadcasts related to a new point of view: