What Is Your Focus?

"One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular." -Tony Robbins

There are weeks and days in which I simply need to focus harder on the manuscript for a new book I am writing. Finding that focus can be difficult but when I do it certainly pays off in what I can get done.

As it is said, "Amazing things happen when you put your mind to it."

There were many things I had to simply let go and allow to wait while I worked ten to twelve hour days researching, writing, researching and writing some more. Quite a bit of the book had already been formulated in my mind, but it takes checking of facts, reading other opinions or authors to get a good handle on my own thoughts.

A lot can be learned in a focused process.

Your life can accomplish many things as well if you take the time to focus. Directing your attention to the goal, desire or vision will take you much further than simply coming up with a lot of different ideas.

Ideas are good, but they are only pieces of paper scattered about your desk.

You need to choose one idea and direct your energy to completing it. When you do that, surprise yourself with how far you will take yourself. Be surprised at how high you will take yourself. Surprise yourself in achieving.

Stay inspired my friends!

Life's Blueprint

[Reprinted from Seattle Times article]
Six months before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to a group of students at Barratt Junior High School in Philadelphia on October 26, 1967.

I want to ask you a question, and that is: What is your life's blueprint?

Whenever a building is constructed, you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint, and that blueprint serves as the pattern, as the guide, and a building is not well erected without a good, solid blueprint.

Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint.

I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life's blueprint. Number one in your life's blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your worth and your own somebodiness. Don't allow anybody to make you fell that you're nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.

Secondly, in your life's blueprint you must have as the basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various fields of endeavor. You're going to be deciding as the days, as the years unfold what you will do in life — what your life's work will be. Set out to do it well.

And I say to you, my young friends, doors are opening to you--doors of opportunities that were not open to your mothers and your fathers — and the great challenge facing you is to be ready to face these doors as they open.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great essayist, said in a lecture in 1871, "If a man can write a better book or preach a better sermon or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, even if he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door."

This hasn't always been true — but it will become increasingly true, and so I would urge you to study hard, to burn the midnight oil; I would say to you, don't drop out of school. I understand all the sociological reasons, but I urge you that in spite of your economic plight, in spite of the situation that you're forced to live in — stay in school.

And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. don't just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn't do it any better.

If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.

Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.

— From the estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Stay inspired my friends!

Happiness of What

True happiness is to enjoy the present, 

without anxious dependence upon the future, 

not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears 

but to rest satisfied with what we have, 

which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. 

The greatest blessings of mankind

are within us and within our reach.

A wise man is content with his lot,

whatever it may be,

without wishing for what he has not. 

― Seneca ―

Stay inspired my friends!

Key Ring Full Of Succss

“Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.” - Mark Victor Hansen

"Keys to success", a term many use to describe a methodology to fulfilling your dreams or goals. Perform a search on the Internet using this phrase and you will find 255,000,000 entries. That is a lot of advice and wisdom to read through.

After reading all of the material, will you now have the 'keys' which make your life successful? Probably not in the way you imagined. The reality is that no one key exists but a ring full of keys and many different doors to unlock.

The good news is all of the 'knowledge' you will gain will improve your ability to achieve success. Notice I did not say knowledge will make you successful. Knowledge provides the ability to position yourself properly for success.

Knowledge will help you make good decisions.

The other areas of your life need to be in balance. Having improved knowledge will help you achieve this balanced life, positioned to take advantage of opportunity when it comes around. Think of it as the balanced spokes of a wheel which rolls more easily.

Another book, another key on your key ring you might say. Just think of it as more knowledge or "Google hit 255,000,001" on the Internet. The amount of reading might seem a daunting task. Do not wait, do not plan, do not despair, but simply start doing.

Start now because the time will never be just right.

There is a phrase many use which goes "Wow, that is going to take a long time to complete." The reality is sure it may take a long time, so don't wait, start now. Begin today, take a first step towards success. Once there, you will find you had the keys in your hand all of the time.

Stay inspired my friends!