Focus On That Which You Want!

It amazes me in a given day the amount of conversations I facilitate regarding the level of confusion people have about why their lives are showing up the way they do! People fundamentally do not realize that they are the creator of their reality, period! What you focus on, on a daily basis, will be directly proportional to what you get back.

Take personal relationships for example.   Doesn't take a rocket scientist that if you continue to make your partner wrong and you will find enough evidence to sink a ship! LOVE is the only premise for personal relationships so why do so many people not focus on LOVE?

Why, because they need to valid their own default (negative listening of themselves and others) and there in lies crutch of the problem.

It intrigues me the degree to which we are not disciplined in what we focus on.   If you want to experience more love in your life, it makes sense that you should focus on only loving thoughts.   9 times out of 10 the expectations you have of another are not known so why on earth do you expect to have your partner, in this case, live up to them when they are not even aware of them?

Why do couples continue to tolerate not living in a harmonious way? Why do we tolerate dis-empowering communication when it is obvious that NO ONE wins in this situation.  So I ask you today that if you are in a relationship that is not working to the degree to which you would like why do you tolerate this?

Here are some standard excuses why people tolerate not improving their relationships:-

Top 10 Key Excuses For Not Improving Relationships - see if any apply to you?

1. It's not the right time
2. If I rock the boat I do not have the financial backing to leave the relationship
3. Marriage is for life, regardless of how bad it gets
4. I am staying because of the children
5. Nothing I try works, and they (the other party) are unwilling to work on the relationship
6. He/She just won't listen
7. I've tried and it doesn't work, eg We tried marriage counseling and it didn't work
8. It's been like this for so long why should I change now - resignation
9. I am fearful of what they will do, I am fearful of the unknown if I was to leave so best to stay with what's known
10. It's not me, they are the ones who are creating the problem/s

News report, if your relationship is not where you want it to be it is because:-

1. You are getting something out of staying in it and it feeds your own negative/default listening of yourself
2. You are not committed to living in a harmonious way, evidence will prove this people! If you were committed to living in a loving relationship you would be in one by now
3. You are fearful of the unknown
4. You tolerate things the way they are because you are stuck in the HOW and are UNWILLING to get the required support to rectify the situation
5. You are definitely not present to the cost of his and or her or your own negative/default behavior, for if you were you would move in a heartbeat!
6. You get to be a victim!   You get mileage out of enrolling people in your life, family, friends, acquaintances about how bad your lot is - very attention seeking
7. You do not believe that things cannot get better because of the years of evidence to the contrary - so beliefs are running the show - fundamentally you are resigned to a new possibility
8. You do not trust your faith, if you did you would not tolerate what you tolerate
9. You get to remain a martyr in your life given the impact your situation has on your own well being
10. You need to validate your own unhealed aspects of yourself by staying in a dysfunctional relationship.

So, what now?   Stand for LOVE, stand for an EXTRAORDINARY relationship, after all what is the point of being in a relationship unless it is EXTRAORDINARY!   If you want assistance with revolutionizing your relationship STOP tolerating what you tolerate.

How to Create Focus Time in Your Day

Every entrepreneur needs to have some dedicated focus time in their business to be able to grow it whether growing it for you means getting more clients, making more money or if it means leveraging and multiplying it by leaps and bounds. You need to create some focus time in business to make that happen. 

When I say to people, "Try to create at least four hours per day for marketing or growth or development," I hear lots of shrieks, "Ah, how can I do that? I'm so busy." 

Not only is someone busy in their work life, but also in their personal life especially when we're starting out because many people who are starting out are starting out by working from home. I have some very, very specific strategies as to how to take time to clear the decks and create focus. In fact, one of my favorite mantras that I've had for many, many years is, "A strong focus now creates a different future later." So, how do you create focus time in your life? 

Well, as you know, in your business it's about delegating and getting other people to do things for you that you're not that good at doing or that at this point should be done by somebody else.  What about all that extra time that is taken up in your life? Such as non-work related busyness that happens that actually eats into your work-related focus time. That is the time that it takes to run your life. 

I'm a busy mom and if it were just even me, there's so much that I need to do outside of work to keep things going, with a house and other responsibilities lots going on it would be easy for me to use my work time to do these extra-curricular things. 

Here are some of the things that I have systematized so that I no longer do, which creates more focus time in my day. Work on things that are going to bring in clients and more opportunities as well as more revenue. 

Some of the things that I would like for you to consider as personal time wasters are the things that you do, but don't necessarily need to be done by you.  Think about grocery delivery or laundry services. Some people go to the grocery store two or three times a week.  This in some situations are not necessary with a delivery service, Laundry can be dropped off and picked up at the designated time given by the service. These are things that can help you free up some focus time. 

There are the online drug stores. Why run off to CVS or something like that when you can order it online? House cleaning, you shouldn't be doing your house cleaning by yourself if you can afford it. Sometimes people will charge as little as $50 to $100 to clean your house once a week or maybe once every two weeks. 

For many, many years I drop off the laundry because it saves me time and energy and only, for about 8 bucks to 10 bucks depending on the amount of laundry, they match my socks and fold everything so that I don't have to do it and easy put away when I get home.

Then there's online banking. Instead of going to the bank you do everything online. Especially if you pay your bills online and you use credit cards to pay for a lot of your business expenses and of course you're going to want a business card for business and a personal card for personal. If you put it all on one card that means you only have one thing to pay or two credit cards to pay off. 

I know some of you might be thinking, "Yeah, that's fine when you're established in your business." I started off where most people start off which is to not  lot of money and everything was a shoestring budget, but I looked at, "Okay what if I could just have somebody for $10 once a week do all of my laundry and fold it and it would be all there just ready for me to put into the drawers. How much time would I have saved for myself?" That's about three hours and it's not that you sit on your sofa eating bon-bons while all these other people are doing this. 

You use that time to get more clients and make more money by applying more of these client-attraction strategies. So, imagine the more time you create in your day by delegating some of your personal stuff or systematizing it or doing it online instead of going to an actual store. This is the more time you create for marketing in your day so that between the hours of let's say 8:30 and 5:30 you are really only doing all work. I'm not saying that you can run out and have people clean your house and do your food and everything for you, but just start with one very little thing. 

Use that time that you saved to do more of the focus on growing your business. It will transform not only how you live your everyday life, but it will transform the time that you create that you don't have to run off doing errands. 

That is your assignment for the week. What are the time wasters in your day, in your personal life, that are eating up your business time? Write these down and start thinking about how you could do some of these things online or have them done by somebody else, somebody that you could hire at 10 bucks an hour to run a few errands for you so you don't have to. 

Then reapply and reinvest that time back into your business so you get more clients, make more money and multiply your business.

Who is Your Biggest and Worst Enemy?

This writing is an excerpt taken from the interview of Bill Bartmann, a self-made billionaire.  This interview comes from inside the minds of mega achievers within Quanta.  Quanta is a personal development company co-founded by Jim Britt and Jim Lutes, two world renowned personal development experts.

In business there are enemies.  First, let me tell you who the enemy is not.  The enemy is not your competition.  The enemy is not your tax man or government.  The enemy is not your spouse.  The enemy is not the bills as they come rolling in month after month.  Your biggest and worst enemy is YOU.  

Being successful in your business is not a coincidence.  It does not happen by chance.  Upon several discussions with very successful business owners, offline brick & mortar owners and online Internet marketing owners, these 6 traits continue to exist over and over again.

These 6 traits exist in us already.  You don't have to buy them, you don't have to subscribe to them, you don't have to sign up for them, you don't have to opt-in for them.  You already possess them.  The key is figuring out how to use them.

Per Bill Bartmann, these are the 6 characteristics of successful people.

1.  You have to think BIG.  If you want more than you have  now, you have to think bigger than where you presently are.  Give yourself permission to think big.  You have met the enemy and he is US.  Most people are just trying to survive, when you should be thinking THRIVE.  The 'ole saying 'if you shoot for the stars and land on the moon', you still have succeeded.  

2.  Believe in yourself.   I'm not talking about an arrogant belief that your better than anyone else, or your smarter than anyone else.  I'm talking about an inner belief that you have the skills, experience, and attributes to do what it takes to get your where you want to go.  Believe you are unique and have the special skills you need and are capable of putting those skills to work for you.

3.  Share the vision.  When you have this big dream, big idea, big goal, tell everyone.  Share what you want, share what you hope for, share your desires and dreams.  When you do this one of two things will happen.  The people closest to you that love you will help you or the people that don't love you will laugh at you.  Both of these are good.  The people that laugh at you are great motivation.

4.  Focus.  Focus on your specific plan or goal.  I'm talking about that one particular goal, not trying to achieve several things at once.  If you do several things and not focus on one particular goal, you will probably wind up doing several things badly.  Forget multi-tasking.  Take that one particular task and perfect it.  Don't waste time trying to be good at several things.  Everyone has a certain skill level to be good at least one or two things.  Find yours, focus on it, and perfect it.  Narrow the vision, narrow the target, and focus your skill and energy on that target.

5.  Execute.  It doesn't matter how big you think, or how much you believe in yourself, or if you've shared your vision, or how focused you are if you don't execute.  Get off the couch and go take action.  You will never have all the answers, but you have to use what you have.  

6.  Never Give Up.  You will face obstacles.  You will face challenges.  You will encounter setbacks.  You will have unexpected occurrences that will try and knock you down.  But don't give up, don't ever give up.  No  matter if the obstacle was your fault or someone else's, don't quit.  The only time you lose is when you don't get back up.

As Bill, states these 6 traits are already within you.  It's how you use them that will determine your destiny.

Are You Chasing the Right Dream

The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.


~~ William James, famed psychologist


Achieving certain dreams often requires FAR LESS WORK than achieving other, seemingly easier goals. Why is that so?


Because it is much, much harder to work for a goal we do not passionately desire. But when you manage to get yourself focused on what is naturally of passionate interest to you your work becomes play.


Are Your Goals a Good Fit?


Hopefully you've invested some thought clarifying your life goals and you know exactly what you want. So why not take a few minutes to ask yourself an important question am I pursuing the right goal for ME?


Here's why that is so important: You'll never really achieve your true potential as long as you pour your energy into something that doesn't really fit your true passions and interests! Does that seem too simple?


Think about that for a moment. It's unfortunately very easy to automatically adopt someone else's goal. We were trained to do that very thing as children.


Ninty-nine percent of us were fully expected to achieve the goals our parents and educational system set out for us. Some of us gave in and tried to do so. Some of us rebelled and learned to fail instead. And some of us felt somehow inadequate because we did not have the natural interest and or aptitude to do what we were expected to do.

If you find you never seem to achieve your goals, you may be setting goals you don't really desire or believe in for yourself.


This is never going to lead to success. What it will lead to is one false start after another and a tendency to want to quit after the first bump in the road.


This is a major dead-end, and will do nothing but gradually erode your self confidence.


Ask Yourself This...


You need to be sure your goal really is YOUR goal for YOUR life. If you feel resistance, take a serious look at that. Ask yourself who you might really be setting that goal for?


Then ask yourself if you really have a burning passion for that goal, and are willing to butt heads with as many so-called failures as necessary to achieve it.


If your answer is no this may be a good time to revisit your goal setting exercise. Selecting an Appropriate Goal


Three things will happen if you make the effort to refocus yourself around a goal that is more in keeping with your natural talents and passions:


First, you will be happier, less stressed, and far more productive.


Second, you will be far more likely to hang in as you hit those jarring bumps in the road.


And third, there is a higher probability you will achieve a level of excellence at what you're doing. This increases your value thereby increasing your potential for increased return on your efforts.


So put your goal to the test. Does it truly measure up to your innermost desires? Achieve it.

The secrets of goal achievement are actually quite clear cut:

Have burning passion for what is desired,

Set a clear and exact goal to get it,

Make an absolute commitment to achieve the goal,

Be willing to pay the price for achieving it, and

Commit to focused action, focused action and more focused action.

Personal Development Tips That Will Improve Your Life

Growing to become the best person that you can be is really what personal development is all about. The best way to be successful is with your persona; growth is to learn as much information as you can and to apply that information whenever possible. 

Place your personal central principles into practice. Each person has his or her center of beliefs. Use your faith in these principles to drive your faith in yourself. If you do this you will encourage you to be consistent, it is an great trait to have.

When considering your own personal development, focus on leadership. Leadership has many different definitions, but the common theme is influence. 

Evaluate your leadership skills honestly. 

What experiences have had the greatest impact on your life? 
What kind of skills have you acquired? 
What skills would you contribute to a group? 


Analyzing these questions can help you generate a team perspective and allow you to lead by example.

If you hope to advance your state of knowledge regarding personal development, it can help to show a little humility. When you realize how insignificant you really are, you will begin to understand you have more to learn.

Once this concept is ingrained in your brain, you will be eager to learn new skills and expand your knowledge in order to improve yourself.

You should stay in great physical condition in order to get the best out of personal development.

Simple things such as getting plenty of quality sleep, eating a nutritious diet and exercising regularly will keep your energy levels up and give you a better chance of reaching the personal development goals you have set for yourself. While it appears easy and simple, getting in shape can also be very challenging. 

Create a written pep talk for yourself. On a postcard, write down all of your best qualities. Keep it handy, and when you need a little motivation, read it. For even more powerful results, record a video of yourself reading your list and watch it frequently. Sounds intriguing, right?

Instead of bragging about achievements, you should ask others about theirs.  

Respectfully listening to the successes of others can help you to gain insight into your own inner life as well as allowing you to connect with others in a meaningful way.

Whereas trying to fix your problems yourself is always a great idea, sometimes you might have to seek out professional help.

Self help books are useful to an extent, but they lack the substance or personal touch that a therapist can provide to a patient. There are many times when talking with another person about a stressful situation is the most effective route to relaxation. Reading a book won't let you have a dialog the way therapists do.

You may find it helpful to discuss your issues with a counselor or other trusted professional, such as your pastor. They have a great deal of experience in dealing with personal thoughts and are even licensed to do so. These impartial listeners can provide a sympathetic ear or help you deal with troublesome areas of your life. 

Getting your problems out in the open with a professional should give you a much healthier outlook on your own life.

If you use these tips in this article, you can begin your journey to personal development. Keep current with new information to keep adding to your strategies towards personal development.

Five Steps To An Easier Life

We are meant to live on this planet with ease and grace. Funny, it doesn't seem that ease happens too often, does it?  Now, 'grace' is the generosity of God that brings us extra goodies whether we deserve them or not. Ease, on the other hand, is something we can bring in for ourselves, mainly by eliminating stress. Who wouldn't want an easier life? I'm sure I do!  Here are five concrete steps you can take towards creating more ease in your life:  

 1. Drink lots of water, preferably R.O. (reversed osmosis) water with liquid minerals added. Your body is made up of water and minerals. In order to process effectively, your cells need lots of water! However, R.O. water has no minerals, so you need to top up your mineral content to support your cells and systems.  

 2. Eat as little sugar (or sweets in general) as possible, and no artificial sugars at all. Sweets mess with your hormone system, blocking your pancreas and thyroid, and triggering the 'fight or flight' response of your adrenals. Release of adrenaline and cortisol automatically puts on weight and makes you exhausted.  

 3. Watch your focus. Whatever you focus on, consciously or unconsciously, that will expand in your life. Worried about paying your bills? The universe says Yes to that, and you get more worries. Afraid of loneliness? The universe says Yes to that as well, and attracts more situations that make you lonely. On the other hand, if you are focused on gratitude, blessings, happiness and abundance, the universe says Yes to those as well. The universe always says Yes, so what is your question?  

 4. Make sure you're YOU at all times! Have you ever found yourself doing or saying something that is just not 'you'? Well, you probably have contamination's from other people that are just not compatible with your inner bio-computers. It's like trying to run a Mac program in a PC computer. Identify and throw them out!  

 5. Live in the Now, rather than the past or future. Now is the only time you can make choices, listen or talk to God, or appreciate your blessings. When you find yourself wandering - and you will - observe the perturbation as if it were a cloud passing by. Worry, fear, pain; oops, there it goes again!  

Now, that all seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it? Drink more water, eat little or no sweets, watch your focus, make sure you're you, and live in the Now. Oh, and decide how great a life you would like, and what that means to you. For some people, a great life is about money or love or family or service or spiritual development What's important to you? Find out the essence of your great life and focus on that!  

The key to finding out what you are here to do is PASSION! (Yes, there is an article about Passion, too.) It's ironic that finding and living your passion depends on a certain level of ease, but there it is. Once you have an easier life, your passion and purpose will naturally bubble up. So make it easier on yourself!

What Are You Focusing On?

It was a beautiful afternoon and was out for a walk when I saw them. Snowdrops. Spring was coming, I was sure of it. Then I looked across the street at a mountain of dirty snow. I looked at the park; it was still inaccessible. I sighed; spring was not here yet. I looked back to the flowers and enjoyed them for a few minutes.  

 As I continued on my walk I thought about flowers, spring and the mountains of snow I climbed around. 

Here are five lessons I came away with that I believe are vital for us to remember as we run our businesses every day. 

1. If a tiny little flower can survive winter and find its way through the frozen earth and snow, I can certainly thrive when I encounter resistance from others or more frequently, when I manufacture the resistance myself.

2. Things change subtly. There was no big sign that said "first sign of spring here". You have to be on the lookout for changes, possibility and opportunity. I could have easily walked right by those flowers and never noticed them. What opportunities and possibilities are you walking right by in your business?

3. It's up to you where you decide to look. One side of the street had a five-foot high mountain of snow, the other side had snowdrops. I chose to look at the snowdrops and not dwell on how much snow was left. Winter is not over. We are likely to get more cold weather and more snow. I focused my attention and energy on the flowers. What you focus your attention on grows. What are you paying attention to in your business? Are you focusing on the problems or the solutions? The possibilities or the issues?

4. Seasons change. There are days when it's cold and dreary out. Days when nothing seems to go the way you want it to or planned it to, give it time, give it a chance. Things shift and, as long as you don't give up, it all somehow works out.

5. Pay attention to, and acknowledge, the beauty and the good. The snowdrops won't last long. They worked hard to get to the surface and share their beauty. Oftentimes in business we work hard to achieve a goal and then the second we reach it we move onto the next thing. Stop to celebrate and enjoy what you've done. 

Snowdrops or mountains of snow? What side of the street are you going to look at?

9 Laws of Healthy Living

Why only 9 laws for healthy living? and not 10, or 15, or 20? well I tend to live a simple lifestyle, and at the time of this writing these were my absolute top laws, so I will make this short, direct, and to the point no filibustering here.

My top 9 laws for healthy living encompass all areas of life, from relationships, family, business, finances, education, religion, whatever keep in mind these are MY top 9, not necessarily your top 9 so with that in mind, here we go:

Law #1. PUT GOD FIRST - Put God first in all your endeavors, trial and tribulations...if you truly trust God, then put it first in everything you do and are involved in from business decisions, personal decisions, family decisions, education decisions, financial decisions, etc. trust in thee have faith the 'ole saying that your heart is where your money is rings true by putting your trust and faith in God, life will be much smoother sailing....

Law #2. MAINTAIN A POSITIVE ATTITUDE - maintaining a positive mental attitude means to me to have the right attitude for the given moment whatever the circumstance you find yourself in, stay positive but at the same time you have to deal with reality this is a learned trait and not always easy it takes practice and a willingness to keep it positive.

Law #3. LIVE BY THE PLATINUM (NOT GOLDEN) RULE - living by the platinum rule means to help others MORE than you would help yourself....if you strive to help others, then I believe you will definitely help yourself you see I believe not everything is quantitative and cannot be measured, we need a little faith so live by the platinum rule, to help others before and MORE than you help yourself and all will work out just fine.

Law #4. FOCUS - this is very important it can even be argued by some that those without faith, if you are truly focused on your objective, can achieve whatever the heart desires there may be a lot of truth in that, but I still believe that God comes first because anyone can be upbeat during the good times, but when that inevitable downturn occurs, how will you react, stay focused.

Law #5. GO THE EXTRA MILE - with this go the extra mile attitude, when you develop this habit, it spills over into everything you do for example, your boss says on Friday p.m. to have that report on his desk bright and early Monday a.m., but you have plans for the weekend what do you do? Well if you are efficient at multi-tasking, then just find a way to make it happen stay positive, get focused and get it done.

Law #6. A HEALTHY BODY EQUALS A HEALTHY MIND - never take your health for granted I know we don't live forever and eventually we will meet our maker, but our body is our temple, so keep it healthy eliminate those bad habits we tend to overindulge in, like alcohol, etc. I believe that if you feel good, your mind stays sharp, focused, and not distracted.

Law #7. NEVER GIVE UP, DON'T EVER GIVE UP - this is a great quote by one of the heroes ofhis time, the late great Jimmy Valvano (head men's basketball coach of North Carolina State University) and national championship coach he delivered his famous speech as he was battling cancer, and near the end of his life what an inspiration so in whatever you do, don't ever give up, keep at it. 

Law #8. STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE - I believe that if your focus is on being the absolute best you can be, every day, in whatever you are doing, then everything else will take care of itself if you strive for excellence, then success will surely follow. 

Law #9. LIVE WITH EXPECTANCY - living with expectancy to me means that we live with the expectations that your dreams, goals, and desires of your heart were put there by your maker and , so if you trust, it will be delivered to you if you truly believe so believe it, that today is your day, and live with expectancy.