MLM Business Building – 8 – Learning

 Articles, MLM Business Building, Nonfiction, Self Improvement  No Responses »
Sep 252010
 

Self Improvement – A Guide to Learning

Learning is a never-ending process of personal change

Part of the joy of life is the continuous wonder of learning new things. When you integrate new knowledge with what you already know, you build a deep, richly textured fabric of wisdom that can be applied to make life more satisfying and productive. In other words: knowledge is your key to success.

It’s surprising how many people lose the ambition to keep on learning once they finish formal schooling. The fact is that school (including college) teaches you HOW to learn but only gives you an initial load of facts and skills. There is so much more to know!

A Manager in Louisiana says, “I’ll be learning until I’m 90 years old and on crutches.” She understands that learning doesn’t have to end until the end. Personally, I plan to live a lot longer than 90.

“All human beings, by nature, desire to know.”
-Aristotle

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning today is young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
-Henry Ford

“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn … and change.”
-Carl Rogers

“In a world that is constantly changing, there is no one subject or set of subjects that will serve you for the foreseeable future, let alone for the rest of your life. The most important skill to acquire now is learning how to learn.”
-John Naisbitt

“… in the world of the future, the new illiterate will be the person who has not learned how to learn.”
-Alvin Toffler

“Knowledge has three degrees – opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition.”
-Plotinus

A brief thank you to my readers:
“To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him, and travel in his company.”
-Andre Gide (1903)


Imitate what works for others

Look for successful people and learn from what they are doing. When you imitate what they are doing, you can expect to begin having the same results.

Don’t fixate on a single individual. You can do better. Pay attention to the attitudes and results of all the successful people you admire. You can meet many of these folks in person and even more through the books they have written. Not every book contains advice that is right for you. But, as you continue reading widely you will see patterns emerge and begin to identify the things that you need to do.

Now comes the hard part. You have to change. When you recognize old patterns of response that need to be changed, make that change as hard and as well as you can. Our habits and mental patterns are real and have power. If you are going to get out of a rut, you have to invest enough energy to get fully clear.

Once you have made the desired change, you can see more than when you were in a rut. This is the best time to take a good look around, reevaluate everything, fix your sights on your goal and decide which change will take you further in that direction.

“I invent nothing; I rediscover.”
-Rodin


Don’t be limited by what others do

When you read a self-help book you can pick up some good ideas. Never, never stop there. The author doesn’t know everything. Read some more authors. Feed your mind a flood of vicarious experience. Expose yourself to a wide variety of experience. Collect ideas.

Then what do you do? Have respect for your own experience and good sense. Pick out the things that are good for you. Send problems to your subconscious to figure out and then listen when creative ideas come back. In the final analysis it’s your life; you make the choices and you stand responsible for the results.

“If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it.”
-S. I. Hayakawa

“We can be knowledgeable with another man’s knowledge, but we cannot be wise with another man’s wisdom.”
-Michel De Montaigne


Everybody starts out ignorant

It’s OK to not know as much as someone else. At one time, that other person knew less than you do now. Do you get the point? You will learn if you persist. More, you can teach what you do already know. There are plenty of people who haven’t yet opened their eyes to recognize even the outline of what you already recognize as wonderful and important.

You don’t have to have everything figured out before you start. Like a journey, you don’t have to know every step ahead of time, just be willing to keep getting closer to your destination. You will learn as you go along. You will experiment. You will make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. In the end, you will be the expert.

“The work will teach you how to do it.”
-Estonian Proverb

“To know that you do not know is best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease.”
-Lao Tzu

“Everyone is ignorant, only in different subjects.”
-Will Rogers


Build a library and read at least one book every month

You are going to accumulate books, magazines and clippings. All you have to do is organize your educational materials and you have a library. Books are still the best way to study and learn at your own pace. You should constantly be acquiring more knowledge about your areas of interest. In turn, this should constantly expand your areas of interest.

Building a library shows your commitment to education. It provides the means to help others to learn as well.

Set aside a budget for building your library. Subscribe to appropriate magazines and newsletters. Find books that you know add important information to your reference collection.

You don’t always have to buy books at retail. You can find real bargains in used book stores. If you have a store and you resell books, your wholesaler will save you about 40% off the retail cost.

“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.”
-Isaac Asimov

“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.”
-Marcus Aurelius


Build your reputation

Studying and learning earns a lot of long term benefits. It improves your self confidence because you really are more knowledgeable and competent. You know that you know more and so does everybody else. Your reputation will grow.

Studying and learning sets you apart. Not everyone has the self-discipline to apply themselves. It’s amazing how many people do just enough to get by. Studying and learning makes you a better teacher. You will make many close friends because your students will appreciate your sharing your knowledge with them. Teaching is a very personal activity that bonds people together.

When your customers have questions and you have answers, this strengthens your position in the marketplace. Your reputation will spread and the extra word-of-mouth advertising will increase your business.

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.”
-Abraham Lincoln

Copyright 1996, 2010, David Satterlee

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, which essentially says that you are free to share the work under the conditions that you attribute it fully, do not use it for commercial purposes, and do not alter it.

MLM Business Building – 5 – Getting it Done

 Articles, MLM Business Building, Nonfiction, Self Improvement  No Responses »
Sep 252010
 

Self Improvement – Getting it Done

Commit to goals – visualize the results

What do you want to achieve? Knowing your destination is a crucial step in getting there.

Written goals are best; they have real power. The act of committing your goals to paper forces you to clarify and refine them. Until you write it down, a goal is just a wish or a hope. Commit.

Identifying goals actually reduces stress. Psychiatrists have discovered that helping their patients to establish personal goals is the most effective way to help them cope with problems. Establishing clear goals puts you in charge of your life.

A fixed goal, something that you can see clearly in your mind’s eye, increases motivation; you can take the measure of your progress towards that goal. And, as you progress, anticipate the satisfaction of its completion.

“In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lively apparition to reveal it to the other’s eyes as mine see it.”
-Michelangelo

“A man’s dreams are an index to his greatness.”
-Zadok Rabinowitz

Set priorities

What is the most important thing to do next? If you haven’t figured out what is most important, I’ll bet that you’ll do something relatively unimportant or nothing at all.

You may have success with a to-do list revised each morning. When something new comes up, evaluate against your list of most important tasks. You will get more done just by knowing what is most important. It focuses your attention and stimulates your energy. A common mistake is to confuse urgent matters with truly vital ones. You should look for things that have the largest payoff and focus on them first.

You can evaluate your priority-setting by keeping a detailed record of how you spend your time for a week. What did you do and how long did it take? Also think carefully about what your personal responsibilities are and write this down separately. At the end of the week, compare your lists and decide if you are spending your time effectively. Make adjustments.

“Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.”
-Andrew Jackson
[Don’t stop deliberating too soon. I take exception to some of President Jackson’s decisions. ed.]

Just don’t do it

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
-C. Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson’s Law, (1958)

Parkinson wasn’t being funny; he was dead-on serious. You’ve seen it happen. A perfectly reasonable job gets blown out of all proportion. It might be your fault or maybe the decision just had to be run back past a committee which decided to form a sub-committee for further investigation.

If the task will produce a valuable return and it is straight-forward and clear, just do it. On the other hand, tasks that can’t be nailed down and done right away often grow into evil dragons. Ignore evil dragons. Walk away from them and refuse to pay them any attention. They will disappear and quit bothering you if ignore them.

It really is amazing how many really urgent (but actually trivial) things can simply be ignored without the world coming to an end. How wonderfully liberating!

Success ain’t easy

If you want to succeed at something truly worthwhile, be prepared for the struggle. Many have given up families, property and security in their homelands to pursue opportunity elsewhere. Many poor and disadvantaged have committed to making sacrifices to create desired changes in their circumstances. The world’s classic stories involve the struggle to overcome intimidating obstacles.

To succeed in any difficult endeavor we need to overcome fear and reach deep within ourselves for courage and determination. You may not be in favorable circumstances but there is always something more that you can try to improve your situation. Have realistic expectations. It takes about 7-10 years of persistent practice to truly master any art, craft, sport or business.

“It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little. Do what you can.”
-Sidney Smith

“Do what you can with what you have, where you are.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
-Anais Nin

Hard work

It’s easy to work hard when you love what you’re doing.

Hard work is needed to build a secure business. It can take extra hours each day and can require continued work over a span of years.

Sometimes it happens that people begin coming from hundreds of miles away for help. When you can offer renewed hope and eventually, renewed health, it’s hard to say “no.” Your hard work can be a labor of love.

“Go the extra mile”

This popular motto is a reference to Matthew 5:41. The point is to not be miserly with your commitments. When you hold back and only do something reluctantly you might as well have not done it; you only did what you were forced to do. If you are going to do something for someone else, give it all you’ve got. Do more than expected. This kind of behavior gets noticed and in time gets rewarded.

Honesty and Integrity

Throughout recorded history it has been a tendency of men to set their own rules and do whatever seems best for themselves. “Business ethics” become especially loose with no hesitation to profit from the ignorance or misfortune of others, especially “if they are not of our own.”

Some people worry that they will be at a financial disadvantage if they are not as “sharp” as their competitors. Others understand that people appreciate obvious integrity and prefer to do business with people that they like and trust.

If you have cheated or taken advantage of someone, it is very hard to respect or even like them from that point forward. Bad relationships are death to a network marketing business.

“Think nothing profitable to you which compels you to break a promise, to lose your self-respect, to hate any person, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything that needs walls and curtains about it.”
-Marcus Aurelius

“Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris. (It is part of human nature to hate the man you have hurt.)”
-Tacitus

Dare to dream

Walt Disney’s Cinderella sings: “A dream is a wish your heart makes.” Would it have been better for Cinderella to have never seen the castle? Would she have been happier never knowing anything but the cinders?

Most times we are so limited by what we think is practical that we don’t see what is possible. Look up for a moment from the ground directly in front of you and see the world of possibilities all around you! You don’t have to be daring to dream of improving your situation. In fact, if you never visualize a desired future, you cannot start to make it happen.

Some people actually do live happily every after. Why shouldn’t you?

“If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track, which has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.”
-Joseph Campbell

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”
-Thomas Jefferson

Set outrageous goals

Miracles happen. Outrageous challenges have a special mystique and have the potential to generate unusual excitement.

  • Impress yourself with dramatic results.
  • Amaze your friends.
  • Pump up your determination to do the unusual.
  • Focus on a single goal.
  • Keep that goal constantly in front of you.
  • Put up signs and stickers everywhere to remind yourself.
  • Infect everyone with your enthusiasm.

“Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing.”
-Helen Keller

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”
-Goethe

Preparation + Opportunity = Advancement

If you aren’t prepared, you probably won’t even notice opportunities when they happen. In fact, preparation seems to have a way of CREATING opportunities. Without preparation, you are not in a position to take advantage of opportunities even if you recognize them.

Opportunities ARE available. Some have to be created. Others will wander by when you least expect them. They may not wait around for you. You may have to already have your resources (and willingness to commit them) ready. Then, when the right opportunity comes, just reach out and grasp it. This boldness to advance seems to create a momentum toward success.

“Until one is committed there is always hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.”
-W.H. Murray, Member of the Second Himalayan Expedition

Hard work

It’s easy to work hard when you love what you’re doing.

Hard work is needed to build a secure business. It can take extra hours each day and can require continued work over a span of years.

Sometimes it happens that people begin coming from hundreds of miles away for help. When you can offer renewed hope and eventually, renewed health, it’s hard to say “no.” Your hard work can be a labor of love.

“Go the extra mile”

This popular motto is a reference to Matthew 5:41. The point is to not be miserly with your commitments. When you hold back and only do something reluctantly you might as well have not done it; you only did what you were forced to do. If you are going to do something for someone else, give it all you’ve got. Do more than expected. This kind of behavior gets noticed and in time gets rewarded.

Honesty and Integrity

Throughout recorded history it has been a tendency of men to set their own rules and do whatever seems best for themselves. “Business ethics” become especially loose with no hesitation to profit from the ignorance or misfortune of others, especially “if they are not of our own.”

Some people worry that they will be at a financial disadvantage if they are not as “sharp” as their competitors. Others understand that people appreciate obvious integrity and prefer to do business with people that they like and trust.

If you have cheated or taken advantage of someone, it is very hard to respect or even like them from that point forward. Bad relationships are death to a network marketing business.

“Think nothing profitable to you which compels you to break a promise, to lose your self-respect, to hate any person, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything that needs walls and curtains about it.”
-Marcus Aurelius

“Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris. (It is part of human nature to hate the man you have hurt.)”
-Tacitus

Keep on keeping on

Some people just seem to have trouble with everything they try. When things don’t seem to be working out fast enough, they give up and try something else. The problem is that by not sticking persistently to any one thing, they consistently discard their efforts by moving on too soon.

Jonas, a National Manager, explained his formula for success. “Keep on keeping on. The world will make room for the man who knows where he is going.” He explained: “If I could give the reason for our success, I could do it with just a couple of words: consistent persistence. Line upon line. Precept upon precept. There’s no formula to guarantee success in a few months’ time. You have to keep with it. We’re very excited about our business, and that helps others get excited.”

“There’s no substitute for hard work.”
-Thomas Edison

“Do not turn back when you are just at the goal.”
-Syrus

Copyright 1996, 2010, David Satterlee

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, which essentially says that you are free to share the work under the conditions that you attribute it fully, do not use it for commercial purposes, and do not alter it.

Self Improvement – Learning

 Character, Self Improvement, Virtue: Knowledge  No Responses »
Sep 242010
 

Self Improvement – A Guide to Learning

Learning is a never-ending process of personal change

Part of the joy of life is the continuous wonder of learning new things. When you integrate new knowledge with what you already know, you build a deep, richly textured fabric of wisdom that can be applied to make life more satisfying and productive. In other words: knowledge is your key to success.

It’s surprising how many people lose the ambition to keep on learning once they finish formal schooling. The fact is that school (including college) teaches you HOW to learn but only gives you an initial load of facts and skills. There is so much more to know!

A Manager in Louisiana says, "I’ll be learning until I’m 90 years old and on crutches." She understands that learning doesn’t have to end until the end. Personally, I plan to live a lot longer than 90.

"All human beings, by nature, desire to know."
-Aristotle

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning today is young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."
-Henry Ford

"The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn … and change."
-Carl Rogers

"In a world that is constantly changing, there is no one subject or set of subjects that will serve you for the foreseeable future, let alone for the rest of your life. The most important skill to acquire now is learning how to learn."
-John Naisbitt

"… in the world of the future, the new illiterate will be the person who has not learned how to learn."
-Alvin Toffler

"Knowledge has three degrees – opinion, science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the second, dialectic; of the third, intuition."
-Plotinus

A brief thank you to my readers:
"To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him, and travel in his company."
-Andre Gide (1903)

Imitate what works for others

Look for successful people and learn from what they are doing. When you imitate what they are doing, you can expect to begin having the same results.

Don’t fixate on a single individual. You can do better. Pay attention to the attitudes and results of all the successful people you admire. You can meet many of these folks in person and even more through the books they have written. Not every book contains advice that is right for you. But, as you continue reading widely you will see patterns emerge and begin to identify the things that you need to do.

Now comes the hard part. You have to change. When you recognize old patterns of response that need to be changed, make that change as hard and as well as you can. Our habits and mental patterns are real and have power. If you are going to get out of a rut, you have to invest enough energy to get fully clear.

Once you have made the desired change, you can see more than when you were in a rut. This is the best time to take a good look around, reevaluate everything, fix your sights on your goal and decide which change will take you further in that direction.

"I invent nothing; I rediscover."
-Rodin

Don’t be limited by what others do

When you read a self-help book you can pick up some good ideas. Never, never stop there. The author doesn’t know everything. Read some more authors. Feed your mind a flood of vicarious experience. Expose yourself to a wide variety of experience. Collect ideas.

Then what do you do? Have respect for your own experience and good sense. Pick out the things that are good for you. Send problems to your subconscious to figure out and then listen when creative ideas come back. In the final analysis it’s your life; you make the choices and you stand responsible for the results.

"If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it."
-S. I. Hayakawa

"We can be knowledgeable with another man’s knowledge, but we cannot be wise with another man’s wisdom."
-Michel De Montaigne

Everybody starts out ignorant

It’s OK to not know as much as someone else. At one time, that other person knew less than you do now. Do you get the point? You will learn if you persist. More, you can teach what you do already know. There are plenty of people who haven’t yet opened their eyes to recognize even the outline of what you already recognize as wonderful and important.

You don’t have to have everything figured out before you start. Like a journey, you don’t have to know every step ahead of time, just be willing to keep getting closer to your destination. You will learn as you go along. You will experiment. You will make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. In the end, you will be the expert.

"The work will teach you how to do it."
-Estonian Proverb

"To know that you do not know is best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease."
-Lao Tzu

"Everyone is ignorant, only in different subjects."
-Will Rogers

Build a library and read at least one book every month

You are going to accumulate books, magazines and clippings. All you have to do is organize your educational materials and you have a library. Books are still the best way to study and learn at your own pace. You should constantly be acquiring more knowledge about your areas of interest. In turn, this should constantly expand your areas of interest.

Building a library shows your commitment to education. It provides the means to help others to learn as well.

Set aside a budget for building your library. Subscribe to appropriate magazines and newsletters. Find books that you know add important information to your reference collection.

You don’t always have to buy books at retail. You can find real bargains in used book stores. If you have a store and you resell books, your wholesaler will save you about 40% off the retail cost.

"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."
-Isaac Asimov

"Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life."
-Marcus Aurelius

Build your reputation

Studying and learning earns a lot of long term benefits. It improves your self confidence because you really are more knowledgeable and competent. You know that you know more and so does everybody else. Your reputation will grow.

Studying and learning sets you apart. Not everyone has the self-discipline to apply themselves. It’s amazing how many people do just enough to get by. Studying and learning makes you a better teacher. You will make many close friends because your students will appreciate your sharing your knowledge with them. Teaching is a very personal activity that bonds people together.

When your customers have questions and you have answers, this strengthens your position in the marketplace. Your reputation will spread and the extra word-of-mouth advertising will increase your business.

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing."
-Abraham Lincoln

Copyright 1996, 2010, David Satterlee

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, which essentially says that you are free to share the work under the conditions that you attribute it fully, do not use it for commercial purposes, and do not alter it.

Self Improvement – Getting it Done

 Character, Character Development, Self Improvement  No Responses »
Sep 242010
 

Self Improvement – Getting it Done

Commit to goals – visualize the results

What do you want to achieve? Knowing your destination is a crucial step in getting there.

Written goals are best; they have real power. The act of committing your goals to paper forces you to clarify and refine them. Until you write it down, a goal is just a wish or a hope. Commit.

Identifying goals actually reduces stress. Psychiatrists have discovered that helping their patients to establish personal goals is the most effective way to help them cope with problems. Establishing clear goals puts you in charge of your life.

A fixed goal, something that you can see clearly in your mind’s eye, increases motivation; you can take the measure of your progress towards that goal. And, as you progress, anticipate the satisfaction of its completion.

"In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lively apparition to reveal it to the other’s eyes as mine see it."
-Michelangelo

"A man’s dreams are an index to his greatness."
-Zadok Rabinowitz

Set priorities

What is the most important thing to do next? If you haven’t figured out what is most important, I’ll bet that you’ll do something relatively unimportant or nothing at all.

You may have success with a to-do list revised each morning. When something new comes up, evaluate against your list of most important tasks. You will get more done just by knowing what is most important. It focuses your attention and stimulates your energy. A common mistake is to confuse urgent matters with truly vital ones. You should look for things that have the largest payoff and focus on them first.

You can evaluate your priority-setting by keeping a detailed record of how you spend your time for a week. What did you do and how long did it take? Also think carefully about what your personal responsibilities are and write this down separately. At the end of the week, compare your lists and decide if you are spending your time effectively. Make adjustments.

"Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in."
-Andrew Jackson
[Don’t stop deliberating too soon. I take exception to some of President Jackson’s decisions. ed.]

Just don’t do it

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
-C. Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson’s Law, (1958)

Parkinson wasn’t being funny; he was dead-on serious. You’ve seen it happen. A perfectly reasonable job gets blown out of all proportion. It might be your fault or maybe the decision just had to be run back past a committee which decided to form a sub-committee for further investigation.

If the task will produce a valuable return and it is straight-forward and clear, just do it. On the other hand, tasks that can’t be nailed down and done right away often grow into evil dragons. Ignore evil dragons. Walk away from them and refuse to pay them any attention. They will disappear and quit bothering you if ignore them.

It really is amazing how many really urgent (but actually trivial) things can simply be ignored without the world coming to an end. How wonderfully liberating!

Success ain’t easy

If you want to succeed at something truly worthwhile, be prepared for the struggle. Many have given up families, property and security in their homelands to pursue opportunity elsewhere. Many poor and disadvantaged have committed to making sacrifices to create desired changes in their circumstances. The world’s classic stories involve the struggle to overcome intimidating obstacles.

To succeed in any difficult endeavor we need to overcome fear and reach deep within ourselves for courage and determination. You may not be in favorable circumstances but there is always something more that you can try to improve your situation. Have realistic expectations. It takes about 7-10 years of persistent practice to truly master any art, craft, sport or business.

"It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little. Do what you can."
-Sidney Smith

"Do what you can with what you have, where you are."
-Theodore Roosevelt

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage."
-Anais Nin

Hard work

It’s easy to work hard when you love what you’re doing.

Hard work is needed to build a secure business. It can take extra hours each day and can require continued work over a span of years.

Sometimes it happens that people begin coming from hundreds of miles away for help. When you can offer renewed hope and eventually, renewed health, it’s hard to say "no." Your hard work can be a labor of love.

"Go the extra mile"

This popular motto is a reference to Matthew 5:41. The point is to not be miserly with your commitments. When you hold back and only do something reluctantly you might as well have not done it; you only did what you were forced to do. If you are going to do something for someone else, give it all you’ve got. Do more than expected. This kind of behavior gets noticed and in time gets rewarded.

Honesty and Integrity

Throughout recorded history it has been a tendency of men to set their own rules and do whatever seems best for themselves. "Business ethics" become especially loose with no hesitation to profit from the ignorance or misfortune of others, especially "if they are not of our own."

Some people worry that they will be at a financial disadvantage if they are not as "sharp" as their competitors. Others understand that people appreciate obvious integrity and prefer to do business with people that they like and trust.

If you have cheated or taken advantage of someone, it is very hard to respect or even like them from that point forward. Bad relationships are death to a network marketing business.

"Think nothing profitable to you which compels you to break a promise, to lose your self-respect, to hate any person, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything that needs walls and curtains about it."
-Marcus Aurelius

"Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris. (It is part of human nature to hate the man you have hurt.)"
-Tacitus

Dare to dream

Walt Disney’s Cinderella sings: "A dream is a wish your heart makes." Would it have been better for Cinderella to have never seen the castle? Would she have been happier never knowing anything but the cinders?

Most times we are so limited by what we think is practical that we don’t see what is possible. Look up for a moment from the ground directly in front of you and see the world of possibilities all around you! You don’t have to be daring to dream of improving your situation. In fact, if you never visualize a desired future, you cannot start to make it happen.

Some people actually do live happily every after. Why shouldn’t you?

"If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track, which has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living."
-Joseph Campbell

"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."
-Thomas Jefferson

Set outrageous goals

Miracles happen. Outrageous challenges have a special mystique and have the potential to generate unusual excitement.

  • Impress yourself with dramatic results.
  • Amaze your friends.
  • Pump up your determination to do the unusual.
  • Focus on a single goal.
  • Keep that goal constantly in front of you.
  • Put up signs and stickers everywhere to remind yourself.
  • Infect everyone with your enthusiasm.

"Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing."
-Helen Keller

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."
-Goethe

Preparation + Opportunity = Advancement

If you aren’t prepared, you probably won’t even notice opportunities when they happen. In fact, preparation seems to have a way of CREATING opportunities. Without preparation, you are not in a position to take advantage of opportunities even if you recognize them.

Opportunities ARE available. Some have to be created. Others will wander by when you least expect them. They may not wait around for you. You may have to already have your resources (and willingness to commit them) ready. Then, when the right opportunity comes, just reach out and grasp it. This boldness to advance seems to create a momentum toward success.

"Until one is committed there is always hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way."
-W.H. Murray, Member of the Second Himalayan Expedition

Hard work

It’s easy to work hard when you love what you’re doing.

Hard work is needed to build a secure business. It can take extra hours each day and can require continued work over a span of years.

Sometimes it happens that people begin coming from hundreds of miles away for help. When you can offer renewed hope and eventually, renewed health, it’s hard to say "no." Your hard work can be a labor of love.

"Go the extra mile"

This popular motto is a reference to Matthew 5:41. The point is to not be miserly with your commitments. When you hold back and only do something reluctantly you might as well have not done it; you only did what you were forced to do. If you are going to do something for someone else, give it all you’ve got. Do more than expected. This kind of behavior gets noticed and in time gets rewarded.

Honesty and Integrity

Throughout recorded history it has been a tendency of men to set their own rules and do whatever seems best for themselves. "Business ethics" become especially loose with no hesitation to profit from the ignorance or misfortune of others, especially "if they are not of our own."

Some people worry that they will be at a financial disadvantage if they are not as "sharp" as their competitors. Others understand that people appreciate obvious integrity and prefer to do business with people that they like and trust.

If you have cheated or taken advantage of someone, it is very hard to respect or even like them from that point forward. Bad relationships are death to a network marketing business.

"Think nothing profitable to you which compels you to break a promise, to lose your self-respect, to hate any person, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything that needs walls and curtains about it."
-Marcus Aurelius

"Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris. (It is part of human nature to hate the man you have hurt.)"
-Tacitus

Keep on keeping on

Some people just seem to have trouble with everything they try. When things don’t seem to be working out fast enough, they give up and try something else. The problem is that by not sticking persistently to any one thing, they consistently discard their efforts by moving on too soon.

Jonas, a National Manager, explained his formula for success. "Keep on keeping on. The world will make room for the man who knows where he is going." He explained: "If I could give the reason for our success, I could do it with just a couple of words: consistent persistence. Line upon line. Precept upon precept. There’s no formula to guarantee success in a few months’ time. You have to keep with it. We’re very excited about our business, and that helps others get excited."

"There’s no substitute for hard work."
-Thomas Edison

"Do not turn back when you are just at the goal."
-Syrus

Copyright 1996, 2010, David Satterlee

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License, which essentially says that you are free to share the work under the conditions that you attribute it fully, do not use it for commercial purposes, and do not alter it.

Book: Strengths Finder 2.0

 Positive Psychology, Psychology, Virtue: Strength  No Responses »
Dec 222009
 

by Tom Rath

All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.

To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the first version of its online assessment, StrengthsFinder, in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths.

In its latest national bestseller, StrengthsFinder 2.0, Gallup unveils the new and improved version of its popular assessment, language of 34 themes, and much more (see below for details). While you can read this book in one sitting, you’ll use it as a reference for decades.

Loaded with hundreds of strategies for applying your strengths, this new book and accompanying website will change the way you look at yourself — and the world around you — forever.

Shop at Amazon for:
StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths
by: Tom Rath

AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY IN THE NEW & UPGRADED EDITION OF STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0
(using the unique access code included with each book)
* A new and upgraded edition of the StrengthsFinder assessment
* A personalized Strengths Discovery and Action-Planning Guide for applying your strengths in the next week, month, and year
* A more customized version of your top five theme report
* 50 Ideas for Action (10 strategies for building on each of your top five themes)
* The more user-friendly StrengthsFinder 2.0 companion website, with a strengths community area, library of downloadable discussion guides and activities, a strengths screensaver, and a program for creating display cards of your top five themes–

Book: Strengths-Based Leadership

 Positive Psychology, Psychology, Virtue: Leadership  No Responses »
Dec 202009
 

By: Tom Rath and Barry Conchie

Source: Amazon.com

From the author of the long-running # 1 bestseller StrengthsFinder 2.0 comes a landmark study of great leaders, teams, and the reasons why people follow.

Nearly a decade ago, Gallup unveiled the results of a landmark 30-year research project that ignited a global conversation on the topic of strengths. More than 3 million people have since taken Gallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment, which forms the core of several books on this topic, including the #1 international bestseller StrengthsFinder 2.0.

In recent years, while continuing to learn more about strengths, Gallup scientists have also been examining decades of data on the topic of leadership. They studied more than 1 million work teams, conducted more than 20,000 in-depth interviews with leaders, and even interviewed more than 10,000 followers around the world to ask exactly why they followed the most important leader in their life.

In Strengths Based Leadership, #1 New York Times bestselling author Tom Rath and renowned leadership consultant Barry Conchie reveal the results of this research. Based on their discoveries, the book identifies three keys to being a more effective leader: knowing your strengths and investing in others’ strengths, getting people with the right strengths on your team, and understanding and meeting the four basic needs of those who look to you for leadership.

 

Shop at Amazon for:
Strengths-Based Leadership
by: Tom Rath

As you read Strengths Based Leadership, you’ll hear firsthand accounts from some of the most successful organizational leaders in recent history, from the founder of Teach For America to the president of The Ritz-Carlton, as they discuss how their unique strengths have driven their success. Filled with novel research and actionable ideas, Strengths Based Leadership will give you a new road map for leading people toward a better future.

Shop at Amazon for:
StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths
by: Tom Rath

All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.
To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the first version of its online assessment, StrengthsFinder, in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths. In its latest national bestseller, StrengthsFinder 2.0, Gallup unveils the new and improved version of its popular assessment, language of 34 themes, and much more (see below for details). While you can read this book in one sitting, you’ll use it as a reference for decades.
Loaded with hundreds of strategies for applying your strengths, this new book and accompanying website will change the way you look at yourself — and the world around you — forever.

Ed Diener

 Positive Psychology, Psychology, Virtue: Happiness  No Responses »
Dec 182009
 

Source: Amazon.com

“Ed Diener is the Joseph R. Smiley Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois. He received his doctorate at the University of Washington in 1974, and has been a faculty member at the University of Illinois for the past 34 years. Dr. Diener was the president of both the International Society of Quality of Life Studies and the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. Currently he is the president of the International Positive Psychology Association. Dr. Diener was the editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the Journal of Happiness Studies, and he is the founding editor of Perspectives on Psychological Science. Diener has over 240 publications, with about 190 being in the area of the psychology of well-being, and is listed as one of the most highly cited psychologists by the Institute of Scientific Information with over 12,000 citations to his credit. He won the Distinguished Researcher Award from the International Society of Quality of Life Studies, the first Gallup Academic Leadership Award, and the Jack Block Award for Personality Psychology. Dr. Diener also won several teaching awards, including the Oakley-Kundee Award for Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Illinois.”

Shop at Amazon for:
Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth
by: Ed Diener

“Happiness is a process, not a place. That’s one of the key concepts that leaps from Happiness: Unlocking The Mysteries Of Psychological Wealth by Ed Diener and Robert Biswas- Diener.” (Diana’s Blog: Quirky Words and Book)

“In their sweeping new book Diener and his son, Robert Biswas-Diener, distill the results of worldwide research into happiness and come up with an explanation, a recipe, for a sustained state of good feeling, psychological wealth, as they call it.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 2008)

Shop at Amazon for:
Assessing Well-Being: The Collected Works of Ed Diener

The collected works of Ed Diener, in 3 volumes, present the major works of the leading research scientist studying happiness and well-being. Professor Diener has studied subjective well-being, people’s life satisfaction and positive emotions, for over a quarter of a century, and has published 200 works on the topic, many more than any other scholar. He has studied hundreds of thousands of people in over 140 nations of the world, and the collected works present the major findings from those studies. Diener has made many of the major discoveries about well-being, which are outlined in the chapters.

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Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology

The book is highly recommendable for those interested in hedonic psychology especially Subjective Well-Being (a.k.a. Happiness). It covers a wide range of chapters which include definitions, measurement, clarifications/reactions, recent findings and researches. Its probable drawback is that, to a certain degree, it is somewhat very technical in approach. Not too many readers might easily grasp some contents/materials presented. Nonetheless, it is a great reference material.

Shop at Amazon for:
Worker Well-Being and Public Policy, Volume 22 (Research in Labor Economics)

In this volume, the authors explain the reasons why subjective indicators of well-being are needed. They describe how these indicators can offer useful input and provide examples of policy uses of well-being measures. The book then delves into objections to the use of subjective well-being indicators for policy purposes and discusses why these objections are not warranted. Finally, the book contains answers pertaining to the measures that are currently in use and describes the types of measures that are most likely to be valuable in the policy domain.

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Culture and Subjective Well-Being (Well Being and Quality of Life)

This book is based on the idea that we can empirically study quality of life and make cross-society comparisons of subjective well-being (SWB). A potential problem in studying SWB across societies is that of cultural relativism: if societies have different values, the members of those societies will use different criteria in evaluating the success of their society. By examining, however, such aspects of SWB as whether people believe they are living correctly, whether they enjoy their lives, and whether others important to them believe they are living well, SWB can represent the degree to which people in a society are achieving the values they hold dear. The contributors analyze SWB in relation to money, age, gender, democracy, and other factors.

Elliott Ingersoll, PhD, PCC

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Dec 012009
 

Source: Integral+Life

image Elliott Ingersoll is a Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Counseling, Administration, Supervision, and Adult Learning at Cleveland State University. He is licensed as a Professional Clinical Counselor and a psychologist in the state of Ohio.

Elliott Ingersoll is a Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Counseling, Administration, Supervision, and Adult Learning at Cleveland State University. He is licensed as a Professional Clinical Counselor and a psychologist in the state of Ohio.

Elliott has authored and co-authored four books, and two dozen articles and book chapters on topics ranging from Integral Theory to its infusion in counseling, spirituality, psychopharmacology, and diagnosis. Most recently, Elliott co-authored Psychopharmacology for Helping Professionals: An Integral Exploration (2005). He lives in Kent, Ohio with his wife Jennifer, son Brady, and newborn daughter Kaitlyn.

Source: Integral Institute – Scholars

Elliott Ingersoll’s books and journal publications focus on psychopharmacology, mental health treatment, and the role of spirituality in counseling and psychotherapy.

See also: www.elliottingersoll.com/ and elliottingersoll.gaia.com/ 

 

  This book provides a basic foundation that readers can use to draw practical and personal conclusions regarding the interface of counseling and spirituality. Readers will have a unique opportunity for both didactic and experiential investigation of spiritual and religious beliefs in relation to the counseling process. The authors provide important information on issues and concepts regarding spirituality, as well as examples of specific interventions related to the topics. The authors have made a conscious attempt to provide readers with information not addressed in other counseling and spirituality texts. The text is divided into three domains, the philosophical, the practical, and the personal. It is the authors’ premise that a holistic model of counseling and spirituality that integrates the scholarly and philosophical with the practical and personal must be used. This book provides a rich introduction to the topics, drawing on various disciplines, and presents the information in a user-friendly manner.
  “A wide range of practice-based topics are addressed in this fact-packed reference book for mental health professionals. Divided into nine major sections, it covers both practical and ethical concerns. The first section focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of common mental illnesses through the life cycle and includes issues relating to specific groups, crisis interventions, and practice management concerns. This is followed by discussions of legal/ethical issues and how mental health workers can cope with the formidable demands and stresses (e.g., compassion fatigue and burnout) of their occupations. The chapters are succinct, typically including statistics, current research, statements of the "best practice," and notable bibliographies. The editors, both professors of counseling at Cleveland State University, have done an admirable job of assembling into a coherent whole contributions from more than 70 experts from a variety of fields. The result is a wealth of useful information handily packaged for the working professional. The practical, direct, and authoritative tone of the book makes it suitable for a diverse audience needing a bridge between the divergent worlds of practice and multidisciplinary research in the field. Recommended for specialized collections serving mental healthcare providers.”
—Antoinette Brinkman, MLS, Evansville, IN (Library Journal, December 2001)
  Master the basics of psychopharmacology with PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY FOR HELPING PROFESSIONALS! Concise yet comprehensive, this counseling text covers the basic principles of psychopharmacology, commonly prescribed psychotropic drugs for adults, and psychotropic medications prescribed to children. Through the use of numerous case examples, study questions, bolded key terms, and glossary, understanding and applying the material has never been easier. Practical information about how to talk with clients about medication and compliance as well as hands-on information about how to approach collaboration with prescribing professionals prepares you to apply what you have learned to practice.
  This practical book offers valuable information, suggestions, and guidelines designed to help readers learn how to work effectively in an agency setting. The unifying theme and framework is the value and importance of looking at personal and professional aspects of agency counseling. This text helps the reader look inside themselves as well as outside of themselves at their agency.

NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children

 Books  No Responses »
Nov 262009
 

Authors: Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Adapted from Amazon.com book review by  switterbug "laughingwild"

“NurtureShock will blow the lid off, turn upside down just about everything previously advocated in parenting books. But not in a confounding way. That is an important ingredient to consider. This book, the way I perceive it, is not intended to upset or horrify you or derail your parenting experience. (Although, by its very nature it does derail previous long-held concepts, but in a compassionate way.) As a matter of fact, it provided clarity into numerous bogus concepts and the pious conditioning that we have been hanging onto for years. Additionally, it offers specific practices and interventions that can be measured rather swiftly in your own home with these changes to your personal parenting skills. As much as this book "shocks," it is not intimidating or finger-pointing at parents (although it does point a finger into disingenuous studies). The accessible and engaging flow of narrative is dotted with levity, lightness, and always benevolence. I read this book in just a few sittings and I retained the information well. It is easy to go back and reference what you read, as the chapters are laid out in an explicit, user-friendly manner.

“The blurbs about this book intrigued me, but I was also skeptical–until I read the first chapter on the inverse power of praise. Parents and guardians–just get ye to a bookstore and read the first chapter. I think you will be galvanized by its immediacy and logic (as well as back-up data) and it will inspire you to continue.”

Don’t miss the chapters on:

  • Race relations
  • Sleep, performance, obesity, and mood
  • Language acquisition
  • Teen re bellion
  • Sibling rivalry
  • IQ and elite school testing
  • Self-control and getting along with others

.

Shop at Amazon for:
NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children
by: Po Bronson

Shop at Amazon for:
NurtureShock (An Unabridged Production)[7-CD Set]; New Thinking About Children
by: Po (A/R); Bronson/Ashley (A/R); Merryman

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