Building Grades Vs Character

When did grades for a schooling system, that's employee focused and out-dated, become more important for a parent than building a child's character?

Teach a child character and you teach him how to live successfully. Teach a child that grades are everything and he might end up cheating (since it's more important than character) to get them.

The person a child becomes is more important than the things he can memorize for a test.

The Comfort Zone

The comfort zone is the area of comfort we set out for ourselves in which we are most comfortable in. Chris Brady likes to call it the "familiar zone" because there's really nothing comfortable about it.

How can we call it "comfort" when there's debt? Or when we're not chasing our dreams and settling for lesser ones? It truly is more accurate to call it a familiar zone.

"Only through pushing past a person's comfort zone will a person improve his level of skills." -Orrin Woodward

We're not growing when we're doing the same things every day. We are more likely to notice the areas we need to grow in when we get out of our familiar zone than when we remain in it.

If you want to grow, do something outside of your familiar zone!

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Revision Wednesday
Blog post originally created on December 5, 2013 and can be found here.

Planting seeds or Chasing Shadows?

Every tree cast a shadow. Money is not the tree. It is merely the shadow of the tree. Money is not real. It is but the shadow of the things that are real. Too many people spend their lives chasing shadows instead of planting seeds that will grow into trees." -Daniel R. Castro

Are we busy at chasing shadows or are we planting trees?

The Matrix

I've been without cable T.V. (it's been replaced by leadership books & cds) for so long that conversations with media centric people have become somewhat disconnected.

I'm not in the loop in terms of news, sports or latest T.V. shows but I do know quite a bit about philosophy and personalities.
They are, as you can see, two different worlds. It really is like living in The Matrix - Two side by side realities co-existing.

Was the introduction of the television what began the separation of worlds? Most importantly, did you take the red or the blue pill?

American Dream or the American Way?

The American dream is the big house, big cars, financial freedom, success etc… Employees are not signed on the American Dream; they’re on the American Way. They work for someone else's American Dream - not their own.

"An entrepreneur is someone who jumps off the cliff and builds the wings on the way down." -Roy Spence

Business owners and entrepreneurs have a better shot at the American Dream than the employee. Are you living the dream or following the American Way?

The Millionaire's Way

There are many ways to become a millionaire but if we work for someone else for the rest of our lives ... it's not likely that we'll ever become one. Unless, of course, we're super frugal with our money, invest it properly, and we never loose work due to sickness or an unfortunate layoff.

We, as employees, seem to instinctively know this which is why we think the only way for us to become a millionaire is through lottery tickets (and statistics shows that we're more likely to get hit by lighting than win the lottery). So what other solution is there left for us?

"Money is just a way to keep score. In reality, it's always and only about solving problems. Money is the way people grade how well you solve their problems. If you can do that often enough, for enough people, the money will come. You can count on it."-Daniel R. Castro

The best way to become a millionaire is to become good at identifying needs and finding solutions for those needs. If we've successfully identify and found the solution for the need, the money will take care of itself - it's that simple. Or is it?

Nowadays, technology seems to get in the way of our thinking. We check Facebook, emails, twitter, Facebook, emails, Facebook .... we never set a time to stop and think about needs, let alone solutions to those needs.

Get away from your devices and see what happens!

Life Can Bring You To Your Knees

"Forces beyond your control can take everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you feel and do about what happens to you." -Viktor E. Frankl

We can spend years building something and loose it all in an instant. What is there left for us to do then? Give up and die or get up and try again?

The choice is ours to make.

Jealousy

Trust is the foundation of relationships - jealousy is a lack of trust and therefore should have no place in a relationship.

What causes jealousy?
Some say that jealousy is a sign of love but it's actually a sign of low self-esteem/low self-image. Those who don't trust themselves around other people won't trust their partners around other people.

Jealousy is a form of worry. A jealous heart is able to create fictitious scenarios in the mind that creates real emotions and can affect how we interact with the person we're jealous of.

What's the cure?
Not allowing the other person to go out is not the cure of a jealous heart. If you create a prison; prisoners will try to escape to freedom. If you want to trust your partner, start by trusting yourself and work on your self-esteem/low-self image issues with the help of self-improvement materials.

Getting rid of jealousy won't happen overnight. It's a lifelong process, we constantly have to work on it but it's required for us to become better people.

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Revision Wednesday (On Tuesday)
Blog post originally created on December 8, 2011 and can be found here.

Educational System of Employees

The educational system is designed to create employees. Don't believe me? When does school starts and ends? When are the breaks? How many courses are there related to entrepreneurship?

The problem with this system is that the workforce is either moving to other countries or being replaced by machines; what we need today isn't more employees but more entrepreneurs.

In the IT field, India is becoming increasingly in demand as they are able to provide similar level of services at a fraction of the price. If you're a driver of some sort, your days may also be numbered as driverless cars make their way into the spotlight. There are no type of work that is considered "safe" anymore.

Employees are becoming a thing of the past - how will we adapt to the new age? By taking over our own destinies.

Unpassion

"Here's a litmus test. If you have to grit your teeth, and tighten your gut, and listen to motivational CDs in order to muster up the strength to perform the task again tomorrow, this is not your passion..." -Daniel R. Castro

For most people, it's easier to share what they're not passionate about than what they are passionate about. Why? Because they haven't spent enough time reflecting on it. They know what they're not passionate about because they probably had to do it at one point - and didn't like it.

Have you found what you're passionate about? It has been said that if you do what you're passionate about, you'll never have to work a day in your life - I believe it's true to a point. Having to do something to pay the bills removes the joy out of it (having to do it for someone else doesn't help either).

The Abusive Werewolf

There once was a Werewolf who didn't treat his girlfriend right;
He would have sex with her and leave in the middle of the night.

Everytime he would leave,
she would clean her bruises and think to herself
she would be better of with an elf.

The morning came,
the Werewolf was back!
...this time with lipstick on his face.

Now she's gone,
the Werewolf is alone;
Owling at the moon
without a queen on the throne.

By Mathieu Hachey

*Picture created by artist Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472 - 1553)

Multitasking doesn't Work

We don't multitask well. There's a reason why it's illegal to text and drive. We can't focus on 2 things at once.

Multitasking is like having 1L of water to divide into many glasses. We pour a little here, a little there and next thing we know we're out of water and none of the glasses are full. Having them all around us also create a mess and adds up to our stress.

"Be present wherever you are. Multitasking is a thief, robbing us of joy and stealing our ability to focus and create clear memories. If you're with your kids, be with your kids. If you're at work, be at work. Stop splitting yourself into little worthless pieces." -Chris Brady

Multitasking creates stress when trying to accomplish too many things at once.
To remedy this, make a list of what needs to get done and prioritize it. Don't start the next task until the first one is done. Focus only on the present task.

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Revision Wednesday
Blog post originally created on December 9, 2013 and can be found here.

Money and You

Money does talk; Money is a good indicator of the type of person you are. If you have a lot of money saved up, chances are you're good at saving it. Where you spend money shows your interest and where you get your money from shows what you do for a living.

Save it and spend it wisely.

Lack of Energy or Enthusiasm?

Do we lack energy or do we lack enthusiasm? When we're tired at the end of the day and that a special someone gets in contact with us, don't we feel more awake afterwards? What changed?

Respect Money

"We are too busy staying alive to figure out how to live." -Shad Helstetter

Money is important and we have to do everything that we can to save it in order to have some peace of mind and think about the more important issues. When we're in debt and finances is all that we can think about, we're not truly living.

Is Your Past An Excuse or a Reason?

Do you use your past as an excuse for your failures or as a reason for your success? Both a prisoner and a successful person can have similar upbringing but one of them used it as an excuse to misbehave while the other one used it as a reason to succeed. What happens to you is not as important as how you react to it.

If You Want Something Done Right...

If you want something done right, do it yourself right? Not always. Sometime you have to trust other people to do things because you don't know everything. If your child has a toothache - will you not bring him to the dentist?

Learn to trust other people to take on things in your life to free your time to do what only you can do.

Keep track of Progress

Keeping track of progress is important to those who want to achieve. Data doesn't lie and allows one to tweak their efforts as they go. A process some likes to call "PDCA" (Plan Do Check Adjust) or "PDSA" (Plan Do Study Act).
Daniel R. Castro once said that "I have come to realize that persistence simply for the sake of persistence is lunacy. Creative persistence is genius." and one can unlock this creative persistence genius through the PDCA process because it forces you to think differently about a problem.

If your goal is to loose 10lbs in a Month but don't track your progress, how will you know if you're on track? The PDCA process can help you improve constantly on your journey to the goal (as shown in above diagram).
The next time you do want to loose 10lbs, you'll already have an effective plan (that worked for you before) to get there.

For more information check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA

*Diagram by Karn G. Bulsuk (http://www.bulsuk.com).

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Revision Wednesday
Blog post originally created on December 13, 2013 and can be found here.

Creative Persistence

"I have come to realize that persistence simply for the sake of persistence is lunacy. Creative persistence is genius." -Daniel R. Castro

To push through just for the sake of pushing through is not as effective as taking a step back to look for others ways to do it. There are more than one way to bring a bolder up a hill. Have you found the most effective way to persist through your though time?

Old Vs New Thinking

"We are the most comfortable with the thoughts we have lived with the most. It makes no difference if those thoughts aren't the best for us - it's what we know, it's what we are the most secure in keeping at our side." -Shad Helmstetter Ph.D.

The best way to get rid of a old way of thinking is to replace it with a better one.

Have Beliefs

"Many people welcome authority because they have little confidence in themselves or are intellectually lazy: to accept the word of someone else is to take the easy way of gaining comfort and assurance. [...] Such conformist tendencies modern high-pressure advertising and propaganda." -Harold Titus / Marilyn Smith

We can't really think of ourselves as being unique if we only blindly follows someone else's beliefs - we need to develop our own to share or challenge the world with.

Saying "sorry" Too Often Deludes It

When you do something wrong, you should apologize but there is such a thing as apologizing too much. Don't apologize for "existing" or standing up for yourself.

Take note of the times you've apologize and ask yourself if it was necessary to do so.

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Revision Wednesday
Blog post originally created on December 20, 2013 and can be found here.